Best of the Program | Guests: Senator Mike Lee & Brad Polumbo | 12/12/19

Hey,

welcome to the podcast.

It's Thursday, and what a Thursday it's going to be.

We have the House debating impeachment articles and voting on it.

Stu,

what will they do?

I am completely at odds with an opinion on this.

We are on the edge of our seat.

We just can't wait.

Do you have free will, or are you being manipulated?

Crowder on the YouTube purge.

That's kind of weird.

Emotional support bees

and the new Space Force.

All on today's program.

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

An Arizona man's emotional support animal is creating quite a buzz.

Prescott Valley, Arizona resident David Keller thinks the application process to register an emotional support animal is too easy.

So he's tried to register a swarm of bees as his service pet.

It worked.

That's unbelievable.

A lot of people thought it was hilarious, and a lot of people were getting upset, Keller told the CBS affiliate.

We recently went on a website called USAServiced Dog Registration.com and successfully uploaded a random photo of a beehive as a service animal to bring awareness to the issue that anyone could do this.

So now

I want you to understand he went to the USA serviced dogregistration.com and he registered a beehive.

So it's not even a dog.

There's no leashes that can be put on these.

Well, if you you had tiny leashes.

Well, you got little, teeny, tiny leashes.

What did they tell him when he tried to register?

To buzz off?

Anyway, he was inspired to go through the registration after seeing a service dog that was visibly untrained.

He said I could tell that it was not a service animal because it was pulling the owner to the parking lot.

I was thinking, this is too easy.

The website he used to register his swarm is just one of many that make the application process for emotional pets too easy, experts say.

They're silly.

They don't mean anything.

You can pay for a registry on one of those websites, and basically you're paying for a piece of paper to put a name on a list.

Training is how you can tell whether it's a service animal or not.

And not all animals can be trained.

Bees can be trained, all right?

Sure, they can.

I mean, I don't see why not.

Can you tell if they're sitting?

You just can't see it.

Sit.

Right, like it could be sitting.

Stay.

I mean, if they're trained or not.

They're coming.

yeah

and you get a little teeny newspaper and you bat them on the nose if they

if they i don't know if do they they've got to urinate and do bees poop these are great questions great

i mean and emotional support animals are in the eye of the bee holder

Miniature horses remain clear to fly as services animals, although emotional support dogs in 2-2s were recently booted off a flight after showing signs of distress.

Now, for the first time,

I have

an actual service dog.

We have trained killers that will rip your throat out.

And they're, I mean, yeah, and you know, they are trained

and

they're really, really good.

And for the very first time, you know, he's got the vest and everything, and it's even red for Christmas time.

But we, you know, we bring him with the family, usually wherever we go, unless we have been flying, you know, commercially.

We'll take him in the car or if we're lucky enough to fly privately or whatever, we'll do that.

But we've not taken him on the plane until they started loading horses on the plane.

And then I'm like, you know what?

This is an actual service to the family.

I'm taking this dog.

And so we took him and, you know, he's clearly a service dog.

And he's like 100 pounds, but he has to sit at our feet.

And getting him to sit, if he wasn't trained, he'd eat us.

And he sat right at our feet and didn't move.

The stewardesses were like, oh my gosh, what a really good dog.

And we're like, yeah,

he is.

And he sat and just laid underneath our feet the whole time.

It was uncomfortable him for uncomfortable for us.

But

that's a service dog.

I see these dogs walking in the airport now, and I see all these things, and I'm like, okay, that's

not a service dog.

But I'm not going to complain.

Whatever.

Yeah, I mean, that's cool.

I don't care.

Service dogs, too.

There's seemingly a line between service dogs, which are allowed pretty much anywhere, right?

I mean, like, especially when you think of traditional service dog, you think of, you know, seeing eye dog, right?

Like that.

Well, but no, but an emotional support dog now is the same.

You can't.

It's the same.

There's no

refuse an emotional support animal.

I mean, obviously, you know, this is why these things happen, right?

I mean, wasn't the, I mean, we've seen some ridiculous examples.

The swarm of bees is my favorite.

Oh, this is the greatest.

This is better than the horse.

The horse made it on a plane.

I'd like this guy to take a jar of bees.

Just hang a hive from the overhead luggage compartment.

