Best of The Program | Guest: Steve Krakauer | 3/2/23

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance.

Fiscally responsible, financial geniuses, monetary magicians.

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.

Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates.

Potential savings will vary, not available in all states or situations.

Crack hour we had biggs, or what's

stuff on Russia is huge.

That was scary.

Is that getting scary?

It is getting scary.

Yeah, I mean, we, I think there was an initial

thought, I think, by a lot of people, like, why are we worrying about this?

It's over there.

And

it just, now that we're over a year into it, and Russia is saying things like, yeah, we can't lose because if we do, it'll be a civil war.

So, you know, yeah, we'll probably get to nuclear weapons if we're going to lose this thing.

It's really bad.

And then, and then Iran.

I mean, you know Israel's going to do something.

Israel's going to do something.

What is that going to do to

the world?

Because remember, Iran is now an ally of China and Russia.

Oh, that's good.

That's really good.

I mean, there's just so much that could go on, including the ransomware that we talked about on today's program.

There's just so much.

We had Andy Biggs on.

He's trying to stop the funding in Congress, but he's pretty much fighting alone.

I urge you to listen to that.

Steve Krakauer talks about the media from the inside out.

He's written a new book called Uncovered, and

he's got people on record by name.

He wouldn't take any anonymous sources.

And he's got people in the New York Times going, yeah, we're crazy.

Yeah, we've done some really crazy things.

I don't know what's happening.

We're destroying media.

You know, he's got them from

everywhere,

sources inside mainstream media telling you what's really going on.

It's an

eye-opening book.

We also have Daniel Horowitz on talking about something else you have to worry about now, that treaty with the WHO, which will take your sovereignty away.

If we have another pandemic,

which should be coming in 100 years, if that's a hundred-year event.

We have another pandemic, the WHO will take 20%

of all of our medical resources and distribute them all around the world.

And we have to live by whatever the WHO is saying.

That's good.

That's really good.

That's what Joe Biden is trying to ink now with the WHO.

All this and so much more on today's podcast.

First, our sponsor, it's Relief Factor.

Going about your daily life with pain sucks.

I mean,

sucks.

And I know the feeling because I have had severe pain for years

and never find the right way to get around it or get out of it or anything just to enjoy your life.

And when you're in pain, it really not only affects you, but the people around you, like the people that you work, we work with that have to, you know, work with you every day for like a multiple decade.

You see, this sounds strangely specific.

Look, I just think that relief factor is really important.

Once I began taking it, almost all of my pain, except the pain in my ass, went away.

It is possible to get out of pain.

Try the three-week quick start.

It's only $19.95.

It's a trial pack.

Hundreds of thousands of people have ordered Relief Factor, and about 70% of them go on to order more.

It's relief factor.com, relief factor.com, or call 800, the number for relief.

800-4 Relief.

ReliefFactor.com.

Feel the difference.

You're listening to the best of the blend back program.

All right, there is a

news story that is out from Memory.

Memory is a great organization that translates all of the stuff on

Saudi Arabian, Qatar, and all Arabic-speaking channels because they don't say the same things in Arabic that they will in English.

But I want you to be very well aware of what is being said there.

There is just a an interview that happened on Al

Arabia, it's a network from Saudi Arabia, and it was with Alexander Dugan.

It just happened on the 23rd, and I just got the translation for it.

Dugan said, and all of this is a quote, this is a very dangerous war since Russia cannot lose it.

This will bring Russia to its end.

Russia cannot say, fine, we'll give up the areas we've taken over.

Such a thing would lead to a domestic explosion and Russia would find itself in a civil war.

Russia cannot lose under any circumstance since a single step backward would lead to a thousand step backwards.

Russia will fight to the end because we simply cannot stop.

We cannot lose and we will not be satisfied until Ukraine is fully liberated from the pro-NATO political elites, regardless of the cost.

This is what we will consider a victory.

Russia itself will not use nuclear weapons, so it has no reason to threaten nuclear war.

