Best of the Program | Guests: Chad Felix Greene & Chris Gore | 12/5/23

Speaker 1 This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance.

Speaker 2 Fiscally responsible, financial geniuses, monetary magicians.

Speaker 1 These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save.

Speaker 1 Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary, not available in all states or situations.

Speaker 2 Hey, the podcast coming up today. We've got a lot to talk to you about.
There's a lot of news going on and some really fascinating things about the Transgender Day of Remembrance.

Speaker 2 Something that has been bothering me for a few weeks. We finally found the guy who is tracking down all of the

Speaker 2 loss of life from transgender people that Joe Biden has been talking about. You won't believe that in hour two of the podcast.
Hour three, we talk about Disney with

Speaker 2 an expert from filmthreats.com.

Speaker 2 This is, they're about to release a gigantic story on what's really going on in Disney and how bad DEI really is and what it's costing the company.

Speaker 2 All this and so much more, including the latest headlines of the day on today's podcast. We begin in 60 seconds.
First, let me tell you about Jace Medical.

Speaker 2 Jace Medical is a group of people that I met, I don't know, a couple of years ago.

Speaker 2 And when I was sitting in their office and I'm talking to them, I'm like, I have been looking for a company like you because I am a prepper.

Speaker 2 Now, I lost all my food and supplies and everything in a terrible boating, lake boating accident.

Speaker 2 But before then, I was really, you know, storing stuff up. And the only thing I couldn't figure out how to get was prescription medicine.

Speaker 2 You know, I have two daughters that, for instance, take anti-seizure medication. I take high blood pressure medication.

Speaker 2 You know, there's a lot of things that if we have a disruption in our medical supplies, a lot of people are in trouble. You take insulin, what are you going to do if there's disruption?

Speaker 2 And disruptions are going to be a part of the future. Please call Jace Medical.
They'll help you out. You can have a year's supply of your medication at your home.
So go to jacejasemedical.com.

Speaker 2 Jacemedical.com. Use the promo code Beck at checkout and save.

Speaker 3 You're listening to

Speaker 2 the best of the blend back program.

Speaker 2 So I'm just looking at this Instagram thing, Stu, and I think I might

Speaker 2 understand

Speaker 2 why.

Speaker 2 Let me just read. Your post was removed.
It may not follow our guidelines on violence and/or dangerous organizations. And as a result, you can't go live for 29 days.

Speaker 2 You can appeal your decision, blah, blah, blah. Violation of the community guidelines.
So, the only thing we posted was the cold open to the show. So,

Speaker 2 can we hear and see the cold open here?

Speaker 3 The war with Hamas began with a horrific series of attacks in Israel.

Speaker 2 For the last two weeks,

Speaker 2 Israel and Hamas have been the focus of nearly every news report.

Speaker 2 As it should should have been, it's important that we continue to stand with Israel and those who stand against evil.

Speaker 2 But in true far-left fashion, Democrats conveniently have used this tragedy to slip by other news stories that every American should know.

Speaker 2 Insane spending, even more money to Ukraine, another attack against cryptocurrency, prices through the roof under Biden's latest legal strategy,

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 2 updates to the COVID origin story that you haven't heard.

Speaker 2 So tonight, we start there.

Speaker 2 I'm going to take you down a very windy, corrupt trail until we reach our final destination: a shady lab in Wuhan, China.

Speaker 2 You will never view our medical system the same.

Speaker 2 It was just a preview.

Speaker 3 You didn't even say any of the things that happened.

Speaker 2 But it may not follow our guidelines on violence and or dangerous organizations. So are they saying that I was promoting Hamas?

Speaker 3 Do they consider Hamas a dangerous organization? Is that consistent with the Left's view?

Speaker 2 That would be news. That would be news.

Speaker 3 They're just freedom fighters, after all.

Speaker 2 I think that's, I mean, if those are the guidelines that I'm supposedly violating, dangerous organizations and violence, the only thing that that fits is the Hamas in the open.

Speaker 2 I'm not promoting Hamas. I'm reporting the news.

Speaker 2 How's that work?

Speaker 3 Yeah, and not to mention, like, you know, if you didn't, if you're listening on radio, you didn't see the video, which did show some,

Speaker 2 I mean,

Speaker 3 I wouldn't even say it directly showed violent imagery. It showed hostages being taken away.
It showed, you know, Hamas fighters on

Speaker 3 motorcycles firing randomly sort of into houses, but you're not seeing the other person being hit. I mean, look,

Speaker 3 posting Hamas videos, you know, we should know what Hamas did, of course, but I can understand why you might have some community guidelines issues with some of the really, really rough stuff that exists.

