Best of the Program | Guests: Dave Isay & Jeffy Fisher| 1/8/19

Hello and welcome to the podcast.

It is Tuesday and a very important Tuesday at 9 p.m.

on this night.

The president is going to speak about a very important issue.

We'll get into that on the podcast in a second.

First, I want to tell you, let me give you this example.

Steven Crowder.

You might be familiar with him.

He's got a show.

It's very popular.

Shut up.

It's coming back on January 17th.

Whoa.

You know where it's coming back to?

Where?

Blaze TV.

Oh my gosh.

You're a subscriber you're going to get.

But he's the only one.

No, there's dozens of them.

Dozens of them.

them.

Glenn Beck Program, you might know.

You can watch the show every day.

You can watch Pat Gray Unleashed, and you can get News and Why It Matters.

Plus, dozens of other shows like Eric Bowling and Mark Levin and Steven Crowder.

Where could I get this?

You could get that at blazetv.com slash Beck.

Probably really expensive.

Well, what if I were to get $10 off for you?

Shut up.

Yeah, I can do that for you if you use the promo code Beck.

Go there now, subscribe, and get ready for the show.

We get this show every day, and Steven Crowder starts on the 17th.

Okay.

So on today's podcast, I think you're really going to like it.

We hit a couple of things.

One, just the pros and cons of the president saying, I'm going to use an executive order or emergency measures to be able to build the wall on the border.

I think the consensus is that we agree with the goal, we don't like the route.

And that was surprising when we took it to the phones and talked to people all over the country.

It was pretty unanimous, was it not?

Yeah, I think so.

And It's a principled audience.

And so it's going to be interesting to see what the president actually talks about.

And we'll be able to talk about it in more detail when he actually goes through it tonight.

Also, Jeffy, Jeff Fisher, who's been with this show for about 20 years, had a heart attack over the holiday.

We talked about his fatness, his smoking, and his widowmaker heart attack.

He is one of the very few that have a heart attack this massive and actually live.

God only knows why he was spared, but he was spared, and we talk about that on today's podcast.

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

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This is the Glenn Beck program.

All right, what would you say if I told you that officially we were already under a state of emergency,

28

different states of emergencies?

They never, ever go away.

You can't, once you declare a national emergency, the president does, and I make no mistake, I believe he has this power to do it, and I think it's an important power for the president to have.

But the way it's designed, it never, ever goes away because it takes both houses to just majority majority vote no, but then it goes to the president and he has to veto.

Well, he's the guy who just proposed it.

So he's not going to veto it.

He is going to veto it.

Or he is going to veto it.

Then you have to have two-thirds of Congress overturn his veto.

Well, that almost never happens.

And in fact, in history, it never has happened.

But if you look at the national emergencies that we have, they all kind of fall into the same category.

Who was the first president to declare a national emergency?

Can you even guess?

It was Jimmy Carter.

And it happened in 1979.

So we went from

1791 or 1789 to 1979 without a national emergency.

We went through World War I, World War II.

We went through the Civil War.

No national emergencies.

1979 was the first.

And I want you to listen to the pattern.

Blocking the Iranian government property, November 14th, 1979.

So that's what Obama, when he flew all that cash back,

that's what Obama

was

usurping now.

He was giving back their property.

But that still remains.

We're still under a state of emergency blocking property.

So Carter did it against Iran.

And then, you know, the billions of dollars we sent over there was essentially the other side of that transaction.

They were complaining about how we kept their stuff all this time.

Correct.

But we never got rid of the national emergency.

Proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, November 14th, 1994.

So the next guy who did it was Bill Clinton.

Now, listen to this.

So the first president to ever do it, 1979, was

Carter.

He only did it once.

Then Reagan never did it.

Bush never did it.

Then 1994, Clinton gets out his pen.

Proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

Then prohibiting transactions with terrorists who threaten to disrupt the Middle East peace process in 1995.

Prohibiting certain transactions with respect to the development of the Iranian petroleum resources in 1995.

Also in 1995, blocking

assets and prohibiting transactions with significant narcotic traffickers.

Then in 96, regulations of the anchorage and movement of vessels with respect to Cuba.

Then in 97, blocking Sudanese government property and prohibiting transactions with Sudan.

Blocking property of persons who threaten international stabilization efforts in the Western Balkans.

That's 2001.

So now George Bush is getting into it.

And here's where it really picks up the speed.

Continuation of export control regulations, August 17th, 2001.

declaration of national emergency by reason of certain terrorist attacks, September 14th, 2001, then September 23rd, blocking property and prohibiting transactions with persons who commit, threaten to commit, or support terrorism, then blocking property of persons undermining democratic process or institutions in Zimbabwe, March 6th, 2003, then protecting the development fund for Iraq and certain other property in which Iraq has an interest, March 2003.

Blocking property of persons and prohibiting the export of certain goods to Syria, May 2004.

Blocking property of certain persons undermining democratic processes and institutions in Belarus, June 2006.

Also, in October 2006, blocking property of certain persons contributing to the conflict of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, then blocking property and persons undermining the sovereignty of Lebanon and its democratic process and institutions in 2007.

