Best of The Program | Guests: Eric Schmitt & John Mueller | 7/22/20

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Hey, it's Pat Gray for Stu on the Glenn Beck Program podcast.

Today, we start off with another national broadcast from the woke party.

Comedians on YouTube show that those who are woke

might actually just be racist, or at the very least have the same ideas as racists.

Glenn talks with Yonkers police commissioner John Mueller to talk about how he's no longer crossing into New York City.

He claims that the no-chokehold ban is making their job harder.

And Eric Schmidt, Missouri Attorney General, joins Glenn to talk about dismissing the charges that were brought against the St.

Louis couple, the McCloskeys.

And finally, is everything okay with Kanye West?

His social media rants show he wants a divorce from his wife, Kim,

and he compared his mother-in-law to Kim Jong-un.

All this and more coming up on the podcast today.

You're listening to

the best of the Benbeck program.

By the way, has anybody noticed the

very strange relationship between

the Klan and what they preach and BLM and what they preach.

It is this bizarre world

where

they seem to be okay with each other right now, or at least they claim not to be okay, but they're saying exactly the same things.

Do you know what I'm saying, Pat?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The wokeness is very close to exactly what the racist race is.

Exactly.

I mean, it's exact.

There's a comedian on YouTube.

I want to play what he,

he and his friend went out and they played one was

woke and the other one was a racist and listened to the conversation.

When me and Brad first met, I didn't think we'd get along, but it turns out we kind of agree on everything.

Your racial identity is the most important thing.

Everything should be looked at through the lens of race.

Shanks, you owe me a Coke.

We both have a lot of opinions about people of color, even though we we barely know any.

I say colored people, but as long as we're classifying them, we both think minorities are a united group who think the same and act the same.

And both the same.

You don't want to lose your black card.

Sorry, I don't know.

I just think we should roll.

Pull back discrimination law so we can hire based on race again.

Jinx, now you owe me a Coke.

Hey, tell him what you told me yesterday.

White actors should only do voices for white cartoon characters.

I've been saying that for years.

Stick to your own.

Us white people, we have so much privilege.

I agree, it is a privilege to be white.

Ask him about interracial dating.

All I said is that black men who date white women have internalized racism, and white men that date ethnic women are fetishizing them.

Guys against interracial dating now.

Like am I being pranked?

Did Boomer put you up to this?

Ugh, you know that Taco Place is white-owned?

White people should be making white foods like crap macaroni and cheese, no seasoning, not even salt.

It's like he's a mind reader.

I mean, I've been pushing for segregation forever and my man does what?

I created an improv comedy show exclusively for ethnic people.

Guy segregates comedy.

On my birthday, white people need to stop wearing dreadlocks and they need to stop appropriating black people's music.

Shaved heads and country music the way God intended.

You know all white people are racist.

I'm listening.

Even if you have a black wife or a black friend group, you're still really racist.

You know, he just kicked a guy out of the organization for having a black girlfriend, but if you can promise me he's still really racist, we'll consider letting him back in.

Black people should only shop at black businesses.

I guess the only thing we really disagree about is I think white people are the root of all evil.

But what did I tell you, though?

If we can narrow that down to a certain group of tiny hotted white people, I think we can come to an understanding.

Technically, I don't consider Jewish people white people.

Neither do I.

I mean,

that's incredible, isn't it?

Yeah.

I mean, it's just

exactly what's going on.

They agree with each other.

They're on the two sides now.

They're in complete agreement.

They do.

Yeah.

I mean, Martin Luther King would be against the Black Lives Movement.

I mean, the Black Lives Matter movement is

absolutely the opposite of what he taught.

And

I don't know how people aren't seeing that

this is racist.

Exactly what's going on is all racist.

This is the best of the Glenn Beck program.

John Mueller, how are you?

Good morning, Glenn.

I'm great.

Good morning.

So, first of all, how are your officers doing through all of this?

Before we get into the rest, how are your guys

handling what's happening in the country and in Yonkers, I assume?

