Best of The Program | Guest: Rep. Karen Whitsett | 4/13/20

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Welcome to the podcast.

Today, we look into what's going on with the governors kind of engaging in a power grab using the current crisis to try to

gather as much power as possible for the aftermath.

We talked about that.

We have a Democratic representative, state representative on the air who actually had COVID-19

and is now okay and actually credits Donald Trump for helping in that process, going to meet the president coming coming up here soon.

And we talked to Pat Gray as well as an announcement from the South Dakota governor,

which is pretty exciting as we kind of get some progress here, hopefully.

And what is the right approach?

How do we unwind this?

How do we open up the economy?

How does that happen with the least amount of damage possible?

But, you know, we need to get going or, you know, none of us are going to have jobs.

So we look at that today on the program.

Don't forget to get Glenbeck's Arguing with Socialists.

It's available now on Amazon.com or wherever you get your books.

And as well as subscribe and rate the review of the podcast as well when you get a second.

It helps everybody else figure out that this show exists, and we'd appreciate your help on that.

Here's the podcast.

You're listening to

the best of the Glenbeck program.

State rep Karen Witzett is with us now.

She's a Democrat from Michigan.

You are a brave, brave soul.

Karen, welcome to the program.

No, thank you very much.

I don't think it's brave just to simply tell the truth.

Well, I don't know.

I don't know.

I don't know anymore.

I used to believe that you were right, but I'm not sure.

So tell me about your experience with with COVID.

What was it like to have it?

It was hell.

It scared the mess out of me.

I went from thinking I only had a sinus infection to maybe a touch of pneumonia to simply wondering if I was going to live.

And I didn't have a whole lot of time to think about what to do.

Because when it comes upon you and it's really hitting you and you go from zero to 100 with it, You have trouble breathing, your breathing becomes extremely labored, you feel your lungs filling up with fluid, you can't walk even from your living room.

Well, for me, from my living room to my bedroom, you can't really think very clearly.

You don't have a lot of time to figure out what it is that you're going to do because the hours are very pressing and the minutes are very pressing.

So, you need to come with what you're going to do, and you need to do it fast.

How long did it take you from first signs to I've got to go to the hospital?

I've been quarantined since March 12th.

And first signs were really that weekend.

And like I say, I thought I had a sinus infection and pneumonia.

But when it started really hitting me bad, where I didn't know what I was going to do because the hospitals near me were actually full to capacity.

I had,

that was on March 31st.

And that was also the day that my husband and I got tested.

So literally after getting tested, I started declining rapidly downhill that day.

And did your husband have it as well?

Yes, he tested positive as well.

And he experienced

a bad cough.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it didn't hit him like it hit me.

I didn't take out a family.

No, it didn't hit him like me, but this is something that can definitely take out a family, which it did with my cousin Cheryl Fowler and her

she lost her husband and her father-in-law.

And she's had two kids that tested positive.

Oh, my gosh.

And how are they?

She is out of home.

How are the kids?

She's at home.

The kids are doing well, but thank God that they have my doctor.

But once again, we're back to having to use your name as a state representative,

which is completely wrong and sickens me to

order for people to get care.

How How do you mean to have to use your name?

That's how you're getting care is I use my name.

That sickens me.

You mean to get into the hospital or to get treatment?

To get treatment, to get anything that you need.

And that sickens me.

That disgusts me.

And that's why

today

I'm thankful to say, and I'm happy to announce on your show that I am going to meet with hopefully the president, but I'm definitely meeting with the vice president and that I can come back to Detroit state of Michigan with some resources for us.

What are the resources your state needs?

We need everything from testing kits to PPE.

We are looking at the fact that our jails Our prisons

are not being tested.

We're looking at the fact that our sheriffs and the people who work in the prisons are not getting what they need.

They're not being tested.

They are sick.

We have people that are walking out of the hospitals, our nurses and our doctors and our staff that are walking out because they don't have the necessary PPE that they need.

We have our senior citizen buildings that are just nothing but a hot bed and these seniors are suffering.

We still have water shutoffs here.

We still have pipes that need to be connected back to home.

