Best of The Program | Guests: Madison Cawthorn, Jarrett Stepman, & Michael Shellenberger | 7/1/20

Say hello to the next generation of Zendesk AI agents built to deliver resolutions for everyone.

Loved by over 10,000 companies, Zendesk AI agents easily deploy in minutes to resolve 30% of interactions instantly.

That's the Zendesk AI Effect.

Find out more at Zendesk.com.

Welcome to the podcast.

Today we talk about a bunch of people who are bravely speaking out and are being targeted for it.

We'll tell you what you can do to help them and what they've been saying.

We talked to a 24-year-old candidate who won the GOP nomination for Congress in North Carolina's 11th District.

Pretty interesting story, and he has an amazing life story to tell, even at 24.

We go into the War on History with a new book by Jared Stepman, who's talking about

how they're trying to rewrite our past.

And you're seeing this with statues across America.

There's a lot more to it than that.

And Michael Schellenberger, he's the author of a new book called Apocalypse Never.

He's an environmentalist.

He'd been a big environmentalist, well-known, award-winning environmentalist and activist for many, many years.

He's coming out now saying, hey, by the way,

I gotta apologize for the alarmism that has seeped into this debate.

It's not true.

Here's why it's not true.

He's got a new book out and he joins us on the program today.

Make sure to join us on TV tonight at blazetv.com slash Glenn.

The promo code is fight the mob.

You'll save 20 bucks.

Best thing about Wednesdays, of course, is the back-to-back nature of Stew Does America right into the Glenn Beck program.

Not going to do any better than that.

Make sure to rate and review the program here on iTunes as well.

That makes a big difference to us because, you know, how else are we going to beat the algorithm robots that are trying to keep us away from new listeners and viewers?

Help us spread the word by rating and reviewing.

Today, here's the podcast.

You're listening to

the best of the Glenbeck program.

I think that we, there's something going on within the GOP, and the GOP doesn't see it happening.

And

they'll blame it on Trump and everything else, but I don't think it has anything to do with anything other than

Americans just don't believe the GOP has a spine, they don't believe they'll actually stand up.

I mean, look what's happened in the last few months.

Where's the GOP been?

Where have they been?

Where are they?

Nowhere.

Nowhere.

So

last night in Colorado, the owner of Shooter's Grill in Rifle, Colorado.

Could you own Shooter's Grill in Rifle Grill?

Could you even live in Rifle, Colorado, and be against the Second Amendment?

So anyway, she confronted Betto O'Rourke when he was a Democratic presidential candidate.

She stopped in the Denver suburb of Aurora, and she came with a Glock on her hip, and she said, hell no, you're not going to take our guns.

Well, that actually

was music to a lot of people's ears in her district.

And so she just beat an incumbent, the five-term Republican

candidate, and the five-term Republican

congressman, and somebody that has been endorsed by Donald Trump.

So, good for you, good for you.

She is apparently a right-wing extremist.

Lauren Boebert.

We'll have more on that coming up in just a second.

Now, there is also something that happened, I think it was last week.

A congressional candidate, 24 years old, he won the GOP nomination for Congress in the 11th congressional district

over the GOP, Trump-backed candidate.

His name is Madison Cawthorne, and he is an eighth-generation resident in North Carolina's 11th congressional district,

and he is joining us now.

Madison, are you there?

I sure am, Glenn.

Thanks for having me on the show.

You bet.

I'm glad to have you.

Let me just start with this.

People are spinning this into this is

a referendum on Donald Trump.

I think this is a referendum on the GOP,

not Donald Donald Trump.

Would you agree or disagree?

More correct.

That's absolutely correct.

I'd say over 99% of my voters will be enthusiastically voting for Donald Trump come in November.

But what you said earlier about a lot of Americans not believing that the GOP has a spine is absolutely correct.

You know, I was in a terrible car accident about seven years ago, so we would always joke on the campaign trails, like, if you want somebody with a spine, mine is literally reinforced with titanium.

And, you know, that got a big rise out of the crowd.

But I believe that the reason people responded so well to it is because right now they want a fighter.

It's not time for genteel politics.

This is not a policy war.

This is a cultural war.

We're fighting for the absolute identity of our country.

There is a need now in Washington of a sword and a shield.

A shield over the Constitution and a sword to protect it.

And And hopefully we don't get to real swords or real guns.

But with the way things are going, this nation could, if the GOP doesn't stand up or if the GOP loses what little power they have and we lose the White House, it's a very different country come January of next year.