No, they've got to be with me the whole time.

Just

so relaxing.

Listen to that buzz.

Everyone else is terrified.

This is a great example of our society, though, right?

I mean, you have like one person who's upset at Santa Claus on the town square, and everyone else just has to deal with it.

Right.

That's the emotional support bee.

And this should be the one that everybody in this society supports.

Everyone should support the bee guy.

Right.

Because everyone else, sure, yes, they will be tortured and unhappy, but that's not what this is about.

This is about the one person who requested the one thing.

Correct.

And so they've got to fly next to you on a plane.

i'd like to register a lot of bees i think you should take his whole beehive but break it up between his family so they're all sitting with like a jar of bees

there's got someone's gonna get this through it'll actually work somewhere if people keep trying and we should talk to this guy because i think he he probably has a plan this guy's brilliant because

look I think we, this is the taking advantage of people's good nature.

Americans have a good nature and you know what if you have trouble flying and it will be a little easier for you to if you can pet your dog on the flight they'll give you a little emotional support emotional an emotional support dog sure whatever that's that's generally speaking the attitude here and then you have people who are going to take it to the b level because every there's so many people who just like their dog and want it on the flight which again is i mean i guess it's up to the airline or whatever but i don't really care i'm allergic to dogs believe it or not i have a hard time petting uh

who don't yeah i have to wash my hands right out otherwise it break out in hives and stuff

hives

uh so

oh it was unintentional that's nice

uh you know and so i'm allergic to dogs and cats and everything else so i you know i don't want to be sitting on an airplane full of animals but you know okay

is this like it's gonna be like a bust from indiana jones where like there's just chickens all over the place and feathers flying in your face and like it will be there's a donkey in a cage in the middle of the aisle.

We have all cage.

How dare you?

How dare you?

How dare you put him in a cage?

I'm calling Greta.

I'm sorry, Greta.

I didn't mean to get you up so early.

All right, we're going to take a quick break.

Then we're coming back with Ben Sass.

He has caused a,

I don't know how many liberal heads to explode.

with his questioning yesterday on the FISA abuse accusations.

And I just want you to listen to him because he's not a guy who's been, you know, exactly all over Donald Trump as we got to support him no matter what.

And they are hammering Ben Sasse and saying, well, looks like he just turned into a Trump guy.

I want you to listen to his testimony and tell me how this can be interpreted at all about anything at all about Donald Trump.

This is about your security.

This is about the Fourth Amendment.

I don't think I have seen a more important

hearing and trial than this impeachment trial and all of the other things now with the IG report.

I don't, this is it.

This is truly last call for the Constitution.

Because if this is just all swept under the rug, we're doomed.

If they'll do this to a president and to a presidential campaign where they know everybody's going to be looking into it, what do you think they're going to do to you?

It's really amazing.

We had a lot of great senators yesterday in examination on this.

The press

made this into nothing.

I want you to listen to him and tell me this is nothing to be worried about.

The best of the Glenbeck program.

Hey, it's Glenn, and you're listening to the Glenbeck program.

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Let me play Ben Sasse and his testimony yesterday.

This is with Horowitz, the IG, the inspector general for the Justice Department, who is looking into what is the FBI doing?

How's this FISA thing working?

And listen to this exchange.

Mr.

Horowitz, thank you for being here and to all of your team.

You've done important work, so thank you to all of you and rows one and two as well.

There are a number of things that are really troubling, but some of them have been unpacked pretty fully so far.

So I'm going to pick up some loose ends.

Bruce Orr,

who is he and what's his role at the department?

And then let's ask some questions about the bizarre pathway by which he became involved in this investigation.

So, at the time of these events, he was an Associate Deputy Attorney General and the head of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force, working out of the Deputy Attorney General's office.

The Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force.

And that's connected to election interference by the Russians.

How?

It is not.

What the hell is he doing here?

That was precisely the concern that we lay out here.

He had no role in any of the election interference matters.

We have a bunch of people in the media who wanted to read this as a Worschock test, and they wanted to have a predetermined answer for exactly how to interpret each piece of this.

And so as the chairman began today, he said, you know,

predicate of investigation, appropriate, but some minor mistakes and errors were made.