Then we have, in June 2006, continuing certain restrictions with respect to North Korea and North Korean nationalists, and that is 2008.

Now we're into Obama time.

Blocking property of certain persons continuing to the conflict in Somalia, blocking property of certain transactions related to Libya, blocking property of transnational criminal organizations, blocking property of persons threatening peace, security, stability in Yemen, blocking property of certain persons contributing to the situation in Ukraine, that's in twenty fourteen, blocking property of certain persons with respect to South Sudan in 2014, blocking the property of certain persons contributing to the conflict in the Central African Republic, blocking property suspending the entry of certain persons contributing to the situation in Venezuela, then

blocking the property of certain persons persons engaging in significant malicious cyber-enabled activities in 2015.

And the last one that Obama did, blocking property of certain persons contributing to the situation in Burundi.

That's in 2015.

Now, what do those all have in common?

They're all blocking property and possessions of potential terrorists or

newly inflamed hotspots around the globe.

Right.

None of it would fall under the category of new spending or anything like that.

It's all blocking property, and that's what it's been used for.

Right.

It is making sure that people, the bad guys, don't have access to more funds or transfer funds across international borders or that we do anything to help the bad guys.

That's what the emergency action has been since it was first used in 1979.

And I would say, too,

another thing that I think a lot of those have in common, not all,

certainly not September 14th, 2001, but most of them I would say are lower on the priority list of American sovereignty and security than

the border security issue is.

Like, what's going on in Burundi might be very important, and it probably is,

but I would not put that on the level of

September 11th or building a wall on our southern border, right?

I mean, I think, like, that doesn't mean that there was no reason to use those things, but it, you know.

So here is the, here is the,

here, here's the issue.

It's not since 2006 that the Americans have said, we want a border wall.

That's when Congress, including Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, signed into law a border wall.

Secure Fense Act of 2006.

We signed it in,

and everybody in the Senate and Congress tried to convince me, oh, no, Glenn, this time it's real.

No, it's not.

I mean, I knew it wasn't, and you knew it wasn't.

They had no intention of doing it.

They were just placating the American people.

But this doesn't start in 2006.

The reason why it was popular for Obama and Hillary Clinton to sign it in in 2006 was because we all knew what happened just a few short years ago in 2001, and no one was willing to do anything about it.

Our borders, north and south, are trouble.

But

there's another piece piece of the puzzle.

The overwhelming problem that we have is overstayed visas, and they've never fixed that either.

That was the number one problem on September 11th.

That's still the number one problem with terror.

And a border wall won't have anything to do with that.

It won't fix it.

But I don't think that's where the American people are.

They know that.

They don't think this is a fix-all.

They just think this is one box that needs to be checked and no one will ever check it.

If I'm reading the American people right,

the American people know that this is a problem.

And they're tired of waiting around and being told by one party or the other, we're going to fix that.

Because Bill Clinton said he would fix that.

Senator Barack Obama said he would fix that.

Hillary Clinton said she would fix that.

George Bush said he would fix that.

No one has fixed that.

No one is serious about it except the American people.

So tonight, I think people are going to be split in two camps.

The Democrats, who have been brainwashed that, oh, no, this is just racist.

No, it's not.

They're going to be against it, even though their leaders signed it in in 2006 when all the rest of the Democrats remembered September 11th,

they're going to be brainwashed and they're going to say, no, this is

nothing but race.

What does the right say about it?

So, Stu,

let's look at what,

let's start a pro and con list.

The pros, as I see it, is that this would mean that there would be a permanent solution.

And I think that's the number one thing that conservatives are looking for.

We're tired of having this same battle and being told we're going to take care of it, knowing that they're not going to take care of it.

They're not going to be serious about it.

And so this provides something that goes beyond this president and it's done.

Right, unless they decide to blow it up or tear it down, which I wouldn't put necessarily past the future president.

Well, I could see them not repairing it, just not just let it go to waste.

Okay, so you have a permanent solution.

You have more security.

You haven't solved the problem, but you have more security.

Definitely improvement.

Right.

Yes.

A move in the right dire, a big move in the right direction.

And you have accountability.

Right?

Accountability.

How do you mean that?

You have somebody who's willing to say,

I'm responsible for this.

Sure, yeah.

That's nice to hear occasionally.

Right.

The buck stops here.

That's the one thing that I think both Republicans and Democrats want, maybe not on the same things, but they want someone to say, buck stops here.

And

that is the real problem with like government shutdowns and things like that, is the more

we don't believe in the federal government, the more we want someone, anyone, just to step in and say, I'll fix it because we think these things are common sense.

I believe the border wall is common sense.

I mean, I want a bigger door.

I want more qualified people coming in.

I want the best people from all over the world to come in.

But what I don't want are people coming in through the windows and through the side doors that we don't know who's in the house.

And I don't want that in any way, shape, or form.

I don't want that from Sweden.

And I don't want that from Libya.

and I don't want that from Mexico.