Speaker 2 And we didn't do that.

Speaker 3 I mean, even Hillson is showing it in only private screenings, right? But that's not what you posted.

Speaker 3 That was, I don't, again, no one ever understands other than the fact that you're a conservative why stuff like this happens. But I don't know, even I don't know what the explanation would even be.

Speaker 3 The problem with this, of course, is they take this. You want to post this stuff for everybody to see so that most people can get the information.
And what they do is they block it.

Speaker 3 They block it from people being seen. And so the only place that doesn't have these restrictions is Blaze TV.

Speaker 3 You have to be able to put it up on Blaze TV and you can show the whole thing and you never have to apologize for it.

Speaker 3 I mean, I know that's why the thing exists, but it's like, at this point, it's more and more important than ever.

Speaker 2 This is more, Instagram, Facebook are

Speaker 2 worse than the FCC has ever been, ever. Oh, yeah.
I mean, I've done, you know, I know what the rules are for the FCC.

Speaker 2 I've done broadcast since I was 13 years old. I know them.
In the days when I first started, you had to take a test before you could go on. So I know all the rules, know how the game is played.

Speaker 2 There are restrictions. You just don't violate those restrictions.
If you do, you're fined.

Speaker 2 I've never had a problem with the FCC because everything is known.

Speaker 2 You know what it is. What Facebook and Instagram and everybody, these aren't FCC restrictions.
These aren't even close to that.

Speaker 2 And they're arbitrary.

Speaker 2 It could happen for any reason, and you're always left guessing like, well, I don't know.

Speaker 2 Why did you do that? That's just an unreasonable, fascistic sort of thing.

Speaker 3 I mean, you're more complimentary of these FCC standards than I would be. I don't think they are all that clear, but in comparison to what goes on on Facebook, there's a major, major gap.

Speaker 3 I mean, you go back to, like, you know, go back to the, it's never been an issue for us, but you go back to people like Howard Stern, who often would have issues with this and not know, you know, where the lines were.

Speaker 3 He'd try to push the lines, obviously. That was his shtick back in the day.

Speaker 3 But, you know, there's never, it was never clear necessarily. There weren't, there wasn't a list of words you couldn't say or concepts you couldn't say.

Speaker 3 It was community standards, and it made it very difficult.

Speaker 3 When you go with Facebook, though, I mean, at least with the FCC, if it went to the point where you got a fine, you could argue about it, you would have it, they would have to explain it. I mean,

Speaker 3 the issues with these fact checkers today and the way that they're turning these things over, you don't even know what the problem is.

Speaker 3 I mean, we're sitting here on national radio guessing as to why you got panned from Instagram. We don't even know.

Speaker 3 I mean, we don't even understand the basics of it. I was, and I got a strike the other day

Speaker 3 from,

Speaker 3 I think it was Facebook.

Speaker 2 But that was just quality control, right? It was just like, this really stunk. I mean, you'd think so.
Like, I would understand that. Yeah.

Speaker 3 I would understand that. But me too.

Speaker 3 It was a factual

Speaker 3 complaint that basically said i had a guest on him i don't know a couple months ago and he was talking about global warming the fact check is it says usa today fact checkers have gone through uh your post and they have cl they have said um i have uh they first of all they are going to they wanted to delete the post from facebook so people couldn't see it and they said uh usa today says that global warming is from human activity not sea volcanoes or el nino that's the fact check and so i'm like all right well i mean that's not what the guest said.

Speaker 3 He definitely, number one, that's not what he said. Number two, I didn't say it.
I'm the guy with a page.

Speaker 3 I didn't say this, but okay, if you have a problem with it, you're still going to give me a strike. But number three is, I don't know, ask any scientist on earth.

Speaker 3 El Nino definitely has an effect on global warming. They look at every peak.
Now, it's a temporary effect, which, by the way, was discussed in the interview that it was a temporary effect.

Speaker 3 But look at every global peak of temperature. Going back as far as you want, you will see it typically coincide with an El Nino period.

Speaker 3 It is a temporary period of warming that every scientist knows about.

Speaker 3 This is not some controversial statement. You can say that the guest was not assigning the proper amount to human activity.

Speaker 3 But that's still an opinion.

