Best of The Program | Guests: Ken Paxton & Brian Riedl | 1/27/21

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Stu, I'd have to say, the Glenn Beck program may have been the best Glenn Beck program of all time.

Yeah, well, that's the reason why we call today's show the big show.

And it really did pan out.

Very big show.

Very, very big.

Yeah.

Steve Dace was on with us.

Yeah.

Ken Paxton was on.

We talked a little bit about money printing.

Talked a lot about the great reset.

The World Economic Forum actually did a tweet thread addressing me and what I said on this program yesterday, which which seeing they're over in Davos with all these world leaders, you'd think that would be low on their priority list unless

what I'm saying is hitting a little too close to home.

You'll hear it all and so much more, including how many masks does it take to be able to completely protect yourself from COVID.

And don't forget, tonight, Glenn's got a special.

You want to make sure that you do not miss that.

It starts at the whole night.

I mean, look, I mean, there's lots of stuff all day.

That's great, but let me start you at 8 p.m.

Eastern with Stew Does America, followed by Glenn TV.

That's all coming up tonight.

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I think yours is on YouTube tonight, right, Glenn?

Yep.

Yep, mine's on YouTube as well.

My channel is at Stu DoesAmerica or Glenn Becky.

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You're listening to the best of the Glenbeck program.

Two weeks ago on TV, we talked about government and private industry coming together in the Biden administration.

They're just getting started.

Every time you open a closet at the Biden White House, there's another special interest skeleton that tumbles out.

Tonight, we're going to take a look at the major stakeholders who have their tentacles all over this White House.

The new Biden administration, already showing America the natural end result that comes from decades of being dominated by special interest groups.

Eventually,

you get government that at the top is so beholden to these groups, you can call them stakeholders.

The stakeholders have vested interest in the actions and policies of the government, financial interest, ideological interest, often both.

These stakeholders always take priority over you and me.

Tonight, I'll show you the stakeholders in this new stakeholder capitalism and the Biden administration, what they want, who they're working with inside the Biden administration, 9 p.m.

Eastern on Blazetv.com and Blazetv YouTube.

9 p.m.

Eastern, Blazetv.com or Blazetv YouTube.

We have Ken Paxton with us.

He is the 51st Attorney General of Texas.

He has fought and won many of the cases against Barack Obama's administration.

And they've just posted their first victory on the Biden administration, the first one to bring a lawsuit.

And within six days, Texas has halted Biden's illegal deportation freeze.

Joining us now is Ken Paxton.

Hi, Ken.

How are you?

I'm doing well.

Good morning.

It's been a fast start, hasn't it?

It is breathtaking how quickly things are changing.

And quite honestly, we were talking about it in the break.

A little frightening.

I agree.

It is frightening.

I don't think it's ever happened this fast.

I mean, I think Biden is off to the fastest start of any president in just issuing executive orders and changing sort of what we had going.

Yeah,

he's had a record of, I think, 38,

which just smashes all the other records of executive orders.

He's signing more today.

This one,

they are going to preserve, I don't know what that means exactly.

I fear I do.

I've read Agenda 2030.

Preserve 30% of all federal land by 2030.

That's not good.

I don't know exactly what that means, but that doesn't sound good.

Yeah, it doesn't sound good.

First, let's talk about the win that you had.

Tell me about the lawsuit and what it means.

So we had an agreement that we signed with the Department of Homeland Security recently that said that if they were going to change major immigration policies, that we were going to be provided

notice.

And so obviously the executive order that came out that ended all deportations and the invitation for people to cross the border

didn't meet those requirements.

And so we filed a lawsuit on President Biden's third day, and we challenged that executive order, not just based on that agreement, but also based on the fact that federal law requires him to do certain things that he has said now he will not do.

And so we argue that he violated federal law and his constitutional duty to enforce the laws that now exist.

And so what did the judge say?

So the judge basically gave us, we were asking for a preliminary injunction, a temporary injunction first.

We're going to seek a permanent injunction next.

And we did that because we had to show that there was harm to the state of Texas if this went forward while we were litigating the merits of the case.

So we haven't won the merits of the case.

We have merely made a good argument showing that we will suffer irreparable harm as a state if this goes forward.