Seems like, you know, the basic

common sense when it comes to having a country and having borders, you have to be able to control them if they get out of control, right?

No one's talking about a fence between us and Canada because that is not an out-of-control border.

This one is,

and we have to do something to stop it.

The fence would...

It would help quite a bit, and they've already let us down after we've elected them and they've passed bills promising it okay including votes from diane feinstein and barbara boxer and barack obama and hillary clinton this was not a republican measure very recently no it was 2006 and that is that's the thing the president's going to hang his hat on tonight i think if he does this he may not do this i think he's going to you mean as far as actually saying the state of emergency

and shifting funds to pay for the border wall without passing the law yes

you think he's going to do it i do do you if i had a guess i'd say yes there's a lot of reporting reporting on it that that's definitely what he's considering.

He may also just be threatening it, right?

Like he may be saying, like, look, I'm going to do this either way.

You might as well get your DACA and give me the money because I'm going to go do this as a...

Yeah,

he may say, you've got seven days.

Right.

Might put a window or 30 days, whatever it is.

And then the shutdown thing is getting to those elevated levels, too, where it's starting to, you're already starting to see the reporting about people who, who, you know, the tax refunds, refunds they've solved in the short term, but you've got the food stamps thing that's right around the corner.

There's several different programs that will start becoming major news stories if they don't get this fixed by then.

I wonder who's writing this tonight.

This really has to be written really, really well.

And his goal

is to make people understand the seriousness of the border

separately from some political issue, right?

His goal is to say to the person who's in the middle who cares about our security but isn't a partisan or isn't a huge Trump person or whatever, to convince them that, hey, you know, you've been hearing all this stuff and they always say that I'm lying about this.

Here are the facts, and this really is a serious situation, and we may need to make it a national emergency.

This is the first time that he's done anything from the Oval Office.

He has not given a speech behind the resolute desk in the Oval Office, not an address to the nation.

Correct?

I don't know.

I'm pretty sure.

I don't know.

Look it up.

Will you?

Marissa, I'm pretty sure that that is.

The primetime address.

This is his first primetime address from behind the resolute desk.

The resolute desk is generally

reserved for

really

important speeches.

you know, milestone kind of speeches to where we're going to war or there's a national emergency,

or there's something really grave that we need to talk about.

Also, it has traditionally been used for the farewell address.

Interesting to see the media struggle yesterday with: should we even take this?

Is this something that we should even take?

Yes.

First of all, yes.

Second of all, if you would have even suggested that under Barack Obama, you would have been a racist for suggesting it.

Unbelievable.

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Okay, so the only thing that I can think of that is a con

on national emergency is it is not unconstitutional.

The president has a right to do that.

We have 22 national emergencies already running.

They just never go away.

And there's all sorts of different types of national emergencies as well.

I mean, one of the funny things about this is we had a caller last hour saying, well, one of the ways he could do this is because of the opioid thing.

I mean, this is a major issue.

Well, there is a national health emergency on opioids, a different type of national emergency.

But until he actually

promised to declare a national emergency on opioids, but it took him Trump a while to do it.

And in that time, the media was constantly complaining that he wasn't starting a national health emergency on opioids.

They complained about it constantly

until he finally did wind up doing it.

Now that the same, it's a related matter on opioids and heroin and these sorts of things.

Now that he wants to do a different type of national emergency, it's a very controversial thing.

Right.

So if he's smart, he will include opioids tonight.

He will include MS-13.

And he will include

the humanitarian crisis that has been caused here recently by people who wish to do our country no good.

Also, he should include that we will open up

our immigration and make it easier for qualified people to come in.

Because I don't think anybody has a problem with immigrants as long as they're here and they're qualified.

Right.

What we don't want is MS-13.

And again, MS-13 gets this political sort of thing.

Oh, that's just Donald Trump trying to scare people.

To just put this in perspective,

MS-13 kills 4.3 times as many people that die in school shootings in the United States.

4.3 times as many people die at the hands of MS-13 than die in school shootings.

And how much do you hear about MS-13?

You don't ever hear about it.

It's just a nonsensical, oh, that's just Donald Trump.

He's making things up.

MS-13, what?

He just letters and numbers?

He's just throwing them together?

No, it's a very violent gang, and they kill a lot of people in the United States.

It's a real problem.

A real problem.

If you think school shootings are a real problem, which we all know the left does.

This is four times the size.

And the president should include things like that if he's going to make the case.

Now, the only downside I can see on this is I don't like the way this is being done.

I don't want to set this precedent.

I don't want the next president coming in and saying, well, I'll tell you, a national crisis, a national emergency, it's global warming.

And here are all the stats

because they they will.

Yeah, the idea

behind a national emergency is to take things that aren't partisan issues, where there's not disagree.

We all know that, you know, Iran, right, is a big problem and we need to stop their funding, right?

That was the first time it was used.

During the, again, during the hostage crisis, September 11th, right after that, we all know, we're all on the same page.

The votes are all, you know, 100 to zero on issues related to that.

This is one where, obviously, Republicans want it to happen, Democrats don't.

And if you.

