What Do You Trust? | Guests: Vicki Barbolak, David French & Charles Duhigg | 12/20/18

1h 59m
Hour 1

The Democrats were warned? ...It's been a tough month for President Trump?...Meanwhile, Bye-by Bump stocks?...Trump moves to ban...Defends his decision to leave Syria...'Do we want to be there forever'?...Russian and Iran will rule the entire region, if U.S. leaved Syria?..."I don't think President Trump will get impeached"? ...No Wall is coming?...Now, Kavanaugh is playing footsie with Planned Parenthood? ...Bill in North Carolina thinks Trumps move on bump stocks is a strategic one, but Glenn disagrees?...if the Obama shoe were on the other foot? ...Trumps List of Positives with Pat Gray?...Lindsey Graham to the rescue? ...Panic: The Untold Story of the 2008 Financial Crisis...President Bush's Hoover, Roosevelt moment reveled?

Hour 2

'Meat and Potatoes Comedy' with comedian Vicki Barbolak...A Top 10 finalist and fan favorite on Season 13 of America's Got Talent on NBC...Vicki is also an ordained marriage minister...VickiBarbolakcomedy.com ...Senior Fellow, National Review, David French joins GB with his thoughts on President Trumps move in Syria?...not a good move...it will only strength our enemies and weakening our allies?...Article: 'Social-Media Idealism Collides with Human Nature'?

Hour 3

Letters From Listeners?...Topic: Depression...when you think everything is spiraling out of control...Tragedy murders suicide in Florida...Sheriff kills his family then himself...but why? ...The Power of Habit, with author, Charles Duhigg?...how anger can be good and bad?...but why are people so angry with each other?...Outrage merchants like Facebook, Cable News and Google?...when anger becomes a desire for revenge? ...Taking responsibility for our own anger?...What happened to 'respecting' our fellow man? ...George Soros 'Person of The Year'?...Mr. Anti-America...Cuba Blames Trump?
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Transcript

All right, uh, let me tell you about uh Abby Johnson.

Abby Johnson, another great person whose life just totally changed.

She was working for Planned Parenthood for years, she was a supporter of abortion, she had abortions, she rose through the ranks of Planned Parenthood, started running the place, and then she had to actually go into a room with an abortion.

And her whole world changed.

She'd be a great conversation on a podcast as well, actually, at some point.

They're putting together a film called UnplannedFilm.com.

UnplannedFilm.com, you can read the story, you can check out the videos, you can lend your support, which would be really important.

When we want to get these messages out, we need to support them when they come up.

Unplannedfilm.com.

UnplannedFilm.com is the place to go.

The fusion of entertainment and enlightenment.

This is the Glembeck program.

This has not been a good couple of weeks for Donald Trump and well-timed if you're a fan of the president, because nobody's really paying attention to the news right now.

But if you are, just look at what's happened in the last two weeks alone.

Kavanaugh has gone to the side of the Democrats in the Supreme Court when it comes to abortion.

The Russian agreement that everybody was in denial of for so long and the president said never existed, that came out yesterday.

He folded on the border, and not only are they not going to pay for the wall in Mexico, there is no wall, and we gave them $5 billion.

Okay, then North Korea came out yesterday.

North Korea said that we're not going to denuclearize at all unless you remove your troops.

Syria, we're abandoning the Kurds again.

Yesterday, the president just announced on Twitter, no one at the Pentagon even knew.

We're going to pull our troops out of Syria.

It's It's time for them to come home.

Wait, what?

The poor Kurds?

The Christians?

ISIS is not dead.

They've just been pinned back.

What does that mean?

It's not been a good week.

We'll give you some of the details and what it all means in one minute.

This is the Glend Up program.

I didn't even get to the bump stock thing yesterday.

Oh, that's my cause du jour right now.

Oh my gosh.

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It's not going to be

a good day for Donald Trump fans.

Yesterday, the president, by decree,

outlawed bump stocks.

Okay,

first of all, let's not set a precedent of taking away anything to do with guns through presidential decree.

We would be apoplectic

if anyone else, if even if George Bush would have done it, let alone Barack Obama, we would be apoplectic.

Now, I am not defending bump stocks.

I don't know anybody who uses them or why you would want them.

You can do the same thing with a rubber band or your belt loop.

I mean,

it doesn't matter.

People are going to find a way around it.

But you don't ban it.

And for this president to come out and just

at a time when people are not talking about this, I mean, we just gave away something that I don't care

that you could have given away as a compromise later in Congress.

You're telling me you couldn't get a bump stock ban through Congress with Democrats?

Of course you could.

Of course you could have.

Of course you could.

Why would we force this through?

And again,

I think it's completely unconstitutional.

I do.

First of all, we should set the baseline there.

It's unconstitutional to do this.

This is obviously an infringement on your ability to bear arms.

Obviously.

So

fundamentally, it is unconstitutional.

It's tied to another law that is unconstitutional, which is the three different statutes that come out against machine guns and automatic weapons, which I completely are unconstitutional as well.

So,

but even if you go beyond that, let's just say we live in this world, we're in a progressive world where we don't necessarily follow the Constitution all that closely, and we do the things that just have to be done, and that's the way, that's the world we live in.

Even if you're in that world, you gotta pass a law.

You gotta pass a law.

You can't have the president just making up distinctions on, well, we don't like that thing.

Again, in the legal statute of what a machine gun is, is the very clear language that a bump stock is not included.

Very specifically, it says any weapon which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot automatically, more than one shot without manual reloading by a single function of the trigger.

So, in other words, you pull the trigger back

and you hold it.

That's not what a bump stock is.

It isn't.

And if you think, well, but I think that's similar to a bump stock.

That's great.

Then pass a law against a bump stock if you don't like them.

I'll still argue that it's unconstitutional, but at least it makes some sense.

So, and here's the reason why I said this to the Democrats and they didn't listen.

Don't go down this path, Democrats, because someday Barack Obama is going to be gone.

And you're going to so disenfranchise people and make people angry and set this precedent that someone else that you really don't like is going to use those same things against you.

Yeah.

We now have Donald Trump.

Now, please don't set this precedent.

You can't have the

precedent of a president just saying, you know what, and something else I want to ban.

You can't do it.