Speaker 3 It's just an opinion. And like

Speaker 3 everyone recognizes that El Nino affects global temperature. It is a very well-known scientific fact that has been around for a very long time.

Speaker 3 You can find every mainstream media organization talking about it, probably even in USA today. Honestly, if I searched for it, I could probably find it.
But they don't care, right?

Speaker 3 Like they just want to take this information down.

Speaker 3 And over and over again, it kind of brings you back to like, you need to have places that are, that are,

Speaker 3 that actually want the truth. You were just talking about this off the air, Glenn, with the border documentary that you're doing.

Speaker 3 Like, you know, compare this to days where we worked in the mainstream media.

Speaker 3 It's nice to work with people who actually are looking for the truth, no matter where it leads you.

Speaker 2 And, you know, what's really funny is, or sad, I guess, is we had a meeting after the end of the day, and I said, I walked into this, and I didn't realize I was doing the same thing the mainstream media does.

Speaker 2 I walked into this with a story, and this is where the story is going to go. And they don't change.
Halfway through the day, I'm like, something's not right here.

Speaker 2 And we met about it and then did a couple of more interviews. By the end of the day, we met again and said, I don't know what the story is.

Speaker 2 And it might indeed be the same story that we have, but there are too many. I mean, it is crazy.

Speaker 2 It is, people are saying either that everyone is corrupt and there are body dumps and gangs and everything else, or

Speaker 2 everybody else on the other side is corrupt, and

Speaker 2 nothing is fitting together in this story yet. And so I don't know what this story really is.

Speaker 2 They would have never done that if they were doing a story on conservatives and whatever. They would have never done that.

Speaker 2 I mean,

Speaker 2 I know what I think would be a great story for ratings or everything else. I'm not sure what the story is going to be.
In the end, I think the truth will be the most effective story,

Speaker 2 ratings-wise, and everything else. But nobody does that.
Nobody does that.

Speaker 2 I mean, tell me the time that that's ever happened with us, Du. Ever.

Speaker 3 Meaning, they looked

Speaker 3 at us and said, Hey, actually, he's not Hitler.

Speaker 3 One of those type of things. No, those things don't exist.
Basically, they don't exist.

Speaker 2 You come in and they don't even listen to you. They know the sound bite they're trying to get from you, and that's it.

Speaker 2 And everything else is just them trying to get that soundbite.

Speaker 3 Yeah, they've come in with an agenda and try to prove that agenda. It's reverse engineering the news, right?

Speaker 3 And it's, you know, this is happening all over the place. You know, there's a NBC News is in the middle of doing this to Texas right now, where they

Speaker 3 continually, they've done this now twice.

Speaker 3 The latest example is the city of Grapevine, where they just name a podcast after a town in Texas and find whatever they think is the worst thing that's happened there and just smear the town and it's like hey we found this one clip of one person doing one wrong thing let's do a podcast and release it to the nation and say how bad Texas is right like they go in with an agenda and then just look for the information to try to prove that agenda that's not news gathering that's not journalism that's reverse engineering a point you want to make about how bad red states are that's all that is and that's the way it happens.

Speaker 2 That's the way it happens all the time. All the time.

Speaker 2 So,

Speaker 2 listen, the point of this is, I guess, that the Blaze TV exists for a reason. I think it's going to get harder and harder.
I mean, you don't suppress.

Speaker 2 Nobody is even looking into this. I mean, we are, but nobody's really even looking into this.
You suppress an outlet by 90%,

Speaker 2 and the world just goes on like normal.

Speaker 2 I mean, if I I had based my business on Facebook, it would have destroyed me, destroyed me. This is what the left does.
They tried to destroy us on radio. It didn't work.

Speaker 2 Tried to destroy us on television. We got out because it didn't work.
They were saying things like, Mercedes-Benz will never ever advertise with the Glenn Beck program. They never have.

Speaker 2 They never have.

Speaker 2 And so they build this campaign out of smoke and shadows. And if we weren't us, we wouldn't have survived.
We wouldn't have survived. Now the Blaze is here, Blaze TV and Blaze TV Plus.

Speaker 2 If you're a Blaze TV Plus subscriber, you get not only everything that's on Blaze TV, but then you get a whole bunch of extras, including all of the commentary in print,

Speaker 2 all of the different experts that we go to and have them write commentary on different things, the investigative reports,

Speaker 2 and these documentaries that we're doing. Mine is going to be released about the border and what is happening at a place called Colony Ridge

Speaker 2 in January. So you don't want to miss it.
The truth does live here. We strive for the truth.
And we're not trying to give you what you want. We're trying to give you the truth.