However,

There will be such a threat if Russia begins to lose, and in such a case, Russia may use nuclear weapons.

So if Russia is allowed to win the war, this would still constitute a victory for the West and defeat for Russia, except Russia would survive and humanity would be saved.

However, in either scenario, there will be no Ukraine.

It will disappear if we win, and it will disappear along with all of humanity if a nuclear apocalypse begins.

Even if we imagine a Ukrainian victory, after so many people die and the infrastructure is completely destroyed, no one will be ready to rebuild this huge country.

Therefore, Ukraine does not actually exist.

If only we had refrained from destroying the Soviet Union or had broken the necks of Gorbachev and Yeltsin at the right time.

In my opinion, this is Alexander Dugin on Saudi Arabian television that has just been translated.

In my opinion, the West is the source of absolute evil.

Now,

think

Saudi Arabia is cozying up to whom?

China and Russia.

They have already dismissed us.

and anything we claim on OPEC.

We are no longer close allies with Saudi Arabia.

What have we been saying for the longest time to the left?

We've been telling the left forever, why are you in bed

with all of these horrible people that are Muslim extremists?

Because they'll kill you first.

They don't agree with your thing.

They don't agree with Jesus.

So they'll come for the Christians, but they'll probably kill you first because you are dumping filth into the atmosphere, right?

Listen to this.

He's telling Saudi Arabian viewers.

In my opinion, the West is a source of absolute evil.

It uses artificial intelligence to destroy the family, sex, and the nature of human beings.

I believe that the Muslims understand me well.

because I believe that the West is an antichrist, or no, sorry, is the antichrist.

Putin does not think so at all.

He sees the West as a partner who behaves very aggressively for whatever reason.

But now we're at war with the West because its ally decided to fight us.

But if the West did not decide to fight us, we would be supplying it with cheap oil and gas.

This is

apocalyptic kind of language coming from one of the guy who's been described as Putin's brain.

Okay.

Now, I want to give you just a little thing just to

urge you to understand

what

we may be facing.

I don't want anybody to freak out, but I do want you to be mentally and physically prepared.

The Biden administration, when they came into office, they said, we're going to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in the U.S.

strategy.

Oh, good.

Okay.

So we're doing that.

However,

there are now four countries all aligned against America

and against the West, and all of them pretty evil.

Iran,

North Korea, China, Russia.

Vladimir Putin announced on the 21st that they were suspending the participation in the new start.

So there's no arms treaty between the U.S., for the first time since 1972, between the U.S.

and Russia.

On February 19th, it was reported that the International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors caught Iran enriching uranium to 84% purity.

You need 90% purity.

They say this is, if it hasn't happened yet, we are within days of them being able to enrich plutonium

or uranium and getting it to bomb ready.

The time to act now against Iran is almost at zero.

Okay.

Once they can do it, they can do it.

Biden administration

has been trying to negotiate limits on Iran's nuclear program, but then they started breaking breaking down and cracking down on their protesters.

And Biden says he's willing to use force as a last resort, but the moment of last resort is right now.

And far as we know, we are not readying any military options.

But the Israelis will.

Even if they have to go by themselves, they will.

On February 18th, North Korea conducted a test of nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missiles.

It demonstrated the ability to reach the continental U.S.

This is now the third country.

We have Iran, and Iran is now in negotiations with Russia to buy the intercontinental ballistic missiles from Russia, and they'll cap them themselves with their atomic bombs.

Okay?

So now that's three.

North Korea,

as this threat grows, the allies of America are now worried about our credibility, and they're now starting to build their own nuclear arsenals.

South Koreans are in strong support of building an independent nuclear force.

On February 7th, the Pentagon notified Congress that China now has more ICBMs

than we do.

John F.

Kennedy said in 1962, the only way we're safe is if we are bigger and stronger than everyone else.

This is what happens when American power is diminished.

I've been telling you this for years.

The minute America has no credibility, not only will we rapidly come under attack from everybody who's ever hated us, but the world will spiral into chaos.