The next Democrat president who wants to ban whether it's magazines at a certain capacity,

anything they want to pick apart from your ability to bear arms, they will cite this bump stock ban and say, look, the president, a Republican president

did that.

Of course,

we didn't say anything.

And we didn't say anything because I don't want to defend bump stocks.

I don't care about bump stocks.

I don't know anybody who does care about bump stocks.

But it's those battles that you don't care about that become the most important.

Yeah, go back.

I mean,

there was a battle in the Supreme Court that, you know, this is very relatively recent history

about marijuana, in which

someone, they went, they basically fought the Commerce Clause when it came to marijuana.

And it was a case in the 2000s that I was, you know, because it was marijuana, I don't think any conservative was like into

thinking about it.

And it was not a big issue on talk radio at the time or anything.

But that was like probably one of the best opportunities to reverse the ridiculous nonsense the government has used with the Commerce Clause

over a very long period of time to restrict the way, or to get their tentacles into business.

And you know what?

The Commerce Clause is a really good example of that itself.

I don't remember the farmer's name,

but the court case that happened under FDR, nobody paid attention to.

Nobody cared because it just involved a farmer and his wheat.

And I don't grow wheat and I don't care.

But that's why Washington is in all of our businesses because of that one move that no one cared.

Will Moran.

I'm right around that.

It's Phil Morran versus

Whitburn.

We're right in there.

Willard versus Fickburn.

Okay, Claire.

There we go.

We had all of the syllables.

It's just all in the wrong order.

It's just all in the wrong order.

Okay, so that was the Attorney General

against a farmer.

It's Attorney General?

Yeah.

And

because of that, The guy who grew his wheat on his farm, he never sold it.

It was just for him and his family and his livestock.

It never went anywhere.

They said, well, it could.

And

more importantly,

you are going to be feeding your family and your livestock with wheat not purchased.

So that wheat that you would have purchased if you weren't a wheat farmer, that might affect the price of wheat coming into your state or leaving your state.

So we have a right to regulate your land.

Oh my gosh.

And people didn't say anything.

And that's how we lost our freedom.

And the same can be said.

First of all,

the bump stock thing.

Also, yesterday,

can you imagine?

Well, you don't have to.

Imagine when President Obama just said, you know what?

We're leaving Iraq.

And he became General Obama.

And how upset we all were?

Wait, hold it just a second.

No, no, no.

this is going to be really bad the president yesterday went a step further he didn't even alert the Pentagon the Pentagon found out yesterday through Twitter that we were going to be pulling out of Syria

this is causing all kinds of problems with our allies Russia I know the opposite is being said Trust me, Russia loves this because it has just given the Middle East to Iran.

And by the way, Russia is saying it on their official social media accounts.

Their official spokespeople are saying what a wonderful move it is.

The idea that we're trying to act as if this is bad for them in some way is ridiculous.

Well, they're only trying to take down Trump.

Wait a minute.

Yesterday, last night, everybody was saying they were in bed with Trump.

So which one is it?

Stop it.

Stop it.

It's been a weird.

There's a thing that happens, I think, with big executives where, and you've even expressed this frustration at times, Clint, where like you have an idea and you really want to do it, and everyone kind of keeps telling you you can't do it, and here's X, Y, and Z why you can't do it, and you haven't changed your mind, but you're ceding a little bit of authority to your advisors, the experts around you.

But eventually, you hit that point where you're like, I want it done, and I'm doing it.

Right.

And it seems like Trump hit that point on several things this week.

And, you know, Syria seems to be the main one.

But the same sort of thing happened with tariffs, I think.

He had a lot of people around him telling him, don't do the tariffs thing.

And then one day he was just like, it's happening.

And it kind of came out on Twitter.

This seems to be the way that he makes those decisions.

Now, with the bumpstock thing, it's not his right because the Constitution prohibits him doing what he did.

However, in most of these situations, it is his right.

I mean, he can pull out troops from Syria if he wants to pull out troops from Syria.

And, you know, look, his entire life has been

a guy who didn't want the Iraq war in the first place, mostly.

He kind of supported it early on, but he switched on it pretty quickly.

He has opposed most of the wars throughout history.

And I think his coming in, he said he wanted to get the troops home.

It's relatively consistent with where he's been.

However, the way he's doing it is, I think, what's shocking here to a lot of the people in the military.

And again, we're just letting these Kurds down.

Again, we just keep it.

I want to end this war, too.

I want this war to come.

I want our troops to come home.

We've got to stop all of this stuff.

But we also stopped with Yemen and Saudi Arabia, which has big, big ramifications that no one is telling the American people.

Saudi Arabia is so weak right now.

If Saudi Arabia falls, you hand the entire region to

Iran.

Now, Iran is also in a precarious situation, but Iran has the full support of Russia.

And now, Russia is in a precarious situation, but so are we.

I mean, we are all on the edge, and anything that adds chaos is bad.

The Democrats just doing all kinds of investigation and just trying to drag his butt through an impeachment on trumped-up charges, no pun intended.

If there are charges, great.

Let's hear them.

Let's get it done with.

But this chaos in Washington is bad.

This chaos of, I didn't sign a letter.

I didn't have any business.

Oh, I do have a letter.

It is business.

I did sign it.

Kavanaugh,

he's going to be great for the right.

He's going to stop all abortions.

He's just a pro-life demagogue.

And then he gets in and he's not

the border.

I'm going to make Mexico pay for it.

No, I'm not going to.

In fact, we're not even going to build one.

And I'm certainly not going to make Mexico pay for it.

I'm going to give them $5 billion.

All of these things are causing chaos.

And we've got to stop.

Stop.

We have to have something that is reliable and predictable, and something we can all gather around and say, yes, I trust this.

And right now,

what do you trust?

What do you trust?

And don't say, well, it's better than this or that.

I get it.

I get that.

But do you trust it?

And when it comes to people saying that he's going to be impeached, I don't know if he's going to or not.

I don't think so.

I don't think so.

What's her name?

Ann Coulter came out and said yesterday

he's not going to make it to the end of his term.

I don't agree with that.

But remember, it's President Pence.

President Pence is steady, very conservative, and rock solid.

That's not Hillary Clinton.

Never more than 60 seconds away from the program.

But by the way, I don't think he's going to be impeached.

I don't think so.

I don't think so.

They may try, and they may actually get an impeachment done in the House in theory.