Our seniors are suffering.

They are not getting the food that they need because they fall in between the cracks where no one can deliver food to them and they can't go and pick it up.

We have people that are in my community that do not have a doctor to get a prescription in order to even get the test.

My cousin's husband was turned away over four times and he died at home.

My cousin herself was turned away over three times.

Their father-in-law was turned away and died.

This has to stop.

This is unreal of what we're living here and we're in Detroit and we have a governor that is not helping us.

This is our reality.

So

Karen,

you got,

you were treated with hydroxychloroquine.

Yeah.

And you credited

that for saving you and credited the fact that you even knew about it to Donald Trump.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm familiar with the though because I do have Lyme disease.

But if it wasn't for the president Trumping,

literally, Trumping the governor,

because she put out an executive order that day.

That day, I did not have access to the medication.

So how many other people didn't have access to that medication and lost their lives that day?

So, how did you get the medication?

If she banned it, how did you get it?

It wasn't banned.

The executive order that was put into place was misinterpreted, and it left all doctors and pharmacies scrambling.

Thank God

the doctor that I was able to call understood.

But my first doctor, the one who ordered the test, did not understand the executive order at all.

I contacted him.

I tried to explain it, and I sent him the executive order and told him that he is misinterpreting it.

I contacted State Representative Annette Glenn.

She contacted him on the Republican side.

She contacted him and told him that he was misinterpreting the law.

The lieutenant governor's office contacted him, told him that he was misinterpreting the law.

I still could not get him to write the prescription.

He told me he would have to wait until tomorrow.

And I told him tomorrow, I'll be dead.

So has that cleared up now?

Are your doctors prescribing it now?

Do they're still not?

No, no.

It's still a hot mess.

No, it is not cleared up.

No, sir.

Why?

What is going on?

This is

the Detroit.

We are a major city.

We have a mayor, Mayor Mike Duggan, who is nuts.

You couldn't ask for a better mayor for a time such as this, who has ran DMC hospitals.

He just needs what he needs to do the job that needs to be done, and he doesn't have what he needs.

Karen,

when are you going to Washington to meet with the vice president and the president?

I'll leave today.

My husband and I will leave today.

Hopefully, I will be seeing him.

The plan is tomorrow, and hopefully, I will be coming back here with some resources because we're in desperate need.

I can't cry out any more than what I'm crying out for what we need.

I don't have time to play politics.

This is not the time for that.

So, about re-election and campaigning and being a Democrat and a Republican, that means nothing.

That means nothing when you have nobody here in the city left living.

What does that matter?

We have a lot of people

dying in my street.

I can't care about any of that crap.

That means nothing.

That's just garbage.

Karen, after you meet with them, could we?

I'm sorry, what?

I'm great at working on the other side of the aisle.

You know, I haven't even had time to even celebrate the fact that I got my first law through as a freshman, my first PA for MISTA, increasing $4.3 million for low-income housing to $5 million.

But it doesn't matter because we need PPE.

That's neither here nor there at this point.

Karen, after you meet with the president and vice president, could we have you back on?

I'd like to hear, because I'd be shocked if they don't respond to your plea.

And I'd love to hear how that meeting went.

Absolutely.

Because, I mean, this is imperative.

I know you.

How can we help?

How can we help as an audience?

How can we help you?

Just keep doing what you're doing and getting the word out

and calling and messaging and...

doing whatever it is that you guys do on Twitter and social media and

letting them know that we're in a hot day.

You know, this is not a time for politics.

This is not the time.

Through the Democrat-Republican thing, this is about people's lives.

Lives need to be saved because lives are being lost every day.

That number that you see on your television, those are people.

It's not a number.

And the president cannot do what he needs to do if he doesn't know what needs to be done.

So stop putting blame where it doesn't belong.

Place blame where it needs to be placed.

Let's get this done, people.

We are in this together.

Stop saying we're in this together and not be in it together.

Let's do this.

State Representative Karen Witsett.

Thank you, Karen.

I appreciate it.

And best of luck.

We'll keep you in our prayers.

