Best of the Program | Guests: Michael Malice & Nicole Levitt | 10/14/22

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New episodes Tuesdays.

What are you doing this week?

It's a question I ask

myself approximately noon on Saturday.

Noon on Saturday?

Yeah.

And when I say I ask myself, you ask your wife.

I ask my wife.

Yeah.

She tells me what we're doing.

I already asked my wife.

I asked my wife yesterday.

And I was like, please tell me we don't have anything to do this weekend.

Please, please just want some time off.

She's like, we have this and we have this and we have this.

Then Saturday we have this and then you have this.

And I'm like,

okay, are you, are you trying to tell me that we don't?

And she's like, yeah, but we have Sunday free.

And I'm like,

oh, great.

Yeah.

Actually, now I'm thinking about it.

We do.

This is one of the few weekends my son has not have like 914 baseball games.

Oh, my God.

So we, I think we're like, we're basically any

pumpkin patch in the state of Texas, you may very well find us there.

We're just diving into fall.

I'm wondering, how many, how many chess tournaments are there if you're in chess club?

I should convince my daughter she should join chess club if there's like only there's only like three tournaments a year right okay yeah i'll drive you to that that we really parents need to devise something that seems like a really great activity but has like no responsibilities i have one i have one it's called the 1970s go outside and play

oh you're gonna play baseball get all your friends in the neighborhood yeah just be careful you know because that empty lots got a lot of broken glass in it so pick it out of your feet and keep playing

anyway here is today's podcast.

It's a great one you don't want to miss.

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You're listening to

the best of the Glenn Back program.

Glenn, how are you?

Oh.

Do you even need to ask?

You look happy as usual.

Yes, thank you.

Well adjusted.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Thank you.

An optimistic future.

Oh, my.

Lays ahead.

I have, I mean, I've had quite a week.

I've had about six hours sleep this week.

Oh, that's good.

So I

combined.

So I am really, really good.

And then I get to go go home and

go and drive for about 14 hours to my son's football game.

It's an away game someplace in Texas.

This is the only time I miss the East Coast.

Where like, you know, the whole, you could drive the whole state and back in like...

25 minutes.

Right.

You know what I mean?

Yes.

Here.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah.

So I'm excited about that.

I'm excited about that.

But I got this show in front of me.

And this show is just full of good stuff.

I've actually got good news for you.

I mean,

not three hours worth, but I got some good news for you.

So at some point during the next three hours,

I'm going to start with it.

Somebody asked me last night, they said, Glenn, what do you really think about the election?

And I'm like, could people stop asking me, what do I really think?

I tell you every day.

It's not like I have, you know, I got to tell you, I'm so optimistic right now.

I mean, I don't have a secondary opinion on stuff.

As someone who spent multiple decades as your executive producer, the problem is he says what he really believes too much.

That's that's the real issue we've had with the show over the years.

It's not hiding anything.

Right.

So they say, what do you really think?

And I said, you know what?

Let me, let me, let me say it this way.

If this were any other time in American history,

I would think that this is going to be a red tidal wave, just a tidal wave that will collapse the Democratic Party, possibly forever.

Okay.

Wow.

Yeah.

You'd think with the performance of the last couple of years, that would be what we'd be looking at here.

And the fact that they're still fighting for, you know, hey, pedophilia is not so bad.

You would think that this would put them out of business forever.

They just added that to the Democratic platform, by the way.

Pedophilia's not so bad.

Yeah, that's just a quick line.

Did you see what they're doing in Virginia?

We're going to talk about this later.

You see what Virginia is doing?

The Virginia Democrats are trying to pass a law.

It's not going to pass, but it might in what four years when the governor is gone or six years when he can't run again.

The Democratic legislature is putting in that parents must

affirm their child's chosen gender or they can have their kids taken away from them.

They're actually trying to pass that law now.

Have they learned nothing?

Nothing.

Here you are in a state that's really a blue-leaning state, and you have a Republican governor just because of things like that.

Yeah, I know.

So they're trying to pass that.

And,

you know, usually you would think, well, that's suicide, but no, no, they're just going for it.

And what is crazy to me is so many things have been made political that are just, it's clouding everybody's vision, everybody's vision.