But I mean, he's not going to get removed from the Senate unless the economy falls apart.

I mean, that's really the only line.

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If you find yourself behind the eight ball with credit cards, now is the time, please, to get out of this

because it's only going to get worse.

Yesterday, the Fed said, no end in sight.

We're going to continue to raise rates.

Already, the credit card interest rate is 16 points, I think it's 16.3 or 16.7%.

That's crazy.

That's crazy.

What is your payment going to be like when it's 20%?

25%.

That's a coming reality.

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Go to AmericanFinancing.net and talk to the experts there about taking that equity and getting a consolidation loan.

That means you roll everything into your mortgage.

And while it seems like, wait, now I'm just kind of, you know, now I'm just taking a loan that I'm going to pay off in a couple of years and roll it into another five or ten years.

Well,

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And that's what matters.

Keeping your credit score good.

Do it now, please.

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Break for 10 seconds, station ID, and they're right back.

You know, we have a ton of people calling, and I would like to hear your

thoughts.

So we'll open up the phones.

Pat's coming in in a minute, but I also want to take your phone calls, 888-727-BECK.

So, producers, if you can screen the phone calls and get them ready and line up, we'll do that.

Also, yesterday, I had,

it was about 5 o'clock, and I was just finishing up, and I'm walking down the hallway, and one of our producers said, hey, Glenn, there's a comedian here that wants to say hi.

And I said, okay, who is it?

He said,

Vicki Barbalock.

And I said, who's that?

And he said, oh, she was on

America's Got Talent.

And I said, I don't watch any of those shows.

And he said, well,

she's the host of Trailer Nasty.

And I said, I've never heard of it.

Is she funny?

And he said, oh, she's really funny.

And as he was saying that, I turned the corner into her green room and there she was.

And I looked at her and I went, oh, my gosh, I know you.

You're really funny.

And she was a little surprised to have that come out of somebody who's walking around the corner.

And she said, oh, and I said, I never watch America's scot talent but you know how sometimes you'll just watch the highlights and i said my son came with the highlights and said dad you have to see this this woman and so we watched you and we watched you as a family she's hysterical she was in town last night i invited her to get up early and uh come in um i don't think she travels in a trailer but i hope she lives in a motel and not a hotel um but uh vicky's going to be joining us here in about a half an hour from now um you don't want to miss that also

there's a couple of other things that are really,

really going to be good today.

We have Charles, I think his name is Doohig.

Charles Doohig, he's a guy who did a study back in the 1970s about anger.

And he did it in this small little town in Massachusetts where he didn't expect to find a lot of anger.

And he found a ton of anger.

And he did this whole study back then.

He was one of the guys that when he saw Donald Trump run,

he was one of the first that said, that guy's going to win.

And it's because of what he learned in the 1970s.

And

it's a fascinating study.

I just found it a couple of weeks ago.

And I didn't know if he was, you know.

you know, still willing to talk about this study because it's an ancient study.

And

it's going to be really interesting on how anger is actually

good good for us if it's focused and used properly.

If it's exploited, it's bad.

But if it's a steam valve, it's good.

And he found this out in this little teeny town of Massachusetts, like 1972 or something.

That's going to be really interesting to see because, I mean, you have to just imagine that everything from then has been turned up.

So, I mean, it's so much easier to get angry.

There's so many more things to get angry at.

You can be happy and you just happen to see a tweet and all of a sudden you're set off, right?

I can't, I mean, that's not the way the world was in the 70s, right?

It shouldn't have been, but if people were angry then, geez, what are we now?

Yeah, he kind of goes into a little bit of that.

Yeah, he goes into that a little bit, and it's again the using and the pitting against each other that's happening universally now that he is uh that his study warned against the healthy use of anger is good

the politicization of anger not so much.

Pat joins us and your phone calls.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the bump stocks and everything else.

888-727-BECK.

We'll take your phone calls and Pat next.

You're listening to Glenn back.

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And make sure to join the Blaze TV.

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We've got dozens of shows, Best Conservatives.

Welcome to the Glenn Beck program.

I'm Glenn Beck, along with Stu, my executive producer, and Pat is joining us from Pat Gray Unleashed, which is a podcast and also on the Blaze Radio Network.

You can hear it every day prior to this program.

Pat, the wall,

caving on the wall, and giving Mexico $5 billion.

Yeah, we can't get a penny for the wall.

No.

We can give $10.6 billion to Central America and Mexico.

How does that make any sense to anybody?

Pulling out of Syria yesterday, which is handing Iran, the Middle East, and Russia, and then an executive order on bump stocks.

Not a good week.

Not a good week

for money at.

I think beyond that.

I think,

depending on what he does,

if Donald Trump would have said, you know what?

Everyone, even my own party, stands against me on the wall.

But I'm shutting down the government.

And it's going to require the people to stand up and let their voices be heard.

Huge win for him, if you would have.

Huge win, even if he lost the wall.

Yep.

A huge win for him.

Yep.

And he caves after beating his chest.

Really, insanity.

Then Syria just pulling out without even the advisor.

And then bump stocks.

Oh, yeah.

On an executive order,

which you don't want to do.

And beyond that, wait a minute.

Hang on just a second.

Nobody was calling for those right now.

Nobody up in arms.

You give those up

when you're dealing with something else and everybody is screaming and yelling.

You're like, okay, we're going to do some common sense stuff.

I'm going to sign a law, if you pass it, that will get rid of bump stocks.

That's how you do it.

It was such a bad day, and I was angry enough at his actions this week that I had to go back and check my list of the good things he's done just so I could get a little bit of balance back into

my mind.

But it's been such a bad couple of weeks.

It's been really bad.

You have Kavanaugh last week going over

and playing FTSE with

Planned Parenthood.

And you're like, wait a minute, have we been duped on this guy?

Right.

So

it's been the kind of week that we warned about during the campaign.

It is.

And not to quibble with this point, because I think I know the context you're making it, but what you described as the way to ban bump sock is not the way to ban bun socks.

No, I.

You start off with a constitutional amendment which repeals or at least alters the Second Amendment.

I know.

I know.

Then you go to the House, then the Senate, and the Presidency.

Then you go confiscate them.

And then I guess you make another law against rubber bands and belt loops.

That's your next step there.

Good luck with it.

