Best of the Program | Guests: Clarence Henderson & Curtis Houck

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Ad, what did you think of the convention and the speech last night?

Loved the speech last night.

Yeah.

Loved it.

And, you know,

I was watching on Fox last night for the first time.

And as soon as the speech ended, Chris Wallace and others started tearing him apart because I guess it wasn't loud enough for them or it wasn't rallying.

I was glad.

I was glad.

I liked his tone.

Yeah, when the audience, they did it once, they were like, woo.

I was like, oh, stop that.

Stop that.

And I think this was a definite outreach to independents.

He's already got the base secured.

Oh, my God.

Okay, so let's show that the independents that they've got a comfortable place where, you know,

he's not insane.

He's not out of control.

He's not what you think he is.

He's not what you've been told he is.

That's for darn sure.

And I think he accomplished that really well last night.

So I felt really, I was watching, I felt really guilty, really guilty about one thing in particular.

You know, I have no problem speaking out about the president's policies and I have no problem saying in, you know, 2016, I don't think he's going to do any of those things

because I didn't think he would.

He had no record of actually believing any of these things.

And I said it and I said at the time, if I'm wrong, I'll admit it.

And I have admitted that long ago as he started to fulfill those promises I was shocked by a lot of them

and but last night all I could think of was when he called me when my dad died

Do you remember what I said afterwards?

Said he called me because he had heard my dad died because we had to leave the hotel.

I was staying at a Trump hotel.

And he talked to me about my dad and I hung up the phone and I said, he is running for president.

And I attributed the entire phone call to politics.

And in watching this week,

I think he is, I mean, I think he does not care about what he says about people in person.

I mean, you know, on stage or whatever.

He will call you anything and say anything.

He does not care.

But I think he is publicly like that.

And

I am afraid I have misjudged him.

I think privately, you know, the thing with Alice Johnson, all of the stories that came out this week from people who were not political, they didn't know Donald Trump.

I think one of the most important things about the two conventions was

one, you had a guy in office for 47 years who now says he's going to do these things.

And they had a bunch of people say, look, I've known him for a long time and he's going to do those things.

And they're asking you on Biden, trust me, trust me, I know him.

The people that were speaking out about Donald Trump were the exact opposite.

I didn't know him.

I don't really know him.

But look at what he did.

And I think there's, it just rang true to me.

And I felt so bad.

about what I said, how I said things in 2016.

And I've been feeling this way for a couple of days during this convention.

And I just feel like I need to apologize to his children because I can't imagine.

I mean, I just had Donald Trump Jr.

on with us, and I can't imagine he acted like we were old friends.

I can't imagine they didn't have several conversations about me at the dinner table on some of the things that I said.

And I really regret it because I do think publicly,

Twitter and everything else, I think the guy is out of control and doesn't care, doesn't care, enjoys it.

But I think privately, he's a different guy because his children love him.

And I don't believe, like, for example, Ivanka is a psychopath.

And how is it Ivanka loves him and all of his children love him as much as they do if he's a psychopath in real life?

He's not.

No.

He's not.

I don't think we ever said he was a psychopath.

No, no, no, I know, but people think he is because he just doesn't seem like he cares.

Yeah.

You know, he'll say anything, and it looks like he doesn't care.

I don't think that's.

He said anything wrong during the campaign, frankly.

We disagreed with him on policy, mostly.

And because he, you know,

his track record was not one of a conservative.

And if I would have left it at

politics, I think I would have been fine because I've already said I was wrong, and I said I would say I was wrong.

But I

really went after his character, and he can be targeted with his character,

and I think that's fair.

But I went after his character personally, and I think

I was really wrong on the level of, I think when it's personal and he's involved

one-on-one, he does care.

Oh, I think he does care.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I that's definitely the messaging I think that they wanted to get through.

Yeah, and it did.

And it worked.

And it was because it didn't, it felt real.