You know, you, you, you want to talk about pedophilia?

Let's talk about pedophilia, but can we do it without saying, Yeah, but Trump?

Can we not make this about politics and instead about the molestation of our children?

You know what I mean?

So I would be very optimistic any other time, but I can no longer predict America because half of America is a psycho.

They've just lost touch with reality.

However, the other point B on this one, on the downside, is

I would think it would be an absolute red wave if

I had belief in the system.

You know what I mean?

I'm shell-shocked enough to say, I'm not sure this is going to be free and fair.

And like, for instance,

you could convince me that Donald Trump won in a landslide, but I need evidence, and I don't have the evidence.

I have things we should follow and things we should check out.

I mean, nobody's following, you know, Dinesh D'Souza's

breadcrumbs.

We need an official group to sit down and really, truly follow, but that's not going to happen.

so you could convince me that he won in a landslide you can convince me that he lost

but you will never convince me that they didn't at least try to do everything they can to throw this election okay there's there's no way that you can convince me that the democrats didn't use every tool in their toolbox to rig this last election.

Would you agree with that?

I mean, if you had, if you picture a scenario in which, I don't know, Kamala Harris is sitting in a room by herself and there's a button that says that she could switch the election to them winning instead of the Republicans, clearly they'd press it, right?

The question is just how difficult it is to pull something like that off.

But I don't have any

hesitation at all in that if they had the opportunity and felt that they could pull it off.

And they did.

I mean, you know, they did.

I'm not saying they did pull it off, but they had the opportunity and they tried every by changing laws, by drop boxes

by changing laws before the election took place.

They definitely tried to tilt the playing field

and their advantage.

So I don't have any faith that they're not going to try that again.

And their arrogance, like,

let's take children away from their parents.

Let's sign this new law a couple of weeks before the election.

The arrogance, that is either suicidal arrogance

or it is, it's like, don't worry about it.

Everything's taken care of.

You know what I mean?

And I don't want to think that way because I do think that this

election, you got to go out and vote.

I know I am.

And everybody's got to go out and vote.

I believe we can just overwhelm the ballot box this time.

And we talked about this a little bit on Studios America on Wednesday's show, that the messaging of...

the election is going to be stolen is really dangerous for Republicans because honestly, like if if you believe that, then why go?

Right.

I mean, then that's what happened, I think, in Georgia in the runoffs.

Right.

You know, there was so much messaging around, oh, this was stolen.

Don't, they're never going to count your vote anyway.

That's how Warnock got it.

Warnock and

Osoff both got in that way.

And it's also the reason we just spent $5 trillion

because they got control of the Senate by the slimmest of majorities.

Right.

So and I and I don't think that they have it locked down where they can guarantee.

I think they'll try, they're trying, but I there's all these shenanigans.

Yeah.

I believe this is, we are going to win.

The thing that has bothered me, and here comes the good news: the thing that has bothered me was the arrogance.

Until yesterday,

Joe Biden giving a speech, he says, I'm telling you, no joke, folks.

Inflation's going to get much worse if Republicans win.

And I thought, oh my gosh.

Oh, my gosh.

He's admitting that inflation exists.

And he knows, everybody knows it's going to get much worse.

But he's signaling now,

if they win,

that's how we're going to defend.

We're just going to push it all on the Republican Congress.

You watch.

He's just signaled, there's a possibility we're not not going to take this thing.

And so he's starting to play the cards now.

You watch, by January, by January, they'll be sworn in for like 20 minutes.

And Joe Biden and the media will be saying, inflation is out of control.

And this do-nothing Congress is only making things worse.

Okay?

He just played that card yesterday.

I've never seen him play that card before, have you?

He's not even, he doesn't even, he doesn't even really really admit that there is inflation or that it's going to be a problem.

It was transitory up until 10 minutes ago.

Yes.

So that gives me great optimism.

So this is, you're saying this is a preview of their argument when they lose because he believes they will lose.

Yes.

Or they're talking about it.

I don't know if he believes anything or does anything other than

talking.

I don't know who said this.

Oops, I guess I shouldn't have said that out loud.

Right.

You know what I mean?

So, but it's being discussed, and he played it yesterday.

