Best of the Program | Guests: Carol Roth & Vivek Ramaswamy | 10/10/23

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Pretty judgmental on all this stuff.

Am I?

Yeah, I mean,

all day, you weren't even giving, you know, Hamas their fair shake.

Well, you know, and

you didn't even address their side of the issue.

What about the open-air prison?

You didn't mention that.

Well, the open-air prison.

Yeah.

Called the Gaza Strip.

They walled it in.

Really?

Yeah, I don't.

I, you know, I don't think of it as an open-air prison, but I mean, you might, okay.

But I don't know.

I have a problem with the beheading of a grandmother on Facebook or the rape of children on social media.

What did Israel do to bring that up?

It's probably there.

Really?

Really?

I mean, in the Mead Too Society, you're going to go on that one.

What did Israel do to bring on the mass rape and pillaging?

I'm auditioning for a role in MSNBC.

Okay.

All right.

I think I can get it.

Okay.

I mean, you're on the right track.

We have a lot.

We start with Jack Carr on today's podcast.

Of course, the fiction writer, number one bestseller.

He's writing a book really kind of about this right now.

It's his first nonfiction book.

But he's also written other books that kind of fall in line with him.

So we're going to talk to him about what comes next.

We also talk about the economy today and Vivek Ramaswamy on how does he view Israel?

What would he do as president?

By the way, we have asked other presidential

candidates to come on the program and express their point of view.

Hopefully we'll have more of them as the week continues.

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You're listening to

the best of the Blanbeck program.

All right, Jack Carr is the number one New York Times best-selling author.

He is the author of the Terminal List series.

He is also a former Navy SEAL, and he's been digging into Israel and Hamas and the Middle East because he's researching a book that is coming out next year.

And so I wanted to give him a chance to maybe share some of the things that he has learned to give us some perspective on

why now what what does this mean uh if iran is involved does that mean russia is involved what are we headed for welcome jack how are you oh it's great to great to be here how are you doing sir i'm very good i'm very good um i'm not even an enlisted man so i'm certain i'm certainly not sir um so jack the um

Israel

thought they were duped.

They thought that Hamas had been tamed some.

They cared about, you know, making money and taking care of their people.

And Hamas did a really good job in reading some of the articles that are out now, did a really good job of duping them into this.

But

Iran seems to be involved, even though our president says there's no evidence of that.

Is there any evidence?

I mean, that makes total sense.

And what does that mean?

Oh, yes, there's a lot to unpack here.

But really, the Israel that Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran was dealing with last week, that's a different Israel than they're dealing with today, most certainly.

And we talk about being duped into something.

It was really a form of quasi-tolerance, meaning that Israel has tolerated a certain level of violence from Hamas.

And they thought that they could contain Hamas.

They could live with that certain level of violence.

They thought Hamas was tolerable, containable in Gaza.

Not today.

That has has all changed over the weekend.

The levels of violence perpetrated on Israel is something that they have never seen before at this

numbers.

Grandmothers, children, women killed, raped, tortured.

And a friend in Israel who's with the Special Operations Forces over there has been texting me throughout the weekend and over the last couple of days here and has said that what we're seeing in these videos that are coming out are not even the half of it.

It is so much worse than what we're seeing, and they're in the thick of it right now.

So,

you know, you look at some of these things and you see that 900 Israelis died.

Some of them were Americans.

They died in horrific ways.

It was an execution squad, really, and a kidnapping squad.

As we watch these things,

we have to understand

the population is only 9 million people over in Israel.

So that's like casualties of 30,000 people being tortured and raped and killed here in America.

This is a huge impact.

However,

the way Israel usually deals with it, I think what people don't understand is that it has changed.

Normally, they will go, and then as soon as they respond, then the world starts to say, oh, you've got to stop the killing.

This is horrible.

I don't think Israel going to stop this time.

I don't think so either.

And it's for the past decade, they've had this the same sort of policies towards Gaza have remained in effect.

It's been semi-working, but I think that they're going to look at those policies, realize those policies were a failure.

All they did was set up Hamas to do what they did over the weekend.

And of course, there's a few wildcards in there as well, as well up in the north.

There's something between 100,000 and 150,000 rockets pointed right out at there, right at Israel.

So if that was acceptable last week, I don't think that's going to be acceptable for much longer because soon that becomes 200,000 rockets, 250,000 rockets, 300,000 rockets, eventually just buying time where there are enough forces to really do some damage in Israel.

So I think things have shifted across the board.

And Hamas will look at this as their most successful operation in history.