You know, none of this felt staged or phony or not at all you know none of it seemed like okay we're reaching out to the black people again it didn't feel that way no because it was all it was black people who were saying look at i love this guy right and this guy is gonna take us to the next level the democrats haven't yeah and like he said last night i've done more for blacks in three years than joe biden's done in 47.

yeah and it's true by a lot it is true it is i mean what you saw i i didn't didn't know about the, you know, the funding of the, you know, the black colleges.

I didn't, I just didn't know all of the things.

Did you watch it from the beginning?

It was a good list of stuff.

You had a speech?

No, no, no.

The whole convention last night?

Most of it.

I fell asleep at one point.

All right, so I started watching it from the beginning, and I was just watching the raw AP feed.

And so I didn't hear any of the commentary, and I saw everything that was on stage.

They opened up with a couple of people,

both African-Americans.

One was like, look, I grew up in really a bad section of town.

I never even thought about a Republican.

And he now works for the president and was so full of joy.

It was an amazing testimony.

Then this woman in Houston who said,

two years ago, I was homeless.

Yeah.

Did you see that?

Yes.

Was that powerful?

Very powerful.

And the way she ended it and saying, look, don't let anyone tell you you can't do it.

I'm closing on a new house at the end of the month.

I mean, it was great.

It was because of one of his programs.

Right.

And the other thing I thought was great was that montage they did of actual people who have changed from Democrat to Republican.

Yeah.

And especially the Democratic socialist.

Oh, my God.

Who said she's going to vote for Trump this time?

That was powerful, too.

And the wow, skinny white kid with the big

holes in his ears.

He would not be pegged as a Republican ever.

And he was like, you know, I have never voted for a Republican, but I was living in my apartment, I think, in New York, and he said,

you know, I was talking to this neighbor who is black and I said, you know, what do you do or whatever?

And she said, I'm in the system.

And he said, I just realized everything that I thought I was for traps people.

It just traps them.

You know, it was, did you guys see the Richard Grinnell thing?

Yes.

Yeah.

And it was last night.

Yeah.

Or excuse me.

Two nights ago.

Yeah.

Where he was basically making the case as Donald Trump is the most pro-gay rights president ever.

And it's interesting.

I mean, we've been talking about that since the beginning.

He's always been kind of friendly to gay rights, I think.

And the only one to ever be elected in favor of gay marriage.

Yeah, but it was a power.

They're reaching out to these groups, and they're not all consistent.

This bashing of the 1994 crime bill, which is a very, very standard thing now that Republicans are doing, was something wildly supported by Republicans at the time.

You know, being tough on crime, it was a law and order bill.

And now at the same time he's making this case for law and order, he's also kind of making the case against the crime bill because Biden voted for it.

It's an interesting thing to try to pull off.

I think the same thing goes with, you know, they did it with gay voters, I thought, very well.

When you outline everything that he

has done and has supported over the years, there's a very important,

I think, successful outreach to gay voters who would not normally consider a Republican.

Well, I think you can talk about it because you are the gay character on the show.

I'm the gay character, right?

This was was the most important part that he mentioned to me.

But you know, I think the thing is, the most important thing is, is that I don't know anybody who had a part

problem with any of that stuff.

I don't know a single conservative that this was the true representation.

of the Republican Party.

Anybody say, hey, Richard Grinnell shouldn't be speaking.

He's gay.

No, nobody said that.

The interesting dynamic as a party, just as an observer here, right, is that all the things that he was, that Grinnell was hitting Biden on were things overwhelmingly supported by Republicans at the time.

So, but here they were overwhelmed.

They were saying, Oh, well, he was really, you know, Joe Biden was really late to gay marriage.

Okay, so whatever.

It was one of the arguments.

I understand that as an outreach political tactic.

It is an interest.

Look, the parties are.

It's different.

I think you're missing something.

What you're missing is we weren't talking about gay marriage last night.

This convention was not about policies.

It was about the human and American heart.

We can disagree on policies, but we don't hate each other.

Yeah, and that's one thing I think the bar has been so powerful for Trump because of how evil he's treated in the media all the time.