I like your optimism.

We've heard this from a bunch of conservative commentators recently that there's going to be this red wave, and I think there's a chance of it.

I'm not as confident as everybody else seems to be, though.

No, I know.

And

it could be

in a normal period of time,

this would be Reagan Mondale.

This would be 49 out of 50 states, just

red.

Yeah, I mean, look, obviously we don't have a presidential election.

There's not even elections in 50 states for the Senate.

I know that, but what I'm saying is

the equivalent of that.

The equivalent of that in the midterms.

It would just be, it would be a stunning victory in normal times.

Yeah, one thing that's interesting about looking at this as a wave, right?

We look back at the 2010 election as a wave election, the biggest wave in the past century.

That was the Tea Party wave.

And so many seats were won by Republicans.

I can't remember the number, but it was close to like 100 seats.

I mean, it was an incredibly high number.

Because of the starting point this time, though, in the House, the House is just a razor-thin majority for.

So if you can get to

240 seats is arguably the high watermark that Republicans could shoot for rationally.

In a wave election, they could get into that vicinity.

If that happens, that is a wave election.

Oh, yeah.

People talk about it as much.

But that's how we have to frame this.

The seats that are available are not in Republicans' favor.

In 2024, it's the exact opposite.

It's all in Republicans' favor.

And that makes a difference.

And that's in the Senate.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, yeah, in the House.

Everybody's up for every two years.

Everybody's up every two years.

And you talk about a huge wave coming.

You could wind up with

tons and tons of seats, a large majority, or you could see a narrow victory

for Republicans that at least will still block the worst instincts of the Democrats, but will not be enough to really move the needle in a way of saying like there's a mandate for what Republicans are trying to do, whatever that is.

You know, it's just, I think at this point, you know, we talked about this on your election special the other night.

There is an instinct from Republicans right now to say, look, we just need to not be them.

If we're just not them, we'll win.

Yeah.

And I do think that there's something to that.

Yes.

Right.

Like you probably, if you are just,

we are not going to do the same things Joe Biden is doing, you probably will win.

But that's not going to give you a mandate going forward for decades of leadership.

No.

That might win you a midterm.

Yes.

Yes.

And that's short-term thinking.

Correct.

However,

let me tell you what I think because he said yesterday, you know, it's going to get much worse if Republicans win.

All right.

So let me tell you what I think is going to happen.

The Republicans will win the House and the Senate.

From my mouth to God's ear, please, Lord, please.

And inflation is going to get much, much worse.

How could you possibly say that?

Well, I mean,

something's weird about this stuff with Jamie Dimon.

Let me just say that, and we'll get to that maybe some other day.

But he is coming out and he is saying,

I told you that it was a hurricane, category five, back in the summer.

I'm telling you, I was underestimating what is coming.

Came out yesterday and said there is a 30% drop in the market from here

that is about to hit.

30%

market drop.

That is massive, massive.

And, you know, dogs and cats are going to be living together.

It's going to be ugly.

So the Republicans will be blamed for everything by the media and the

Democrats, and they'll say it's a do-nothing Congress.

And because we have a do-nothing Congress, we're going to have to take some emergency actions.

And this president is going to start

dictating and he's also i mean he already is but worse and he's also going to um

put into action his little foot soldiers of blm and and tifa and everything else they're not related they don't know

you're going to start to see real trouble again on the streets and it's going to all be tied to like an occupy wall street kind of thing they're getting bailouts these people are getting and that we're not getting we need these republicans to step aside so we can just start giving money to the people.

And it's going to get ugly.

It's going to get ugly.

And we're going to need to help each other and come together.

They're not telling you this now, but I am telling you.

I don't know why we keep saying we're going to be in a recession.

We're in a recession.

And things are going to get bad.

They are bad.

You know, how bad can a recession get?

I think we're headed for a depression and then a complete collapse of the US dollar within the next five years.

So

just mentally prepare for that and then think, what do I have to do to make sure my friends, my neighborhood, my family, my community is set to weather that storm?

Because when you get a, you know, marauding people that are just hungry in the cities and angry, and they're spurred on by crazy politicians, politicians.

What do you do to keep your community safe?