But, and we think about Pyrrhic victories, what this has done, and opportunity is a horrible word to use here, but that's really what it is for Israel to hit Hamas so hard that it will take them decades to recover.

Now, I don't think you can eliminate them totally, as we saw in Iraq and Afghanistan over 20 years of trying it with different factions there in those two areas, but they can certainly set them back decades.

So, this is really, I mean, if you look at some of the videos, they were beheading people, one with a garden hoe.

This is the same kind of stuff that we had from ISIS.

What is the difference between those two, if there is any?

And

where is the connection to Iran?

Well, the difference is where they came from.

We talk about tactics and terrorist tactics.

Really, what that means is focusing on those soft civilian targets, not focusing on military targets.

That's really what differentiates us from our enemy and why it's so important to maintain that moral high ground.

But the

question is: why now?

Hamas and really by proxy, Iran and possibly Russia, chose the time and the place of this engagement.

So that's the question geopolitically.

Why right now?

And the question obviously is because Israel is so divided.

They have some issues with their judicial and executive branch.

And so they're divided probably like never before.

U.S., very weak, the world, Hamas, Israel,

or Iran, Russia, SAR withdrawal from Afghanistan, see the billions of dollars going to the Ukraine, see the division here, see our leader in the White House.

So there's a lot on the table just with those things.

And then we have this U.S., Israel, Saudi Arabia

just on the brink of essentially what's like a trilateral type of agreement that deals with oil, increasing production, decreasing price, and a defense pact.

And what I think it really is, I mean, that's what it is on the surface, but I think what it really is, and I have no insider information here, is that it includes defense by nuclear weapons.

So it would make, and possibly making Saudi Arabia the first nuclear power in the Middle East, aside from Israel, who doesn't talk about that sort of thing.

Because on the other side, you have Iran, Russia, and China.

And China is Iran's largest trading partner.

Two years ago, they signed a 25-year strategic partnership.

So it is in China's interest and Russia's interest to have Iran as a dominant nuclear power in the region.

So

those are the two sides right there.

U.S., Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia, China.

But I think what this does, what the Samas incursion does really, is just delays possibly this agreement.

I think it's going to happen.

It just delays it.

We'll see by how much?

Well, from the United States.

Yeah.

So, and

after I talked about this last night

on a news hit, and someone sent me an article from the Times of Israel in which Netanyahu actually says that that's a possibility on the table.

I didn't know that before, but so that it was kind of nice to see that last night after I came off the air.

But really, nuclear supremacy in the Middle East is what's on the table here.

So

we don't have a good relationship currently with the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Or do we?

You never know where where they're looking from the outside.

But what's practically and logically what's happening behind closed doors there is that U.S., Israel, Saudi Arabia are going to lead the way with this trilateral agreement to really change the face of the Middle East going forward.

So

that's on the table.

And of course, Iran doesn't want that.

Of course, Israel doesn't, or sorry, Russia doesn't want that.

And of course, China doesn't want that because they're getting a lot of oil from Iran.

If Iran was behind this, is Russia behind this?

I think we can be it's fairly safe to conclude that that is a very strong possibility.

And you can use Hamas, you can use Hezbollah, you can use these different proxy terrorist organizations and really manipulate them to get what you want as

a larger, more established power.

So you almost, well, I was going to say you almost feel sorry that they're being manipulated like that, but but

that's the way of the world.

So, Jack, as I've been thinking about this, I mean, Israel

is one of our strongest allies, one of our best allies.

They're the most like us in the Middle East, for sure.

And the only ones that I think,

you know, would fight on the right side.

The other side is barbaric and evil,

I think.

And, you know, I hate to abandon Israel, but I also hate to get roped in to a war with Russia and Iran and possibly do the things they want us to do.

Because I think, and you'd know better than I, I think they're doing to us what we did to the former Soviet Union.

We're bankrupting them.

We're dividing them from the inside.

We're roping them into wars.

And everybody knows we're on the brink of destruction here.

What should we do to help the Israelis?

Because I also feel strongly we need to help them.

Right.

And I don't think those,

and I agree with your assessment,

but the division seems to be coming.

They don't need to do too much to divide us.

A little prod here, a little comment there, but we're doing a pretty good of dividing ourselves and ruling ourselves from the inside, which is absolutely heartbreaking.

So we obviously brought an accord at the end of World War II.

We surprised the world by saying we were going to essentially defend trade routes around the world.

That was going to be a benefit for all countries coming out of the Second World War.