Yonkers Police, the men and women of the Yonkers Police Department have been doing an amazing, incredible, outstanding job.

They're fantastic.

Through all of this,

we made a lot of deposits in our community bank account.

And so a lot of the things you're seeing across the nation, Glenn, you're not seeing in the city of Yonkers, thanks to a mayor who supports this police department.

And, you know, we're just getting through it pretty well.

Good.

I'm glad to hear it.

Now, you have decided with the city that you are no longer going to send a Yonkers officer across the city line.

You're right there on the line of New York City.

What does that mean, and why did you do that?

Well, what it means is that New York City Council passed legislation that essentially made an impossible standard to meet for the officers.

And if they do not meet this impossible standard, they're going to be subjected to criminal liability.

And I just couldn't, in good conscience, allow that to happen.

This was a hastily crafted, irresponsible law.

I'm hoping that they would circle back and listen to the experts in the NYPD, who, by the way, have one of the greatest departments, one of the most progressive departments.

But right now, it seems like everyone is operating in an echo chamber.

And the result of that is hastily prepared laws that really put people in jeopardy.

And they're not listening to everybody.

It just seems like the people who want to talk to each other are talking to each other over and over and again.

Well, the thing that you bring up that they've set

a ridiculous standard that no one could ever accomplish 100% of the time.

Can you get specific on that?

What was it that they passed at city council?

So they passed an anti-chokehold bill.

And so just for the record, let's start with the actual chokeholds.

I, nor the NYPD,

has a problem with chokeholds being banned.

That's absolutely not.

I mean, I think sometimes people are complaining the issues, but in this case, the chokehold is not the issue.

It's the knee to the back or the chest.

So essentially, what they're saying, the counsel, the way they wrote the law, it is so restrictive that if you happen to put an inadvertent knee on someone's chest or someone's back, you will be subject to criminal prosecution.

So when you're wrestling with someone, if your knee happens to touch their chest or their back, there is an opportunity there for a prosecutor to want to prosecute you under this statute, and we just just can't have that.

And you go to jail.

The police officer goes to jail if they do that, right?

Yes.

And it's just a position that we took in Yonker, supported by Mayor Spano, that we were not going to be a test case for such irresponsible legislation.

And my heart goes out to the NYPD.

I spoke with Chief Monaghan, the Chief of Patrol, fantastic guy, progressive police leader, and expressed how sad I was about this because this is just an example of going too far and not talking to everybody.

So tell me how you arrest someone because I saw the shooting in Atlanta and

that guy seemed to be totally cool.

And then all of a sudden he flipped on a dime and just went crazy.

And there's no way they could have put him into cuffs, which they were trying to do, if they wouldn't have pinned him to the ground.

So, John, how is a police officer with somebody who's fighting them, how is he supposed to keep them down

without putting his weight on the main part of their body?

That's correct, Lynn.

You've nailed it.

Putting

their weight on the main part of the body.

And let's keep in mind that this is not a George Floyd situation where there was pressure on a neck for nine minutes.

This is a situation where it could be five seconds to maintain control.

And what I might like to add is that the safest way to take a violently resisting suspect into custody is to get him as handcuffed as quickly as possible.

When you're able to knock that time down where there is the struggle point and they're not in handcuffs, that's where the highest likelihood and the most propensity is for

a subject of arrest to be injured or a police officer to be injured.

So this almost seems to be counterintuitive to what I think they were trying to do.

But when they're not listening or they're not willing to exchange different perspectives, this is what you get.

So

what is this really going to mean to New York?

Yesterday, CNN was talking about all the problems in New York, the radical spike

in New York of

problems is caused by Donald Trump and the Republicans for not

passing new gun legislation.

That is so ridiculous, it is something right out of 1984 in New Speak.

Everyone with any kind of common sense knows that the cops are afraid to do anything.

They're being told not to do anything.

And that's what's causing the rise in crime.

The bad guys have the upper hand.