You don't have to just think of, I want to add two more things to this pile, and I'm sorry to do this to you.

I really am.

But it is, I believe, my calling

to

warn you of what is possibly coming.

I can't say this is coming.

But I will tell you that

at this point, I can't tell whether this is a prompting or not.

I can't tell.

So I don't know if this is coming from me.

And if it's coming from me, it's usually wrong.

If it's a prompting, it's never wrong.

But I can't tell which it is.

But I feel time is running short because we could bomb Israel, not us.

Israel could bomb

Iran

today,

and that could start things in motion.

So, you need to know this.

There is a nuclear complex.

Do you remember in Ukraine where this nuclear complex came under Russian control for a while, and everybody was worried that they were going to destabilize it and use it and shut it down?

Well, unfortunately, we're now starting to consider that that could be a weapon and not even intentional.

But there's a lot of fighting going on around there.

If you have a Chernobyl accident from fighting, you could have,

it would be just a global catastrophe.

But the thing that you, the thing that I know,

know,

sorry, one other thing besides the nuclear catastrophe.

I told you that there was a ammunition storage facility in Moldova,

and

I've heard several things about it, that it is really bad, holds Soviet-era stuff.

And then I've heard that it's really nothing and they can't be used.

But it is the largest

depository of old Soviet bombs, etc., etc.

There is a Twitter account, and I am not claiming this to be true.

It's called the Open Source Intelligence Monitor.

And

it has said that

the, quote, former military inspectorate of Ministry of Defense of Moldova has said the armed forces

of some country I've never heard of have rigged all arms

depot within the breakaway region, including the depot, with explosives.

So if any military operations begin, it will cause a massive explosion.

Keep your eye on Moldova.

But here's the thing that you must know.

Those are all the possibilities, and they are becoming more and more likely because we are looking so incredibly weak.

But one that I can tell you is happening and will

happen.

And you must prepare your family for this.

Russian Defense Ministry,

a journal from the Russian Defense Ministry, says Moscow is developing a new type of military strategy using nuclear weapons to protect against possible U.S.

aggression.

Now,

they're saying that they are developing a new strategic response and they are going with that.

However, that's preparing.

This is doing.

This is from National Review.

For the second time in a few weeks, listen to this, a federal law enforcement agency suffered a serious cyber attack and the U.S.

Department of Health and Human Services warned that Russian-linked ransomware group called CLOP had reportedly taken responsibility for the mass attack on more than 130 organizations, including the healthcare industry.

Ransomware attacks are now common as rainstorms.

In a busy news cycle, you might not have heard, but two federal law enforcement agencies have had serious cyber attacks this last month.

CNN reported that the FBI's New York field office was investigating and working to contain malicious cyber incident, a part of its computer network in recent days, involving computer systems used in investigation of images of child

sexual exploitation.

Then, NBC News reported late yesterday that the U.S.

Marshals Service suffered a security breach over a week ago that compromised sensitive information.

In a statement Monday, U.S.

Marshals Service spokesperson Drew Wade acknowledged the breach, telling NBC News, the affected system contains law enforcement sensitive information, including returns from legal processes, administrative information, personally identifiable information pertaining to subjects of the U.S.

Marshals investigation, third parties, and employees.

Wade said the incident occurred February 17th.

So far, there's no indication that the two attacks are connected.

However, the cyber hostage-taking ransomware

that often strong-arms institutions into making hefty ransom payments to regain access to their computer systems is now a fact of life

for U.S.

corporations and the government.

Last week, the Department of Health and Human Services warned that Russians and Russian-linked ransomware groups like Klopp had reportedly taken responsibility for a mass attack on more than 130 organizations, including the healthcare industry.

This is the best of the Glenbeck program.

Welcome to the Glenbeck program.

What is the definition

of a fascist?

What does it mean if you're called a fascist?

Well,

it means public-private partnership.