And I urge every member of the audience to tweet to the president and the vice president,

you know, that congratulations on putting politics aside and these guys meeting and

encourage the White House.

I don't think you're going to need it.

I think you're going to get it, Karen.

He has not turned anybody down that I know of yet when he understands the problem, at least according to Gavin Newsom, he is there and you get what you need.

So I appreciate your phone call, Karen.

We'll talk to you again later this week.

God bless you.

This is the best of the Glenn Beck program.

Got some great emails in.

This one comes from Ingrid.

She says, Glenn, thanks to Mercury One.

Thank you so much for helping our hospital in our our area.

I live with my 79-year-old mother and 12-year-old son.

I have asthma.

There have been coronaviruses, coronavirus

victims at my son's school right before the governor closed them.

Now they're in my neighborhood and at my job, which I still am going in once a week because there are things we can't do at home.

Since my provider works for an organization who does coronavirus testing, he was able to order one just for peace of mind.

We've done the social distancing, etc., etc.

The last time we went to the store, whole walls of food were cleared out.

I started ordering my groceries.

Can't get everything from one place.

Groceries are more expensive than ever here in our area.

We're prepared,

but we're low on low

disinfectant wipes.

Thank you so much again for helping our community out with Mercury One.

Ingrid, you're welcome.

Glenn, back in 2010 or 11, I stumbled across a video of you giving a speech.

At the time, I was a liberal, bit of a centrist, but more left-leaning.

I registered Democrat, and yes, we have cards.

I was what was called an agnostic religious viewholder.

The whole nine yards.

I voted for Bernie in the 2016 primary.

I used to belong to real socialism, hasn't been tried yet.

A leftist friend of mine, although we didn't call him leftist at the time, posted a video of you to prove his point about something.

I can't even hope to remember now, but what I do remember was that I couldn't understand what was wrong with what you were saying.

I challenged my friend about it.

A year after he unfriended me.

You see, your videos lit a spark in me that flickered for a long seven or eight years before roaring into a wild flame.

I turned back to Jesus in 2016.

I'm outspoken about the issues that are near and dear to my heart, and if nothing, I just try to make the world better for my children.

Late in 2018, however, a man was nominated for a great honor, but allegations that were made by people trying to deny this man his due process really pissed me off.

Fortunately, he was confirmed to SCOTUS,

and Justice Kavanaugh's struggle helped me turn that spark into an inferno.

Since then, I've been a raging conservative.

I have five little girls, ages 8, 5, 7, and 3.

Oh, wow, three-year-old twins.

I'm married to their mother.

She's the love of my life.

I'm trying to work out of this mess as I deliver for FedEx.

I'm putting money aside to get your book, both arguing with idiots and arguing with socialists, as well as a subscription to the Blaze.

I'm wondering how long is the 30% off special going to happen if you start announcing it in advance.

When you're about to stop the deal,

I will make sure that I subscribe.

I tell you what, this came from Chris.

Chris, I'm going to send you the books and I'll make you a Blaze subscriber and we'll give you like a, I don't know, free year or something.

And then you get on your feet, get past this mess, and then you start subscribing.

Thank you so much.

Glenn, I've had something weighing on my mind for a couple of weeks, and I can only help that this concern I'm going to lay out will find its way to you to digest.

I've always agreed with you wholeheartedly when you implored people to know who they are because times are coming that will try men's souls.

I would often wonder what those times would look like exactly and what knowing who I am would translate to.

I suppose that will remain to be seen.

I did, however, get to witness what those things would look like to someone else, that someone being specifically Thomas Massey.

What I saw was a man who stood up in the face of the possibly the darkest hour for the stability of our economy and the clear guidelines pertaining to the voting process of passing the stimulus package.

I must tell you, I was shocked when you didn't support him, but tried desperately to get him to change his mind and to preserve himself to be able to fight for other things down the road.

It was that moment, that moment when a politician stood up in the face of the disgusting state of our political world and said, No, thank you.

We always find ourselves wondering, almost pleading, is there not one person who will stand up and say no?

That person who doesn't care about the personal price?

That was he.

Here he was, the guy.