What does this mean for

New York City?

to be isolated like this and not have other officers run in.

It is really a problem for New York City.

And sadly, and you use the two most important words probably right now that we need to be more heedful of, is common sense.

And there is no common sense right now when you pass legislation like this.

And unfortunately, what you find, Glenn, is the folks that need us most in communities of color, in neighborhoods that have issues with poverty, they need the police.

They need good policing.

They need good, solid policing.

We understand about police reform.

We're for many different aspects of police reform.

You know, this is a very,

this is a business that shifts and changed.

You have to be situationally agile.

You have to be able to move as time goes on.

But we enjoyed a historic drop in crime.

I was a New York City police officer for a very short time in 1992.

And at that time, I believe there was around 2,100 murders.

Now,

last year, I think it was was around 300.

That's nothing short of miraculous.

Now, could we have done things better?

Of course, we could.

But what you're seeing now is a reversal of this.

And, you know, the one thing you want is officers to come to work and feel like they're wanted and needed and appreciated, respected, and valued.

Because when you do that, they're going to go out and they're going to interact with the community and value and respect and listen to what they have to say.

It's really a win-win situation.

So what we're trying to do here is just to bring

a little, listen, at the end of the day, I have, I'm responsible to the city of Yonkers and police commissioner there.

I work at the behest of the mayor, and, you know, this was just something that I'm not going to go down this road.

I see bad things as a result of it.

I see rising crime as, you know, and this is just one example of

steps that have been taken without talking to the experts in the NYPD.

And like I said, they are the light.

They have gone all over the world.

People have come from from all over the world to learn how the NYPD does policing.

So when they say something like this is a problem, and again, I don't believe, I'm not going to speak for Commissioner Shea, but it's my understanding, they're fine with the chokehold band.

It's the knee on the back, the knee compressing the chest that is the issue.

And I think when you explain it to people, like you and I are talking right now, I think the overwhelming majority of people are going to say, okay, yeah, I get that.

But right now, it seems like the most shrill,

the loudest minority, like if you scream the loudest in the minority group,

a small minority that just wants to yell and scream, you're taking away reasonable common sense.

You're taking away people that are willing to listen and go back and forth and exchange ideas to get where we want to get in terms of policing in America.

John, help me out on something because you've been with the police for when did you join the force?

I started in NYTV in 1992.

I transferred to Yonkers in 94, and I've been there ever since.

So you're talking about 28 years.

All right.

Okay.

So what is it like for a guy who, I assume,

was on duty or was called onto duty on 9-11, a guy who witnessed that and then went through the months of every New Yorker and everybody saying thank you, thank you, thank you, knowing that our first responders go through hell that none of us want to go through.

and being that that guy or that group of people that was probably put too far up on a pedestal but now 20 years later you're hated

how what does that swing feel like

well i think i think we have to be mindful that i don't know if we are hated i think i think that the hateful

small segment of the population is very right now their their voices are very amplified and it seems like they seem to be the darling of certain media outlets so it seems like we're hated but the truth is Glenn I can tell you this with confidence our communities our communities of color our communities all over Yonkers and I imagine it's the same in New York City support the police they want police they want good policing they want to feel safe because of the police and they want to feel secure with the way we police right and we're constantly working towards that goal way before this and I'll even do you one better we were really appreciated during our officers did a fantastic job during COVID, where you know New York City, New York in general was the epicenter, you know, with many, many, many cases and probably is where it all started.

But at the end of the day, people really appreciated us and then it all kind of fell apart.

But I think the key is, Glenn, is to continue to engage your community, to talk with them, to exchange ideas and take the time to have discussions, real conversations, not when someone's screaming at you or trying to coerce you to do something, because that's not what professionals do.

Professionals stand up, and professionals assess situations, and they take the time to talk to people, and then you arrive at decisions.

That's what they're paying us for.

Unfortunately, it appears that, you know, sadly, the New York City Council has no interest in talking to Commissioner Shea or the leadership of the NYPD, which is second to none in policing in the entire world.