Tell me the thing that isn't partisan now.

Well, because you could say it's usually only in emergency situations.

But again, that's why there's a national emergency part of this, right?

But it isn't part of the national emergency.

Look, I'm not making a case for this because I don't think this is the right way to do it, but I'm going to play devil's advocate because there is no other way to do this anymore.

Any other way to do it has been destroyed because we've made everything partisan.

When you said, well, we should know, well, we all did.

We all knew that 2006,

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton signed the wall into law.

It passed 80 to 19, by the way, in the Senate.

Okay, so it wasn't a partisan issue.

It just is now.

Yep.

Climate change should not be a partisan issue.

But it is a partisan issue.

It is a partisan issue.

It's how you deal with it, right?

Yes.

And they will say the same thing.

This is not supposed to be a partisan issue, and we should pass, it's a national state of emergency on the climate, and we can do X, Y, and Z.

They've tried it.

I mean, this is how a lot of times the EPA has tried to control emissions and put new standards on, which are things that, you know, I fought against the entire time because I believe those are completely unconstitutional.

This one would not be.

It's allowed through the law.

Not only would it not be unconstitutional, it would be completely legal as far as I can tell.

It's just a new way of using this.

It does seem to be an expanded use of this power, which, you know, I don't want that ever.

I don't ever want to be on the air telling you that the government

is getting more power to do something

because they already have enough.

They already have a lot of power.

And the reason, you know, these things are hard to do, to pass a border wall is going to be hard to do.

And

that is sort of built into our system.

What's really crazy is we went to the moon in the 1960s when we didn't have the technology.

Okay, we didn't have the technology.

And we said we have to do this not because it's easy, but because it's it's hard.

We don't need any technology.

We don't need to do anything around.

Technology has been around for a while.

It's been around for forever.

Look at it's hard to do.

No, hard to do was go to the moon in 1969.

That was hard to do.

Getting together and putting a fence or a wall up to stop people from coming in across our border, that's not hard.

It's just people unwilling to do it.

Yeah, I mean, I just, you know, we all, if this was the way that this could have been done, we wouldn't have needed to have a conversation about laws for the past two years, right?

I think everyone realized for the past two years, including the administration, that this was not the way to do this.

The same way, by the way, that Barack Obama had the conversation about DACA, and they said, we can't do this.

We had to pass a law.

And then they came up with another way around it.

This one is a little bit different.

I think it's better than the DACA thing.

There's no question about it, but it makes me a little uneasy, doesn't it?

Let's look at it this way.

The only reason why we have Donald Trump, the thing that Donald Trump really connected, because remember, he wasn't connecting at the beginning until he got onto the border wall.

When he started on the border wall, that was his, in his first opening speech, that was like 19th on his list.

Yeah, it was not a high priority in that speech.

People forget that.

The whole Mexican rapist thing that he got beat up on so much, that was like, I want to say it was like 2% or 3% of his speech.

It was not something he focused on at all.

So as soon as he started to get onto that, that's when he really took off.

So

let me just posit this

little thought here.

That

perhaps because the Democrats refused to deal with what they said they would do in 2008, and they agreed that we needed a wall, but then for some political reason or some other reason that never has been vocalized, they decided not to build the wall.

That's the reason why we have Donald Trump as president.

Because politicians refused to do exactly not what they said they were going to do, but what they wrote a bill and signed on to do.

They passed a law that said shall be built.

And they never did it.

So if you're looking for an ultimate reason why Donald Trump, how could Donald Trump be our president?

Well, there it is.

Yeah, it's stuff like that.

Yeah.

And the Republicans and the Democrats failed to build a wall, that they passed a law.

It's amazing.

But, I mean, Trump, one thing about Trump in these moments is he doesn't like being on defense, right?

So this is a way for him to turn it to being on offense.

I've got something I can use and I will use it.

I think there's a good chance that he says tonight, you've got two weeks to hammer this out or I'm going to use this.

So that puts him on the offensive.

You know, again, it makes me uneasy, that sort of power, but still it is an understandable that, I mean, because the basic thing behind it, everybody agrees with, at least in this audience, I think most people on the conservative side, which is this is a real problem.

People are ignoring it.

We need this thing built.

Figure out a way to do it.

And that is a completely logical way to think.

We just have to make sure we don't cross some barrier we're going to get burned by later.

Correct.

Left to their own devices, the American people would solve this problem.

Oh, yeah.

We would solve it.

This is the best of the Glenn Beck program.

I also,

because it's a new year, I really want to focus on the big issues.

And I was overwhelmed

during the holiday with the number of people that rode in and said how close they were to giving up, how they had wrestled with depression, how they had been wrestling with alcoholism,

and how they had

a new commitment to continue another day.

And

sometimes we forget about how alone people can feel.

And it's because we don't talk about these things, because we kind of bury them.

And

they are kind of first principles.

They're the things that we should be talking about with each other, we should be looking out for one another.

But sometimes these things make us uncomfortable, and you don't know what to say.

I know this is true for me in many cases with

veterans because

I hold them in such high regard.