This is going to make anybody who owns one a criminal.

Yeah.

This is really not good.

This is really not good.

There's also so many ways to modify a weapon.

Do it with a rubber band.

Yeah.

This is dumb.

It's dumb.

You have 90 days, by the way.

If you have 90 days to get rid of these, or you're a felon.

So by the way, this law, the way this works is

it puts double the amount of penalty on having a bump stock than if you actually take an a loaded rifle into a school.

That's how ridiculous this is.

And again, it's not a law.

It's a rule.

It's a rule.

They just made a new rule in which they defined

the bump stock basically itself as a machine gun, which it is not.

Okay.

Let me go to Bill in North Carolina.

Love to hear your thoughts on this.

Bill, North Carolina, welcome.

Hey, good morning, guys.

Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas.

I don't feel like I make Christmas spirit right now.

Right now, but we will.

Hey, I think it's a genius move what President Trump did with the bump stock.

All right.

And here's why.

He's going to force a lawsuit.

In fact, the GOA has already filed one.

It's going to force the courts to determine exactly what you're saying, that it is not a machine gun.

It protects gun grabbing of semi-automatic weapons in the future

because you already said you can do it with a belt loop or a rubber band.

Okay.

Well, we didn't go far enough with a bump stock ban, so now we've got to ban semi-automatics.

I see the Democrats doing that.

He's outmaneuvering them by doing it this way and forth.

You know what?

Bill, I would love to take that.

And maybe you're right.

It's a risky game.

It's a very risky game, especially with the way Kavanaugh just voted.

A very, very risky game, because if you lose it in the Supreme Court, then you're dealing with a whole new world where confiscation and executive orders can ban anything that they want constitutionally.

And I also,

you know, warned people when they all said that

John Roberts was also playing along.

I was thinking the same thing.

That's the same calls we got after John Roberts ruled against Obamacare.

Oh, it was just a strategic thing.

Eventually, he's, or excuse me, he ruled for Obamacare.

Eventually, what he's leading to is a bigger deal where he's going to overturn more things in favor of conservatives.

That's not the way this works.

No.

He's going to go down.

Even if it is the way it works, you don't break the Constitution for a strategic point.

No, it's the president's job to protect the Constitution.

And if you believe that, you should come out and say, I'm going to sign this in because I think this is as an executive order, is illegal, is wrong.

I think this is wrong.

I'm going to sign it in because

somebody's got to challenge it, even if he challenges it himself.

Make that point that you're doing that.

Don't do it this way.

Let me go to Ryan in Kansas.

Hello, Ryan.

Line eight.

Hello.

Hello.

Good morning, everybody.

How are you?

Doing well.

Actually, well, that was kind of a lie because I'm sort of infuriated by

this bump stock move and the Syria decision.

Syria and weak foreign policy was exactly the sort of thing I criticized Obama for, and this bump stock thing would have been my nightmare if Obama had done it.

But what upsets me even more than that is the number of people I've interacted with who are absolutely the make America great again people who will not, they won't criticize Trump on this.

And I just think if you come down on principle, there's absolutely no way that you could be on the political right and not be upset by this with the understanding that if it had been a Democrat doing this, you'd be livid.

I wonder if there's anything Donald Trump could do that would get these people to criticize him at this point.

If not this, then I don't know what.

Look, we have to be people that criticize when somebody does something wrong and praises when they do something right and call balls and strikes.

I've tried to do that.

I gave the president a fresh start when he was president.

I watched his record.

Okay, this is good.

This is good.

This is good.

This week has, the last two weeks have been a disaster, an absolute disaster.

And, you know, you want to talk about the president,

you know, foreshadowing or playing a longer game.

Yeah, it could be with pulling out of Syria,

the

ISIS thing, and now the bump stocks, and also the prison thing, which I'm for, the prison reform.

He might be signaling to the left: look, I know you guys are coming in.

There's a lot we can do together.

Pat, can you give us some things from the list of good things that he's done so we can kind of bring ourselves back?

Israel.

Just real.

Yes.

Keep coming to that.

Jerusalem.

Gorsuch.

Gorsuch.

Okay.

Really good.

He's removed some EPA regulations that were ridiculous.

He got us out of the Paris Accord.

Yeah.

got us out of the TPP.

Both of those were really good moves.

We got a small tax cut, which he calls a great big one that's unprecedented in the history of the world.

Certainly not.

But we got a tax cut.

Okay.

And the ISIS one, I would

have given credit for a lot.

ISIS has been mostly

beaten.

Yes.

I'm a little nervous, though, with the Spanish.

They're back in the shadows.

They just took off their black hoods, and

they're back waiting for their next opportunity.

They're transferring into an insurgency, right?

And the problem with this Syrian move is that it strengthens them because we're not there.

Strengthens ISIS, Iran, Turkey,

and Russia.

Strengthens all of them in the Middle East.

Weakens Saudi Arabia, the United States,

and definitely Israel.

And you guys have both been

on the front of wanting to bring more of our troops home.

You guys are not like neoconservatives here on this issue.

But

I want all of our troops to come home, but I want all of our troops to come home in a way that's not going to destabilize the entire world.

Did you hear the Lindsey Graham audio?

We have this on audio here, Lindsey Graham telling reporters about this Syria maneuver.

And, I mean,

again, just like the caller just said, if Obama had done this bumpstock ban where he unilaterally, you know, started fiddling with the Second Amendment, we've been infuriated.

Listen to Lindsey Graham talking about Syria.

If Obama had done this, we would be all over him as Republicans.

We made a good record that the decision to withdraw from Iraq was

not based on sound military advice in spite of it.

He did it himself, which he has every right to do, but he needs to own it.

And I don't think General Trump is going to be any better than General Obama.

No.

What is confusing is those people who do not want to rule their life by principle that just made Lindsey Graham the greatest man to ever live.

And now he's saying this against Trump.

And where do you go?

It's been a fascinating study of people to watch this.

It's really amazing.

We are going to be fascinated.

The historians are going to be looking at this time period for

a hundred years.

Because we've all been shocked for the last three years.

I mean, absolutely, mind-bogglingly shocked at how people have reacted to this stuff.

And if you flip on cable news, what you get is every week is a complete disaster for Donald Trump, and everything he does is a disaster.

And that's not true.

That's not how this

has played out.