Glenn, you're absolutely correct.

And that's exactly what you need to do.

We have got to hold the line on the Constitution.

But you're right.

We have got to put a sword in the hand of the American people.

I want to go to Washington, D.C.

to be a weapon because at this point, we have got to defeat this liberal ideology.

It's no longer a fringe movement of this kind of Marxist type revolution.

This is an extremely well-funded and well-organized movement that is being led by congresswoman women like AOC and Elon Omar, but also by a lot of ginormous backers who are taking advantage of the Citizens United case to be able to pour a ridiculous amount of money into all these elections to fund these fringe elements that infiltrate this Black Lives Matter movement.

And they're using

this tension we have in our country right now to be able to take advantage of the American people.

I don't want to lose our liberties, and I know you don't either.

So let's start fighting.

And I think that's what the American people are saying.

Yeah, it's not saying that we don't want you, Mr.

President.

We're saying we want you to have people who will actually fight for you.

So, what do you think, what connected with the voter in North Carolina that was voting for you?

Because you won

the Trump-endorsed candidate.

You were 30, if I'm not mistaken, 30 points ahead.

And you're 24 years old.

You're just, I mean, what was it that people connected?

Well, one, you know, I've got a great story just about overcoming and having the grit and will to kind of survive.

Two, I would say is, you know, being in a wheelchair has taught me kind of empathy, the ability to see people that, you know, have a different background than me and empathize with them and really understand the people who feel like they've been left behind and disenfranchised.

And I'll tell you, that's exactly how a significant majority of Republican voters feel.

They feel like these people in the kingdom of D.C.

are up there just passing decrees.

They're a bunch of career politicians.

I mean, we saw this evidently in 2016 with that Congress because, you know, we had the House and the Senate and the presidency.

And I watched your show during that time.

I know you believed, like I did, that maybe, just maybe, we can see a constitutional republic come soaring back.

But these constants, these, these

career politicians that were in Washington, D.C., were not working for the best interest of the American people.

And we did not see them take advantage of that.

And so I think the people of America resonated most with the fact that, one, I want to be a messenger to fight for conservatism and take it to a new generation that's been deceived.

And two, the fact that I represent the people of my mountains.

This is where I was raised.

This is my family.

I will represent them and fight for them as hard as I can.

Tell me a little bit about how you lost the ability to walk.

So I had just been nominated to go to the Naval Academy by Congressman Mark Meadows.

My best friend and I were celebrating, and, you know, we were two Christian young men, so we were having the best time that we were able to with those boundaries.

But so there was no drinking involved, there was nothing like that.

But him and I were just on a road trip middle of the day.

And I was taking a nap in the passenger seat.

And for whatever reason, my friend just thought it was a group activity.

And so unfortunately, he fell asleep at the steering wheel.

And we ran into a concrete wall about 70 miles an hour.

And I had about a 1% chance to live.

My body was severely burned, very damaged.

But you know what?

I truly believe it was because of the power of prayer and God and my great doctors and my great medical staff that got me through that.

But I was in a hospital for about a year and a month.

And so

taught me a lot of lessons.

How's your friend?

Thank God he is okay.

He was a hero during the accident.

And

right now

he's doing great.

Obviously, he's got his mental demons he's got to deal with, but we're still very close.

And he was pivotal in saving my life.

What was the thing that you learned the most from that?

What was the thing that

was the most life-changing for you?

I would say one day, you know, I obviously got in a pretty dark place just because, you know, I was an athlete.

I had

a great mind, but then you have a traumatic brain injury and a terrible, your body's taken from you.

I got in a pretty dark place, but I will say that

there was a moment in my life when I literally made a T-graph of pros and cons of if I was going to give up or if I was going to decide to just fight and not look back.

And I won by one point on the continuing to move on with my life.

And so ever since then, I've lived like it's my last day on earth.

I have a very real sense of

my mortality.

And so, because of that, I want to make my mark before I leave this earth.

Do you remember what that last check mark was?

Yes, it was the ability to make a difference.

I can see why you won by 30 points.

You are headed into

a nightmare.

You are headed into something where

you compromise once and they got you.

You're headed into something that

you will, I believe, think death

would be a picnic compared to living that life in Washington, D.C.

Do you think you're prepared for that?

I do.

You know, I come from a very long line of family members who've served mainly in the Marine Corps since about the 1780s.

So

it's a great heritage I have of duty and sacrifice.

But, you know, that's exactly how I see going to Congress.

It's not a way to enrich myself or to empower myself.