That

privately, people can own whatever they want, but they have to do certain things

that the government tells them to do, or they're in trouble.

Now, try this.

President Biden's plan to plow billions of dollars into semiconductor manufacturing represents a sharp turn in American economic policy, one aimed at countering China by building up a single critical industry.

But Biden is going even further.

He's using the money to change how corporations behave.

If semiconductor manufacturers want a piece of the $40 billion from the administration, they will need to provide child care for their employees, run their plants on low-emission sources of energy, pay union wages for construction workers, shun stock buybacks, and potentially share certain profits with the government.

That is a public-private partnership.

That is the definition of fascism.

If you're not clear on that, you need to do some more homework.

Now,

look at what we have in front of us today.

From the New York Times, Washington, one of President Biden's most ambitious proposals, a $400 billion program to forgive student loan debt for 40 million Americans could become the latest victim of a legal tug-of-war with the Supreme Court over the powers of the presidency.

Over the powers of the presidency.

Conservative justices on the court signaled Tuesday that they are deeply skeptical that Mr.

Biden has the power to wipe out such a vast amount of student debt.

What?

How was our government set up?

There are three branches, and they're all checks and balances.

The reason we're out of balance is because Congress, and the founders never saw this happening, gave their power to the executive branch.

So it's like a merging of of two branches into one.

It's just a showpiece.

You don't hear them actually debate.

There's like six people that come up with the bills, then they force people to vote

yes for them.

They're not informed of what the bill even is.

That's not representational government.

You got six people in the Congress and they're doing the bidding of the administration.

And all the bills that passed, they just give more money to the administration, and then the administration makes the laws and the rules that you have to live by.

Again, that is fascism.

So he's saying that he can just wipe out the debt of 40 million Americans.

Our checks and balances system is broken because Congress is no longer a check on the president.

The president's no longer a check on Congress.

And now it's just Congress is the administrative state.

And the last holdout, hope for the Constitution, which the job of the Supreme Court is to say, is this constitutional or not?

It is definitely not constitutional for the executive office to have the most power.

The New York Times goes on, it was not the first time the court has suggested that Mr.

Biden has overstepped his authority.

He didn't overstep it.

He seized it.

There's a siege on the Constitution.

But this case has the potential to curtail Mr.

Biden's ambitions, just as newly empowered Republicans in the House have vowed to block his every move in Congress.

During Mr.

Biden's first two years in office, court blocked him from enacting key parts of his agenda, including sweeping measures to address climate change, vaccine requirements at large companies, and a ban on evictions during the pandemic.

Look, the conservative court will say the president cannot cannot do this.

And,

you know, the left should celebrate

because,

I mean, unless you know something about the elections I don't know and you're denying, when the next election comes and,

God forbid for you, it's a Republican,

you don't want the president to have this kind of power.

We don't want the president and the administrative state to be able to control every aspect of your life.

Period.

This is something that all Americans used to understand and all Americans used to stand for.

I so strongly disagree with you, but I will fight to my last breath for your ability to say it.

We used to understand if there is a civil rights abuse anywhere

on anyone, it's a civil rights abuse on everyone.

But we don't do that anymore.

Why?

Because the parties knew they could weaponize us.

We're being used.

Now,

fascistic.

Why is our Second Amendment in existence?

I don't ask you to agree with it or not.

Why is it in existence?

It wasn't because of sports.

It was to protect yourself against an out-of-control government.

That's clear why they put that in there.

Because the king wanted to take away everybody's arms.

Okay.

So you have no power against a king.

And I can't stand the argument that says, oh, you know what?

Well, we got fighter jets and everything else.

Well, the Taliban sure held up, didn't it?

Huh?

They, wow, they're in charge of the country now.

Why?

Not because they had a big missile program, but because they had small arms.

So, why do we have that?

For protection against an out-of-control government.

What is the very first thing that fascists do when they get into office?

They abolish.

the right to bear arms in country after country after country.

Once they disarm people, then it's over.