And we just moved a carrier battle group into the Med to send a very strong issue to Iran.

So while our administration says that there's no evidence linking Iran to these attacks, we did move a carrier battle group into the Med to send a pretty clear message to Iran in support of Israel.

So that's something right there.

But we do move aerial battle groups around the world quite frequently, obviously, from the end of World War II up to today.

It's our major way we project our strength and really keep the world safe and protect trade.

It's worked up to this point.

But now we're kind of retreating from that.

We don't have as many ships as we used to have.

China is obviously building up their navy.

So things are shifting geopolitically in the world.

And as far as the military powers go.

No doubt about that.

How long will it take?

Not exactly sure, but there is a shift going on right now.

So what else can we do to support Israel?

I'm not sure they're going to need too much from us,

meaning we put a carrier battle group right there if things do escalate and Hezbollah does more in the north and something spills over into Iran then perhaps.

But gloves are off.

right now.

Israel restraint is out the window.

They have been very, they have restrained themselves over the last at least decade towards Hamas, even towards Hezbollah.

That restraint is now completely out the window.

And Hamas really has thought, and other terrorist groups, insurgent groups, thought of Israel as a, let's say, an occupying nation, a colonial nation, for lack of a better term.

And they looked to the past.

They looked to the French in Algeria.

They looked to the British in Kenya or India.

But the difference is, and for some reason Hamas and other groups don't recognize this, the French had France to go back to.

The British had Britain to go back to.

Israel doesn't have anywhere to go.

They're going to stand and fight.

They have no other choice.

In fact, their president, President Herzog, and as he addressed the nation in the wake of the attacks, he concluded his remarks with something along the lines of, this time, too, the state of Israel will win.

We have no other choice.

So the White House, we're talking to Jack Carr, said the president will struggle to help Israel replenish stockpiles of weapons and ammunition as it gears up for full-scale war against the Iranian-backed terrorists in the region.

Congressional official told the Wall Street Journal that they expect Israel to request advanced U.S.-produced GBU-39 small diameter bombs, small arms, ammunition, and 122-millimeter tank rounds, mortars, and more.

The official said being able to supply Israel with enough Tamir interceptors to replenish their iron dome was most worrisome and the biggest problem the administration will face.

How prepared are we?

Or are we just giving everything away?

Yeah, that's a great question and one that our enemies are certainly asking and certainly watching.

They're seeing untold billions go to Ukraine along with arms and other places around the world, of course, as well, which begs the question, well,

how able are we to defend ourselves in a one-front war, a two-front war,

a three-front?

And the answer to that, if you're looking from the outside, is that we're probably not as prepared as we were a decade ago, two decades ago,

even three, when we really

draw down at the end of the Cold War, drew down at the end of the Cold War.

The other side of this, though, is that we have experience at the tactical level.

We've proven at the strategic level not to be so adept with senior level military leaders, politicians,

even

bureaucrats.

But at the tactical level, we have the most experienced force that we've ever had because that tactical level, those E2s, E3s, E4s, E5s, E6s, E7s, those officers that are now majors and lieutenant colonels, they were once a brand new officers in 01, 02, 03, fighting in Iraq, fighting in Afghanistan, and they're coming up the ranks.

They don't have as much to work with, but they have experience.

So that's what we have, and that's something that we need to capitalize on.

But

experience without some of those tools

makes things a little more difficult.

So it is certainly something that we need to be aware of, that the next administration needs to be aware of.

And if you want to capitalize on this experience, not let it go to waste, if you want to turn those lessons that we learned over the last 20 years into wisdom going forward, well, now we need to equip those soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines that have that experience, that sacrificed so much with the tools they need to defend the nation.

Jack Carr, thank you so much.

When's your new book come out?

Well, next May it's on the books right now, but my first nonfiction, which actually has a Hezbollah connection, but it's called Targeted.

It's my first nonfiction, 1983 Marine Barracks Bombing.

Wow.

It's coming out next fall.

So two books in the works for 2024.

Great.

Thank you, Jack.

I appreciate it.

Thanks so much.

Take care.

You bet.

Jack Carr.

This is the best of the Glen Beck program.

Vivek, welcome.

Good morning.

Doing well.

So,

you know, me.

I will, I mean, I'll ask you the tough questions.

So, let me start with the toughest question here.

It's all downhill from here.

You are

Hindu by upbringing.

I think you're still Hindu.

You personally were, you went to school in a Catholic school,

so you understand Judeo-Christian values and the meaning of the West.

However,

you're first generation and you are not that.