You know, I see this as a duty to my fellow man.

And so although I know the more effective I am, the more the media will come after me.

And I'm ready for that.

But unfortunately, I know that, you know, because we won against the Donald Trump endorsement, we were kind of the media darling of, you you know, the far right and also the far left.

I was on MSNBC and The View and you know, they treated me all right.

It was unheard of for Republican.

That's crazy.

You know what?

I'm very, very aware that that will not last.

And so I'm getting ready to take on this onslaught because, you know, I don't want to do this.

I would much rather, you know, be, I just got engaged.

I'd much rather be focused on getting married and spending time with my wife.

But, you know what?

I took account of where our country's at.

And, you know,

as is normal for anybody that gets engaged, you know, we were talking about when we want to have a family, what what kind of what kind of a world they're going to live in and you know so i was thinking about that one night sitting outside and i had this terrible vision of you know my my child whether it's a boy or a girl looking up to me while they're reading a history book and saying hey dad what what was capitalism like why is it gone and i i would just be so ashamed if i had to hold my head down and say well honey it's because I didn't stand up and fight.

And I think that's what needs to happen in our country.

I just want to lead a patriot revolution to take our country back.

Because, you know, Glenn, I'm sure it's the exact same reason why you started the Blaze, why you have this show right here.

It's because you realize that this is a battle for the hearts and minds of the future generations.

And the Republicans are playing checkers while the Democrats are playing chess, and it's time for us to fight.

You give me hope

sincerely, Madison.

You give me hope.

I've done this for a long time when you were a little kid.

And

I have been waiting for the generation

to start to come into play.

And

I thank you for that.

And thank you for all that you're about to do.

Well, sir, thank you very much.

I know that, well, I'll have at least a little bit of backup with guys like you helping fight back against this mainstream media.

So I'm looking forward to fighting for us.

And I won't let you down.

I won't let any of us down.

Thanks.

Has the president reached out to you?

Yes, that was a very fun phone call, actually.

It was on the night of victory.

I had a man named James who was working as the Air Force One switchboard.

He called and asked if he could carry me into the president.

So I very enthusiastically said yes.

And, you know, he used his normal adjectives.

He was saying, you know, it was tremendous.

It was a beautiful victory.

It seemed like he was almost amused that I was able to overcome his endorsement at this age.

I mean, he was really, I would say, proud of me.

And I'm really looking forward to working with him.

He's having me come up to the White House in a couple of weeks.

And so I'm really looking forward to be someone in Congress who actually wants to push forward the Trump agenda.

I feel like we have so many people who just pay lip service, but don't actually do it.

Well, push forward Trump agenda or whoever's agenda is most closely aligned with the Constitution because you must be a sword and a shield for the Constitution because it is in dire, dire trouble.

And you strike me as the kind of young man that will take that oath very seriously and don't let anyone.

I've had people tell me before of really powerful people, Glenn, we all love the Constitution, but these are different times.

No, they're not.

No, they're not.

The only time the Constitution matters is when you it's easier to do something else.

So stand for the Constitution.

Madison,

best of luck to you and thank you so much for being on the program.

Actually, one last thing I just want to throw out.

Everyone, please, when you read the Constitution, read it through the lens of original intent.

This is what our founders wanted for us, and there's nothing new under the sun.

So let's push back against that, brother.

His last words were not to push his website.

So I have to do it now.

His website is Madison C A W Thorne, MadisonCawthorne.com.

MadisonCawthorne.com.

Thank you so much, Madison.

We'll hope to watch you in Congress soon.

The best of the Glenbeck program.

Mike Schellenberger has got to be almost suicidal being introduced and praised by me.

It's not going to help his career at all, but I find him an incredible hero of today's world.

He is coming out knowing that this is probably going to be the end of his career.

Hopefully not.

But he is coming out and saying, look, I'm an environmentalist.

There are some things going on.

But

this craziness about we're all going to die is not true.

Author of the book, Apocalypse Never, Mike Schellenberger.

Welcome to the program.

How are you, Mike?

Good.

Thanks for having me on, Glenn.

You're welcome.

I'm sorry if it's uncomfortable for you to be on the program, but.

Oh, no, not at all.

I believe.

I mean, look, that's what America's for, right?

We should be able to talk to people we disagree with.

Where the hell did you come from?

Did you just wake up?

Were you cryogenically frozen?

That's not America anymore, apparently.

So, Michael,

I have great respect for you because you are saying, look, I'm still an environmentalist.

I still care about all these things, but we've got to rein this in.