And it wasn't hard for us to show that given that we already have a mass of people coming up from the southern border potentially have COVID, that potentially have other communicable diseases that potentially are criminals, and that will cost the state of Texas billions of dollars.

And so that harm was not hard to show, in my opinion.

So how are you going to argue for permanent,

especially with the way this administration is moving, where social justice

outweighs everything?

Well, it's going to be pretty much the same argument, just to say we are going to suffer damage.

We need time to have this question answered as to whether the president is violating federal law by stopping

the implementation of what is federal law.

Can he do that?

And the argument that we need

time

or we will be harmed still, it's the exact same argument, just that we need longer to decide the merits of the case.

But wait, what I'm saying is, if you're arguing, and

Biden, this is all changing now.

We're not talking about rule of law anymore.

We're talking about social justice outweighing absolutely everything.

If they win and he can just say, we're not going to do any of that, A, isn't that what they've already done with,

you know, we're not going to enforce, you know, busts on pot?

So haven't they already done that?

And if they do codify this in the courts, then doesn't this make him,

in some ways, a dictator to where he could just administratively do whatever the president can, not just Biden, but any president could just do whatever they want.

And it never has to go through legislation.

No, you've hit the nail on the head.

And it means literally that Congress becomes almost irrelevant, the courts become not so relevant, and the states that are supposed to have all these powers reserved to them that are not specifically granted to the federal government also lose their power.

It does become a real focus on one person having all of the power, which clearly was not what our framers intended.

So, Ken, I've talked to other attorney generals around the country, and

they are just as concerned as I am.

And

I'm wondering, I know many of them are all working together to try to stop this onslaught.

But

is there any conversation about

a sanctuary state of

not secession or anything like that, but just saying this state will not violate the Bill of Rights and the Constitution.

And if you try to do these things that are unconstitutional, this is a safe haven, a sanctuary state for rights.

You know, it's interesting, that conversation has not come up among the AG specifically, but I was at a conference with technology leaders around the country, and most of them were actually pointing to that by saying they were either considering or they were on their way or they had already moved to Texas or Florida because they felt like those were states that they could go and be safe and that this the risk in the states that they're in is becoming untenable for them and they're trying to find a safe haven where they will be where their rights will be respected and they will have continuing opportunities to Trevor Burrus, Jr.: And I mean, how do we do that?

They are already talking about, you know, if you're depersoned, that you won't.

What was it?

The head of MasterCard said yesterday, we don't have to do business with just anybody.

Meaning, if we don't, if we don't like the business that they're in,

we can just say we're not doing business with them anymore.

And this is a growing trend.

And when it comes to businesses like mine or for anybody that is unpopular, this is extraordinarily dangerous.

Are the states, will Texas stand behind the universal God-given rights that we have always stood with?

We will in my office.

You know, I'm part of, you know, I'm part of the entire state.

I'm not the entire state, but we will at my office.

That's why we are now investigating.

the five companies that were related to the parlor deplatforming because we want to understand

how how are they doing this?

How do they have the authority to just de-platform a whole company because they disagree with their views or they disagree with the people that they allow to speak?

Are you and the governor having conversations at all about critical race theory to make sure that's not being taught in our schools?

Well, I haven't had those conversations.

That's not an area that I can do much about as Attorney General unless there's some specific violation of law.

My job is to enforce whatever laws we have.

So I always have to look for my way of getting into court.

We can't teach discrimination in schools, can we?

No.

But

that would be probably, if they were teaching discrimination

in schools, that would be probably a lawsuit by an aggrieved party, a student, a parent who said, hey, I

you can't do this in this school.

And then it becomes under your purview.

Well, so then if the school asks me to represent them and I think they're wrong, I say, no, I'm not representing you.

This is a legitimate lawsuit and you need to be accountable for doing the right thing.

Okay.

Do you have any advice for what the average person should be doing right now in their state?

Absolutely.

I think they should be speaking out.

I think the more voices that are speaking out, because what is going to happen, my concern is, you know, they go after the president and people don't say anything.

If we keep quiet right now, if people are are afraid to speak, which I see some of this, I see some of this with

some of my fellow AGs.

I see this in a lot of circles.

People are afraid that if they speak out, they'll be deplatformed or they'll be canceled.

So

if we don't all speak out, if we don't address these election issues in states where there was, you know, they weren't following their own laws, we have to address that now or it will be too late.