However, the last couple of weeks, there is a lot to take issue with, and mainly not the things if you flip on cable news today, they're going to be complaining about.

Yeah, because they don't complain about the bump stock thing.

They should be all over him on that.

Loving him.

They haven't complained at all.

I mean, and you know,

they just don't talk about it because they don't want to give him any credit.

Yeah.

But it's the bump stock thing that they would normally, if Obama had done it, they'd be praising him.

So here's what I think is happening with the average person in the street that is conservative.

They turn on radio, they turn on TV, and all they hear about is impeachment, impeachment, and Russia and his delusion and all of this stuff.

And all of that,

he can never, ever do anything right.

Then they.

Up to and including the Christmas portrait they just did.

Even that was.

And the red Christmas trees that look like the handmaid's tail and the

right.

It was unbelievable.

Unbelievable.

Unbelievable.

um nonsense and so when you turn on somebody like us or rush or sean or anybody else and they're saying wait bump stock thing this is bad it is natural to feel like oh man you know even them even them no no no no

you've got to call the balls and the strikes you have to um because you know can we play another piece of audio do you have the audio of George Bush and why he did tarp?

Yes, we actually do.

Hey, yeah.

Have you ever heard this?

Listen to this.

This is from a new documentary on HBO.

George Bush, they're talking about TARP.

And remember, he said I had to violate the free market system to save the farp.

Had to abandon the free market system to save it.

Right.

Yep.

Listen to why he did that.

Hank came in with Bernanke, with Geithner, started talking to the president about we're going to need some legislative authority.

We're kind of out of ammunition.

We needed to put capital into the banking system,

but Hank's concern about capital injections was that it would look like the government was nationalizing or taking over the banking system.

And so his idea was to buy troubled assets.

That's why it was called the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the TARP.

About halfway through the conversation,

the president interrupted Hank and directed a question at Ben.

I asked, are we headed for a Great Depression?

And Bernanke

said, you know, it looks that way.

And you have to make up your mind, you know,

do you care?

And what I cared about was people that would be hurting.

They were already starting to hurt.

People didn't run out of their homes.

Payrolls couldn't be met.

And I just could envision what a Great Depression would mean.

If it's bad now, imagine how bad it would really get.

As we left that meeting, the president turned to us and said,

if this is Hoover or Roosevelt, for damn sure I'm going to be Roosevelt.

I just want you to put that in perspective because we are headed for the effects now.

We're going to feel the ramifications of 08.

And the world

is already feeling it, and it's coming.

Our president is going to be in the same situation.

Are you going to be Roosevelt or are you going to be Hoover?

Are you going to abide by the principles that we have?

Are you going to fundamentally change us

for

compassionate reasons or whatever?

It's going to be an extraordinarily difficult choice.

But America is on the verge of changing.

We must stand for the Bill of Rights right now.

Speech, right to protect yourself, right to assemble, right to privacy.

Those things must be unchangeable and defended and never weakened, especially over the next five years.

Thanks, Pat.

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America's Got Talent.

America's Got Talent is going into the champions series in January after the holidays.

And one of the champions is a 60-year-old

trailer park living woman who I think is really funny.

She's in the green room right now.

We're going to bring her in.

She's joining us here in

just a second.

Her name is Vicki Barbilock,

winner of America's Got Talent Top 10.

If you don't think you know her, you might be wrong.

You might have seen her on YouTube.

She's hysterical.

She's next.

The fusion of entertainment and enlightenment.

This is the Glenbeck program.

So last night I finished my show and I'm walking in the atrium and one of the producers comes up to me and he says, Glenn,

there's a comedian here.

I want you to say hi to.

They'd like to say hi to you.

And I said, great.

And I said, who is it?

And he told me the name and I was like, I don't know that person.

And he said, oh, no, really funny, blah, blah, blah.

You're on America's Got Talent.

And I said, I never watched that show.

And

he said, well, no, it's the, it's, you know, she lives in a trailer.

And I'm like, I'm thrilled for her.

Is she funny?

And he said, yes, she's really, really funny.

And I said, okay.

So I turn the corner and I go into the green room where she's sitting in her dressing room.

And I recognize her immediately.

And I said, oh, I know you.

You're funny.

Which must have been really weird for her.

But

I think you're going to feel the same way even if you don't know her.

I'll introduce her to you next.

One minute away.

This This is the Glenn Beck program.

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I never watch America's Got Talent.

I just don't watch TV, generally speaking.

But my son came to me with YouTube and said, Dad, you have to see this woman.

Vicki Barbalock is her name.

She was,

she's 60, you're 60 years old.

I'm the 61 this year.

You're 61.

Okay.

And she came out on stage, and I don't remember who it was, Naomi Campbell or somebody said, What are you going to do?

And she said, I'm a ballerina.

And she's clearly not a ballerina.

And she followed that with, no, I'm kidding.

I like to eat, so I'm not a ballerina.

And it went on from there.

And she, you came back, I think, two times after that?

I think there was, you know, I think there was like four more shows till the last final.

Okay.

And you are now going back for the

champions show.

Champions, where are they now?

I'm like, I'm in the driveway.

I haven't left.

I just got out of there.

So you now, like, you really, you are from California.

Yeah.

You've been a comedian.

20 years.

20 years.

And you kind of found yourself in a place to where you were too old for your own

club?

I mean, yeah, I mean, I didn't start till I was like nearly 40, and I didn't know that was not a good idea.

Luckily, or I wouldn't have started, you know, I probably would have that because I am an idiot.

But, I mean, and so, you know, I was having a great time doing it.

But when I would go, no matter what would happen to me, like e-television would say, I'm in the next breakthrough from the comedy store.

I would go.

to these agents in Hollywood and they go, well,

you're too fat.

You're too old.

You're too ugly.

There's nothing we can do for you

and so and so I mean I just I just kept hoping something would happen but I just you know like Steve Martin said you get so good they can't ignore you and that was my only plan just keep doing it keep loving it but I kept thinking maybe Steve was wrong then America's Got Talent happened and what happened that show had such a gigantic reach and the people it brought to me

it just then Hollywood had to come around you are without being politically incorrect I mean you are clearly politically incorrect but without trying to be politically incorrect, you are just so natural.

You just feel like somebody that everybody knows.