John, I've got to cut our conversation short, unfortunately, but I want to ask you one more question.

Sure.

And this goes to just

your general feeling.

With what's going on, let's say right now in Portland,

the governor and the mayor, they're screaming that

the feds are there and they're kidnapping people in the street, et cetera, et cetera.

And they want nothing to do with that.

Is the president, do you believe he is right?

And I don't want to make this about the president.

So if you were president, would you be doing similar things?

Are we reacting, or are we overreacting or underreacting on these cities where they don't seem to enforce the law at all?

It's a great question because in a democracy,

these are the steps that Western civilization has to take to get where they need to be.

There was a transformation when, like I said, the 2,300 murders in New York City, people got to the point where they said enough is enough and we need

really good, clean crime strategies to get us where people feel safe and secure.

It's the same thing in Portland.

There's going to be a consequence for lawlessness.

There is.

And you hope that people will take a look at it and say, I don't think this is exactly the good way to go.

That, you know, we have elected leadership saying, well, you know, we have to let people vent.

But venting is one thing.

It's okay to say how you feel.

It's okay to be frustrated and angry.

It's not okay to damage property.

It's not okay to try to hurt police officers.

And I think what you're seeing there is real irresponsible among elected leadership.

And you hope that eventually people will take notice of it and say this just isn't the way we can do things i mean it's 55 days now and it's it's it's 30 million dollars worth of property damage like at what point does anyone say this is absolute this is a disaster we have to try to figure out a way to to to secure and reclaim the streets and not allow people to get hurt and not allow lawlessness that's that i mean that's the answer so you'll it's solely it's the same thing with the decisions made here it lays at the feet of the elected officials you know someday you hope there are consequences and people say, I don't want to live through this again.

This is not the way to achieve change, especially for 55 days.

John Miller, he is the New York City or New York Police Commissioner from Yonkers, New York.

And we really appreciate your time.

And tell your officers, millions of Americans do have their back.

We're behind you guys.

Thank you, John.

I really appreciate that.

Thank you so much.

much.

This is the best of the Glenn Beck program.

Eric, welcome to the program, sir.

Great to be with you, Glenn.

So

tell me what you guys are going to do.

I know the

governor said he would pardon them if they're convicted, but you have the castle doctrine.

How can these people even have to face a day in court?

Well, they shouldn't.

The charges should have never been brought in the first place, Glenn.

I mean, this amounts to, pure and simple, a political prosecution, which in the United States of America is a very dangerous idea, that you've got a local prosecutor bringing the full force of the government against law-abiding citizens who are protecting their home and their lives.

And they're facing four years in prison.

I mean, if they let that sink in, I think it could have a chilling effect on people exercising their fundamental right of self-defense, which as you know is deeply rooted.

It's deeply rooted in this country.

It predates our Constitution, the idea that you can defend yourself.

It's in our Second Amendment.

In Missouri, it's in our Constitution.

As recently as 2014, it was even expanded to make sure that any infringement would be met with

strict scrutiny by the courts.

But Missouri also has the most expansive castle doctrine in the country.

And what do I mean by that?

I mean that you have a right, if you're threatened, to not just defend your life or your family members' lives and not just your castle or your home, but your property.

And that's exactly what's in play here.

So at a time where you've got, you know,

calls to defund the police,

spiking violent crime rates, including in St.

Louis, it reached over 135 murders already this year.

You've got a prosecutor now

targeting, targeting individuals, targeting law-abiding citizens for exercising this fundamental right.

So it's incumbent upon me as Attorney General.

I felt somebody needs to do something about this.

So we're stepping into the case and we're seeking a dismissal because it's my belief that the entire state has an interest in being involved in this case because of the chilling effect that it has.

You know, a high-profile prosecution like this, Glenn, where people feel like if they defend their property or their own lives, that they might be sent to prison themselves is completely outrageous.

I will tell you that, I mean, we are in so much trouble.