They will come and deplatform all of us.

And if you think you're going to hide from that, you're you're not going to hide from it.

They may get to somebody else first, but unless we're all working together, it's going to be a problem.

Ken, thank you very much.

Thank you for thanks for staying on top of things and thank the governor for us as well.

We are counting on our state reps and our governor and you to stand and fight the good fight against this onslaught that is coming our way quickly.

I'll say this, Glenn.

If Texas doesn't fight, if we are are in the middle of this fight,

I don't think we have much hope.

I think

Texas has to be in the fight.

Texas has got to, I mean, I've talked to sheriffs, and they've said, if I have to deputize every single citizen in my county so they have the right to carry a gun,

we're not backing down.

It's got Texas must.

I mean, it's really sad.

I talked to Christy Noeman.

I'm like, you know, I'm a little embarrassed.

Texas should be knocking you into the dust right now.

We need to be Texas.

We need to stand and be very clear and be a leader for freedom.

Supposed to be the alibi.

Thank you very much.

Absolutely agree.

Appreciate it.

Ken Paxton, Attorney General of Texas.

The best of the Glenn Beck program.

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So $15 an hour.

Why only $15 an hour?

I mean, it's like the masks.

You know,

well, if one mask is good, two masks is better.

Why not three?

Why not seven?

Why not 25?

Same thing with

minimum wage.

Why shouldn't the minimum wage be something really living?

And maybe, you know, something that includes like where you could buy a house, maybe like $60,000 a year.

I mean, why don't we just do that?

Why stop at 15?

Brian Riedel is with us.

He's the senior fellow of the Manhattan Institute.

He's a guy who doesn't care who's in office, Republicans or Democrats.

He points out both of them suck when it comes to actually living by the budget.

And we wanted to talk to him about the $15 wage and also how long can we last at these kind of spending limits?

We go to Brian now.

Hi, Brian.

How are you?

I'm Great Glenn.

How are you?

Very good.

By the way, I forgot to mention you were also one of the researchers and co-authors of the book Broke, which was fantastic.

At least they tell me.

It was a great book.

I was honored to have helped in my own little way.

Yeah, thanks, Brian.

Okay, so, Brian, let's talk about the $15

wage.

What will that do to the nation?

Well, you know, the Congressional Budget Office said that even if we did it gradually during an economic boom, it would cost between 1.3 and 3.7 million jobs.

Instead, they're talking about doing it during a recession, which means you're going to lose even more.

But that's not even the worst of it.

They would also raise the tipped minimum wage, you know, what waiters and waitresses make, from $213 to $15.

So

think of what restaurants are going through right now.

Restaurants are going through their worst crisis in history.

Millions have gone under.

Many others are on the brink of bankruptcy.

And the solution in the stimulus bill is to increase their minimum wage by 600%.

I mean, it is economic malpractice.

So, Brian, explain to people

who don't understand, you know, these big companies, they can afford $15 an hour.

Explain why this cancels their jobs.

Because not only can not all big companies can afford it, you know, profit margins aren't that big.

And especially small businesses really often cannot afford it, especially in low-cost places like Mississippi and Puerto Rico.

They tried raising the minimum wage really high in Puerto Rico about 15 years ago, and it cost something like 40% unemployment.

But here's another point.

Even if companies can afford it, it doesn't mean they will.

Because

companies aren't charities.

If they're going to take a loss on an employee, if that employee is only worth $10 an hour, they're not going to pay them $15 even if they can afford it.

What they're going to do is switch to automation.

And that's why the higher the minimum wage goes, the more likely it is that you're going to walk into a Taco Bell and go up to a little machine and press a lot of buttons in order to get your Big Mac.

I mean, it was the old Automat or the old, what is it, Automatic, I think was the

restaurant up in New York where you didn't have anybody waiting on you back in the 1930s.

Now there's no one behind the machine to stuff the food in.

Now it will just be a machine.

And we would call that progress anywhere else, but because it's going to put people out of work now,

it's going to be devastating to the economy, especially when you have truck drivers who are going to be the first on the block when automated trucks are everywhere on the highway.

And that's part of the plan.

You know, Andrew Yang has been saying we need universal basic income for all the jobs lost to automation.