He's the worst guy ever.

He's a racist.

He hates gays.

He hates Jews.

He hates everybody.

So just showing that the guy legitimately cares about people and has empathy for people and has treated people nicely and has people like Richard Grinnell, who he's supposedly supposed to hate, who he's been elevated to roles never achieved by any gay person in history in the United States, at least outwardly.

That is an important message, I think, to get out to people.

There is no way you could walk away.

If you watched this convention and listened, there is no way you could walk away and say, That is a racist guy, a racist party, a gay bashing, gay hating,

homosexual,

xenophobic party.

There's no way you could walk away.

Unless you just didn't believe it.

Which, by the way, a lot of people, you know, you watch the mainstream media reaction to it, and it's just so predictable.

You know, they were bringing out like, you know, look, yes, he says this, this, and this, but, but, but look, I mean, even big reporters were doing it after this.

I think that, particularly the one with Grinnell for whatever reason, really got under the skin.

of reporters who don't want to lose, you know, they don't want to lose that ground.

They don't want to lose the, we're the pro-gay party crowd.

They don't want to lose the, we, we're the only ones African Americans are allowed to vote for.

Those sorts of things are really offensive and get really under the skin of not just the Democrats, but the media in general.

They knew it.

And that's why they did it.

Oh, yeah.

And they did that.

That was one of the reasons they did it.

Politically effective, I think.

I love some of the little shots, the little poke them with pickle forks things that Trump did during the speech last night that you know drove them out of their minds.

Out of their minds.

You know, one of the things that drove them out of their minds, and I just, I have no problem as a historian, you know, of, I hate to say that because I know how the press would react to that, but I read a lot of history.

I've, I've, you know, I go to original documents, et cetera, et cetera.

So as a quasi-historian, I was, I'm bothered by the precedence.

of the backdrop being the White House.

This was the first time, and I hope it's the last last time.

If it was not the era of the pandemic,

I would have been screaming bloody murder because I don't like that.

However, with that being said, remember, this was his third choice as a backdrop.

This is not his first.

This was his third.

Democratic City said, no, not here, can't have that, social,

all that.

So he's like, okay, I'll do it from where I'm living.

You know, it was not his first choice.

It wasn't, but then he accentuated it last night just to get under their skin.

How many times did he point to the White House to show that he's there?

The time that it was like, you talk about pickle fork, it was a giant pickle that he took when he took that fork out and said, you know what?

They said this, but hey,

look where I live.

Yeah.

I mean,

it was really good.

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

Clarence Henderson, civil rights activist, 1960s Woolworth lunch counter sit-in.

Amazing guy, and I just love him.

And it's an honor to have you on the phone again, Clarence.

How are you?

Good morning, Glenn.

Long time LC.

I know, I know.

I have been thinking about you a lot lately, before the GOP convention, because you actually were part of these protests in the 60s that mattered.

And I know at the time there was a real, a lot of people were angry with Martin Luther King because he said, peace.

You know, we are going to be peaceful.

Take the beating.

And there were a lot of people that didn't want to do that.

They wanted to fight back.

And look where we are now.

I mean, this is Malcolm X

if you're if we're lucky what's happening on the street, but it's not usually black people.

It seems to be a bunch of white people saying it there for black people.

Well, you know, it's amazing,

Glenn, because we need to understand that violence begets violence.

And we have

people talking about systemic racism.

We have systemic corruption going on in this country.

And we need to realize and recognize what's going on.

With all of our imperfections, we are the greatest country in the world, the light that shines on a hill.

And I'm hoping that people will reckon with that and find their place in America where they can be successful and help us as a society to be.

that

place that people can feel like they can come to and have the opportunity that America offers.

And so what they're doing now is that they're taking away, it's not, the idea is not to tear down, it's to build up.

Even if it's buildings, if it's relationships or whatever,

in the words of Dr.

King, unless we learn to live together, brotherhood, we'll perish together as food.

And I am very concerned that people are caught up in these movements, and I don't know what kind of movement it is.