And, you know, I thank you for the work that you are doing with several other attorney generals across the nation to point out how much trouble we are in.

You know, this prosecutor is taking money from George Soros.

It seems to me that the attorney generals and the prosecutors locally that have taken money from George Soros are the ones that are all letting prisoners go and charging all the wrong people.

But if

you allow this to stand,

God help us in the future.

Someone can come in and take your stuff or burn your house to the ground and receive no punishment at all.

But if you try to stop somebody from doing it,

you go to jail?

It's a world of the insane.

It's completely upside down, Glenn.

And I view my job as the Attorney General of the great state of Missouri as the last line of defense.

I mean, again, these charges should not have been brought, but this is a political prosecution by a local prosecutor who has an abysmal record of actually prosecuting violent crime.

She used the COVID-19 pandemic to release dozens and dozens of inmates charged with violent crimes out onto the streets, including people who were, you know, had pulled guns out on restaurant workers, attacked cab drivers.

These people were let loose.

You know, and you've got, again, the backdrop here of defunding the police so that if you actually did call somebody to come and help, there wouldn't be the money there to support that effort.

And our founders knew that in those instances, right, the right to defend yourself is paramount.

It's a natural right we're all born with.

And government is our shared project to protect our rights, not to take them away.

And that's what this prosecutor is doing.

And so, you know, it's time that we stand up to this kind of nonsense.

I mean, this isn't just a political statement.

I mean, this is a criminal prosecution, which is dangerous.

This is one one of the most dangerous things I have seen possibly in my lifetime in America, because this is not just one prosecutor.

You know, you had the Massachusetts Attorney General,

Mara Healy, come out and said, yes, America is burning, but that's how a forest grows.

We are looking at people who are in charge of our laws and law enforcement, and

they are rooting for the burning down of this nation, we are not just having some little disagreements.

It is a,

excuse the expression, black and white reversal of all that we hold dear that is happening with some of these prosecutors and attorney generals.

Can you speak to that at all?

Yeah, look, this is a fight for the rule of law.

What kind of country do we want to have, right?

Do we want to have a country where people can speak their minds freely in the town square?

The people can exercise fundamental rights.

The idea that debate is being shut down now by a cancel culture that's completely out of control.

I mean all these things are on the table, but the most basic thing, public safety is at stake here.

You have people who want to dismantle and defund law enforcement.

You know, those law enforcement officers are standing on that thin blue line between chaos and order.

And

they're under assault by a lot of local prosecutors and activists, and it's wrong.

And so, anyway, we need to stand up to this.

And I believe we can do it.

But, you know, in moments like this, when these charges are filed, that's the crucible, right?

And you've got to decide.

You're going to stand up for the rule of law.

You're going to stand up for the Second Amendment.

You're going to stand up for these important things that we believe in as Americans.

And that's what I'm doing right now.

We're not backing down.

Well, I thank God that you are in that role in Missouri because Missouri is ⁇ I mean, look, we all are in the same ⁇ we're all in the same boat.

There are some places that are worse.

You know,

New York,

Los Angeles,

Seattle, Portland.

Crime is out of control.

And what is

just as frightening as what's happening in Missouri with this case is the idea that they are now blaming the crime and the murder rate going up, not on any of the disruption, not on defunding the police, not on no one being arrested and our prisons being opened up.

They're blaming it on guns.

And so they'll take more guns away from law-abiding citizens who are scared out of their mind because they don't know if they can call the police and the police will show up.

Yeah, look, you've got...

Violent crime is spiking, as I mentioned, in St.

Louis, Kansas City.

And Missouri's has always been a bit of a microcosm for the country, right?

We've got two major metro areas, St.

Louis and Kansas City,

you know,

sort of a demographic layout that reflects the country.

And so Missouri has always been kind of a reflection of what's going on.

And what we're seeing is rising violent crime rates.

You're seeing that across the country.

And in the face of that, the answer by those on the left is

to defund police departments.