Well, they're speeding up the shift to automation by essentially banning all jobs that don't pay $15 an hour.

You're going to put a lot of people out of work.

Then we're going to have to spend a trillion dollars on their universal basic income payment.

So you're going to end up paying for that too.

So

there are places like in New York City, and not today.

There are places in New York City where $15

an hour would be reasonable.

You've got to pay higher if you're living in New York City.

But there are also places all over the country where $15 an hour is quite a haul.

Yeah, this is why $15 is crazy for a national number.

It's not sensitive to local economies and local conditions.

Seattle and San Francisco

can afford it much easier than places like, again, Mississippi or Puerto Rico where prices are lower, wages are lower.

In Mississippi, the average manufacturing job doesn't even pay $15 an hour.

Forget fast food.

Even a manufacturing job doesn't pay that.

And that's why I think that the better solution is to leave minimum wage up to the states.

Some states have been raising their minimum wage.

Some cities have been raising their minimum wage.

Other cities and states with lower costs haven't because

the local elected officials understand a little better the local economic conditions and needs.

A $15 national floor is bonkers coming out of Washington.

Tell me about Seattle, because the initial response was this is going to put the restaurants out of business.

What has happened to Seattle since they put this in?

Seattle

has done a $15 wage and it has slowed down employment, certainly.

It hasn't caused an epic crash in the state.

But the employment growth over the last couple years certainly slowed down.

There has been somewhat of a shift to automation.

Even the trade-off exists in Seattle.

It hasn't caused a crash, but there has been a definite slowdown in the growth

of a lot of the jobs that are affected by the minimum wage.

So we have, according to President Biden now, a $11 trillion in new spending over the

decade.

They're no longer looking for the offsets.

He's saying that $3 trillion in new taxes will help offset that.

I mean, we're just printing money, right?

I mean, we're really on

modern monetary theory at this point, right?

Without calling it that?

We are.

In fact, last year when we ran a $3.3 trillion deficit, two-thirds of that was funded by the Federal Reserve.

It was funded by the printing press.

So we are printing money.

We're not taxing it.

We're not even really borrowing it.

We're funding it out of of the printing press.

Right.

And you're right.

I mean, b what Biden has proposed is $11 trillion in new spending over the decade.

You know, to put that in context, John Kerry proposed $2 trillion over the decade in 2004.

Obama proposed $1 trillion.

Hillary Clinton proposed $2 trillion.

Then Biden proposed $11 trillion, which shows that although Biden ran as a moderate, today's Democratic Party has shifted so far to the left that $11 trillion sounded like a moderate.

It's a huge amount.

And by the way, that $11 trillion, that's on top of the baseline deficits of about $15 trillion over the decade.

So really, Biden would have a front total deficits of about $26 trillion over the decade.

Is that number optimistic, too, Brian?

I mean, does that reflect reality, even $26 trillion?

It's optimistic in that those numbers were before the recession.

Wow.

And also assumes no interest rate hikes.

Exactly.

These numbers, the scary thing about all these numbers is they assume interest rates stay low forever.

And let me tell you, if interest rates rise one point higher than the Congressional Budget Office assumes, that would add 30 trillion over 30 years in

one.

Oh my gosh.

Okay, so wow.

You know, people say this is not Weimar.

It's not Zimbabwe.

And it's not yet.

It wasn't Weimar until a certain point.

And then it was like, oh my gosh, and it's too late.

Any idea

when it becomes too late?

I mean, we are headed, correct me if I'm wrong, we're headed for a Zimbabwe

or a Weimar if we don't stop this at some point, right?

The trends are absolutely unsustainable.

I mean, in total, the Congressional Budget Office proposed $104 trillion in deficits over the next 30 years, even before the recession, even with low interest rates.

$104 trillion over 30 years.

You know, you add in a little interest rate increase, you add in what we're going through right now, you could be up to $150 trillion over 30 years.

These numbers are so big, it sounds like monopoly money.

And it will be

monopoly money.

Yeah, at some point,

the system can't hold it up.

And that could be in five years, seven seven years, ten years.

A lot of it really depends on the bond market.

To the extent that the bond market is lending Washington money, at some point they're going to say, we're going to stop lending you.

We don't think you're good for this.

This is ridiculous.

And you're going to have to pay us twice as high of interest rates to compensate for the risk.