You've outlined in this 478 or 434, depending on whether we count all the Roman numerals, page report, 17 significant errors in this investigation.

Bruce Orr, who has a very significant senior role, ODAG, for those who don't know, the Office of the Deputy Attorney General, has primary oversight of all law enforcement agencies in America.

So if you're in the FBI and you might make a mistake in your investigation, the people you'd be in trouble with normally are in the Deputy Attorney General's office.

And here's a guy in the Deputy Attorney General's office who ultimately gets involved, inserts himself into this investigation.

And I think it's pretty important to recognize we've got a massive cultural systemic failure.

If a guy from ODAG, who should be doing oversight of this case, if he weren't off on another assignment about organized crime and drug trafficking, if he were going to get involved in this, he should be checking the work of the people who were doing the work.

And there are a whole bunch of department protocols and provisions that were violated throughout this.

But Bruce Orr, he ultimately decides to get extra information out of Christopher Steele

after Christopher Steele or his employer, Fusion GPS, had been cut off by the FBI.

Why did the FBI decide to no longer listen to Christopher Steele?

So he was closed in November of 2016 after the FBI learned of his disclosure to Mother Jones magazine that he had been working with the FBI previously.

And we know from the evidence that Senator Cruz went through, there were a whole bunch of sub-sources that Christopher Steele was summarizing, and the FBI at that point was believing he might be a credible guy.

And they ultimately realized that this is a bunch of BS, and his sub-sources are saying, I said some of this in jest, and some of it's stuff that I overheard in a bar.

None of it is information that I had first-hand knowledge of.

And so the FBI decides reasonably that Mr.

Steele's information isn't credible, right?

So they cut him off.

Actually, let me just be clear that that isn't what caused them to cut him off.

What caused them to cut him off is they learned he had talked to the press in Mother Jones magazine.

They actually had that other information and didn't tell anybody about it.

Okay.

So you're disagreeing with me only to say the problems with Mr.

Steele are twice as bad as I summarized.

I'm just saying that isn't why they cut him off.

Okay.

Right.

That's the concern, is that

Bruce Orr,

who doesn't have any responsibilities in this area, decides he'll insert himself into the investigation and go get additional information from or about Christopher Steele and the people who are funding Christopher Steele.

Can you just remind us, who's Bruce Orr married to?

Bruce Orr's spouse, Nellie Orr, had formerly been, at the time he started interacting in November 2016 with Steele,

had been a former independent contractor for Fusion GPS.

So, in other words, Bruce Orr decides to insert himself into an investigation after the professional agents involved in this investigation said Mr.

Steele isn't reputable, isn't credible, and has been talking to the media.

So, we're now not going to talk to Christopher Steele anymore.

Bruce Orr says, actually, I should.

And he meets with these people who are funding or who are the employers of Christopher Steele or own his dossier, who's also Bruce Orr's wife's source of compensation.

Had been.

Had been.

As of, I think, September 2016, she had no longer been an independent contractor.

And I want to also, I think it's important to be clear, because this is relevant again to the significance of some of the

inappropriate actions here.

The FBI was not a reluctant participant in this relationship that was the conduit from Bruce Or through Bruce Or to steal as we lay out here.

So I just want to be clear.

They're not saying we don't want to deal with him.

They're saying, oh, yeah,

essentially, if you have something, we would love to hear from you.

I want to just.

Is that a problem?

Because this is only one of the problems.

That's the first one he concentrated on Ben Sasse.

Is that a problem?

That

the FBI says, no, we can't talk to him, but only because he's talking to the press, not because they know the information he has given them is inaccurate.

They know it, and they don't

get rid of him for that.

They get rid of him because he's talking to the press.

Then they say, hey, by the way, I know we're not supposed to be talking to him, but if you get any information from him, just pass it on through to us.

This is the least.

of the problems.

I want you to listen to

yesterday, this is Ben Sass apologizing to Mike Lee.

Listen.

I want to just say that I wish Mike Lee weren't sitting here two people away from me right now, because as a national security hawk, I have argued with Mike Lee in the four and a half or five years that I've been in the Senate that stuff just like this couldn't possibly happen at the FBI and at the Department of Justice.

So as somebody who is embarrassed on behalf of the FBI about your report, because I believe that it is critically important that we have the FISA statute, I think the FISC is an incredibly important court.