Do you understand, truly understand the importance of Israel, the role it plays in the Judeo-Christian world and all of the prophecies.

Go ahead.

Of course, Glenn, yes.

And I have, you know, having gone to Catholic schools, but also read the Bible perhaps more closely than even many of my Jewish and Christian friends alike, understand

the special importance of Israel.

I have been to the holy sites in Jerusalem.

Some of my first business partners have been in Israel.

Some of my closest relationships are and have been in Israel.

And one of the reasons why, Glenn, is that Israelis and I get along really well well is we share something in common.

We're very candid.

For anybody who knows Israel or Israelis, they're a candid people and so am I, Glenn, as you and I know each other too.

That's the basis for true friendship.

So no, I don't recite GOP talking points handed down from super PACs in a binder and read chapter and verse.

I am candid, and I think that's why our relationship with Israel will be stronger by the end of my first term than it ever has been, because it will be based on honesty and true friendship, not reciting slogans or a transactional relationship.

And I do think that that informs where my views are right now versus some of the histrionics you're seeing from other candidates hysterically shouting, finish them, finish them, without any iota of description of what that means from the likes of Nikki Haley or others.

I think we now have to take a level-headed approach to how we support Israel in being able to engage in its own self-defense while also diplomatically leading the way here to avoid a broader all-out regional war in the Middle East.

That's the responsibility of the U.S.

commander-in-chief to look after U.S.

interests.

So

let's go there because I, for one, don't ever want to hear the words two-state solution ever again.

If you believe in a two-state solution, you're a moron.

They do not want a solution.

They want a final solution, and that is very clear.

clear.

And not only are you a moron now, Glenn, you were a moron, if you thought that at the time of the Oslo Accords, which were a disaster then as they are now.

The Biden administration repeatedly granting legitimacy to the Palestinian authority.

Mahmoud Abbas in the 18th year of a four-year term and Al-Hamas revealing itself to be a modern version of al-Qaeda, maybe closer to ISIS.

Absolutely, this has been jargon that needs to leave the lexicon, forget a two-state solution.

I agree with that.

So what do you do?

Because nobody wants the Palestinians.

Oh, they all cry a good cry, but you go to every single Arab state and none of them will take a single refugee.

So what do you do if you're Israel?

And what do you do as president of the United States?

Well, look, that's the second question that I'm more focused on.

The first question is, that's an Israeli decision, Glenn.

That's a tough question.

Israel for a long time has had reluctance to take responsibility for Gazans as well.

And that's a tough choice.

And BB is going to have to lead the way.

And I think it's the job of the U.S.

to support Israel in the decision that it makes in its own national self-determination.

I am running for President of the United States, though, and I think that the job of the U.S.

President, he has a moral obligation to look after what advances U.S.

interests.

And so what I would be doing as U.S.

President is offering Israel every bit of intelligence support we can, every bit of diplomatic support we can, that includes includes telling the UN that there will be consequences of our participation in the U.N.

if the U.N.

continues its historical pattern of drawing this false equivalence between Israel and the terrorists who target it.

I think it's a lot of people don't know this, Glenn.

We don't even have an American ambassador to Israel right now.

We have to immediately confirm an ambassador to Israel, as well as other vacant positions in Egypt, in Lebanon, in Kuwait.

I think in Oman, we're even vacant now.

That's basic things that we can do as the U.S., diplomatically and otherwise, deport anybody who's a resident alien, legally or illegally in this country, who has served with Hamas, who has served in other similar terrorist organizations, extradite them to Israeli custody.

This is the kind of thing that the U.S.

needs to be doing, leading diplomatically while allowing Israel to engage in its defense of its own national existence, which Israel has the right to do.

while at the same time keeping in mind that an all-out war in the Middle East involving, God forbid, U.S.

troops or whatever, that should be off the table.

And I think that we should lead diplomatically to prevent us from getting there.

That's the kind of cool-headed response that we need.

And I'm disappointed, Glenn, and many other Republicans who are just knee-jerk reacting.

And, you know, I think it's unbecoming of the likes of Nikki Haley to equate this with an attack on the U.S.

This was a dastardly attack on Israel itself.

That's bad enough, and we need to be able to see that for what it is and respond forcefully and accordingly.

But to go histrionic on this and escalate possibly to a broader regional war in the Middle East when that does not advance our national interests, that's not the job of the U.S.

President.

The job of the U.S.

President is to lead in a way that advances American interests and Israel is our ally, so we will stand with them.