They can do whatever whatever they want because they no longer fear the backlash, because they no longer fear you at the ballot box.

That's clear.

The only thing they fear is there's more of us than there is of them.

Biden said yesterday that he is going to abandon salt weapons and high-capacity magazines, come hell or high water.

He then

announced that the Justice Department would give $231 million to states used for crisis intervention.

Now,

that means strengthen the red flag programs.

These awards will support the kinds of crisis intervention programs that we know that will save lives and help protect children, families, and communities across the country against senseless acts of gun violence.

That's not true.

That's not true.

Red flags, red red flags, he said, will only save lives if community members effectively use this tool.

Today's announcement gives states funding to educate the public about extreme risk protection orders that train law enforcement and other officials regarding this intervention.

This means I'm in a divorce.

My wife knows how much guns mean to me.

She could say, he's a danger to us and the family.

And I don't even get a chance to respond.

They're just gone.

They're gone.

Are you kidding me?

Did you ever read anything about the Stasi?

When the police have control and you can just swear out something and say, I'm telling you, I saw this, and they can come in and take it from you, and you don't have any right left,

you're in fascism.

You're in a gulag state.

By the way, we have armed,

we have armed the USDA.

We have armed federal agents

that are going out and talking to farmers with cows.

Why?

Why?

Why do we have this?

The state is growing out of control.

Right now, yesterday, we are asking for emails involving Trump, you know, amongst the FBI.

The FBI said, we can't do that.

It's going to take us six years.

No, it's not.

No, it's not.

You've got a heap of money.

Hire a bunch of people.

Get it done.

When is somebody just going to say, get it done?

Marilyn Garland, he wants to grow it even more.

He said, we just don't have enough personnel.

We just need to hire more FBI agents.

No, we don't.

There's a probe on Capitol Hill into January 6th.

We now know that the FBI was involved.

We still can't get any answers, but we know they were involved.

We know that they had information.

We know now the Capitol Police had the information.

We know that Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer had that information, that this was a real and credible threat.

And yet the police and FBI did nothing.

Why is that?

Why is that?

Is it so hard to believe that maybe they thought, well, we can put them down, but this will cause so much trouble?

God only knows, maybe they will kill Mike Pence.

How great would that be for our side?

Not that Mike is dead, but we could say, look at these killers.

They immediately, immediately started calling it the worst attack since the Civil War.

They knew they wanted it.

They'll use it.

The FBI

is a tool now for the fascistic state.

Unfortunately, I have to say, you know, I just read a story yesterday from,

I don't remember which news organization it was, but it was talking about how the FBI agents, well, there's one in today's story too.

In today's headlines, by the way, get my show prep every day.

There's so much I don't have time to cover.

Today's show prep is unbelievable.

Just get it.

Sign up for it.

It's free at Glennbeck.com.

It's free, Glennbeck.com.

Please, if you want to stay informed, read that every morning.

But there's a story in there today about how the FBI agents were fighting the FBI brass over the Donald Trump thing, and they were told, sit down and shut up.

Well, you know what, guys?

I'm sorry.

I think all of you need to be out of a job.

If I were president, I would clean house and shut the FBI down.

If I was president, here's my policy.

Have you tried unplugging it and plugging it back in?

Reset to factory settings.

And there's just not enough of you that are willing to speak out.

What is it going to take

before you will admit the corruption?

Because the more corrupt it becomes, the more corrupt you become.

I just

urge you,

tolerate no lies,

no lies in your life.

No lies.

If there is corruption in your life, get rid of it.

Clean it up.

Stand where God wants you to stand because fire is coming

and only the things that have already been purified, the refiner's fire, it burns out all the infection.

It burns out all of the imperfections in things like gold.

That refiner's fire is coming to each of our lives.

Clean it out now because that fire does not destroy things that are true and good.

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

Steve, when you were, when did you, when did we work together?

I was here from 2013 to 2015, including working right here

down the hall in the studio for a couple of years.

You were here in the dark days.

Dark days of eight years.