He gets it.

If it wasn't for an obvious I know who you are moment for someone, I dare not think I ever would.

Your initial take on this, however, really bothered me because you were promoting that he do nothing just to preserve himself and play the game.

That's exactly the slippery slope that the majority of our elected leaders sell their souls to.

A sort of weak need, ends justify the means, wishful thinking that they'll play the game and be the stand-up guy when it really counts, and they end up lost in the perverted world of politics time and time again.

My hopes and prayers are that you will realize the missed know-who-you-ar moment when it was in play view, plain view.

It's important that you realize this so you can continue to guide folks to be ready for theirs, not just to point out that you are wrong.

It seems now, a couple weeks after the fact, that you are more in its corner on hindsight.

That's great, but I think you'd do well to take ownership of the moment.

I feel you missed, and maybe share your thoughts with your listeners about it.

I can tell you it's important to me, and I looked forward to your leadership and humility.

Thank you for

all you do.

You are a winter soldier, Mr.

Beck.

Sincerely, Greg Littoral.

Greg,

let me explain it.

I don't want to excuse it

because perhaps it was a moment of weakness.

I'm friends with Thomas Massey.

I like Thomas Massey.

He's close to me, and I'm close to him.

And we agree on much.

And I did agree with his stance.

If you remember, on that day, I said, I completely agree with you, but it's not going to change anything.

It's just going to get you hammered.

And that is exactly what happened.

However, he was willing to pay that price.

I saw so few people that were willing to even stand up, to even recognize that this was wrong,

that I thought it would be best for him to sit it out because that day

came and went and it was over.

And there was no chance of

winning on that.

I am

to the place, and maybe again, this is weakness.

I don't know.

I'd like to hear your opinion, Stu, but I think I'm at this place to when we have to pick and choose our battles because there are so few soldiers on the field.

And

I don't want one of them to pop their head up and

shoot when the target is too far away and

they're never going to hit the mark.

I want to preserve the players that we do have

and do things more strategically.

Maybe that's wrong, but I supported him then.

I was texting between him, the two of us, off air that whole time.

And he was explaining to me, and I was explaining to him, but we have been friends then, that day, beforehand, and after.

I haven't changed my support for him.

It was just the strategy.

of doing it.

That was certainly a long explanation as to why you hate freedom.

I don't know why you needed that long to say it.

You could have just said, I despise being free, and everyone would have understood.

Yeah.

Well, I think you're right.

So I think, like,

I definitely understand where you're coming from.

And as you said, it was very much out of the idea that you really like Thomas Massey and what he stands for.

You know, I think, look, the problem here, when you talk about he's going to get crushed, who is he going to get crushed by?

I mean, the big issue was that Trump was tweeting about it, about how bad it was that they went to vote on this.

And it's like, we can't excuse that.

That's really a problem here.

I mean, the fact that Thomas Massey wanted a vote on $2.2 trillion

is not a ridiculous request.

He wasn't even saying he was going to vote against it.

He just said

he wanted to at least have people on record for it.

I don't think that's the type of thing that

we should be lighting up congressmen over.

It's the type of thing that we should have,

you know, that's something that we should look at as a positive.

Because you were right, he did get lit up by it.

But that's really the issue here, isn't it?

He shouldn't be getting lit up by asking for a vote for over $2 trillion.

So, I mean,

while I understand what the guy's saying in the email,

this is an issue where we have to look at this and say, I think

Massey did the right thing.

And

if he's going to get thrown out of Congress because of that, I think he's comfortable with that outcome.

He is.

I'm not as comfortable with that outcome because I know what he can and does accomplish.

Yeah, I mean, he accomplishes a lot.

Hopefully, this is one of those situations because there's been a mix of these.

Sometimes Trump gets really mad at a congressman for doing something and he holds it over their head for the rest of their lives.

Other times, they're back in the good graces, you know, in a week when they do something because Massey will take a strong stand on Trump's side, too, when Trump's alone and has done that several times, too.

So maybe this is something that blows over.

I hope so.

But

we've always asked congressmen to go there and do what they think is right.