Speaker 2 And if you're a subscriber or you're not a subscriber, please subscribe now at blazetv.com. Use the promo code GLENPLUS

Speaker 2 and get $30 off your annual subscription. It's blazetv.com slash Glenn.
Use the promo code Glenn Plus. That makes a great Christmas gift.

Speaker 2 This is the best of the Glenn Beck program, and we really want to thank you for listening.

Speaker 2 So just before Thanksgiving this year, my daughter came to me and she said, Dad, did you see what Joe Biden just released? And I said, no.

Speaker 2 And why would you do this while I'm trying to, you know, be thankful for everything? She said, you have to read this. So let me read it to you.

Speaker 2 Statement from the president on Transgender Day of Remembrance. This happened on November 20th.

Speaker 2 There is no place for hate in America and no one should be discriminated against simply for being themselves.

Speaker 2 Today, November 20th, on Transgender Day of Remembrance, we are reminded that there is more to do to meet that promise as we grieve the 26 transgender Americans whose lives were taken this year.

Speaker 2 Each one of these deaths is a tragedy. The true toll of those victimized is likely even higher, with a majority targeted being women of color.
It's unacceptable. We must never be

Speaker 2 silent in the face of hate. As we mourn the loss of transgender Americans taken too soon this year, we must recommit ourselves to

Speaker 2 never stop fighting until all Americans can live free from discrimination. Now, I agree with all of that.
Agree with all of that.

Speaker 2 My problem was 26

Speaker 2 Americans who are transgender,

Speaker 2 their lives were taken this year in violence and hate. And I thought to myself, I have not read any one of those 26 stories.
Gee, I must be

Speaker 2 some sort of a neophyte that just never goes to technology to find news that maybe we should all care about. So we started looking into it and

Speaker 2 we found some really fascinating stories and somebody who is actually working to document all of them. We're going to introduce you to him in a second.
But first I want to just ask you, when you hear

Speaker 2 that transgender people have died because of hate,

Speaker 2 what do you envision?

Speaker 2 okay what i think they're trying to get you to envision is of some sort of right-wing nazi racist uh who is you know walking down the street and they see some guy wearing a dress let's go beat him up and they beat him up and kill him right they're in a bar and they see some woman in a dress and they beat him up Because you ain't gonna be wearing a dress no more around here.

Speaker 2 That's what you think about, right? Some Neanderthal

Speaker 2 who is just going to go on a killing spree every time they see somebody who is transgender. Okay.

Speaker 2 So now let's talk to Chad Felix Green. He's been on the program before.
He's a Twitchy contributor. He's also a writer.

Speaker 2 He has been writing a book studying this very thing, transgender murders or deaths, and been tracking them down. And he's found some interesting things.
Welcome to the program, Chad.

Speaker 4 Thank you, Glenn. Glad to be here.

Speaker 2 Thank you. So

Speaker 2 tell me what you're finding. Are you I mean are these 26 people last year were they beat up some by some Trump-loving hick?

Speaker 4 No.

Speaker 4 In fact, last year in 2020 2023, so far this year, 2023,

Speaker 4 there's only been one pos

Speaker 4 actual hate crime,

Speaker 4 and that was

Speaker 4 a man who went on,

Speaker 4 he wanted to go kill several people.

Speaker 4 He met a transgendered woman on a dating app, and then after

Speaker 4 killing her, he bragged to a friend that he had killed a trans person

Speaker 4 and that he wanted to kill more people. So it's not being charged as a hate crime so far, but that would be probably the closest that we have.
In fact, between 2015 and 2023, there have only been nine

Speaker 4 hate crimes where

Speaker 4 it's been charged as a hate crime. It's confirmed as a hate crime.

Speaker 4 It's a very real,

Speaker 4 someone was targeted because they were transgender.

Speaker 2 Okay, so can you help me out? Because

Speaker 2 some of them that have been

Speaker 2 named hate crimes, or this is a hate crime against transgender, in 2017,

Speaker 2 there were two men, one trans woman. They agreed to paid sex with a guy at his home.
Tell me the story.

Speaker 2 Are you there, Chad?

Speaker 4 Oh, yeah, I'm right here.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 4 Yeah, so

Speaker 4 these two trans women, they agreed to meet this man.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 when he got there, they robbed him. And he fought back, shooting both.