You know, that's fun about what I'm doing is I am like meat and potatoes comedy.

I'm in the middle of the road.

I'm in Midwestern.

Miss Mitzi, the owner of the comedy store, she goes, Vicki, are you from the Midwest?

And I said, no, but my parents, my mother is from Iowa.

My uncles are my heroes, and they're from Iowa.

She goes, I can tell.

You have a very Midwest sense of humor.

You know, but but I've never lived in the Midwest, but that is,

I think, who I am in the middle of America.

Your dad.

Yeah, my dad played for the Pittsburgh Steelers.

He played for the Steelers.

I'm not bragging, Becca.

I just wanted you to know what the daughter of an NFL football player looks like because you never saw one before.

This is no padding.

This is natural.

So, yeah, and so he had, you know, he'd been hit around a lot, you know, leathered helmet time for him, 1950, 51.

And so, as I grew up, he was daffy and daffy and daffier, but he was just lots of fun.

And, you know,

he was just a great dad, but he was totally daffy.

So

where do you get this?

From your dad or from your mom?

Because you're...

I think, you know, I just, I was also a little, fat, little kid.

I was like hugely fat.

I was like 220 at 12.

And so I was, my birth weight was 104 pounds.

So I mean, I was always.

You've really let yourself go.

Then now.

So my life was a child.

I was bullied.

And I would make the fat jokes first.

So fat jokes were a defense.

I learned that in my whole life that anything good happened to me came because I could make people laugh.

So, it was always something that I did.

I worked for my parents at their carpet store for 20 years, and I didn't care if people bought carpet for me, but if they didn't laugh at my joke, I was devastated.

So, I mean, it was all I've always been about making people laugh.

And

the stuff in your act, for instance,

you know, you never drink alone.

Yeah, like, you know,

I'm very proud of that.

A lot of the other moms, they would just sit around and drink all day, but I was disciplined because, you know, only alcoholics drink alone.

I read all the pamphlets.

I would always, I always waited until the kids get home from school.

That's, you know, sometimes I call in a fake dental appointment, you know, when I'm so parched.

Yeah, right.

But I did my best.

Right, right.

And

when you took your kids on field trips.

Oh, yeah, that's another thing.

My mother, you know, that comes from the last generation, I think, of women that party 24-7.

You know, and I got kids, I'm thinking, party, but the party was over, right?

I didn't know.

My mom and her friends always, always brought flasks on field trips.

I mean, I'm like, I'm going to get on a bus sober with first graders, not now, not ever.

I don't care what they do to me, right?

So I go on my daughter's first field trip and I take out my flask.

And it is, it's not a big alky flask, you know, it's a very pretty, it's a little two-ouncer.

Right.

It's not a flask.

Okay, how loaded could you get off of two ounces anyway?

Right.

Right.

But I take it out and I take a little flash, you know, sip.

And all the other moms on the field trip, they just go ballistic.

They're like, you know, she's got a flash.

She's got a flask, you know?

And I'm like, calm down.

You know, beat us.

I'm not driving a bus.

I am not relaxed.

So, how much of your life is

true?

How much is,

for instance, do you watch

The Marvelous Miss Mazel?

I do watch it.

I think it's one of the most brilliant shows ever.

It's so great.

Are you so great for women?

Are you Sophie

the Sophie character?

Put that on your plate.

That is completely different.

Are we going to find out you're living in a mansion?

Yes, you are.

If I keep going, I'm going to buy a triple Y.

Pretty much, you know, and the thing about the drinking alone, that was my mother.

Every day I came home from school, my mother would sit there with her deck of cards between her legs, her mumu won inside out with a large amount of safety pins here in case 30 people needed a safety pin on every given day.

She was a president of the PTA.

She was a treasurer of the women's club.

She was all those things.

And she, you know, would come home and

the first beer would open, boom, when we'd walk in that side door.

And my mother was a fun woman.

I started when I started stand-up telling that story.

Audiences got worried for me that I had this terrible childhood with a crazy alcoholic mother.

It wasn't like that.

My mother was a blast.

And she was, it wasn't like that.

So I took that story of my mother and I put it on me.

And I mean, I do love to party.

I'm not lying about that.

Box wine is my life.

So, everything in my, everything that I, that I talk about is coming from a truth that I know.

Right.

You know, and you, but you do live in a trailer.

I live in a beautiful trailer.

Glenn, you cannot dynamite me.

I've waited five years to buy the second best trailer in my trailer park.

And I would like look at their trash can for like five years.

I'd like, what's in there?

I knew they liked Applebee's.

That's all they knew.

And then one day, the trash was empty.

And I called the trailer park realtor, Les.

He's like 90.

I'm like, Les, Les, I want to buy this trailer.

He loaned me the money.

I started AGT at the same time as trying to get this dream trailer.

It all worked out.

But I mean, I mean,

I am so proud.

I live on top of the hill.

It's beautiful.

So you're out of the slums.

You're looking down on the people over there.

The whole trailer part of the, I call that part of the park the ghetto.

I always call this the heights.

I don't talk to anyone below the lake, which is actually a drainage ditch made to look like a lake.

But I don't speak to those people anymore.

I wish I could, but I cannot.

Right.

Well, you're in a different class now.

They can look up on the hill and be inspired by what you've done.

That's what I try to say.

Don't give up your dream.

So,

you know, if you sold your high-class top of the hills

trailer park, you know, trailer there in California, you could probably live in a 20,000 square foot home here in Texas.

You know, I love, you know, I always had a dream.

Seven years ago, my friend Brett Frank, who lives in Denton, he saw me in Hollywood, flew me out here for his birthday party in Denton, his 30th birthday.

I two-stepped all night.

I had the time of my life.

He and I took my promo pack over here to the Dallas Improv seven years ago, asked him if I could do a set there.

They never, you know, got back to me.

It took me seven years to get here.

I've always wanted to be in Texas.

There's something mystical and romantic.

And ever since that night, and, you know, Denton was on the border, but I mean, I love it here.

I would love to have a place on a lake here, a trailer.

I would, you know, I'd have to be.

I don't have drywall.

I don't like drywall.

I'm going to eat that right now.

I just don't feel comfortable around it.

I like to be slightly off the ground.

See, in this part of the country, though, you're the first to be sucked up.

You know what?

You're right.

In this part of the country, I'm going to take it back.