The approval rating of applications that come before the FISC are off the charts.

I don't know the current numbers, but a couple years ago when I saw them, I think it was 97.9%.

Is that a fair?

I think the last number I saw was roughly 98%.

Okay, so a 98% approval rating of applications that come before the FISC.

Why would it be that high?

people would normally say.

And I'm not asking you to answer that.

I'm saying that the good answer is, in an ex parte, I'm not an attorney, but an ex parte proceeding before the court, when you, the American citizen who might be being surveilled or be suspected of something that would open a surveillance warrant against you, the assumption would be if you can't be there to defend yourself, it's because the department's lawyers are so super scrupulous that if there's any information that might exonerate you or that might counteract the view that led them to first pursue a theory of the case that had them wanting to surveil you, they would say the bar is so high here we'll always err on the side of privacy unless we believe there's a good reason to pursue this investigation.

And so, Mike Lee has warned me for four and a half years, the potential for abuse in this space is terrible.

And I constantly defended the integrity and the professionalism of the Bureau and of the department that you couldn't have something like this happen.

Let's move on from Russia.

Mike Lee is here.

I don't want to talk about the conversations that you and Ben Sasse had, but I know you're not happy that he had to say that or felt compelled to say, crap, I was wrong.

Mike was right.

This is not good for America, Mike, at all.

That's right.

But, you know, yesterday was a big day for the American people, a big win.

It was a huge loss for the deep state.

You're exactly right.

I'm not happy that he had to say that.

He was nonetheless better late than never that we have an acknowledgement of the fact that we've got a big, big problem.

By the way, Ben Sasse offered to buy me a drink in the same context, and he said, if Mikely were a drinking man, I'd love to take him out and buy him drinks over this.

Mike, I don't think you're going to need any help with whiskey if things continue to go down as fast as they are in Washington.

The press is making this into no big deal.

Forget about the impeachment.

Forget about everything else.

This, the Fourth Amendment, is gone.

And

everyone who said we can't have these secret courts because

they will abuse it, that's exactly what they're doing.

My question to you is, why did the Inspector General come out and say that these were inaccuracies?

They weren't.

They forged documents.

This is as bad as it can get.

Why didn't they say it that way?

It really is bad.

And

what this tells us is something very significant.

Faced with the facts in this report, the supporters of the spying that occurred on the Trump campaign must admit first, either that these FBI agents purposely used the power of the federal government to wage a political war against a presidential candidate they despised, or that these agents were so incompetent that they somehow allowed a two-bit foreign political operative to weaponize the FISA program into a spying operation on a rival political campaign.

Neither conclusion is acceptable.

Neither one of these can simply be tolerated by the American people, not for another day.

Now, for years, as Ben Sasse alluded to, I've raised concerns that this FISA process is ripe for not just abuse like this, but abuse that is this, that's exactly like this.

Only to be told, just trust us.

Don't worry, we've got safeguards in place.

Don't worry, we've got really good people and internal procedures.

But the finding contained in the IG report really does prove my point, and they can't get around that.

So, So, Mike, I personally think

the entire FISA court should be closed until we know what's going on.

And I know that's dangerous for the country, they will say, but this is more dangerous if we don't get this right.

As Ben said yesterday in his testimony, when this gets sophisticated,

this was a shoddy attempt.

You know, Russia was clunky.

And when it gets sophisticated,

we're all in real trouble as American citizens, all of us, if they'll do this

to a case where they know they're going to be investigated.

Why don't we shut the FISA court down right now

until we know?

Well, this is what caused me yesterday at the hearing to raise the question of whether it's time for us to suspend the FISA program altogether or at least to undertake a major overhaul and perhaps suspend it while we overhaul it.

Look,

those who argue the other side of this will always say, well, you've got to balance your privacy against your security.

And if you give people too much privacy, if you focus too much on things like the Fourth Amendment, you know, that pesky constitutional issue, then we will have diminished security.

But you know what, Glenn?

Our privacy is not at odds with our security.

Our privacy is part of our security.

We are not truly secure unless the Fourth Amendment is honored.

We have sown into the seeds of our law.

We've sown seeds into our law that will bring about the destruction of the Fourth Amendment if we allow this to continue.