I don't necessarily

know what I would do in their situation.

And it causes me sometimes

to not say anything.

One of the biggest

regrets in my life, I am good friends

with Chris Kyle's wife, but I was not friends with Chris because I stood at a charity fundraiser shoulder to shoulder with him, and I only shook his hand and thanked him for his service.

I didn't even talk to him because I was so intimidated.

Our soldiers are going through real tough times, but it's

those who refuse to give up that make the difference.

Our partners at Story Corps

have a great story to tell between a Marine corporal, Zach Skiles.

He was deployed to Iraq in 2003.

He was there at the beginning of the invasion.

While serving on the front lines, he lost five friends within a two-week period.

And when he came home, he had a hard time adjusting.

He had a hard time holding down a job.

He found himself homeless.

So Story Corps sat down with him and his father, Scott, to talk about the difficulties that he faced during the war and how he got back on his feet.

This is an amazing story.

Listen.

I remember saying to you, every gift that I've been given, I don't have a better one than to be your dad.

And I remember you smiling saying, I love you too, dad.

And then you got out of the car and went to war.

So what was life like after you came home?

I was pretty sure someone was going to kick down my door.

And I was scared to go to sleep.

I couldn't sustain employment.

I couldn't pay rent and pay for groceries.

It all just kind of fell apart.

and then I was homeless.

The crazy thing was that I didn't think that there was anything super wrong.

You know the nighttime I stayed on coastal trails and hiking trails and in the daytime I could just pass out at a park.

There was a time period where I didn't know where you were

and

It is difficult to watch anyone let go of hope.

But when it's your son, it's excruciating.

I remember great relief that you decided to go into inpatient treatment

and I remember one night you getting out of the car to walk back into the treatment building it was dark and your head was kind of down

and for a moment I could feel the weight you were carrying

As I watched you walk into that building, I uttered these two words that I don't know if they were some kind of prayer or not, but they just came out.

My son.

And

I was absolutely overcome with grief and love and the beginning of hope.

What is life like for you now?

It's pretty cool.

You graduated undergrad?

Yes.

I heard summa cum laude.

I'm just asking.

That's what I heard.

Yeah.

I remember my dad saying this to me, and I feel it is so true between you and I.

It is your life, so you have the last word.

But then as your dad, that gives me the second to the last word.

And the second to the last word is, I believe in you.

And I'm on your side.

There's a...

Powerful thing I learned from somebody who had been kept as a sex slave in Mexico.

She had literally, she had chain scars around her neck, scars all over her back where she had been beaten and burned and chained for a couple of years.

I was recording something with her and I said,

I want you to say, hi, my name is so-and-so, and I used to be a slave.

And she said, no, I won't say that.

And I said,

okay, why?

And she said, because I never considered myself a slave.

They may have chained me, but I never considered myself a slave.

Our lives are a blank piece of paper, and we are the only authors of it.

If someone else is authoring it, or if you don't like the way the story is going,

open a new page and start again.

It sounds ridiculous because it's too easy, but it's true.

Dave Isay from StoryCorps is with us now.

Dave, can you give me an update on

Zach?

Glenn, Happy New Year.

It's great to talk to you.

Well,

Zach is getting his Ph.D.

now in psychology.

And I will say, you know, this was the first time,

as you know, a Story Corps interview is two people who care about one another coming to have a conversation.

And we've had a dozen big special initiatives through the years.

And this one is part of the Military Voices Initiative, focusing on the voices of post-9-11 vets and their families.

The first time they ever had this conversation, first time they ever talked about what happened

in Tazak in Iraq.

And I met, so I don't get a chance to meet a lot of the participants in Story Corps.

We've had half a million people who participate.

But when I'm giving a talk, sometimes people from stories will come into the

into the

come to the talk.

And Zach's dad, Scott, came to a talk a little while ago.

And

this goes back a little bit to what you were saying about the woman who you had interviewed, who was a sex slave.

And it reminded me of that Mandela quote where he said, Nelson Mandela, they can chain my body, but

they can't chain my soul.

But

Zach's dad, Scott, after I played played a story, handed me just a very brief quote, which stuck with me.

And it just said,

Here is the world.

Beautiful and terrible things will happen.

Don't be afraid.

So, how can people get involved in your new initiative, One Small Step?

This is trying to bring people together that maybe don't see the world politically the same way, but you're preserving the voices of people who

are very, very different from one another, but can can find common ground.

How do people get involved in that?

So we have, you can come to our website.

It's StoryCorps, S-T-R-Y-C-O-R-P-S.org, backslash, one small step, which is one word.

And you described exactly what we're trying to do.

We've had half a million people who know and love each other, like Zach and Scott, come to StoryCorps.

And now we're working to put people on opposite sides of the political divide together, just to not to talk about politics, just to remember that someone you disagree with is also a human being.

Have you started it yet?

I mean, have you actually started to record these yet?

Oh, yes, we have.

And it's, you know,

it's kind of addictive.

It's a beautiful thing to see.

And none of it will surprise you.

You know, it brings out kind of the opposite impulses of social media.