But we have to have a thoughtful response that avoids a misstep in these early days that could have drastic consequences, as we have learned from mistakes this foreign policy establishment has made from Iraq to Afghanistan over the last 25 years.

And that will not happen on my watch.

All right.

So do you have a problem with her saying this is Israel's 9-11?

No, I think this is Israel's 9-11.

I think that this is absolutely a major issue in Israel.

But one of the things that, one of the lessons we have to learn is that, you know what, Osama bin Laden was probably laughing and smiling in his grave, as a friend of mine said yesterday, when the U.S.

made a a disastrous response to 9-11 by entering places like Iraq in wars that did not advance American interests.

And so I would encourage Israel, and I would, as the U.S.

Commander-in-Chief, lead us the same way, to have the right response to deal with the conflict at hand, to make sure Israel comes out with its national identity and national borders fully intact and is protected to the fullest, but without being drawn into a broader regional war in the Middle East, which does not advance anyone's interests, including American interests.

And these are difficult times.

It's easy for someone today to look back and criticize the Iraq war.

I criticized it then.

I criticize it now, but that's now a popular idea.

But the harder part is to learn that lesson in the present and make sure that you don't make the mistake in the heat of the moment to do the same thing.

So fortitude, standing with Israel, absolutely.

But diplomatically leading the way to make sure that we don't enmesh ourselves in another ground war in the Middle East, that also has to be a top priority of the U.S.

president, and I will lead accordingly.

Let me just see if I understand.

You're saying don't go into Iran.

That's right.

I do not think we should

enter a U.S.

Well, I think that's Israel's decision.

So I think that's Israel's decision.

I think we have to be very careful, Glenn, and we have to respect decisions that Israel makes.

to defend its own national boundaries and its own national existence.

That is Israel's right to do, and we have to diplomatically support them, first of all, in regaining control of their own lost territories.

Second of all, whatever they decide to do with Hamas and Gaza, that's been a fraught question in Israel.

That's Israel's decision to make, and it is our job as a friend of Israel to support them in it.

But I think that we also have to be clear-eyed about, I'm saying right now what other GOP candidates, when asked, have refused to do.

I think we have to take the idea of U.S.

ground troops involved in a war in Iran off the table.

That much I think we have to be clear about.

And also, we have to be clear about leading diplomatically in a way that, yes, supports Israel, but avoids broader all-out conflict in the Middle East.

I'll give you a very specific example of what that means.

We should end nuclear proliferation, including the phase-out of Iran's nuclear program, absolutely.

But the Biden administration's disastrous discussion to begin sharing nuclear technology with Saudi Arabia, that needs to end too.

And so these are things that other people aren't talking about, but I think it is the job of a judicious, cool-headed president of the United States to look after our interests in making sure that we avoid full-scale, all-out regional war in the Middle East.

We've had that in the past, and that's not good for us, and it's not good for the world.

But at the same time, we have to be unwavering in our support for the decisions that Israel makes to defend its own national homeland as it has the full right to do against these barbaric and medieval attacks on Israel.

Do you believe Russia at least gave permission for this?

I mean, we know that Hamas is run by Iran.

Iran is now in a very tight relationship with Russia.

Do you believe this is any kind of trying to pull us all into a new world war?

I don't think that painting Russia as the boogeyman here is credible, even though Vladimir Zelensky is trying to do it because that's in his self-interest to chain gang the U.S.

into the Ukraine war versus Russia.

The reality, I think, is a little bit different in the relationship between the Ukraine situation and Israel.

Take a look at earlier this year when the U.S.

was called on to have Israel send artillery from Israel to Ukraine.

Well, now that looks like a pretty boneheaded decision in reverse.

The U.S.

is running low on our own stockpiles.

So we're going to have to make the choices about Ukraine versus Israel versus other parts of the world.

Nobody, Glenn, in the race certainly, is talking about what's happening in Azerbaijan and Armenia.

There is going to get to good and evil.

That is wrong, what is happening in Armenia to a bunch of Christians who have been displaced to the tune of 100, 120,000 in a semi-autonomous region that Azerbaijan invaded, but you don't hear a peep about that.

Why?

Because Azerbaijan and Ukraine have special lobbies in Washington, D.C., and that's how the wheels turn in D.C.

today.

Whichever special interest lobbies get the win, they're the ones that shape the narrative.

So it will take an outsider like me, a leader from a different generation who isn't captured by the super PACs, to be able to speak this truth in the open.