Dark days.

And now you went to Megan Kelly.

I think she's hired everybody who's ever worked with me.

Natasha, who's doing great.

She's doing great.

I love her.

What's it like to work for Megan?

Megan's fantastic.

I really, you know, I was such a fan of hers for years.

I first met her, I think, in 2009 on her Fox show.

And just to see the evolution of what she's done and now really being on the outside, but having that real power that comes with the independent media these days, it's just been great.

You know, really, I think we go anywhere.

We touch any of the third rails.

She loves that, eats that up.

And I think we're, you know, we...

we can connect with an audience in a way that I think you just can't in traditional media anymore.

She is one of the people that I think

a good number of people trust

because it's not just her agenda.

I really believe that she's wrong about something, or I got that one wrong.

Right.

You know, that doesn't happen in media.

No, no, I think that so much of the corporate press these days, and I write about it a lot and on cover, is so just panicked about the state of the business and about their standing in terms of like institutional power that

they refuse to to correct the record when they get it wrong, to acknowledge it, to have any introspection.

Help us out because Stu and I were talking about it

yesterday or the day before.

If they just said,

wow, do we get it?

We get it.

Okay.

We are screwing this up.

We made this mistake, this mistake, and we're going to take steps to correct those so it doesn't happen again, but we get it and we admit that there's been a problem.

That would do so much to restore even a hope of credible days coming your way.

Right.

But they won't do it.

Are they afraid?

Do they just not get it?

Are they so arrogant that they think, no, America is wrong.

Yes, I think that there's a huge portion of that.

You know,

after Trump was elected in November 2016, which I actually do think was this really seminal moment, I talked to people in the book about how, I mean, it was, no one in that newsroom in New York and D.C.

believed that was even possible.

So this happens.

And then I end up writing this proposal, this idea of, you know, how can you see in the media that you're blind spots?

And I called in all my favors.

This was April of 2017.

Went to CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, and said, look, here's a little proposal on maybe how you can reconnect, how you can have some introspection and talk to the people, see what was maybe missed.

And there was a little bit of interest, but ultimately, you know, passed.

And that was really what turned into this book, because

it's something that's missing.

And frankly, Glenn, I think what happened was instead of accepting that they missed something, they not only turned against Trump and the administration in a very strong and obvious way, but against the people that put him there.

And that's just going the opposite direction.

It is funny.

I didn't know you were doing that.

I did the same thing.

And I remember talking to Chuck Todd.

And I said, Chuck,

huge blind spots here.

Huge blind spots.

And,

you know, just.

Don't continue down this path.

I'd like to sit and talk with you or anybody else that would be interested so you can understand the other side.

All they really wanted to do was, nobody took me up on it, but when I would talk to them on the phone, all they wanted to do was say, this was crazy.

I guess we are missing something.

But that guy's crazy.

And then they just double down on it.

I think we see it, though, literally by geography.

I mean, we both live in Dallas.

We're outside of the New York and D.C.

establishment, I think, by design.

And you see people every day that have complicated, messy points of view.

A lot of people I know who were gay and supported Trump.

I mean, big Second Amendment supporters, but are Democrats.

I I mean, it's a mess.

And so when you don't have that perspective in New York and D.C.

newsrooms, that's what leads to these blind spots and no introspection about it.

You know, I know you say this in the book, and it's practically a quote from Paul Harvey, who said, you want to fix the media, get them out of New York and Washington.

He said, move them to Chicago.

Right.

Right.

Yeah.

Get them somewhere else in the country.

Because

I do, you know, you talked in the last hour about the anti-freedom authoritarians.

And I write in the book, I describe it as anti-speech activists in the media these days, because I actually think it's gotten significantly worse and more pernicious in how the media has handled the general public since Trump left office.

We saw this, I think, almost beginning.

I begin the book with the Hunter Biden laptop coverage, because we now have a media that you would think the one occupation that would care the most about free speech and the free flow of ideas, that should be the media.