When you do a story court interview, each of those interviews goes to the Library of Congress so your great, great, great, great, great

can hear the voice of your grandmother or your friend, whoever you're talking to, your voice.

And unlike social media, which is so disposable, you know, Story Corps is the ultimate kind of long game, right?

So when you come to a Story Corps booth and you're talking to someone across the political divides, you know that your great, great, great grandkids are going to listen to this someday.

So you really are your kind of best, highest self.

So it's just a beautiful thing to see.

And, you know, I think that it's enough already, right?

In the country with what's going on.

And

it's just an existential crisis.

It's dangerous, and we've forgotten that we belong to one another.

I can't wait to hear some of those voices that you're collecting.

If you want to be a part of this, go to StoryCore, C-O-R-P-S, storycore.org/slash one small step.

And that is, again,

one word.

Dave, thank you so much.

We'll talk to you again.

Glenn, it's great to talk to you.

Talk to you soon.

You bet.

Bye-bye.

This is the best of the Glen Beck program.

So it's early in the morning up at the ranch, and my whole family, and my grandkids, and everybody's around.

And

I walk out into the main room, and I said, Everybody,

we have to to say a prayer

and everybody on your knees and my family just looked at me

and

I said Jeffy has just had a heart attack and it's a big one

and by the end of the prayer most of us were in tears

because we just love him dearly

and

We were greatly concerned about you, Jeffy.

Thank you.

The support, the overwhelming support between co-workers and listeners and viewers of this network was unbelievable.

And, you know, proof that well wishes and thoughts and prayers work.

Yeah.

So tell me what it was like that morning.

You got up in the morning and Amber told me you were sitting on the edge of the bed.

Oh, yeah.

I was sitting on the edge of the bed and the pain in my chest was not going away.

Back up a couple of days.

Yeah, how many days of pain did you ignore before you were sitting on the bed and wondering whether you should go to the hospital?

A couple that I remember.

So for two days, you were having heart.

Well, a little bit, but it went away.

So it's just

a little bit of a, oh, yeah, it's going away.

Okay, you're fine.

And then you just move on.

You know, just

you're fine.

You convince yourself that it's not going to be a good thing.

Is it a pain like you've ever felt before?

Not really.

I mean, you really,

honestly, looking back on it, it was dumb not to do something.

Dumb not to go see somebody about it

because

you realize that that's not right.

You know, that's just not, that's not the pain of hurting yourself while you sleep.

It's not the pain of indigestion or heartburn.

Right.

And so the morning of the

pain that would not stop, it just doesn't stop.

There's no way.

You just, I mean, it starts in your chest and it stays there and continues down your arms.

I didn't have so much of that.

It was more just complete pressure on my chest,

non-stop pain all over the entire chest.

So Amber,

you feel nauseous and like you're going to throw up.

Some profuse sweating, I understand.

Absolutely.

Big time sweating.

More than usual.

Right.

In fact, that was the usual thing.

But I'm surprised your family didn't drown.

If it was more than usual, I'm surprised that the lifeguard wasn't called out.

No, the shirt was still, I believe the shirt was still sopped after a couple of days.

There's no doubt.

So

you told Amber

not to call 910.

I mean,

the first time,

don't worry about it.

I'll be fine.

I'll

see if it goes away.

And then

the last

no

was more of a no, yes call.

Yeah.

You know, it was no.

Oh, wow.

So no means yes to you.

Okay, we're learning an awful lot.

I've believed in that forever, man.

I think you know that.

So

she said that your pulse had gotten down to, I think, 45.

Whatever.

I mean, it was down to nothing.

Yeah.

And it was really bad.

She said it stopped a few times.

I believe that.

I believe that.

And in transit, you know, once they,

you know, once we called 911 and the, you know, rescue, fire rescue and the ambulance people were all there within,

I don't know, five minutes, maybe.

I don't know how long it took them to get there.

I know that we live in some strange area that it took three transfers on 911 to get to the right 911 for my wife.

So she was freaking out.

And I know that it probably was pretty fast,

but it just seems right.

You know, when you call 911, it's like you want something now.

And, oh, hold on.

I'm going to transfer you.

Hold.

I'm going to transfer you.

Please hold.

She's screaming at the phone, but they, you know, relatively fast.

And then in transit from my home to

the hospital, I apparently went off the deep end farther.

close to the end.

And

once we got to the hospital, do you remember it?

I remember leaving the neighborhood.

I remember looking out the window saying, oh, this is the way they're leaving the neighborhood.

And then I remember going into the hospital.

I remember them banging on the door of the ER because the ER door wouldn't open.

I remember that.

I remember that with the fire rescue going, hey.

To be fair, though, a lot of businesses have rules to not open the door for you.

Yeah.

So that's just

a good question.

I believe there's a restraining order here.

This is very possible.

Right.

And so you didn't go into the normal ER situation, right?

I did not.

We went straight into surgery, right?

Straight into the cath lab for heart surgery.

I mean, to be honest,

shh, but I haven't seen paperwork or a bill or nothing.

Oh, it's not coming.