It already has.

I mean, this is the destruction of the Fourth Amendment.

This case, as you said, is not like what you warned might happen.

It's exactly what you warned will happen, and

it's exactly as everyone outlined.

And it's even worse than that when you consider the fact that this was a presidential campaign.

Yes.

These guys knew they were up against a formidable foe.

They put some of their best people up on it.

What about the cases where the president of the United States or the future president of the United States is not on the target list?

What about the average American citizen out there who's being surveilled and doesn't know about it and won't ever find out about it?

That person, too, needs to be stood up for, and that's why this is so much worse even than this appears on its face.

And Carter Page, he wrote an op-ed yesterday, I think.

His life has been ruined.

His name is ruined.

You know, he will ever, forever be under suspicion in the minds of a lot of people as working with the Russians.

And they forged documents to make a FISA court think that he might be.

This is what happens when you stand up to the deep state.

This is what happens when you've got people inside the government who operate these levers of government control, who text things to each other like, we've got to make sure that this guy is an elected president and we've got to have an insurance policy.

We can't take the risk that the American people would be so foolish as to elect someone we don't like.

This is the sort of thing that happens.

We've known that this was inhuman nature.

Federalist 51 tells us that this sort of thing will happen.

Madison meant it when he said if men were angels, they wouldn't need a government.

If we had angels to to run our government, we wouldn't need rules for government.

But we're not angels.

We don't have access to angels, and so we ought to have rules.

We have to stick by those rules.

We have to enforce them, and our laws can't allow them to be circumvented.

So, Mike, I heard this morning, and I keep hearing back and forth, I heard this morning that the Senate is now thinking that they're not going to call any witnesses.

They're just going to move past and just

present documents that will move this impeachment forward.

Mike, if we are to save the Republic, all of this must come out full light of day, and people must be held accountable for all of it, or we will have no trust in any justice system.

Yeah, I think that's a very fair point, and that's probably what's going to end up happening in the Senate trial.

A lot of that is going to be left to the discretion of the President's very capable legal team headed by White House counsel Pat Cipollone, in whom I have a lot of confidence.

He's prepared to go to trial, if necessary, tomorrow.

If the impeachment articles were to come over to us tomorrow, he'd be ready to go.

I hear both sides.

I hear that sometimes yesterday, I think it was the Trump legal team, wanted a full open trial with lots of witnesses.

Then the day before, I heard that it was

McConnell that wanted that, and Trump didn't.

What's the truth?

What do people

which way are we headed?

A full open trial that will really expose this?

You know, I want to be very careful that I not speak for anyone other than myself.

I'll tell you, from my vantage point, I can see some advantage in doing a full trial because they haven't had an opportunity to call the witnesses they'd like to call, to cross-examine the witnesses they'd like to cross-examine in the House of Representatives.

And that could be helpful to inform the public and bring the public along.

The White House Counsel's office and the President's defense team will have to make a judgment call as we're going going through the process about what to do.

And we get to a situation where if they believe they've got 51 votes to end the proceedings, whether they pull that lever, I'm here to support them regardless of what they do, but there's a part of me that would very much like to see a full trial for the very reasons you're describing.

Why

explain to me a legal reason why you would just want this just quickly brushed under the rug and not expose all that has happened.

It's a very simple legal calculation.

And again, I'm not saying this is the right thing to do, but if one were to reach that conclusion, if one were making that argument, what one might say was, at any moment, if you believe you've got the case won, if you believe you've got 51 votes to end the proceedings,

it might be tempting to pull that lever, even though there are additional gains that can be achieved by having a full trial.

My late father was a lawyer.

He died about 24 years ago, but he used to tell me when you've won your case in court, you sit down and you don't say another word

lest you upturn the victory you've just achieved.

And so that would be the strategy there.

But again, there are other considerations here, including the fact that the American people need to hear the whole story.

That's why I'm very sympathetic to the view that maybe we ought to just have a full-blown trial.

You know, and Mike, I have to tell you,

you know, there's a way of talking to Donald Trump that he relates to and understands, And

only

he

could

take this on, make sure American eyeballs are watching it,

and he is in the unique position of truly draining the swamp.

He becomes one of the greatest presidents in history just based on this one thing.