It's been crazy, crazy what people have been saying that we're going to die in 12 years.

And, you know, we have no time to reverse all of this.

and then their solutions are insane.

Why did you decide to go from hero to what could be zero

and write this book?

Well, I've been an environmentalist for over 30 years.

I've been a climate activist for over 20 years

and I'm also a father of a 14-year-old girl and she's fine because I talked to her about the science.

But her friends are very scared.

A lot of them are afraid they won't live long enough to have children.

And they,

I've talked to them about this, and they've said they needed something that really explained the science in a clear way to them.

And so I really, I dedicated the book to my children.

I wrote this book because I knew that if you just had to pick, if I knew that if adolescent girls had to pick between the image, they would pick Greta Tunberg over me.

A boring old dad.

So I needed to put all of the evidence in one place.

My views are very clear.

I think climate change is real.

I think humans are contributing to it.

I also know that it's not the end of the world.

There's no science that suggests that it's the end of the world nor that it's apocalyptic or catastrophic.

And there's just a lot of stuff people don't know.

Most people don't know that

deaths from natural disasters have declined 90% over the last 100 years.

They've declined 80% over the last 40 years.

Meanwhile, carbon emissions peaked and declined in most rich countries several decades ago.

They peaked and declined in Britain, France, and Germany in the mid-70s.

They peaked in the United States almost 15 years ago, thanks to the fracking revolution, thanks to natural gas.

But now that's bad.

Michael, now that's bad.

Yeah, sure.

Yeah.

I mean, in my book, I talk about...

You know, the first, there's really three parts to the book.

The first part is a debunking of common environmental myths around climate change, Amazon deforestation, plastic waste, meat,

species extinction.

The second part of the book is how humans actually save nature.

How did we save the whales?

We saved the whales by using petroleum and palm oil instead of using whale oil.

So it wasn't greenpeace that saved the whales.

It was American ingenuity, European ingenuity, and capitalism.

So I go through how we say, and the last part of the book is why if environmental problems are important but manageable, how did we come to see them as the end of the world?

And that's where I look at the three big factors I view as money, power, and religion, which is basically that as people stop believing in God, as they move, as they stop, as they imagine themselves to be secular or atheists,

we have a need as humans for faith.

We have a need for belief.

And so people construct alternative religions that are based on pseudoscience

and really can be quite crazy.

And so I waited last year for scientists or my fellow activists or other journalists to speak out against the alarmism.

Nobody did, and I knew nobody would because of the climate of cowardice that exists around this.

And I felt I needed to speak out.

And, you know, I'm old enough now to just kind of feel like let the chips fall where they may.

You know, there's just some things that are more important than

people being mean to you on twitter so and and one of those things is my is the psychological health of my of my children and of my children's friends

so you know what happened to the the founder of greenpeace i mean he was one of the original founders they they wanted to ban an element on the table of elements and he said they said you can't do that uh he said they can't you you you can't ban an element um and he was no longer welcome and he doesn't have have a name.

With the cowardice that is going on right now,

even though you are very well-reasoned,

I mean, honestly,

you would be the kind of guy where I would feel comfortable saying I'm an environmentalist because I am.

I own a lot of property,

and I care about the environment, I care about the earth, I want clean water, I want clean air, but

the people that are running these things.

I grew up with my grandfather, who was a farmer in the Pacific Northwest, and he said these people have zero experience.

They are stopping the controlled burns, they're going to be responsible for burning down the entire West.

When they started messing with

the balance of the wolves in

Yellowstone, he said the same thing.

They don't know, they're so arrogant and they have no practical experience.

You talk about the kind of common sense things that the person who's actually living it

believes and can do.

Where are the rest of them?

Well, I mean, I think the interesting thing, while I was doing research for Apocalypse Never, I discovered that the vast majority of scientists are good scientists.

So I, in part of this, I wrote this book to defend the science.

And the majority of scientists, the silent majority,

who stick to the facts, there's a small, tiny, it's not even a mind, it's a small handful of apocalyptic Malthusian scientists, scientists who think there's too many people in the world, who give their information to people like Greta Tunberg.

I interviewed them.

So I interviewed the four main apocalyptic scientists and it was very interesting.

First of all, all four of them immediately their intuitive response was to blame journalists for having misquoted them,

which you can make of that what you will.

I mean, what I did in this book and the research for it is I basically went to the sources and I said,

what are you pointing to that you think is catastrophic or apocalyptic?

And none of them could answer that question.

They all came up short.

I called them out on it.