That's the way you have to start thinking because it's going to get, you know, did you notice that it was the streets were on fire.

Biden wins.

No one knows how to get to the streets anymore.

Yeah, it's like, I don't, Molotov cocktail.

That sounds lovely, darling.

Can you make a Molotov cocktail for me, please?

Remarkable.

Remarkable.

The second they got their power.

The second they lose the power, it's coming back.

It's coming back.

Remember, I told you how they took over

in Hungary, the Soviets.

They have control at the top.

They get their foot soldiers on the bottom to rise up and cause so much chaos.

This is what happened in Germany as well.

So much chaos.

The top has no choice but to come down and build a cage for everybody because because the average people are calling out for help, help.

Somebody's got to help us.

Strengthen your state and your local community so that is not the cry from you.

Stand guard, America.

Stand guard.

But we make it.

It's going to be good.

Oh my gosh, I'm so positive today.

This is very concerning.

Oh, yeah.

You should panic because I'm positive.

If you have a panic room, you should be in it already.

Lock yourself in.

I'm going in there now.

Take a break, but I'm not coming back.

I'm not coming out of that that room.

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

Welcome to the Glenn Beck program.

It is Friday.

We have Michael Malis joining us.

He is the host of Your Welcome, the podcast,

and he is a big lover of freedom of speech.

And no matter how you feel

about Alex Jones,

A billion dollars, a billion dollars in damages

should be chilling to every American and especially broadcasters.

Welcome to the program.

Michael, how are you?

Thanks so much, Glenn.

I think it's even more, right?

Isn't a billion just the

damages and there's going to be a punitive phase on top of this?

And there's a whole nother case in Connecticut ready to go.

So, I mean, it's going to, you're right, it's going to be probably multiple billions of dollars before this is.

Well, no, I think this was the Connecticut.

There's the Texas one, which was like 45 or whatever.

And then this was the Connecticut one.

So there's one more to go or Connecticut.

One more to go.

Oh, on top of this.

Oh, boy.

Yeah.

Oh, boy.

I mean, what's kind of insane,

I tweeted it out this week.

O.J.

Simpson, when he was sued for the wrongful deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, he only had to pay out a $33 million

settlement.

So to put this in perspective, the numbers for actually killing two people is a tiny percent of this.

As gross as it is to discuss this, juries every day have to adjudicate wrongful death or, you know, if someone dies in a car wreck or something, how much that estate is owed.

And the numbers are nowhere near as close to this.

So there's just no concept here of proportionality in terms of, you know, the, and in addition, you know, you see people like, well, you know, look what he did to these parents.

It's like

what was done to the parents pales in comparison to what the shooter did you know that was where the real correct damages were and he's being charged with much more than what uh um they had to suffer through at the hands of that madman so i there was no there was no closure i think for the parents because the gunman uh shot himself and so you know alex jones i think this was a despicable thing to uh to perpetrate however um you know there are a lot of bad people or bad opinions or whatever that are out there.

You can't take your grief out on

somebody

and their freedom of speech.

And I think part of this was you feel so bad for the parents, horrible for the parents for the shooting and then for what they had to endure.

But

you can't do that.

I mean, What is the point of a billion dollars?

He's not going to be able to pay it.

So what is the point here?

Well, when people talk about issues like this, I always try to bring something innovative to the conversation as much as I can.

And I think we all forgot because we all have the, you know, when you have a president who has Alzheimer's, it kind of becomes leadership and we all have issues with our memory.

But we're all forgetting that Peter Thiel took out Gawker.

I just thought of that as I was waking up this morning, which is, you know, Gawker outed him.

Gawker was a series of websites head in New York, very malevolent in many capacities.

And Peter was like, you know what?

These people cannot stand.

And he funded a lawsuit by Hulk Hogan.

Why Hulk Hogan would need funding is not really clear to me.

Hulk Hogan being a very successful athlete actor for decades.

And they actually managed to take down the Gawker Empire and drove Nick Denton, the owner, into bankruptcy.

But at the same time,

what people are concerned about, very understandably, is they're trying to make Alex Jones an example.

And what effect is this going to have on other broadcasters?