And

I think at the end of the day, you have to just respect that and

realize that choosing your battles is part of this at some level.

But when you get to a point, this is the, if you're not going to stand up at $2.2 trillion without a vote,

when are you going to stand up?

It just delayed my

didn't delay it at all, I'll have to say, too.

And even with the approval of it, they can't seem to get the money to the people anyway.

I know.

Well, here's where I stood on this, Stu.

And I'd like to hear where you were on this.

And if I'm just, if I've turned into this political nightmare on this particular occasion,

I was looking at it politically, strategically,

because I think we're at the, you know, we are at the end game now, and there's only so many soldiers on the field.

And,

you know, we don't have a free market anymore.

There is no free market.

The free market has been absorbed and purchased at wholesale by the Federal Reserve.

You've got Congress slipping into madness.

And there is nothing more important, more important than the $2.2 trillion

is the fact that Nancy Pelosi does not want to have any votes.

And

I felt he made made his point,

but he was going to get slaughtered by Donald Trump.

And without Donald Trump, he's not going to make the impact.

He has foes on the right and he has foes on the left.

And he was completely alone.

Now, as it turns out, and as it was then, it was the right thing to do.

But who's going to fight that battle?

Does he have the credibility to now fight that battle long term?

Because she's still doing it.

She's still wanting to pass all of these bills without Congress voting on it at all.

That's got to stop.

So how do we get there?

I've tried to do my part by having him on the air to explain on that day.

He explained exactly what he was doing.

And I've had him on afterwards explaining what he did and what the fight is, trying to make sure that we don't lose a very valuable guy over nonsense.

And I think

that's what it was.

It was a rush to get that money out, and that's what made everybody blind that time.

This time,

the money being rushed out is all political.

It's all political.

Yeah, another interesting solution to this would be Thomas Massey not being alone in Congress.

You know, it would be nice if some of these other congressmen stood up and said, you know what?

Look, we agree.

I'm going to vote for this when we vote for it.

But we've got to be on record.

We've got to at least be on record when we're going to spend more money than any other time in American history.

We at least have to have a vote on it.

Is that too much to ask?

And apparently, to almost everyone in Congress, the answer to that was yes.

You know, that's not a good outcome.

And we need to at least.

But you're right.

If Thomas Massey leaves, then there will be no one.

There'll be no one.

And no one's willing to do it if Donald Trump is going to hammer them.

I mean, you have to build a coalition.

You just have to build a coalition and he's got to be part of it.

This is the best of the Glenbeck program.

All right, coronavirus update.

Here are the numbers.

1.8 million, up from 1.6 million, confirmed cases worldwide.

Deaths worldwide, 114,000, up from 96,000.

Total confirmed recovered, up

about 80,000.

The United States has 560,000 confirmed cases and 22,000 deaths.

That's quite a jump.

About 100,000 confirmed cases since Friday.

And a jump of about 6,000

on

Friday as as well.

The U.S.

now leads the world in both cases and deaths from COVID-19.

We now account for 30% of all confirmed cases, 20% of confirmed deaths globally.

For the first time in all of U.S.

history, all 50 states are now declared disaster zones.

This is why everything is overwhelmed.

This has never happened before.

Should we cue the fat lady on

the free market system?

The U.S.

Federal Reserve is now purchasing approximately $625 billion

per week in U.S.

Treasury bonds, U.S.

municipal bonds, and corporate bonds.

So they're buying stocks,

your city,

and they're buying treasury bonds.

$625 billion per week, $1.2 trillion every two weeks.

I don't know.

Sounds like a problem.

At that rate of spend, the Federal Reserve will own all outstanding U.S.

public debt, federal and local debt by September or October of this year.

Let me say that again.

The Federal Reserve will own

all outstanding U.S.

public debt, federal and local debt

by September of next year, of this year.

It will own all U.S.

private and corporate debt by December.

The Federal Reserve is already now, today, the largest single holder of U.S.

government bonds

of $20 trillion in outstanding U.S.

debt.

The Federal Reserve owns approximately $5.7 trillion and is now adding $1 trillion in new bond purchases every two weeks.