That should be journalists.

But instead, it's gone the other way.

They have wanted to clamp down on information getting to the public.

We see this so much with COVID and so much in other stories where it's a real distrust in the public.

We don't know if you can handle this information.

And that's actually, I think that's something that's gotten worse.

I remember when I started here at the Blaze, we did this campaign.

I think it was called More Voices, Not Less.

I have a t-shirt with it.

And even then, 2013, it was like, we don't want to get rid of MSNBC or the left.

We want to get...

more voices out there.

And there was a little bit of pushing against that at the time.

But it has gotten so much worse in such a short amount of time now, where I actually think it's really more concerning that the media themselves don't even understand

the principles that they once had about

accepting a freedom of speech and the First Amendment.

I don't understand

how they miss that.

Everything they used to be for,

including anti-war, it seems as though

the right is standing up for individual rights.

They're standing up for all these things.

And the left is diametrically opposed to everything they ever stood for.

Yeah, the new left and the new establishment media.

I mean, I was talking to Glenn Greenwald a couple of days ago, and it reminded me,

Glenn came to this studio in 2015.

I remember April 2015.

And we were talking

right down the hallway here about which we talked with Glenn Greenwald.

You know, he was a big lefty, big Bernie Sanders guy.

Oh, we talked about surveillance state and about the Snowden and Hillary Clinton being established.

And it was a great interview you did with him.

And it was a couple blocks.

And he did some things for the website after.

That was eight years ago.

And that was a time that Glenn Greenwald was a regular on Chris Hayes' show on MSNBC and on CNN, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist.

The way that Glenn is now perceived in the press, I mean, he is like persona non grata on anywhere else in the press these days.

And it's not because Glenn Greenwald changed, or Matt Taibbi, or Barry Weiss, or you, or me.

We are essentially the same, or a lot of people in this audience.

But the corporate press has changed so much that a person who has the exact same ideals like Glenn Greenwald or others is now just completely excommunicated and assigned to places like Substack or Rumble now.

And great, because they can accrue a big audience.

But that's not them changing.

That is, as I lay out and uncovered, the corporate press fundamentally changing from the way they were even five, seven years ago.

I said in 2007, maybe,

that the media is going to come to a place to where

government needs them, they need government, and tech is going to need both of those two.

And they're going to start getting money from the government.

How long can these things last?

I mean, they are just hemorrhaging cash, hemorrhaging.

Yeah.

The business model has completely changed.

And that's the thing.

I mean, if the CNNs of the world were doing everything right journalistically, every single day, the traditional viewer of CNN is going away and finding other outlets.

And so I do think that that is a different as heaven or hell

dying pretty quickly.

Yes, yes, that is the oldest model.

Yeah, the very old model.

And a lot of it, I have to say, is Twitter because Twitter has shown in a very real way, it's one of the reasons I actually love Twitter, is because we get to see the media treat

this open platform like it's their diary.

And they can just read it.

We read that.

I read that in the book.

I loved that observation.

It was the first time you could see

them.

Right.

You know what I mean?

Right.

And I don't think they understand how

damaging it is to the credibility of the journalists themselves and the organizations because you get to see how I describe in the book a New York Times reporter who, right after

Governor Northam won in Virginia, described it as the only reason as white grievance politics and they were able to change it.

This is what he just, his instant analysis, right?

A few days later, this is a news journalist, a news reporter publishes a story talking to a dozen people, a dozen white farmers in the border of Virginia and West Virginia, and covers the story as exactly that way.

And so you see,

if it was an opinion column, fine.

But

he starts with a place.

He already knows where he's going to go.

And you can see it play out on Twitter.

And then you can track that all the way.

And so I lay out story after story like this in Uncover, not just to say this is what happened, but also so the average American can see this is the truth, this is why it happens to be better.

I get this question all the time.

And I know at the end of the book, you talk about things that the media can do and we can do, but I hear this all the time.

I don't know how to, I don't have the resources of a staff and everything else.