If he exposes the media, in this trial, if he exposes the deep state in this trial, if he exposes the DOJ

and the way they have used FISA courts, only Donald Trump has been given this opportunity to turn this dirty system inside out.

And quite honestly, I don't believe the Democrats survive a five or ten year period after he does that.

I think they go the way of the Whigs after he exposes what they have done.

Yeah, that is an outstanding argument and one that I need to communicate to the President next time I talk to him.

I know he's being very well advised on this.

I talk to him on a regular basis.

His attorney talks to him many times a day, and I know he's being briefed on those very arguments.

But you raise a very good point for the simple reason that I think we are well past the point where we can be quite assured that they don't have a good case against him.

We're going to win this.

He's not going to be removed.

So as long as that's the case, let's turn it into an educational tool.

And let him drain the swamp.

Let him be the guy who will forever be remembered as setting this corruption

in its place and shutting this corruption down at the highest levels, exposing it.

This is what people, everybody I talked to that voted for him, they all said, I just, you know, the system is so far broken, he'll just go in and burn the whole thing down.

I thought that was a bad idea at the time, but I see what they're talking about, and that's what his voters want right now.

They want him to burn the infection out, and this is the vehicle to do it.

Yeah, the American people are starting to see what he saw from the beginning and

what the people intuitively know, which is that American voters for too long have been asked to put too much faith, an almost religious amount of faith in government.

Yes.

That's not how it's supposed to work.

We put too much faith and therefore too much discretion.

It's been weaponized against us.

We've got to expose it for what it is.

Mike, we're praying for a Christmas miracle.

Thank you so much.

Appreciate it.

Thank you, Glenn.

God bless.

Senator Mike Lee.

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Thanks.

Welcome to the program.

If you're an old Phil Hendry fan, I think I can legitimately introduce my next guest, Brad Palumbo, as gay man, gay journalist.

Welcome to the program, Brad.

Hey, thanks for having me.

You bet.

You're the deputy contributors editor of the Washington Examiner.

We've had you on.

You're very reasonable.

And this, I think, is the first time that I think we may have a disagreement on something.

You are backing

the

Fairness for All Act.

And for people, I've been watching this for almost a year now.

And

to me, it's disturbing.

So tell me your point of view on it and let people know what it is.

Yeah, look.

So my point of the view is that I come at this entire debate from the perspective of a person who's a gay libertarian conservative, right?

So I believe in both gay rights, but I also believe in religious liberty and the First Amendment.

So I'm one of these people that's not trying to force Jack Phillips to bake a cake or chase down Christian schools and force them to employ trans people.

But I also don't think that a corporation like McDonald's should be able to

fire someone just because they're gay or that a massive apartment complex should be able to evict someone because they're transgender.

So that's why I wrote a column in support of the effort from Representative Chris Stewart from Utah, Utah's second district, I believe, who's actually a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which has backed his bill, which essentially the Fairness for All Act, it tries to do the same thing that the Equality Act does, which is update the Civil Rights Act to include protections for gay and transgender people.

But importantly, unlike the Equality Act, which crushes religious liberty and has no exceptions, this bill has very clear carve-outs, in my opinion, that adequately protect religious liberty, but also would add legal protections for LGBT people.

So, Brad, when am I going to get protection for being a conservative, straight, old white guy.

And I mean that sincerely.

There are many jobs I'm not even considered for.

There is no way, and that I'm highly qualified for, but there is no way Netflix, Amazon would ever, ever hire me, even though I'd make them a ton of money, but they won't do it because I don't fit their message.

Yeah, I mean, I think there's a difference, to be honest, between between someone not hiring a person like me or you because we're conservatives.

What's that difference?

I think there is a difference.

What is it, do you think?

Well, it's like being gay or transgender is almost a demographic, right?

It's not an ideology in the same way.

It's like firing.

I view it more as like firing someone for being black than firing someone for being Republican.

But I do want to say one thing, Glenn, that this bill, the Fairness for All Act, actually would add some protections for people like you.

You know, it goes out of its way to block the crazies like Beta O'Rourke and put into law that federal tax-exempt status can never be denied due to religious beliefs or practices regarding marriage or sexuality.

It also includes specific provisions that prohibit the government from targeting or punishing religious individuals.