At that point, you get into this vicious circle where Washington has to pay higher interest rates in order to attract lenders, which only makes the borrowing more, which makes them even more nervous, which requires even higher interest rates.

At that point, I think what happens is Washington says, okay, forget finding lenders.

We're just going to use the printing press.

And that's when you start looking like Weimar Germany.

Didn't we already kind of hit this in some ways?

I mean, I think it was over last summer or the summer before we offered bonds and nobody took them.

And the Fed just started buying them.

Yeah, in the short term, we're facing that right now because with deficits $3.3 trillion last year, could be even bigger this year, there just isn't enough people buying bonds to pay for that.

As a matter of fact, the number of borrowing we're getting internationally, new borrowing has been pretty much zero.

China and Japan have not been buying our bonds at all.

And domestically, there just isn't enough savers in order to pay for all this.

So right now, we're facing

the printing press running it because

we can't find $3 to $4 trillion a year for domestic people to lend to us.

Now, hopefully, as the recession ends, the deficit goes down to only $1 or $2 trillion a year.

I put only in air quotes.

That'll be a little bit easier to finance.

But it's not sustainable long term to keep borrowing $1, $2, $3 trillion a year.

Have you seen what's happening in Davos with the great reset?

I've tried...

Yeah, I know, I know.

Everybody's carrying such a heavy load.

Yesterday, they said all we need is $50 trillion,

and we can do all these things.

$50

trillion.

That sounds like where politics are right now.

You know, a couple of years ago,

I wrote an article that said the Democrats' proposals would cost $42 trillion over 10 years, and people thought I was crazy to use a number that big.

No one would ever propose that.

And now these numbers are old hat.

You know, Green New Deal, Medicare for All, all of this stuff.

We're hearing $5,000, $5,500, $100 trillion thrown around like they're nothing.

Thank you so much.

Brian, I'd love to have you on again, but I need to take some medicine here before I talk to you again.

Brian, thank you so much.

I appreciate it.

We'll talk again.

I would like to go in a little further on what it means when the dollar starts to lose its value and who really gets hurt.

It's the people who always played by the rules and people who have their money in a savings bank.

Exactly.

All right, Brian, thank you so much.

Appreciate it.

Brian knows that stuff better than anybody.

I swear, he's a great follow on Twitter at Brian underscore Riedel, I believe it is, R-I-E-D-L.

Great place to go because he's got this stuff, and he's been saying it the whole time.

He was saying it every president.

going back even through the Trump, through Trump, the whole time.

You know, a lot of conservatives haven't focused on the budget here and the debt for a while.

Hopefully that's going to return here with Biden as president because it's really important.

That is, I mean, mean, that is the one good thing about the Biden administration is at least conservatives will start paying attention to the debt again.

Some people find their faith.

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

I want to go over this GameStop thing again.

When the stock was at $2 a share, right?

$2 a share.

These guys on Reddit, they decided that they were going to run this up.

Now, if I did this on national radio, it would be illegal.

You can't say, hey, everybody, let's do this.

But apparently on Reddit, you can.

Yeah, it's public.

Usually public

openly speaking about your opinion on a stock is fine.

Doing it in private venues is usually not fine.

And secondarily, doing it, FCC has all sorts of laws about how you can do that in a different conversation.

So let's say you invested in the $2 stock when everybody was on Reddit and they're like, hey, let's buy this up.

And the guy,

he invested $50,000.

Yep.

His life savings, supposedly, this guy on Reddit and then started talking about this theory, which has proved to be very, very accurate.

So as of yesterday, it was up to $15 million it was worth.

However, the stock has basically doubled today.

So this is craziness.

Insane.

It is craziness.

You know,

you're putting billionaire hedge fund investors out of business, maybe shutting down.

There's rumors of bankruptcy of this hedge fund.

If this happens, I mean, these guys are not going to be happy and they know a lot of people.

But a few of these guys are going to get very, very wealthy off of it.

I wonder what the repercussions are going to be, not just for them, but when Democrats start saying this can't happen, look at how bad capitalism is.

That's around the corner, too.

Stu will have more on that at 8 o'clock Eastern tonight on Stu Does GameStop.

And

tonight, my Wednesday night special immediately follows 9 p.m.

Eastern Blaze TV.