When Gawker was was destroyed, it did not at all reign in the vitriol in internet media, from my perspective, at least.

Yeah, you know, Michael, I had the same thought.

I would not be surprised at all if we find out after this that somebody is funding these suits.

They're so, like, they're so targeted to this one guy.

And again, like, you know, whatever you think about Alex Jones, if you want a central theory he's really responsible for, you'd say the 9-11 theory.

Yeah.

Right.

He was not, I don't think, the leader on the Sandy Hook thing at all.

Even I went through their entire complaint.

They have about 12 instances of him even talking about it.

You know, like, and the idea that you go after a host for saying something that he admits was wrong now, a wrong opinion, because people who may or may not have heard that theory from him, they could have heard it from anywhere else on the internet, went and harassed these parents.

The people who should be held responsible for that harassment are the people who did it.

The people who actually went up to these poor parents and harassed them in real life.

Those are the people that should be charged with this stuff.

And by way of parallel, Sarah Palin recently sued the New York Times because she was accused

by them of being behind the Gabby Gifford shooting and things like this.

And her case was dismissed out of court.

So

it's certainly the legal system, which I'm obviously not a fan of, being an anarchist, often leads to kind of these outcomes, which just seem to be completely incoherent in relation to other cases and situations like this.

I mean, I think even, you know, if the worst comes to pass and Infowars is taken down and Alex has to file bankruptcy, he's not going to go away.

They're not literally removing his tongue or the existence of microphones on Earth.

This is not going to functionally silence him.

So

I do think this is, you know, meant to make an example, but I think it's going to have a counter effect because it's going to make people that much more of the view that there are forces out there designed to silence any questioning of official narratives.

And Michael,

when you look at this, I mean, O.J.

Simpson, he just declared bankruptcy and he was off playing golf.

And they tried to say, you know, look at the money you have.

And he's like, no, no, no, I'm just, this is money I'm just making today.

And, you know, he got around all of it and, you know, had a pretty sweet life.

I mean, what, what,

what is the point?

Again, what is the point of all of this?

Because it's not going to be paid.

Is it really, truly, in your eyes,

something that is just trying to scare people like me or others,

you, from speaking out and questioning the truth?

Because that's not going to work.

I'm not going to stop.

I think, but in their perspective, they don't know what else to do because Alex Jones was decreed a non-person, like several other people you and I can name that we've probably been friends with at one point.

And he was officially supposed to have vanished.

And the fact that he was driven off of all forms of social media and that he still has an audience, that he still can be, you know, I had him on my podcast a couple of times.

You know, I could reach an audience with him as a guest.

It wasn't forbidden like some other people.

This really drove some very bad people crazy because it was the rule that you do not talk to this person.

He is persona non grata.

And the fact that he's actually beloved and regarded by some people, even those don't, who don't like him as perhaps a buffoon as opposed to a dangerous threat, that is a problem because it was like 2016.

You cannot vote for Trump.

We have told you.

All these organizations have said this person is off limits.

And when the reverse happened, they really didn't know what to do except double down.

So what does it mean for the future?

I think it means that people...

You know, there was this tweet not that long ago that said they should change the term conspiracy theory to spoiler alert.

I can't take credit for that great line.

That's a great line.

The fact that we're seeing all this stuff coming out about Pfizer this week and, you know, the things about social distancing never had a point and there's no even a pretense that it had a point.

I think Alex Jones is like Trump, and they don't realize this, a symbol of something much bigger.

And they think if they kill the head vampire, all the other vampires vanish.

And that's really not how it's going to work.

And this is really going to create a problem for those whose job it is to manufacture popular opinion.

Especially when you go and look at Donald Trump.

What they've missed the whole time is Trump is not the disease.

Trump is a symptom.

And he's a symptom of...

people feeling like no one in Washington represents them, listens to them, includes them in anything.

And that number of Americans is only growing.

And they think if we can put him in jail or take him down or discredit,

that's going to make that group go away.

It's not going away.

It will only get bigger because you make people into a martyr.

Yeah, I said that exactly myself, that Trump is more useful as a martyr than as a president.

I'm very much looking forward to him speaking in front of the January 6th committee because talk about

carnival.

It is going to be the sideshow to end all sideshows to watch him staring down Liz Cheney.