So, this act actually,

I spoke with Representative Chris Stewart about it, and he said that part of his motivation for doing this was that he thinks religious liberty is under attack.

And I agree.

I agree.

So, this bill isn't just about LGBT rights.

It's also about putting concrete rules for religious liberty in place.

Here's my problem, Brad, because I agree with you 100% and Chris Stewart and the backers of this bill that this does protect religious liberty, but it leaves the door open for everyone else.

So, you know, I appreciate the fact that

it is

protecting religious organizations, but what about just the idea that

I have a guy who's running the front desk, and my business, you know, is my business.

And the guy decides that he's going to be married.

And he comes to work in a dress, and he's a big guy, and he's, and I don't want him at the front desk.

Can I fire him?

Look, I think if you're running, if you're talking about your church or you're talking about your Christian bakery, then that's one thing, and you'd be able to.

But But in a normal role where somebody

it's just a regular business, I don't think you should be able to fire someone because of something like that because ultimately it doesn't relate to the job and you're firing them.

I mean it's honestly like I'm sympathetic to this idea that business owners, you know, I'm libertarian leaning, should have wide discretion and latitude.

But I do believe in the Civil Rights Act.

I don't believe that someone's right extends to fire someone for being black or fire someone just that they're a woman.

And in the same sense, I really don't think that within reasonable exceptions like this bill lays out, you should be able to fire someone just because you personally disagree with an aspect of who they are.

It's interesting, right, because I think one of the issues I've heard about this bill, because most of the, you know, 90% of the stuff I think you're saying here, everyone agrees with, right?

Like, I mean, it's

hard to argue with.

It's ridiculous to throw someone out of their apartment because you don't like

who they're interested in.

But the

and you mentioned the cake thing, which is interesting.

This has been one of the things I've heard pushback on, and maybe the bill deals with this directly.

In that

it says a lot of people say, okay, religious liberty sort of ends at the church.

Yes, we'll protect you inside your church.

You can worship however you like.

This is sort of the left's approach to these issues.

But when it comes out to you being in the public sphere, if you believe something that disagrees with these guidelines, well, you're kind of out of luck.

Does the bill deal with that directly?

It does.

It does,

if I'm correct, Brad.

It does, but it's only for companies that have 15 or fewer employees.

So the cake guy is fine.

But if I have more than 15 employees, I'm not fine.

The idea is it's really hard to strike the right balance with these things.

It's incredibly difficult.

And where do you draw the line?

15, 20, 10.

But the idea is that Jack Phillips would be fine, but McDonald's would not be.

But the point is you have to have a line somewhere.

And it's also, in terms of the public sphere, this bill also specifically sets up a system in which medical professionals are allowed to not provide certain services as long as they provide.

I wish you looked at it like this: like you shouldn't be able, if you're a general doctor, to not give someone their vaccines because they're gay, but you shouldn't be forced to give someone trans hormone therapy if you object to that.

So it basically sets up that kind of equal access, but they can deny specific services.

So it actually sets up in public life.

Except that's what we had at the beginning with abortion, and now now it doesn't matter what your religious belief is.

I mean, these lines keep getting blurred because we keep making special exceptions.

Look, everyone should have exactly the same rights.

Everyone.

The problem that we entered into with the civil rights movement is blacks didn't have the same rights.

You have to have the same exact right, but you also have to let people be stupid or jerks.

You also have to let businesses do what businesses do.

Hobby Lobby.

If a bunch of militant

transgender decided to go en masse to apply at Hobby Lobby, would Hobby Lobby have to hire them or would they be caught in litigation in any way because they could say they're discriminating?

So it actually would depend on how Hobby Lobby is classified.

And I don't know that off the top of my head.

If they're classified as a religious nonprofit or a so if they're just a private business, they're a business, then

if they're just a private business, then

they would be bound by anti-discrimination, anti-discrimination laws.

It's interesting because these are obviously tough things to deal with.

We know Chris Stewart really well.

He's a good friend of the show, and he is someone who's honestly trying to deal with

these issues in this bill.

But it does, I mean, I think you can see this, Brad, as well.

It does, it's going to

pop up with some interesting conundrums that I don't think the bill itself can solve.

I mean, you know, the

so I

and the intent behind it is because

worse things are coming down the pike.