Don't worry.

Everything's going to be fine.

I mean, no, it's coming.

Oh, it's coming.

I know there's going to end up at the front hot door, you know, and probably giant bags of paper.

That was the first thing.

When I heard that was the first thing we called

HR to make sure that you did not have any problem with paperwork, I can't imagine having having a camera stand there with paperwork.

But it's coming.

Oh, yeah, okay, that's fine.

I believe that.

But I'm just saying it was amazing.

I mean, there was nothing.

Straight in and

right to the surgery.

And

they had

one on the left side was 100% blocked.

That's the widowmaker.

as they call it.

And apparently there's a reason they call that the widowmaker because when it gets 100% blocked, you die.

And if it's not attended to fast enough, right?

I mean, if you don't get to it in time,

if someone

believes that no means no in your world and doesn't call 911, you're dead, right?

I mean, that's as simple as that.

They got there in time to fix it.

Your life flashed in front of your eyes?

Not really.

Did you?

No, that's what's so funny.

I was telling, I remember, Pat reminded me this morning when he came to the hospital, is that

I don't remember ever thinking this was it.

It didn't flash between my eyes.

I don't remember,

I didn't ever think, oh, this is it.

I'm going to die.

I never thought that.

I wonder if that's why you are alive.

I wonder if that,

whatever it is in you that made you not think that is what helped you carry on.

It's very possible.

I mean, I never thought that.

I mean, obviously, you know, it's scary and you're having a heart attack and I'm kind of freaking out and going through whatever you go through when you have the heart attack and the chest is hurting and I just want it to stop and I want it to be fixed.

But I never thought, oh, this is it.

I'm never going to see anybody again.

So let's get this over with.

One of the things we talked at your place the past weekend, you mentioned, which I thought was really interesting, was it's kind of like they brought you in and they did their job and cleared out the problems.

And then you're kind of like, they kind of reset it.

You're kind of like, if they had just known, let's say two weeks earlier that you had this blockage, you would have still had the surgery, but you wouldn't have had the heart attack.

And you would be back.

I mean, you were, this is, remember, this happened, happened, what, 10 days ago, 12, two weeks ago, something like that.

And here you are.

You're back at work.

We're from the generation.

We're probably the last generation where something like this, you don't come back.

It knocks you out.

You're done.

You're done.

You would have had double bypass surgery.

Double bypass surgery was like, that was crazy.

And that's last resort stuff now.

I mean, I don't even, you know, I don't even think they do it, do they?

I think they do.

I think they break your chest open once in a while if you need it in for particular particular cases.

What, a new one?

Yeah,

I guess so.

Yeah, if they're going to put in like that, I had a stent put in, the one valve, and the other valve they cleaned out.

And I learned yesterday that they left a couple of valves on the other side of my heart that were like 30 or 40% blocked.

They're going to leave those because they'll clean themselves out now.

You'd be fine.

Well, they'll clean themselves out.

They'll clean themselves out now with the new medication.

They put little scrubbing bubbles in there.

Yes, they did.

That's the medication I have now is scrubbing bubbles.

And it's just doing its work.

Right, right.

I mean, it's apparently, you know, they have me on some kind of, I mean, blood thinner.

I can't, a mosquito bites me, I'm dead.

You know,

don't cut yourself.

Don't cut yourself.

But yeah, that's it.

They said that side, that'll clean it out now that we've got the other sides working good.

You could.

Okay, thank you.

All right.

So incredible how far medicine has come.

I mean, it is amazing.

It's amazing.

It's amazing.

I mean, Ray Kurzweil said, Glenn, just stay alive until 2030.

Then you'll never die.

I mean, that's...

I don't know if I want that either, to be honest.

I don't want that either.

But I mean,

that's how far medicine is going to go.

And we're just at this steep, steep curve.

We'll come back and talk about changes now

and changes that our wives are now yelling at us about because of you.

So we were up in the mountains until Sunday, and this happened what day?

28th.

What is that, a Thursday or Friday?

Yeah,

and had to drive down.

We just got a text message.

We can get text messages, but I can't make any phone calls up in the mountains.

So I had to drive 20 minutes, freaking out.

And

I called Amber right away, and then I called Pat and Stu.

And Pat ended, or Stu ended the conversation with

basically it's different when someone who's like a peer, a friend, this happens to it.

It changes the way you think about the life.

I don't know how much longer we can do this to our bodies.

That's exactly what he said.

We can't do this to our bodies anymore.

We're not young anymore.

Very disappointing.

I'd just like to apologize.

Yeah, yeah.

I'd like to apologize to you.

Thank you.

Not to Stu, but I'll apologize to you.

No, no, no.

And actually, Jeffy, it's good.

I've got to lose 50 pounds.

What did the doctor say to you?

They are, you know, they obviously, you know, they lose weight and eat right and get, you know, exercise and get right and get your heart stronger.

We're all, you know, we're in the right place.

Well, the way you're saying

it's like, we're in the right place.

You're not really.

Shot across the bow.

There's a warning.

It's all good.

Right.

We can do something about it.