Speaker 4 One was killed in 2017,

Speaker 4 and the other was

Speaker 4 paralyzed from the neck down, London star.

Speaker 2 Now hang on just a second. Hang on.
First of all, so was the shooting because he got there and

Speaker 2 did he know that they were transgender and then he was surprised by it or was it the robbery?

Speaker 2 What caused the shooting?

Speaker 4 As far as we know, he was aware that they were transgender. He was simply meeting them for paid sex.

Speaker 2 Okay. All right.
So it didn't have a problem with them, apparently. No.

Speaker 4 No, he his and he was found, he was found not guilty

Speaker 4 at his trial for self-defense.

Speaker 2 Ha.

Speaker 2 Okay, so wait, one died, and then the other one was paralyzed, but they're both counted as deaths because of hatred, are they not?

Speaker 4 Correct.

Speaker 4 The paralyzed transgender woman died from complications of HIV and diabetes in hospice.

Speaker 4 But they considered because she was shot at the event that they considered that to be the connecting. And the HRC, the human rights.

Speaker 3 She was shot in 20,

Speaker 2 she was shot in 2017.

Speaker 2 She died in 2022. So I mean,

Speaker 2 it's been a while since she was shot. Correct.

Speaker 4 And the HRC said, although the killer was recently found not guilty after arguing self-defense, HRC remains indignant that this horrific act of violence ended the lives of two beloved members of the LGBT community.

Speaker 2 Well, I mean, they may have been beloved with somebody, but certainly with people who like to obey the law, they were, I mean, it doesn't seem like they had,

Speaker 2 there was anything to do with transgender. The guy obviously liked transgendered people because he was going to have sex with them.
They planned and plotted to rob him before he came over, right?

Speaker 2 That was the whole thing.

Speaker 2 Correct.

Speaker 2 This is

Speaker 2 incredible.

Speaker 3 That's crazy.

Speaker 3 You commit a burglary and you get shot in the middle of a robbery, and then you don't die for five years.

Speaker 3 You die of HIV and diabetes, and they include this person in a proclamation about anti-trans violence when the guy basically booked

Speaker 3 an actual trans person to come have sex with. That is the most incredible thing I've ever heard in my life.

Speaker 2 I mean, that's how desperate. That's how desperate you really are to find any violence.
And like you said, there's been since 2015, what, nine actual actual hate crimes?

Speaker 2 Okay. One is too many.
But how does that stack up against other hate crimes? Do you have any idea?

Speaker 4 Well, generally speaking, for the LGBT community,

Speaker 4 LGBT reports about

Speaker 4 1.01, so 0.01% of the LGBT community report hate crimes annually, and that's been consistent since about 2010. So about 2,000 or so a year.
And the majority of those are are

Speaker 4 non-violent.

Speaker 4 In terms of transgender people,

Speaker 4 when we're talking about the hate crimes, there have been 288 reports since 2015. So 3% of them have been hate crimes.

Speaker 4 The majority of them, so about 32% have been domestic violence and 17% have been sex work.

Speaker 4 But to your point of trying to find these individuals, one case in 2022 involved a transgender, a biological woman who was pregnant, eight months pregnant, and identified as a man. And her fiancé

Speaker 4 was a biological man who identified as a woman. And

Speaker 2 he killed her.

Speaker 4 Yeah, he killed her and their unborn child and then killed himself. That was listed as a hate-fueled anti-transgender murder.

Speaker 3 Wait, so it's one trans person killing

Speaker 3 another trans person and themselves and an unborn child, which I assume the left wouldn't care about at all.

Speaker 3 And they're calling that as part of the anti-trans violence epidemic.

Speaker 4 Correct. And another trans man was killed by his fiancé, who was a gay man,

Speaker 4 who also killed himself in 2022. And that is also considered an anti-trans crime.

Speaker 4 How?

Speaker 2 This is unbelievable. How? This is like

Speaker 4 these are crimes of passion or i mean they're not hate crimes correct um a father killed his autistic uh daughter while she was in a in a violent fit and then killed himself in grief but because she was transgender uh it's an anti-transgender crime Police officers, there have been four in the last two years of police officers being attacked by trans men specifically who shot and killed killed them, those are anti-transgender murders listed.

Speaker 4 The two people that were killed by the transgender Club Q shooter in the mass shooting are included as anti-transgender murders.

Speaker 4 And there are three car accidents, people that were in a hit and run,

Speaker 4 but they were transgender.

Speaker 4 There was no hate motivation whatsoever. They were just hit by a car and killed.