For me, there are two kinds of movements.

One is the agenda-driven movement where we're being oppressed back to King George III, and then there's the principle-driven movement where we're continually defending our freedom, such as your radio show.

You're continually doing that, and you get exercise for it, but you continue to go on.

We have to do those kinds of things and to stand up for what is right for ourselves and for our children and grandchildren that's coming up behind us.

So, Clarence,

how do you

what would you say to Democrats?

that are listening to, and I think they know it in their heart, who are listening to the press and to the political leaders saying these are peaceful protests.

Some of them may have been during the day at the beginning.

I think there were lots of them, but they degenerated and it's not even,

I don't think this has anything to do with black people anymore.

This is all about revolution and anarchy.

What do you say to break through to those people?

It is.

And what we have to realize is that we are a country of laws.

We have chosen to allow ourselves to be governed by the rule of law and not the rule of man.

And so therefore, when these situations come up, we have a judicial system, a court system where we bring these things to the forefront and let it be decided in a court system, not

the judicial court system, not the court of public opinion.

where we become mob ruled and becomes dangerous for everybody.

If we're not careful, you have people riding around, everybody saying, I have to take the law into myself because nobody's going to help me.

For example, when you talk about the police,

if they're not there, then what happens, especially in urban communities where

I lived in New York back in the 60s in Harlem.

And

even at that time, when it's different than now, you know, one of the things that people would do when something came up, what do you do?

You call the police.

Because you got people in this country right now that are apprehensive about coming out of their own house.

They're not bothering anybody.

They're not want to participate in any protests or anything like that.

They just want to be left alone.

But these people here are jumping on old folks, whoever gets in their way.

I was just in, I'm still in D.C.

right now, and I was at the president's acceptance speech, and I saw a picture, I didn't see it, but Rand Paul, they were all around him.

We went in a different direction.

So we had just got through with having acceptance speech, not bothering anybody, but all of a sudden they wanted to come in.

These people want to come in and destroy all these things that we work for in this country.

And it's time, it has to stop at this point.

And I fault the powers that be that are not doing anything about it because when it turns into violence, then there's an order we have to stop that.

And peaceful protests are one thing, but when you change it over to violence, then

it has something has to change.

And so I am continually going across America talking about what we need to do to unite ourselves and not divide ourselves.

What's the biggest thing we need to do, Clarence?

What is the, I mean, you lived at a time where when you stepped up to that

lunch counter in Greensboro, what were the possibilities of what was going to happen to you, did you think, at the time?

The possibilities were I could have come out of there in a vertica position,

going to jail and handcuffs.

I could have come out of there in a prone position, going to the hospital, to the morgue.

And I reflected back on it and that the movie is

Braveheart, which says, every man dies and not every man lives.

And so the solution for me is that this thing has to be done by we, the people, and not they, the government.

We cannot continue to allow 535 people to tell 320 million plus people what they should or should not do.

It is based on, we, when Thomas Jefferson said that America is an idea in the minds of men, people really don't know what that meant.

He said that America should always go by the choices that we make, and it should be done at the polls of the election.

Let us decide what kind of country we want to live in.

And we have all these things that people vote for.

And then we got some elected official or somebody that's appointed that wants to come in and change it.

For example, the definition of marriage.

In North Carolina, 66% of the voters decided it would be based on traditional marriage, but some judge, I think, was up in Anneville or Asheville, it was a case brought before him, and he decided it should not be that.

And so we're in this quack right where we're in right now.

So it's we, the people, have to come back and start to have meetings.

And some of the people are sitting in office right now in the Democratic Party, for example, which is so far removed from reality, they must be removed.

And who even is it somebody in the Republican Party, the same thing?

They need to be voted out.

and have people come in and understand.

For example, I take a guy like yourself, non-political, but you know what's going on in America.

It would be served better by a person like myself or you that really has a handle on what's going on in America and really go and serve the people.

So we've got to find those kind of people to vote into our

elected system and run and

serve this country.