Talked about it with Tucker yesterday, but I'm the only Republican candidate, Glenn, who's seemingly able to offer what I think is a clear-headed, rational response to, on one hand, strongly stand behind Israel's ability to defend itself as it should, as it has the right to, but with a level-headedness that says that we still have to look after American interests in not seeing full-scale war either in the Middle East or in the Ukraine situation, being chain ganged into a war that I, in Ukraine, believe does not advance national interests,

getting us closer to major conflict with a nuclear power.

By the way, one of the lessons from the Israel conflict is, when we're vulnerable right here at home, that was a gaping intelligence failure and military defense defense failure in Israel.

And U.S.

intelligence is partly to blame for that too.

We have to understand what the heck went wrong there now.

That's not a question for later.

That is a question for right now.

Everybody else seems to think it's a question for later.

It's the black box of a crashed plane is recovered.

You don't hand it over to the people and the airliner who flew that plane.

Somebody else has to look at that and figure out what exactly happened before we make even poorer decisions.

And I think if there's one positive reminder for the United States, it's that if that can happen to Israel, it can happen right here at home where we are badly vulnerable.

I can't imagine

Hamas doing what they've already done, but now they're saying they're going to execute people on social media.

If Israel continues to go in, Israel is not going to stop.

We haven't heard from the president really at all on this subject.

He's supposed to speak sometime before nappy Nap

and tell us, I guess, what his plan is.

What would your plan be, Vivek Ramaswamy, if you were president to deal with the hostages?

So look, as U.S.

President, a part of the America First agenda to me, Glenn, is that it includes all Americans, no American left behind.

So we will prioritize.

getting those American hostages out of there.

And the limited circumstance in which we would use U.S.

resources directly to do it is is to recover our own hostages if that's what's actually necessary, special forces or otherwise, for American hostages.

That's what the America First Agenda is all about.

The U.S.

President needs to look after the interests of Americans.

But broadly speaking, the other way we advance American interests here is let Israel make the decisions it needs to make to defend its own borders while avoiding full-scale all-out war in the Middle East.

And I think there's not enough times I can say that at a time like this, when people have made our worst decisions in our foreign policy disasters in history, it's as a knee-jerk reaction to something legitimately bad that was done by a terrorist on the other side.

This is especially the moment to be really clear about our principles for why we're doing what we're doing.

And so that's how I would lead.

Okay, we have 90 seconds left, and I want to talk to you about the number of people that have been arrested on the FBI's terror watch list.

We have about 250 of them, 275 of them, that we have caught caught since the beginning of the Biden administration.

That's not the ones we didn't catch.

Are you worried at all about these

possible terrorist cells that are here coming across from our border?

And how would you solve that?

I'm very worried about it, Glenn.

I think it's a real concern.

Just a few days ago, I was at the northern border where nobody else has actually visited, and that is wide open.

To call that porous is an understatement.

That's where the next frontier is going.

A Brazilian ex-military murderer has come in through, you know, who caught in northern New Hampshire and otherwise.

This is a great risk.

So seal the border, use our military to do it.

But for the people who are already here, I would fast track the deportation of anybody who's in this country who has served or been affiliated with Hamas or the Palestinian Islamic Jihad or otherwise, including extradition to Israeli custody.

where that's appropriate in light of this in light of this crisis.

And for the rest of them, get them the heck out and put them through our own justice system, bringing the highest penalties of the highest order while sealing our border.

That is how we actually drive this change.

And the best border policy of all is stop making it so easy to get into this country by abuse of our asylum laws.

It's going to take a president with the spine to lead that way.

But the good news, Glenn, is that this is a solvable problem.

The country that put a man on the moon, yes, this is a logistically solvable problem.

This is just a question of political will.

And I do think it will take somebody with with a spine as an outsider understanding that we are in the middle of this dangerous approach to war right here on our home turf to be able to put that to an end.

Vivek, thank you very much.

If you want to find out more about him, it's spelled Vivek, V-I-V-E-K, but it's said, it's pronounced Vivek2024.com.

By the way, we have invited DeSantis

as well as Trump and others to come on the program and do the very same thing.

We hope to have have them by the end of the week.

The best of the Glenn Beck program.

Carol Roth, how are you?

Well, I am angry.

I am disturbed.

I am devastated.

I feel like somebody has punched me in the gut and in the heart, and I'm having a very hard time wrapping my head around what I thought was supposed to be humanity.

So that's how I am, Glenn.

It is almost word for word what my daughter said to me last night.

She said,

there are no good people, Dad.

And I said, yes, there are.

You just don't see them all the time.

But it is,

I just don't.