Speaker 3 This is, I mean, this is unbelievable. It is legitimately unbelievable.
I expect

Speaker 3 the media to exaggerate these things, to take them out of context, but the details of these things are,

Speaker 2 I mean, it's jaw-dropping.

Speaker 2 And I do want to follow up one important detail.

Speaker 4 You mentioned in Joe Biden's speech, he said the majority of these are trans women of color, that black

Speaker 4 trans women are disproportionately attacked. And black transgender women do make up the majority of murders.
However, 92%

Speaker 4 of the known killers are black men.

Speaker 4 And that's been consistent.

Speaker 2 No,

Speaker 2 okay, now hang on just a second. So is that somebody who is,

Speaker 2 you know,

Speaker 2 thinking they're going to get lucky and then they discover the guy's a dude and they fly off the handle. Or why are they murdered?

Speaker 2 Why are the black men murdering the

Speaker 2 black women?

Speaker 4 This goes across the board from robbery to sex work to domestic violence, so they're already in a relationship with the person,

Speaker 4 gang violence, and

Speaker 4 then

Speaker 4 the very rare actual hate crimes.

Speaker 4 The perpetrators, however, are when a black trans woman is killed and we know who killed her, 92% of the time it's a black man.

Speaker 4 So when they tell us disproportionate number of victims are black women or women of color, it's creating the perception that black women are being targeted,

Speaker 4 but their killers are also black, and that's never mentioned.

Speaker 4 And that provides a completely different context to that story.

Speaker 2 So what is your conclusion to all of this?

Speaker 4 My conclusion is that

Speaker 4 this is similar to whenever we hear a hate crime hoax and the response is, yes, but it brought awareness to the real victims.

Speaker 4 This may not have been true, but this represented what could happen or what does happen all the time.

Speaker 4 You'll always hear from these organizations in every article, every mention. This is a small percentage.
Most of them are unreported. We know that this is happening a lot more often.

Speaker 4 Transgender people are terrified terrified and so forth. When you get to the details, you'll hear repeatedly: it doesn't matter if a transgender person was killed in a robbery.

Speaker 2 What matters is that

Speaker 4 a transgender person died.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 2 but wait, if it happens all the time,

Speaker 2 then why don't they have, I mean, we're talking 26

Speaker 2 in a country of 350 million.

Speaker 2 If it happens all the time, these 26, which how many out of the 26 this year were real? One?

Speaker 4 Possibly one.

Speaker 2 Possibly one.

Speaker 3 This is the best of the Glenbeck program.

Speaker 2 Welcome to the Glenbeck program. Elon Musk declared war on Disney, or maybe it was the other way around.
That's usually the way it is these days, people declaring war on Elon Musk.

Speaker 2 It was another scandal for Disney. Only now Disney has somehow or another lost its ability to shed scandals with ease.

Speaker 2 Disney is just dying on the vine, and it couldn't happen to a better group of people. It really couldn't.

Speaker 2 I wish them to receive all of the things and the seeds that they have planted.

Speaker 2 You know, they used to be...

Speaker 2 They used to be the company that would bring joy and magic, and now it's black magic and, you know, just some corporate empire that will do anything for a buck.

Speaker 2 And and now they believe that they are the guardians of culture and they're going to change our culture. Their latest example is Wish.
It's a movie that

Speaker 2 supposedly is to serve as the celebration of the hundredth year of Disney magic. It is hacky and uninspiring

Speaker 2 and really not worth your time. And everybody knows that.
Nobody's going to see it.

Speaker 2 We have an inside look now at

Speaker 2 what is happening at Disney and can they ever bring it back? Film Threat, the founder and publisher of Film Threat, Chris Gore, is with us now. Hi, Chris.
How are you?

Speaker 4 Hey, doing great, Glenn. Thanks for having me on the show.

Speaker 2 So first of all, tell people about Film Threat. So I'm not sure they know about it.

Speaker 4 Well, it's

Speaker 4 an independent film journal.

Speaker 4 We were a magazine in the 80s and 90s. Now it's a website and a podcast.
And

Speaker 4 we've remained, oddly enough, politically agnostic through all of these times.

Speaker 4 Well, first of all, I don't know why any, all the entertainment media outlets should actually be this, but

Speaker 4 it's very bizarre.

Speaker 4 I mean, I feel obligated if a movie comes out and is an independent film, it's from one side of the aisle or the other, we will cover it.