But they really were most concerned about there was another

thing

that I involved myself in over the years.

You're not narrowing it down when it comes to you.

They were most concerned with the smoking.

That's having you picked back up, right?

Yeah, I mean, you had kicked out.

I know, I know, I know.

Nobody smokes around me.

I didn't know you had started smoking again.

And it's just,

and so that's what they're most concerned with, is that the smoking.

Stop the smoking, 100%.

You can put a patch on, you can chew, don't smoke, don't vape, don't do none of it.

No smoking.

So you're done with the smoking.

Have you actually stopped?

Yeah.

No vaping, too.

Vaping is supposed to be.

They made a point of that.

They made a point of that.

I know Stu and I talked about this the other day about the vaping because I don't know that they know anything

for sure.

I don't know that there's any actual deep studies that prove that.

I think the science on it, honestly, is pretty favorable towards vaping as far as a replacement.

I mean, it's much lower on the risk sort of scale.

But again, that doesn't mean a person who just had a heart attack should take it up.

I think if you could stop, it's better.

I mean, I think that's-I think that's where they're at, right?

A lot of these companies talk about that in that, like, this is a way to stop.

It's not necessarily something, it's certainly not something you should just start from scratch.

Like, if you're not smoking, don't start vaping.

But if you are smoking, vaping is probably better.

Though for you, coming out of a massive heart attack, don't vape.

Zero smoking of any sort.

Zero smoking of any.

You should not even go to Los Angeles.

Right.

That's pretty much it.

Yeah.

Which kills the rave parties that I've been going to.

Oh, I know.

That's only something that's not going to happen.

So nothing about the cocaine and the heroin.

They did talk a little bit about supplements at one point yesterday with the heart doc.

The heart doc did point out a few things about some of the supplements, but that's about it.

I want to ask about this.

Yeah, what are the supplements?

Just, I mean, vitamins, Glenn, vitamins are supplements, vitamins.

So he's taking some shady products like meat in Mongolia.

Yeah, are you taking like rhino horn?

No, those are illegal.

Yeah.

So did they, I mean, you know, we've occasionally mentioned on this program before

your weight.

You've mentioned that?

Yeah, I think once or twice.

If longtime listeners might have remembered this.

Now we have.

On this show?

Yeah, on this show.

Did they say to you, like, hey, now your wife notoriously

likes fat men, which

at the Christmas wine, at the Christmas party.

Do you know what she said?

Do you know what she said?

No, I don't know.

She came up to me and she said, you are looking great.

I was immediately like, I have got to lose weight.

Okay.

Wow.

Yeah.

That's the moment.

Yeah, you were making friends.

She didn't really mean that.

Yeah.

She did not really mean that.

Yeah.

So I thought, wow, I am as big as a house.

I've got to stop.

But she likes her men plump.

She does.

And

she's a fan of starting to eat right and do things right now,

you know, health-wise.

But she is also a notoriously

good cook of all the things you should not have.

I know.

So is that stopping?

Are you going to make a change in this realm?

I already have, Stu.

Oh, my gosh.

Look at that.

He is going to die.

He'd rather die than stop eating Twinkies.

That's what we're seeing.

I'm going to lose 50 pounds this year.

You're going to lose 50 pounds this year.

I'm going to lose 50 pounds.

Excellent.

Good.

I mean, it's important.

Come on, join me.

Oh, Glenn.

Are we out of time?

Of course, I'll lose it.

It's easy.

50 pounds.

I can do 50 pounds.

How much weight should you, how much, how much you because

you were really svelte for a while.

Yeah, you lost what, over 100 pounds.

Over 100 pounds, yeah.

And then I gained about 75, 80 back.

So after you gained how much?

See, you know, once in a while, there's fat jokes

fly around.

Right.

She's like, that's right.

But I mean, 70 pounds from where you were.

I don't think so.

Maybe a little bit more than that.

Okay.

No?

No.

Really?

Yeah.

A lot of water weight you're held on to.

Oh, I'm hollow inside.

So, do you have a plan?

Do you have a goal in mind of what you want to do?

Is it they actually, right now, the docs were more concerned with let's get the heart healthy and let's you know start exercising and start getting that back, and everything else will follow and the smoking, no smoking, no, yeah.

So, we need to do that for exercise.

That's a hundred percent.

They're they put me in uh some place I have to go to now, some heart rehab place.

So, whatever they have to go with what they say, I know.

I just started using a rower, a row, a rower.

Oh, I love it.

I used to love those, yeah, Frank Underwood.

I have the one Frank Underwood had.

Oh, really?

Oh, those are great.

And

started using it.

It will wipe you out.

And if you do five minutes a day, even, but you do five minutes a day, twice a day.

Do they recommend more than just five minutes?

No, actually, it's like 10 minutes.

They say 10 minutes a day, and it is a full body workout.

Interesting.

Yeah.

I'm up to four, and then I just want to kill myself.

But I don't have the strength or the energy to be able to reach for a knife or anything deadly.

All right, Jeff Fisher, thank you so much.

God bless you.

I love you too.

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