I'm going to have to do, I'm going to have to get, I'm going to have to face it.

Right.

I don't want to get blown to Kansas.

Or you can have an underground trailer.

Part of your trailer is underground that you go for safety.

Back in just a second, we're with Vicki Barba Lock.

She is the winner of America's Got Talent Top 10.

She is now going to be in the Champions Edition on NBC.

It begins January 7th.

One minute, we're back.

Let me tell you about Filter Buy.

Filter Buy is...

Do you have filters in trailers, Vicki?

I actually do.

Do you?

Do you trade?

Do you, do you?

Because we never remember to...

We installed one.

Oh, she's more handy.

More handy than I feel a little emasculated right now.

I usually do.

Oh, yes, even right now.

Because I didn't even know where the damn filter thing was.

Filter thingy, thingy.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, they come in.

I think I've actually bought and sold houses without ever changing the filter.

I think, you know, when it's time to change the filter, I don't know where it is.

I don't know how to do it.

They call someone.

Yeah, anyway.

So we now have Filter Buy.

Filter Buy, all of the filters are made here in America.

They're shipped right to your door, so you don't have to go to Home Depot or Lowe's.

You don't even have to think about it.

Shows up at your door and you're like, Oh, I got to put that into the thingy, uh, you know, in the closet.

And so you do, and you don't have to worry about it again.

It's filter by filterbuy.com.

That's filterbuy.com.

So, Vicki is on tour now.

She's going to Tacoma.

Oh, Tacoma.

I used to live by there.

Now it's been 30 years, but so pretty.

Yeah, it's beautiful and a lot of trailer people.

A lot of trailer people.

You'll love it.

Then you're going to Portland?

Yeah.

Are you crazy?

I'm excited to the Portlandia where it's

weird.

The voodoo donuts.

Yep.

Good luck.

Women and Women First.

Good luck to Women and Women First while you're there.

Oh, I'd love that.

What's that?

Portlandia is the show.

It's a sketch comedy show.

I don't know, maybe their most famous sketch is a feminist bookstore.

Yes.

Oh, yeah.

There's a real bookstore there.

And it's

insane.

I love that sketch.

It's going to be.

Yeah, I'm so excited.

Then Nashville, Tennessee at Zaney's.

Huntsville, Alabama, Stand-Up Live, Stardom Comedy Club in Hoover, Hoover, Alabama.

I can't wait to get there.

Naples, Florida, off the hook.

And then Rochester, New York, comedy at the Carlson.

That's just in January.

Yeah.

And then, yeah, it's crazy fun.

I mean, I'm really excited about going around.

It's what I always dreamed of doing.

People go, you know, are you tired because you're the 61?

I'm like, no, I get so much energy.

And it was really fun here in Texas.

And then I'll be in San Antonio tomorrow night, which is a dream for me of like a bucket list thing.

So I would imagine some people compare you to kind of Roseanne.

Yeah.

How do you feel about that?

Well, all fat people look alike.

And

she did live in a trailer, and we have brown hair.

And in fact, you know, when I first met her, she left the comedy store before I came into the comedy store.

And I always was worried when she saw me, would she feel that I'm, you know, hacking her?

But I was doing the show called Funniest Mom in America.

She was the host.

I was like, holy crap, she's going to,

is she here the night I auditioned?

They said no.

And then I heard this hacking laugh and I knew it was her.

And she came up to me and she was so kind.

She said, I love you.

And she totally got that we were different.

And I wrote for her and she was really good to me.

You did write for her?

Wow.

So it was wonderful.

yeah.

I hear

she's not easy to work with.

You know,

I just, you know, I just realized we weren't going to be best friends because she was who she was.

She was, you know, Roseanne, and I was a little me.

So I would just send her this stuff, and she would send me a check, and she was kind, and she had me open for her in Vegas once.

And it was, yeah, it was really good.

So

are you somebody who,

I mean, you win the million dollars or whatever it is, and you,

you know, you're a big, huge star and you're going cross country what what what what's going to change about you you know i i you know i i don't know that that's much going to change i think because this big success hit me when i'm sexy i think that you're it's just different than it if you hit you earlier i mean i got my grandkids a go-kart for christmas that was like a dream come true i'm gonna say that but other than that i mean like i i'm gonna i'm not leaving my trailer i might get another trailer in la when i'm working there, but I mean my whole I don't think I've been so happy doing stand-up.

I've been just so happy the last 20 years.

What did you do before that?

I worked for my parents' carpet store for 20 years.

I mean, it was crazy.

I mean, it was just they my parents just it was the craziest time.

And that's why comics go comedy's a struggle.

It's so hard.

I'm like, try working at a carpet store with your crazy parents for 20 years.

Because they would they would sleep at the literally our carpet shop was was attached to a liquor store.

Literally, by the wall was a liquor store, the wall liquor store, us.

So, my parents, like, we would start drinking in the afternoon.

They'd pass out about nine o'clock when we closed.

People would come in in the morning.

The door wasn't locked.

They just walk into the shop.

Mom and dad would be sprawled out on the carpet rolls.

Are you open?

Oh, yeah.

Can we help you?

There was not even a blink.

And we sold only seconds and irregulars.

I mean, that's you only shop there if you were desperate or super rich.

And, you know, it was just, it was my dad every morning had a pep talk in his office.

I'm going to hire nothing but A-holes.

I'm going to take an ad under A.

That was our morning pitch.

What brought you to California?

My dad started, he managed carpet stores when I was little, and they moved him every year.

And finally, when I was 19, he opened up our first shop in Oceanside.

And

that's where we stayed.

And how long have you lived in California then?

I've lived in Oceanside for 40 years.

40 years.

Yeah.

California, I grew up on on the West Coast.

I grew up in Seattle.

Yeah.

And

California 40 years ago is not California today.

It's nuts.

It is nuts.

I swear, my little enclave of Oceanside is protected by Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base, which I love because, you know, at any given day, there's 30,000 gorgeous Marines walking around.

I mean, I think because we have the base there, our town stays a similar, like, it doesn't gentrify to the level of the other beach towns around us.

So I'm just so grateful to be in Oceanside.

It's a little like when I go to LA to work and stuff, it's like,

yeah.

But I mean, for where we are, it's just like a secret little spot.

I mean, it's going to change.