And we have to do a better job of vetting our politicians before they get in office.

Because politicians are a dime a dozen, but leaders are priceless.

That's what Donald Trump is to me, a roughly human man, but he gets things done.

And I feel as though we saw the side of Donald Trump that nobody wants us to see, that side that actually privately, I mean, he can say a lot of things on Twitter and say a lot of things in speeches, but he obviously cares

and obviously

has made, I mean, the Alice Johnson thing.

I mean,

the things that he's doing,

you don't do unless you actually care.

You know, the way he's handled these things.

And I thought the GOP convention showed the Republicans or the conservatives for who they really are

through actions.

You know,

this was an unbelievable outreach to the African-American community, and it wasn't pandering.

Did you feel there was any pandering to anybody at any time in this convention?

No, I had a chance.

I gave an example.

I had a chance last night to beat Vernon Johnson,

the guy that's a Democrat out of Georgia that spoke and said he was going to vote for Donald Trump.

Tremendous guy that his eyes have opened up to see what the party is doing because I was a Democrat long.

I've been a Republican, but when my eyes were opened up, then I knew the direction I needed to go in.

So there was total sincerity there.

People caring about each other, wanting to get something done.

It was such a peaceful situation going on there last night.

People were standing up, cheering.

It looked like America.

And it brought me back to what America is like.

This week has shown all the people that saw it on TV or saw it wherever have seen what America looks like and what this country has been founded on.

People striving to become successful.

People looking for the opportunities that America offers.

Because you see, Glenn, there is a formula for success in America, but most people are concentrating on looking at somebody else, comparing rather than competing.

And the formula is a free market capitalistic system, which a lot of Democrats have used, and now they're talking about socialism.

You've got

Bernie Sanders, how do he get his money?

I mean, through the free market capitalistic system, but he's espousing socialism, which leads to communism.

And that's not the way that this country works.

I am so glad to talk to you every time we get a chance to talk.

It has been too long, Clarence.

Thank you so much.

You're quite welcome, Glenn.

And I look forward to the next time we meet.

You got it.

God bless.

Clarence Henderson, civil rights activist, the guy

prominently in the Woolworth lunch counter sit-in, the pictures that we all grew up with.

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

His name is Curtis Hauck.

He's the managing editor of Newsbusters, and I didn't know that he was at 828 until just about five minutes ago.

Curtis, welcome to the program.

How are you?

Good to be with you, Glenn.

Again, yeah, it is an honor, and

yeah, 18-year-old Curtis would be absolutely floored

if 10 years later today, here we are.

It's amazing.

How did that affect you?

Well,

I mean, it was just a culmination of, you know, watching you and reading you for so many years, a lot of the things, you know, about the founders and really what the left has been trying to instill in so many other Americans and trying to do to remake this country, I learned from watching and reading you.

And so, being able to go to an event like that and be with, you know, hundreds of thousands of like-minded conservatives and not even conservatives, people who just love this country and care about the Constitution,

being able to go with my dad and some of his friends.

And

I mean, it just meant the world to me.

Well, Curtis, thank you very much.

Thanks for going and thanks for remembering it.

It's meaningful.

All right.

At Newsbusters, you have been watching the meltdowns of the mainstream media.

So we want to go over the RNC convention and just get some highlights from you on

how bad was the meltdown, and what do you think was the best meltdown from

the mainstream media?

Well, first, I'll say that I think

going back to what you've been talking about this morning, which is what a contrast

this has allowed us, you know, really, between the DNC, the media saying this is Biden's finest hour.

He was like a preacher at the pulpit.

He was optimistic, holding a fireside chat.

Whereas, in contrast, Donald Trump has no hope,

no hope.

It was dark and filled with darkness.

He had harsh attacks.

It was more of the same.

And he just wants to, quote, own the libs.

I mean, it was really just absolutely incredible.

But my biggest meltdown was actually from before the whole speech happened.

MSNBC last night.