They're not going to be able to keep him quiet.

He can't keep himself quiet.

It's going to be absolutely hilarious.

So do you think he hurts himself by doing it?

No.

I think because Trump has been in many ways effectively silenced,

he's not on Twitter.

That was his main venue of getting his words out there.

I know he's now on Troth Central, but whatever.

To have him and have network coverage, something that they're trying to avoid.

They're trying to banish the guy, even though he's the former president.

That is going to be, I think the memes are going to be epic alone.

Oh, and I think it would be must-watch TV.

I think that is the only thing that I've seen politically in the last

maybe four years, three years, that will actually draw a large audience to television.

People will watch that.

I think they really think that watching Liz Cheney Karen out and wag her finger at him and scold him and he's going to sit there like a petulant child and everyone's going to get up and clap.

These people, since there's so much of their views, are informed by Hollywood, think real life works like a Hollywood movie, and you get to tell off the bad guy, and he throws his hat in the floor and just shakes his fists.

That's not reality.

You're not going to talk over Donald Trump.

It is an interesting time to live.

Last question: More optimistic, less optimistic that

from last week, that the election is going to be headed in the red direction.

You think it's

a tidal wave, a wave, or just a little wash up on the shore?

All the polls are showing undecided are breaking towards Republicans, which is the historical norm.

And I think election night when we're all going to be covering the events, it's going to be absolutely hilarious to watch.

My one hope is John Fetterman becomes the senator from Pennsylvania

because I'm a JFK truther.

I don't think there was any shooter.

I think his head just did that.

And John Fetterman is going to be the first senator whose brain explodes live on the floor of the Senate, covering everyone in his brain parts and

he's going to be aware of that.

I'm glad that you're on the panel.

I'm glad that you're on the panel that night.

Believe me, this is going to be election night coverage that you're not going to see anyplace else.

We've got a guy who believes Kennedy's head just simultaneously exploded.

That's good.

It's going to be a lot of fun, Michael.

Thank you very much.

God bless.

You bet.

You don't want to miss the Blaze coverage this week, that week.

This is election week, and I'm just going to announce it because I want you to make sure that you've made plans for this.

I believe it is on the Saturday before, I'll let, or Saturday after, and I'll let you know for sure when we get closer to it.

But election night coverage is going to be unlike anything we've done.

you're going to love it.

Trust me.

And then the coverage on Saturday, the following Saturday,

it is going to be how do you defend yourself when the ATF comes to your door?

How do you defend yourself with the IRS?

Who can help you if you're in a school board meeting?

How do you stand for your rights?

We have people who who have already done it and done it incorrectly and now have learned the lesson.

We have experts on the Constitution.

We have the whole thing ready for you.

So I think this is something for every single American.

A must-watch.

It'll be the Saturday after the election.

We'll give you more details on that.

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The best of the Glen Bank program.

We welcome to the program now Nicole Levitt.

She is an attorney

who found herself in a pretty difficult situation.

She's written a piece in Newsweek magazine, I was asked to agree to white people are racist and sign a contract about that at work.

Nicole, welcome to the program.

Hi, thank you.

Thank you for having me.

You bet.

I imagine that you and I don't vote the same way,

and that's totally cool with me.

But your story, I think, is so important

because

even people that really radically disagree on politics should not be be disagreeing on principles and the Bill of Rights as one of them.

You were working as an attorney in a private practice.

You also have a degree in psychology.

You worked as a therapist.

You were doing pro bono work.

And what were you working on in your job?

Okay, so

I work for a domestic violence agency.

Okay.

So I wasn't doing pro exactly pro bono work.

I'm getting paid, but our clients are not paying us.

All right.

Okay, and so

I, okay, go ahead.

No, no, no.

Please go ahead.

Yeah, I represent victims of domestic violence, and I represent them mainly in custody court

because they still have custody battles with their abusers.

And

the children, yeah, the children need to be protected, and so do the women.

Domestic violence is

horrific, and those people who have lived through it know it,

and those who deal with it every day, I think, are heroes, especially when they are protecting people.

So your job was to go in, represent them, help them.

These are people generally in poverty, I would imagine, in Philadelphia.