Can I ask you?

I know you're more of an economic person, but what do you think is coming, Carol?

I mean, it's very difficult to sort of wrap your head around what is coming.

I mean, this is obviously a conflict that has gone on for so long, and there are

actors that are behind the scenes, big countries like Iran that feel emboldened because we have weak leadership in the U.S.

that decided that they were going to ease up on sanctions and, you know, send them back $6 billion on 9-11 and whatnot.

And they feel emboldened that they can cause chaos and terror, not just in Israel, but around the world.

I'm very concerned that because we have seen people cheering on terrorism, cheering on the beheading of babies, the raping of children, the killing of the elderly, that anybody who is inclined to think that way, that has maybe been hiding in the shadows, is going, oh, we're going to be celebrated now if we do these kinds of things.

And so the spillover effect,

I don't think that this is just

limited to what's happening in the Middle East.

I'm very, very worried and nervous about what that means around the world, not just for the Jewish people, but for everybody.

You were seeing the same kind of thing happening in Azerbaijan,

where they're liquidating people.

And by the way, we've not revealed this before, and I'm not going to get into any details.

But just so you know, the Nazarene Fund is there

to help get people out of that area.

And there were lots of calls, and I think we're meeting today on what we can do and help in Israel for some people that are trapped and need to get out.

So

let's talk about the condition of America.

as we look at a possible global war.

I mean, that's what Iran wants.

I mean, this is the moment I've talked about for years.

At some point, in not necessarily coordinated, but I do believe this is probably coordinated.

Our enemies will all see us weak and go now, now, now.

And what's happening to us is what we did to the former Soviet Union.

Yeah, I mean, it's true.

And this has been something that we've been talking about is that, you know, not just having the weakness from a, you know, quote-unquote leadership standpoint, but the weakness in our financial position, the weakness in our balance sheet.

I think there is a desire to see if we can get drawn into more conflicts and to, frankly, bankrupt us.

And we cannot afford to do that.

I mean,

we have basically an emerging market in crisis balance sheet.

We have a balance sheet where debt to GDP, as you were saying at the top of the segment, is back up again above 120 percent.

The only reason we haven't had a currency crisis is because we have the World Reserve currency.

But as you see the alignment of these different nations that are all hoping that we go in the other direction, I don't think it's coincidental.

You know, one thing that I have not heard in the media that I've been very keyed into is as we have talked about in the past is we had that BRICS meeting,

that group of emerging nations that was Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, and that was in August.

We were expecting them to come out potentially with a new currency, but what they did instead is they expanded their membership.

And if you remember, that three of the key names that they added were Saudi Arabia, Iran,

and the UAE.

And bringing them into that fold with that group of people who are trying to get rid of the dollar as the reserve currency, trying to see the U.S.

weakened on all fronts,

militarily and economically.

This is not a coincidence in timing.

August is the same time that it's been reported that there was a planning between Iran and these militant terrorist groups.

So the fact that that's when this invitation was extended and now they're part of this alliance, I don't think enough people are paying attention to that fact.

Can I bring up something that I don't know if I understand?

And we're going to get wonky here for a second, but believe me,

this is really important to understand.

Sure.

There is.

I read an article last week.

You know, the idea of raising interest rates is to pull back the money that has been printed.

And the money that they pull back is called the M2 money supply.

That's the money that you have in your pocket.

That's the money that you have in your savings account,

the money that you have in your banking account that you write checks with.

It's the closest thing to cash that you can get.

It's not just in your house.

It's also somewhat in your banks.

And that number

was way, way

inflated.

And that's when everybody was saying, oh, American people have more money than they've ever had before.

We look at that number now, and that number has crashed.

And that should bring inflation down.

But we're seeing something, we're seeing inflation not going down.

We're seeing it still going up, even though the money supply has crashed.

This hasn't happened since the Great Depression.

What does this mean?

So I've been arguing with my monetarist friends about this.

They always say that, and this came up from Milton Friedman.

Again, we're getting super wonky here that inflation is purely a function of the money supply.

And there were a number of different things, though, that happened all at the same time.

So, yes, we did have 15 years of this incredible inflation of the money supply.

First, that went to Wall Street that inflated asset prices.

Then it came to individuals in the form of direct stimulus.

And that's really when we saw inflation go crazy.

But there are other things that have been in play here, too.

There's been supply-demand imbalances that have been caused starting with the COVID shutdowns and then kind of continuing on the back of a lot of bad policy.

But we have issues around energy, right?

The energy policy of the Biden administration.