This comes as the Bank of England skips the bond market entirely and is just printing new currency to fund U.K.

expenditures directly.

This is modern monetary theory.

You don't have to have a way to pay for it.

You just print it.

As of this week,

the Fed's open market committee meeting, the Fed will also be willing to purchase so-called junk bonds from all U.S.

companies that are in distress.

The Fed has also issued a new fund to buy U.S.

mortgage assets from banks, pledging $200 billion per month to U.S.

banks plus Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy distressed mortgages

that become insolvent due to COVID-19.

The U.S.

Federal Reserve is now officially the largest

landowner in the world.

Again, let me say that.

The U.S.

Federal Reserve is now officially the largest landowner

in the world.

At this point, the only major asset in U.S.

equity markets the Fed is not directly buying are U.S.

stocks.

However, that's on the way.

Deutsche Bank

said last week, because of what the Fed is doing, they're quoting, is no such thing as a free market anymore, end quote.

By the way, just a note on this, it is you, the U.S.

taxpayer, that is responsible for all of this debt, not the Fed.

The Treasury, using the Exchange Stabilization Fund, will make an equity investment in each Fed fund and is in the first lost position, making you, the taxpayer, responsible should any of these investments or underlying funds fail.

As such, the U.S.

Treasury, not the Fed, is actually buying all of these securities and backstopping all of these loans.

The Fed is only acting as a banker and providing that financing.

You say we don't need to open up the economy?

Just think about that.

The U.S.

could face rolling lockdowns and social distancing orders for 18 to 24 months.

That's according to the U.S.

Federal Reserve.

Without an effective therapy or vaccine for COVID-19, the U.S.

economy could face 18 months of rolling shutdowns as the outbreak recedes locally and then flares up again.

Hunt for a vaccine continues.

A year, according to scientists, a year

would be a miracle.

Kentucky churchgoers are not alone.

They were met with nails in the road and surveillance of license plates because the mayor decided there wasn't going to be any church services anywhere in Kentucky.

That's the governor, I should say, not the mayor.

He urged residents to remain indoors for the Easter holiday,

and they are enforcing with state troopers and county sheriffs.

The mayor of Louisville also came out and had draconian measures.

The DOJ to state's First Amendment is still the First Amendment.

A federal judge

ruled that this weekend, and Attorney General William Barr indicated that DOJ is monitoring state and local government actions related to limitations on religious services and will potentially prosecute local officials if they violate the civil rights of religious people.

Are our oil wars over?

Maybe, maybe not,

because of Mexico.

And is democracy the ultimate COVID-19 victim?

France and Bolivia have postponed elections now.

Peru has handed its president broad new legislative authority.

Israel sharply ramped up the reach of its surveillance state.

The U.S., we're curtailing religious services and searching for out-of-staters door-to-door in some states.

While leaders around the world are fighting the spread of the coronavirus, they're also amassing sweeping new powers.

As legislatures limit or suspend activities in the name of social distancing, many of the norms that define our free market and our democracy, elections, deliberation, debate, checks, and balances, have all been put on indefinite hold.

The speed and breadth of the transformation is unsettling to political scientists all over the world.

Government watchdogs and rights groups.

Many concede emergency declarations and streamlining government decision-making are necessary responses to the global threat, but they question how readily leaders are going to give these powers up.

We've all put our economies on hold.

Can we have an open debate on when we bring those back?

We've also put democracy on hold.

Are we going to talk about bringing those things back as well?

Also, the cost of COVID-19 Phase 1 and 2 bailout.

NASA's budget.

NASA's budget for the next 207 years.

The cost of the $4.7 trillion bailout package equates to NASA's $22.6 billion

that they get every year for the next 207 years.

The cost of the bailout, put in other words, is equal to fully funding six Mars landers, rovers, missions to the red planet

every single day.

Just the phase two of the deal, $2 trillion,

is $7,500 per American or

$16,500 per taxpayer, seeing that only half of our citizens pay taxes.

No word yet on why it costs $7,500 in actual taxpayer cost for each American to receive a $1,200 stimulus check.

We don't know.