How do I, where do I go for the truth?

And how do I know when I have the truth?

Yeah, it's extremely challenging.

And you're right.

Most people are not like me where I'm digging into the media every single day.

They don't have a job.

Exactly.

Yeah.

People have families and lives and like to go outside and not spend all day on Twitter.

So yeah, I think it's really challenging.

But I do think that it makes places like this show and the Megan Kelly show and what's happening on Substack with people like Matt Taibbi even more valuable because they can cut through the noise and you can do it.

Look,

I've sort of curated a Twitter feed that I trust.

Okay, that takes time also.

That's challenging.

But I think in the absence of a corporate press that's really serving the people, and I don't anticipate them changing in a fundamental way anytime soon, I think that they get that there's a problem because as you mentioned, financially there's a problem.

So I get that they understand it, but they are not going to turn this giant tanker around very fast.

And so in the absence of that, I think you need to find the people that you trust to cut through the noise, to give it to you straight, and rely on them.

So I feel like the IT person for the entire world.

We were just talking about this.

The federal government is like, it's all broke.

I don't know what to do.

Same with the media.

Well, I don't know what to do.

Have you tried unplugging it and plugging it back in?

Restore it to the factory settings.

Any chance that they save themselves and get it in the end?

I think that there's a chance.

I'm generally an optimist, but I think it's going to take a very long time.

Because honestly, it's not just that

it's not ideological.

There's so many problems with the anti-speech activists.

But also, I remember, Glenn, the first time we ever met was in like 2009.

It was because I was a viewer of your Fox show, not even as a fan politically, but as just a fan of television.

And you were doing something so different and so unique at the time.

That is really missing in a lot of places.

It's few and far between that you get anything that's not boring, consensus, bland.

Don't know.

They don't know how to do it.

They don't know how to do it.

And that's a problem, too.

Because if you know exactly what the person you're going to tune into is going to say every day, and you also don't particularly trust that person, like on CNN or MSNBC or ABC or CBS, then what's the point?

What's the reason?

And you're right, it's going to take a full-scale reworking of the entire media ecosystem to get it back into place that serves the people.

Imagine how arrogant you have to be.

If you know, because when I left Fox, you know, half the country hated me, hated me.

And you can't, you can't be in that position without going,

gosh, am I that person?

You know,

they have what, a 13% approval rating?

That's crazy.

Nobody is a fan of any of the journalists.

And how arrogant do you have to be to keep getting the message that we don't agree with you and keep doubling down saying it's you, not me?

And they can't dismiss it as politics either.

I write about in the book, one of the polls, the independent line, I think is so important, right?

The independent line and trust in the press has completely fallen off a cliff in five years.

Now, what does that say?

That's not people that are just hardcore MAGA fans of Trump.

No, this is people that the average person who's not overly political, maybe who's not someone who cares about politics every day, just wants the general news.

They've lost an immense amount of trust because they don't see a place like the New York Times or a place like CNN as the boring old news anymore.

Now they have a spin also.

Well, I can't trust them either.

That's a real problem, and that's not ideological either.

Steve Krakauer is who I've been talking to.

The name of his book is Uncovered, How the Media Got Cozy with Power, Abandoned Its Principles and Lost the People.

It really is, if you want to understand

what's happened and how to navigate in a sea of people that you just don't trust.

Steve was in the system like I was in the system.

He got out of the system and now he's out of the power centers and it clears your vision.

And I have to tell you, I so respect you for not using a single source that is unnamed.

Right.

You refuse to do that, right?

Talked to 26 people on the record.

Everyone puts their name to it.

People in the industry also, New York Times, former New York Times staffers, really tell it to me straight.

It took a lot of convincing to do that.

But I think it's important because, yeah, I don't think people trust anonymous sources anymore either.

And I have respect for people who will put their name behind what they say.

Thank you so much, Steve.

Thanks, Glenn.

Appreciate it.

Get the the book now.

It is uncovered by Steve Krakauer.