You know, over the course of two hours leading up to the speech, we're actually saying the president, quote, doesn't care if people, quote, get killed or sick from the coronavirus by attending this event.

I mean, it's just, I often tell my colleagues about how the media just empty their thesauruses,

trying to

figure out like how they can like melt down and describe what they're seeing.

But really, this week, they definitely earned it.

They're getting, those pages are well loved.

Do you think, Curtis, that there is

an awakening beyond the

conservatives and Republicans, that there is an awakening on the press, especially over the last two weeks of like, oh my, I mean, you're in an Alice in Wonderland world.

Right.

And especially because of the fact that the news media are saying what's going on outside on America's streets is not happening.

Right.

They're saying that they're mocking the president for saying that there's anarchy in the streets.

You know, you have, you know, going back to, yeah, looking at Ferguson, what was going on.

You know, this goes to the CNN Chiron.

Hopefully people saw the fiery but mostly peaceful protest

going on.

Well, they had to do something.

They had to do something.

This is the third time there has been burning cars in the background, and they're talking about a peaceful protest.

So this time they just, while they're talking about peaceful protests, they just put in the Chiron fiery, but mostly peaceful.

I mean,

I mean, this is like not the onion, not the Babylon B on overdrive.

Like, I mean,

it is one of those things that you cannot, this can't be real.

Oh, yes, it's real.

I saw a great Babylon B story came out last night that

Babylon B just bought their biggest competitor, CNN.

Exactly.

Okay, so let me go to the hypocrisy,

your favorite hypocrisy moment over an RNC speech.

Yeah, and I took a big look at the week, and one of my colleagues over at Newsbusters has been crunching the numbers about how much time MSNBC has been refusing to carry the speech.

Really, after the news media in totality carried about 90% of the DNC.

So let's, the first night they skipped 33 minutes.

Night two, 37 minutes.

Night three,

you know, with the vice president, 50 minutes.

And we're looking to 50 minutes.

And we're looking to be well over that

cross, probably closer to an hour at least for tonight once we finish the numbers today.

And they just skipped it entirely, talked over it.

Correct.

They talked over it.

And I I think going back to one of your other points from earlier this morning about stories and speakers that humanize the president, you know, Tara Myers talking about her son with Down syndrome, you know, Caleb Mueller's family,

Chinese activist Cheng Guangchang.

All of those speeches were not carried by MSNBC.

And it's very intentional.

You know, with the media, sometimes they're kind of,

they stumble into their ways.

But, you know, in a lot of these instances, they know exactly what they're doing.

This isn't a case of ignorance with the news media, especially this past week.

So, how is America going to react to this?

Do you think enough people that were independent

or

Democrat by record, but are kind of sick of this,

do you think enough people saw the real message?

Because the real messages,

most of them did not come from the politicians.

It came from the real people.

Yeah, I think that's such a great point.

And it's people from all over the country that spoke, really.

It covered, you know, Tennessee, Minnesota, everywhere in between.

And then, yeah, the news media, and I absolutely think it is because you're seeing it in the polling.

You know, Stu talked about, you know, Black Lives Matter support just cratering.

You have seen it admitting that this is showing up and polling.

You've seen the governor of Oregon saying, oh, the violence is bad.

Oh my gosh, we totally condemn all this.

And now people are waking up this morning to see that a U.S.

senator and his wife required a barricade of police officers and their bikes to get them to safety.

It's like what happened in the 1960s.

You know, people turned on their televisions and saw what was going on to peaceful protesters that were marching and sitting at lunch counters.

And they're seeing what's going on in these cities, and they're seeing the emotion of these people that have lost everything.

And over on the other side, you have a news media that's kind of saying, well, they have insurance, you know?

Yeah.

I mean, it's just

because

it's not happening to them that there's just no empathy.

They talk about the president not having empathy.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, it is an Olinskiite, you know, strategy of projecting onto your opponents kind of where you are.

Yeah.

Curtis Hauk, managing editor of Newsbusters.

What a great day to talk to you, Curtis, on the anniversary of 828.

Thank you so much.