We have issues around labor, not enough labor in the labor market.

We have housing imbalance.

We had supply chain issues.

So all of those issues also factor in to the

inflationary scenario that we are seeing.

And yes, we have seen the Fed pull back some of the money and have

had that kind of come off of

their balance sheet in some regard, but there's still a lot of money out there.

And also just because somebody doesn't have it in, you know, it's considered M2, that yet sort of cash available equivalent, doesn't mean that they haven't, you know, kind of put that somewhere else.

So, you know, all of these factors, I know monetarists are going, no, no, it's just money and the velocity of money, but I think we have to look at the unusual picture that we are in, and that's part of what is accounting for this ongoing inflation.

So we I just saw that the Federal Reserve today in Dallas is saying that we don't have to refill the strategic oil reserve.

No, I mean, we're on the brink of World War III.

Why would we want to have a strategic oil reserve, especially when the middle of the conflict is the Middle East?

That makes absolutely no sense, Glenn.

I mean, the things that come out of these people's mouths.

Again, these are the same people who told us that there would be no inflation and that inflation would be transitory and whatnot.

But that's the whole point.

That's why having a stunt like releasing oil from the Strategic Reserve was so dangerous because it puts us in this depleted position, and we are in a historically depleted position that we haven't seen in quite some time, on the brink of potentially a conflict that could spill over from the Middle East.

We need that for those types of emergency situations, not for a political stunt, not to save Biden from his disastrous policies.

And people should be up in arms about this.

And unfortunately, there are so many things to be up in arms about, and people are struggling just to get by with the daily cost of living that they just don't know what to do.

I think everybody is exhausted and beaten down by everything that's happened.

So you told me a while back how much it costs if we just add one point of interest to the money that we have borrowed.

I don't know how many points we have added to that, but we may be adding more.

Have we reissued any of that debt or is any of that coming up to be reissued now?

It is.

You were talking earlier about why it is that we are adding so much debt.

And there are a number of things that have gone on since we had that debt ceiling fight and they

removed the debt ceiling temporarily or whatever you want to call it.

But there are a few things I think people need to understand.

One is that there is a sort of think of it as a checking account for the government, their operating account.

It's called the TGA, the Treasury General Fund.

And that was something that, because they were trying to move things around and they couldn't write checks because they had reached the debt ceiling, needed to be refilled.

So at that point for the stub period of the year, Deutsche Bank estimated that about $1.3 trillion in additional debt needed to be issued just to fill that back up.

And then obviously we have a massive deficit that needs to be funded on an ongoing basis.

And then, as you said, in terms of what needs to be refinanced, about $7.6 trillion,

just under a third of our outstanding debt, needs to be refinanced within the next 12 months.

And that's debt that I think

has rates probably with a one-handle on them.

So yeah, that's hundreds of basis points difference, which is as several percentage points.

Every 100 basis points is 1%.

So we're talking several percentage points that they're going to need to be refinancing it.

These geniuses at Treasury, for some reason, didn't take advantage of these low, low rates and lock them in for 30 years or whatnot.

So now we have

a third of the debt that's going to need to be financed at these much higher rates, adding hundreds of billions of dollars of additional interest expense.

And here's what happens.

Let me teach you a new phrase that a lot of you guys probably haven't heard who are listening.

It's something called fiscal dominance.

And fiscal dominance is sort of what it sounds like.

It's when the fiscal policy comes to dominate the monetary policy, which in sort of any time is somewhat neutral, but in our particular case, we have the monetary policy is trying to kill inflation.

Well what's happening with fiscal policy is because they're running these huge deficits that need to be financed, they have to finance that, put in more debt, and that is driving interest rates up.

And that means that every piece of new debt or any refinancing we do is at higher interest rates and then that goes back and increases the deficit.

And then what do they have to do?

They have to issue more debt and then it increases interest rates.

So you get this spiral, this loop, and that could in and of itself be part of an issue that sustains inflation long term.

And so that's what many economists are worried about right now is this fiscal dominance, this possible debt spiral.

Because the other thing that's very unusual, Glenn, is that the level of deficits that we have, it's historically like

unheard of that you would have these types of deficits in a point in time when the economy is still quote unquote expanding.

We're not growing at a huge rate, but we're not in a recession.

Usually, this would be the type of deficit you would run when things were really, really bad and the economy was contracting.

So, the fact that they're continuing to spend at these levels, and then we have to finance that when they're still taking in massive tax receipts and when you still have expansion, again, historically unheard of and not historical in a good way.

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