Speaker 4 But that's not true for all of my colleagues in the industry who

Speaker 4 cover film. It's unfortunate.

Speaker 2 I mean, you did Matt Walsh's What is a Woman, and it was actually objective. And I didn't, I just assumed that would never happen in today's world.

Speaker 2 Never.

Speaker 4 Yeah. Well, I think it's an important documentary, and I think it's worthy of coverage.
I don't know why it wasn't covered by

Speaker 4 every media outlet. I think it's an important conversation.
But, you know, we'll also cover documentaries about drag queens.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 4 we're all over the place. And I think that that's our obligation.
You know,

Speaker 4 we also reviewed Candace Owens' documentary about BLM, which did not get a very favorable review. So,

Speaker 4 but we look at everything, and we try to be objective. And

Speaker 4 I would like to see more of that.

Speaker 2 Chris, I am the biggest Disney fan. I mean, I have the original Perspectus hand-colored by Walt Disney.

Speaker 2 I have been a fan since I was a kid.

Speaker 2 I have always been a champion for Disney. I have never seen a company tube their credibility faster than the Disney Corporation.

Speaker 2 And I have gone from a fan to somebody can't wait to see them burn themselves out of existence.

Speaker 2 It's a remarkable thing that's happening with Disney.

Speaker 2 Well,

Speaker 2 it is

Speaker 4 pretty crazy to watch in real time how they've taken one of the greatest brands, one of the greatest brands,

Speaker 4 a family brand. And I think it really has to do with getting away from their core values.

Speaker 4 When I talk about those values, I'm talking about the values of Walt Disney, Walt Disney, the man of the company. Walt Disney was a proud American who

Speaker 4 espoused family values through his art.

Speaker 4 And when you see where the company is now, it's become very corporate,

Speaker 4 filled with middle management bloat micromanaging all of their artists.

Speaker 4 And as I like to say, I think corporate culture kills creativity. And that's where we're at.
And there's more to this story.

Speaker 4 There's a lot more to this story, actually.

Speaker 2 You have an article coming out where you've talked to many of the insiders who are giving you a real deep look into what the culture is there.

Speaker 2 And there's one story about when everybody came back from work after COVID

Speaker 2 and they were having a meeting about which breakfast cereals

Speaker 2 to put into the break room and what happened.

Speaker 4 Well, it's a funny story. This was on a Zoom call.
You were coming back from COVID and restocking the break room with cereals, which devolved into a conversation about privilege.

Speaker 4 And if you ate certain breakfast cereals when you were a kid, you were privileged. But if you ate generic breakfast cereals, you know, that said something about your upbringing and status.

Speaker 4 There seems to be a bizarre obsession with

Speaker 4 all of this nonsense, identity,

Speaker 4 you know, privilege,

Speaker 4 and the fact that a simple conversation about restocking the breakfast cereal in the break room devolved into that shows you how bad the rot is. It's at every level.

Speaker 4 And the keyword that has come up, I'll just say this article we have coming up on the filmthreat.com website, which is being written by my colleague Alan Ng.

Speaker 2 We're currently talking to about a dozen current and former employees at Disney and also people who work in animation.

Speaker 4 We're calling the series of stories the Disney files, but the stories we're hearing are fairly shocking. So,

Speaker 4 but also might not be shocking for anyone that's been paying attention, not very shocking.

Speaker 2 Like what?

Speaker 2 Well, ultimately,

Speaker 4 well, there's more specifics to it, but ultimately, all of the veteran talent has been driven from the company.

Speaker 4 Starting with John Lasseter, and his departure is not as described in the media. There was much more to it.

Speaker 4 I believe that certain people felt threatened by John Lasseter, probably because he was the most talented person at the company. Nearly every Pixar film was a home run.

Speaker 4 I mean, even the lesser Pixar films,

Speaker 4 even the lesser Pixar films, when you look at what Disney's putting out today,

Speaker 4 they're amazing. So

Speaker 4 that was the beginning of the rot, was his departure.

Speaker 4 And that veteran talent has not been replaced by veteran talent. It's been replaced by, and I'm using words that

Speaker 4 are in the correspondences, a key word came up in every correspondence with every person, and that is activism. The

Speaker 4 people that have been replaced, they've been replaced by activists. And it's at all levels.
You can't necessarily blame upper management. The rot is from the bottom up.

Speaker 2 So somebody described to me and they said, Glenn, Bob Iger, nobody else can, nobody can fix this now because they felt that Bob Iger was responsible for a lot of this.