And the other thing is, criminals have been emboldened.

If they don't believe that they're going to be held accountable or prosecuted for, you know, carjackings and murders,

you know, we're going to get what we've got.

So we've got to stand up to that.

And this local prosecutor in St.

Louis who's brought these charges, with all of those things happening in St.

Louis, the carjacking a day,

last year alone in the city of St.

Louis, there were 360-plus carjackings.

They've got 135 murders.

And she's spending her time

instead of taking care of those issues by targeting law-abiding citizens who are exercising their fundamental right to self-defense, it's an upside-down world.

But again, why it's important to

do that then?

Is she in the mainstream of

the people of Missouri?

I mean,

is this what people are crying out for?

No, I don't believe that.

Her approach.

I mean, I could I hope not.

I don't believe that to be the case.

The people have reached out to our office.

They're really appreciative that we stood up here and

are entering this fight.

Because my job as AG is to represent 6 million Missourians in the rule of law, in our Constitution.

It's a document I swore to protect.

And so the entering in this case, the chilling effect that this kind of prosecution can have on individuals exercising that fundamental right to self-defense can't be

understated or can't be overstated.

It's a very dangerous road to go down, and it needs to be stopped right away.

Can I ask you one more question?

I know your time is tight, but if I may, let me ask you one more question about

what's happening in Portland.

I do not want a federal police force.

I don't like the Department of Homeland Security coming into our towns and being an extra police force.

It's wrong.

But we're sitting in a situation in like Portland where

the mayor, the governor, is not doing anything to A, protect federal buildings, which I understand is what's happening right now with DHS, is they're just protecting those buildings.

But don't we have a responsibility to the citizens of every town when their constitutional rights to be free are being violated by a mob and a governor and

a mayor that won't do anything about it to uphold the constitutional law?

How do we walk this line, Eric?

How do we not become everything we despise,

but also protect everybody's freedom?

Well, I think there's a great question.

I think there's a balance there.

I'll just give you an example in Missouri.

The governor was very open to

the Attorney General Barr offering to help in Kansas City.

And so federal law enforcement is going to be working with local law enforcement there on Operation Legend, which was named after Kansas City's youngest victim about a month ago.

And we in our office have a partnership with the U.S.

Attorney's Office, both in Kansas City and St.

Louis.

Part of that reason is the local prosecutor in St.

Louis isn't interested in prosecuting violent crime, so we're working with the U.S.

Attorney's Office to prosecute violent crime in federal court, where the penalties sometimes are even stiffer.

So I think the answer is there's partnerships and a shared understanding that everything we hold dear in this country, this idea, the American experiment, right, it It is, I wrote an op-ed on the 4th of July, is a very unique thing.

That's the idea of American exceptionalism.

We stand out from the rest of the world in the history of the world where you had,

you know, rights were given to you by government and you were subjects.

And this experiment we have of self-government is that everybody has dignity and we have fundamental rights.

And the government's role is to protect those rights.

And all that stuff's on the table here.

And so I think that standing up for our constitutional liberties, making sure people feel safe, striking that balance there is really important and a big conversation we should be having.

And it sounds like some of these governors and mayors on the left, because they don't like the President, are unwilling to help protect the citizens they represent.

And in Missouri, we're trying to forge a different path with those partnerships to make sure people feel safe.

The victims always need to be front and center here.

What gets lost sometimes are the kids being murdered, the mothers and fathers being lost.

And as I talk to people in the community, they want to feel safe.

They want to make sure that their kids can go go to school and not have to worry about violence.

And they have every opportunity this country can provide people.

So it's a really important issue, and it's just sad that some people are politicizing this when this is a core fundamental value of public safety.

Well, thank you for trying to get these charges dismissed against this couple in Missouri.

I don't think it's right that they have to go through a year's worth of hell in a courtroom for something that is so clear, especially in a state with castle doctrine.

Eric, I appreciate your work.

Thank you so much.

Let us know how we can help.

Okay, take care, Glenn.