I first called them out on it last year in Forbes because I wanted to give them a chance to respond and try to correct me or cancel me or something.

None of them did because when you stand up to bullies, they back down actually.

All bullies are actually cowards.

And I stood up to them last year.

None of them defended themselves because I knew I had caught them out on this.

So now it's in the book and there's in Apocalypse Never I go through exactly what you said.

All of the increase in frequency and intensity of fires in the United States, Australia are due to more buildup of wood fuel and forests forests because we environmentalists don't like smoke and fires.

It's the buildup of wood fuel and forests, and it's more houses near forests.

Those two things.

Now,

is the fire season growing in length?

Yes, it is.

Is hotter weather contributing to fires?

Probably is.

Here's the thing: it's not that climate change isn't happening or that it's not having any effect, it's that it's being outweighed still by these other

factors.

I mean, look at flooding, for example.

If you go to the the difference between whether you are flooded or not depends on whether you have a flood control system.

It doesn't matter whether you have one or two inches more rainfall.

And if you read the New York Times, you would think that that the floods that are occurring are because of climate change.

Well, no, they're because of inadequate flood control, which is something that we can control.

I mean, that's good news.

So there's a lot of good news here.

You know, even the amount of land that we use for food production has been going down, which is wonderful news because that's the main impact that humans have on the natural environment.

So, really, everything that people have been told about, almost everything that people have been told about the environment, is wrong on the facts.

I go through it all in Apocalypse Never, and then I want to go a step further and say what really matters and how is it that everybody became so crazy.

Now, the reaction to your book,

science, does it do the scientists know that they've set themselves back like 500 years by silencing debate and dissent and

the science is settled and maybe we should put

deniers into jail and everything else?

Do they know how much the damage that has been done to

their trade and to their craft and to

science itself?

Yeah, some do.

Now, I was invited by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to become an expert reviewer late last year.

I know that came because I had been criticizing the alarmism.

I was also invited to testify in front of Congress.

I've been invited to testify in front of to governments around the world.

And I know for a fact that there are many scientists who are very good people and good scientists who totally disagree with the alarmism, but they're afraid of their colleagues.

I mean, you have to remember that the alarmist scientists who are truly in the grip of this toxic religion are bullies.

Their tactics are bullying tactics, and I actually described them and discovered them, but I have known about them for a long time.

I myself have been a subject to them.

And so

they make all sorts of, they lie about you, they claim that you're taking money from somebody, they claim that you're, you know, that you hate nature or something.

They basically just attack you personally.

And but what I find is that when you confront them and you stand up to them on the evidence and you get you get a very clear and that's why there's a hundred pages of my 400 page book are all footnotes.

They're all scientific references.

So I think the reason they're attacking my book, and you may have noticed

my Forbes column was taken down.

But

the defensiveness is, I think, justified.

They know that my book is dangerous to the radical left, which took over the conservation movement in the 60s.

They know that my book is devastating for the alarmist and apocalyptic case.

That's why they're freaking out about it.

So, you know,

I'm confident that

in the long term, truth will win out.

I mean, obviously, there's this bigger problem of what do you do with people that they need to believe in something and they end up making up all sorts of bad religions.

I don't know how to solve that problem.

But certainly, I think on the evidence, my hope is that apocalypse never will

reset the conversation.

You remind me of Nietzsche and his warning of God is dead.

That wasn't a celebration, that was a warning.

Look out.

Be careful because you're going to create a God.

And we saw what happened in his own home country.

And it eventually did burn itself out.

Unfortunately, it took so many people with it.

I hope we don't have to go through that and this religion.

Michael,

anything that you could possibly need, we will stand with you.

I know how brave you are.

I know what you're up against, and I commend you for it.

Even if we don't agree on everything, it doesn't matter.

Standing up and having courage is the only currency that matters, really, in the world today.

We are in a frightening time, and you are a leader in courage.

Thank you so much.

And I urge you to go out.

You bet.

I urge you to go out and purchase Apocalypse Never

by Michael Schellenberger.

Make this a number one New York Times bestseller.

Go and buy this book right now, Apocalypse Never.

I have not read it yet.

I'm buying it today.

Stu has read it

and wholly endorse it, Stu.

Holy endorse it.

It was a great book.

It's one of those books you're going to go back to a million times when your annoying friend brings up one of these claims and you're going to be able to have all the links, all of it.

It's great.

It's great.

I'm going to buy a copy for my kids as well.

Apocalypse Never.

Get that book right now.

No, no, no, no.