Yeah.

Go ahead.

We have like an income ceiling.

We can't represent them if they make over a certain amount of money.

So almost all of our clients are low-income or

working class.

Okay, are you a governmental agency?

No, we're a private agency.

However, we do get government funding.

Okay.

So when George Floyd was murdered,

everybody, this is the one time I think America United was on that day.

I think everybody who saw that was outraged by that, except maybe a handful of crazies.

But they were outraged by it.

And then it became political and a mess.

So that happened.

I imagine your workplace was like my workplace that day, but your place evolved into holding diversity, equity, and inclusion sessions, right?

Yes.

And at first, everyone did unite.

around

what happened to George Floyd.

It was horrible.

And I don't think any thinking, feeling person could see that and not be moved against it.

Agree.

The problem came when that empathy was hijacked for what I say was an ideological cause.

And

it got to the point where if you didn't agree with that ideology, if you dissented one step away from it, then

you were outcast.

And

you actually had affinity groups.

And so you had a white group and a black group?

Yes.

They divided us up

according to skin color, which was something that I found so regressive and so offensive that, yeah, I eventually said I can't participate in those groups anymore.

And

you have a special

kind of something extra that makes you really worried about societies that do that.

You're also Jewish.

Yes.

Right.

And that played a role?

It did because the language that I heard used against white people mirrored

what was said against Jews in the 1930s.

And I wholeheartedly reject that kind of dehumanizing language against any race or any group.

And if anyone with a sense of history will tell you that things don't go well when that happens

That's a that's a very nice way of saying it.

Yes, things become suboptimal.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes

So you had they introduced something so you objected to going to the whites only group and then

what happened after that?

So

as an agency we were bombarded with messages of anti-racism.

We were asked to attend a lot of different trainings and read a lot of different materials

on like the Kendian sense of anti-racism.

And that included like white people decolonize your bookshelves, read this, this, and this.

And it was a lot.

We were really bombarded with a lot of those messages.

Did you guys get any work done?

We did.

However, I was concerned about how much time we were spending on this.

And also

big conversations like defund the police.

My thinking was we need the police right now.

They're not a perfect solution to any domestic violence issue, but we need them.

So

the answer would be in better training about domestic violence situations, not about we have to defund the police because

they are killing black and brown people every day like that is the hysteria that I'd say took over the agency and it seemed to take over you know a lot of the country as well at that time so tell me about the full value contract that was introduced to you

so it was a contract that was supposed to govern our meetings at the legal center and it was all fine most of it was was like, you know, listen respectfully to other people, accept other viewpoints, things like that.

But number five was own that all white people are racist and I am not the exception.

And I immediately objected to that and

was told, oh, you know, maybe you can just like agree with it as it's red.

I say, if that is read while I'm at a meeting, I'm not going to pretend to agree with it.

It's just not possible.

How many people do you think signed that and just like, I don't agree with it, but whatever, just sign it?

I know a few people did because they told me.

But I think most of them were true believers.

And I think honestly, they thought they were doing the right thing.

It astounds me that people can think that was the right thing,

but here we are.

Okay, so you said

I'm not going to sign that.

And then the company asked you to attend a meeting with the DEI consultant.

And this is, they're going to support you, right?

Yes.

Yeah.

Yes.

Did they?

No.

No.

What a surprise.

They basically were kind of testing my belief.

And

challenging them.

What does that mean?

Like,

do you believe the country is systemically racist?

Do you believe our criminal justice system is racist?

And I kept asking, what is the purpose of this meeting?

And the answer I got back was to see if you are safe to be around your black and brown colleagues and clients.

Oh, my gosh.

Yes.

Yes.

And I kept saying, so are you telling me I need to think this way?

about matters of race in order to represent my clients effectively

and they would kind of back off a little bit from that, but then come right back to it.

So had you ever had any racial warnings or any trouble at all with anybody in the history of your work about race?

No,

I have not.

All right.

So, okay.

You're being questioned now.

Yeah, go ahead.

Yes, and I don't know if that's going to continue.

One of the proposals I saw was

that

other colleagues wanted to treat microaggressions the same as harassment

and make that a policy.

So

how do you work there?