And so this is a way to cut off at the pass, pass this, so worse things don't come down the pike.

And I understand that, and I even appreciate that.

But that doesn't mean you pass bad legislation to stop worse reg legislation.

So I actually don't agree with you, Glenn.

I get your point, but whether I think for the people facing the conservative movement, the trend of public opinion is that if we have to pass compromise legislation like this, because if not, we're going to be stuck under the Equality Act a decade from now.

When there's a Democrat, next time there's a Democrat Congress president, they're going to pass it.

We're trending in that way.

So honestly, my pitch to social conservatives for this legislation is that we're working with you on this.

We want it to be fair.

We want it to be balanced.

It's very complicated, but we're working to make exceptions.

Work with us on this legislation.

Let's pass something like this.

Because if you don't, unfortunately, the reality is you're going to be stuck under the Equality Act 10 years from now, I would bet.

Brad, I don't want to leave this conversation with you thinking anything other than I really respect you.

I respect you for coming on and debating this with me.

And we're on different ends of

the argument on this one.

But I'd like to continue this conversation because maybe I'm just missing something.

But as as a libertarian, I don't like special rights ever for anyone.

It is, it just, it shouldn't be that way.

You have a right to live your life.

And I mean that as transgender, and I mean that as a straight white man.

You have a right to rule your life, to be stupid, to be different, to be whatever it is you are.

You have that right.

No special rights for anybody.

No special rights.

Can we get one quick comment out of Brad, though, before you leave?

I'm concerned, Brad, that the left is noticing that Pete Buttigieg is not gay enough.

And is there an appropriate amount of gay that Pete should be?

Do you have any perspective on this?

Look, I don't like Pete.

He represents none of my policy beliefs.

I don't think he's moderate in the slightest.

No.

But I will say that the woke left makes him look good when they launch this ridiculous attacks against him.

You know, the latest one that I think you're referencing is the the BuzzFeed News article that said, queer people can never be released until we no longer live in a country powered by capitalism.

And basically the article criticizes Pete Butajej because he gets ahead by acting like a normal person, pretty much.

And I'm just bad.

God forbid he is really a normal person.

It's a bad thing.

Yeah, I mean, the point of the article seems to be, well, of course they're accepting Pete Buttigieg because he's acting like them, a guy who wears a suit and is all buttoned buttoned up and talks about marriage all the time.

Well, that's not, they're not really accepting us.

And, you know, this is what you get if all you do is go after gay marriage.

You know, it's a really, I felt it was a really insulting argument to the average gay person.

No, it is insulting.

And I have to say that we see these things on BuzzFeed and Out and the New Republic and all these crazy screens.

Those aren't representative of the guys I play with on my gay soccer league.

Like, I'm telling you, the average gay person, just not think what the crazy, woke internet people think.

All right.

Thankfully.

Brad, thank you so much for being on the program.

Brad Palumbo, he is WashingtonExaminer.com.

Thanks for being a part of the program.

Thank you, Bonn.

You bet.

I want to say something in full disclosure.

Wait for a second, Sarah.

I want to say something in full disclosure here.

This

Fairness for All Act is really being spearheaded by

my church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, because they are very, very concerned that

we are strong on family, strong on marriage, and strong on gender, and we always have been.

And they are very concerned about the rights of religious people and religious organizations.

And I 100%

understand that.

And I have met with leaders of my faith on this and talked to them in depth.

I disagree with them on this and I've had to do a lot of praying on this because, you know,

you know, I respect them

and I've come to the conclusion through counsel

with many of them that

their calling is their calling.

Their calling is to protect the church.

My calling is to tell you about what's happening in government and the Constitution.

And my calling,

my feelings on this is this does not protect the average person.

It does protect the churches.

And if you want to protect the churches and you believe that working together and holding hands with people

who are most times shown us to be wildly dishonest,

And they are progressive, they take progressive steps.

This then would only be a progressive measure.

I could be wrong on it, but I will tell you that I have talked to members of my own faith in

all levels of government as well, and attorneys and everything else, and it is split.

But I will tell you that I truly

it hurts me to say, because I am somebody who believes in unity.

I am somebody who believes in coming together, but I believe this to be the wrong path.

Enough said.

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