Speaker 2 But they said they hired activists and allowed them at the bottom to just infest the Disney culture, if you will. And then it just kept growing stronger and stronger.

Speaker 2 And now there's really nobody left to hand the company and say, okay, all you guys shut up, get out of here. You can't do it anymore.
Do you believe that's true?

Speaker 4 I believe that is 100% true.

Speaker 4 100%.

Speaker 4 And I think it's, you know, it's just a company culture that's been created. And those that don't agree with the direction of the company

Speaker 4 have to remain silent and are reprimanded even for espousing certain ideas.

Speaker 4 The HR department at Disney appears to work in an oppressive manner, creating a toxic work environment.

Speaker 4 Where if you we're talking about innocuous posts on Facebook from years ago and employees being dragged into

Speaker 4 HR to have meetings at ungodly hours,

Speaker 4 6 a.m. or something, to with an attorney sitting next to the HR person to discuss a social media post.

Speaker 4 There is a fall-in-line attitude, and if you don't fall in line, you're not welcome at Disney, which has led to

Speaker 4 many of these people leaving of their own accord. They're simply not welcome to think certain things and work for Disney.

Speaker 2 Well, you're not. I mean, I know creative people, and there's nothing that drives creative people more crazy.

Speaker 2 I mean, Walt would lose people from time to time because his management style was keep them always guessing, you know, and it'll make them sharper.

Speaker 2 The animators hated that, but Walt was so good at what he did that you're either in Disney or you're not. Now that's not the case.

Speaker 2 No creative person is going to

Speaker 2 want to go to work every day, let alone be creative at work every day, if you're constantly looking over your DEI shoulder.

Speaker 4 Well, that's 100% true.

Speaker 4 And on that note, interestingly enough,

Speaker 4 you know, lecturers come into Disney often to help animators and discuss topics like the how a giraffe runs, what does it look like when it runs, how do birds fly, different types of birds.

Speaker 4 They have brought in DEI lecturers to talk to all of the animators.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 in our article, we're going to discuss the person who's been coming in to speak with the animators because

Speaker 4 not only was this DEI person saying that based on your identity, you are innately, you are racist based on the way you look. You are just a racist person.

Speaker 4 This DEI

Speaker 4 instructor lecturer went on to critique all of the Disney movies and why they're racist and why, in particular, a film called The Princess and the Frog was racist, which features a black princess.

Speaker 2 Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2 That was to expose, to bring in African Americans and to expose people to a different culture. That's what that whole movie was designed to do.

Speaker 4 Yes, absolutely.

Speaker 4 But this lecturer pointed out that because

Speaker 4 the princess in the film was turned into a frog and remained a frog for most of the movie that that was racist.

Speaker 4 And basically, this lecture was telling the animators everything they're doing wrong, which erupted into a huge argument with some of the animators who stood up. But this is the problem.

Speaker 4 This is the big problem.

Speaker 4 This is well known throughout the animation industry that Disney acts in this way. There are other companies, for example, Illumination,

Speaker 4 you know, distributed by Universal, their animated films. They've avoided any sort of political messaging.

Speaker 4 They make movies that are entertaining, the Minions movies, the Super Mario movie, which crossed the billion dollar mark.

Speaker 4 They're just making family entertainment, and they're well aware of that. Disney is the exception in this, where the messaging is a huge part of it.
But this is well known in the industry, and

Speaker 4 it's become a whisper network where animators that have felt so betrayed that Disney's the Walt Disney company's legacy is you know is being is falling by the wayside that they speak on private message groups between each other about everything that's been going on

Speaker 4 but here's the deal if if people at the Disney company don't speak out there won't be a company left to save

Speaker 4 It's it's dire when you look at the amount of money that they've lost this year.

Speaker 4 It's unbelievable.

Speaker 4 In the year 2019, Disney had seven movies that crossed the billion-dollar mark.

Speaker 4 This year, it's zero.

Speaker 2 It's unbelievable.

Speaker 2 It's the fastest destruction of the greatest brand ever of

Speaker 2 the 20th century. And you're right.
I'm not sure if it's going to make it. Chris, I've got to cut you short, but I apologize for that.
I'd love to have you on when the story comes out

Speaker 2 and spend some real time with you because I think this is fascinating to see the price that they're paying.

Speaker 2 Chris Gore, the name of the website is filmthreat.com.

Speaker 2 Filmthreat.com.

Speaker 4 No, no, no, no.