Honestly, how do you work there?

I mean,

I just, I don't understand.

We have gone from a country where, you know, when you're in business, you work, you work towards a goal, you try to do good, you know, you try to be decent.

If somebody's out of line, hopefully they get get fired.

You know, in extreme cases, take them to court if they're not fired.

To now, somebody comes to me with a microaggression.

I think

I throw the toaster at them.

I mean,

I just,

enough is enough.

Can we please just concentrate on things that are really important?

And let's say, you know, I met with the people at GLAD.

I told this story earlier this week.

Met with people at GLAD a few years ago.

They would not join me in this.

And I said, look, my audience will hate me for joining with you.

but we have one thing in common.

We think throwing homosexuals off of the rooftops in Iran is really bad.

And we can do lots of examples all around where in Russia, homosexuals are killed, tortured, and killed in some cities.

Let's just start there.

Can we start there?

No.

So what are we doing if we won't actually face and do things

today

that actually make a difference?

We can talk about slavery 150 years ago, or we can all get together and realize that I think it's 70 or 60 countries in the world still have no anti-slavery laws.

And

there are more slaves today than in the entire slave trade combined.

Let's stop what's happening now.

It's a very distorted worldview.

Mine?

With you on that?

No, no, no.

That anti-racism worldview.

Yeah.

This ideology that

is being shoved down our throats, basically.

Because it's not, because I don't think it's actually about, you know, you wrote in your Newsweek article, this is really about dividing us.

This is.

This is about control, power, politics, money.

I don't know.

But it's not actually about bringing people together and seeing beyond race.

Yes.

And there are some wonderful, wonderful programs

about racism.

If a company wants to bring in some training about that, Sheena Mason's theory of racelessness,

Eric Smith.

Oh,

it's very good.

Eric Smith and

Jason Littlefield also have one.

And it's about bringing people together, seeing the humanity in everyone.

Well, I mean, if it teaches anything like Martin Luther King, I'm 100% in.

You know, he was right.

He was right.

I know that's controversial to say now, but he had the right idea.

Nicole Levitt from Philadelphia, she's an attorney.

She was working

helping

underprivileged families, family law and abuse.

And she was asked to sign a white people's,

white people are racist contracts.

She said no.

She has filed against her employer.

What What did you file and how's that going?

So I filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

And all I want is for

the existing civil rights laws to be followed and for the organization to say that they're going to follow them and basically knock this other stuff off, not do it again.

I don't want any monetary damages except for paying for my legal bills.

And right now it's kind of stalled.

The next step would be to request a right-to-sue letter and sue in state court.

I hope it doesn't get to that.

I don't want to take money or time away from this organization, but I think that this is an issue that is so important.

Why?

Why?

Because

this kind of division is not going to serve us

as an organization and it's not going to serve us as a country.

And someone had to be willing to stand up and say no.

And right now that's me.

And it's not like the position I wanted to find myself in, believe me.

But it's the position I'm in and I'm committed to it.

That's usually how you know you're on the right side or you're standing with God.

It's like, oh, no, I don't want to be that person.

I don't want to do that.

And that's when you know, usually you're right is when you're like, okay.

And nobody, you know, Martin Luther King was not the first guy that people approached to stand up.

I think he was the eighth or the tenth pastor that was approached.

He was just the first guy that went, oh,

okay,

and did it.

And if you're hearing that, I got to stand up, I got to say something, don't be

the other eight pastors that were asked before Martin Luther King.

Be Martin Luther King.

All you have to do is stand for things you know are true.

Do you regret it, Nicole?

I do not regret it.

I would do it again.

Have you paid a heavy price yet?

Let's say it's been a very anxiety-filled time.

Yeah.

And I don't know what's going to happen.

I have, we have been professional in my organization.

We are still like able to work professionally together, and for that, I'm very grateful.

I would like this to end, happily,

but I don't know.

Yeah, I don't know the future.

Nicole,

please keep us up to date.

I'm in your corner.

I don't know you.

I know that we don't have the same political background, but anyone who is standing for the Bill of Rights and just common decency, We are in your corner.

Let us know how to help.

God bless you.

Thank you, Nicole.

Thank you.

You bet.

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