I think it is with San Diego as well.

I mean, it just,

Camp Pendleton changes the

seals and the, yeah, it just stops the insanity a little bit.

Yeah, I'm so lucky, and my son-in-law's a retired gunny.

So I get to be at the beach at Camp Pendleton on Christmas Day.

We always spend Christmas at the beach at Camp Pendleton.

I'm like, I mean,

I just, and the Marine Corps car washes, ladies, if you visit San Diego, don't go to the zoo.

Go to the front gate of Camp Pendleton.

You sit in your car, 12 Marines wearing little green shorts, wash your car.

It's unbelievable.

And that is, that's what you might do for every summer, every Saturday, all summer long.

That's where you will find me.

Right.

Because I'm a giver.

Simply.

You're tremendous.

You're just tremendous.

Thank you so much for having me on.

Big honor.

It's great to see somebody

who is pursuing what they love because they love it and for no other reason and then hitting it.

For no other reason.

I mean, you have the trailer on the hill.

Well, let's face it.

Yeah, I mean, there is that.

I had a double-wide dream.

And

comedy made it come true.

Where can people go to find out where to find you if they miss the dates?

On my Vicki Barbilack Facebook page is always my calendar.

And I have a website.

It's called VickiBarbilacComedy.com that's on the brink of teeter.

But hopefully it'll work if you guys look into it, VickiBarbilacComedy.com or my Facebook page.

Or you can all call me at 760-523.

You also started a new podcast.

Yeah, Vicki Barbara Trailer Nasty.

And also, I am ordained wedding minister.

I have a business called Wedding Chapel to Go.

Are you a minister of the

Leopard Cloth?

Of the Leopard Cloth.

Yes.

And I offer a $29.95 half-hour honeymoon as part of my service.

I have a wedding van.

It pops out, and we just do pop-up weddings.

And so the 20-minute, did you say honeymoon?

30-minute half-hour honeymoon, $29.95.

I've kept that price stable.

Right.

Yeah.

Right.

And that's in that van.

In the back of the van.

In the back of the van.

And it's a wonderful experience

for the happy couple.

And you can renew your vows, too.

And I do a lot of anniversary renewals.

I do anniversary parties.

And

we can also offer the $29.95.

Maybe we should have like

next year, if maybe we could get you back,

we should do like a bowling alley.

I mean, it's not a van,

but we could, you know, it's a national show.

So maybe we could do like a bowling alley wedding and you could officiate.

Absolutely.

I would love to do that.

I have my own bowling shoes and pants.

So you're ready.

So we should, let's do that next year.

You come back.

Okay.

And we'll find the perfect couple for the bowling alley wedding.

I love it.

Somebody who's going to want to get married next year in a bowling alley on this show.

Keep us in mind.

Yeah.

Vicki, thank you so much.

Thank you so much, Glenn.

Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas.

You can find her at vickibarbalock.com.

Vicki Barbalock, find her at Facebook.

And if she's coming near you, make sure you see her.

She is great.

You're listening to Glenn Beck.

All right.

You want a good night's sleep?

Don't take my word for it because we're all different.

And, you know, even my body is different now that, you know, I'm

Rubin-esque.

I hadn't noticed.

What?

I hadn't noticed.

Thank you.

Yeah, that's so kind of you.

Merry Christmas.

I've noticed you've put on a few LBs.

I have.

But you're letting yourself go.

Thank you.

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Last night I was watching Levin TV on

Blaze TV, and

Mark was talking about this on the air a bit.

The idea that the president is pulling out of Syria, and everybody found out over Twitter at the Pentagon, just not the way you want to run a country or a a war.

And

it's wrong.

This is not going to lead to anything good.

I have David French on.

We wanted to talk a little bit about being deplatformed and social media and what it says about us, et cetera, et cetera.

But

he's a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

And so I wanted to get his opinion because he has written a lot about ISIS over the years as well.

His opinion on us pulling out of Syria and what this means.

Welcome to the program, David.

Oh, thanks so much for having me.

I appreciate it.

Sure.

So your thoughts on what happened yesterday?

It's stunning, and it's a terrible mistake.

It's a very dangerous mistake.

It's stunning in part because just days ago, the administration had reaffirmed its commitment to our Kurdish allies and to completing the mission of destroying ISIS.

And people have to understand when you talk about ISIS, there's the caliphate,

their attempt to create a nation state that has been largely, the caliphate has been largely wiped out.

But ISIS, the terrorist organization, still exists.

And to put this into perspective, in 2011, when Obama wrongly pulled out of Iraq, this is something that

conservatives were deeply concerned about when he did it, and when he wrongly left Iraq, there were only about 700 members of al-Qaeda and Iraq left in this country, only about 700.

The best estimate of the remaining strength of ISIS in Iraq and Syria is between 20 and 30,000.

And so to say that it's done, that the job is done, is just not factually correct.

It is

wrong.

We knew this in World War II.

I mean, when the regime collapsed in Germany, we didn't stop.

We went werewolf hunting.

We went looking for those that were called werewolves, self-described werewolves, that were the Nazi believers that went back into the communities and were not going to let this thing die.

We knew we had to kill them and stop them.

Well, you know, this would be about like

declaring the end of the Afghan war

right after the Taliban fell,

even though

we knew that al-Qaeda was still out there.

Yeah, the capital cities of the Caliphate have fallen.

And that's been, and Trump deserves a lot of credit for continuing that military campaign and stepping up that military campaign that began under Obama.

But now to pull out before that job is done,

and then to make it worse, the people, there are three entities most likely to gain, three

enemies of the U.S.

that are most likely to gain from this.

ISIS, of course,

Russia, and Iran.

This is something that we're going to strengthen our enemies, we're going to betray our allies, and to what purpose?

This had been one of the most successful American military interventions since 9-11.

I mean, we had, with

very

light casualties by comparison to other American military interventions, toppled the heart of the Caliphate, empowered Kurdish allies, held the line against Russia and Iran, and put ISIS in headlong retreat.

And

before it's all done, you just leave and you do it by shocking your own generals.

That doesn't make sense.

Why did it happen?

Well, we have to crawl into the mind of Donald Trump.

I mean,

I think part of, you know, from the beginning, he has expressed deep skepticism about America's military actions, involvement overseas.

He has been talked out of on multiple occasions, headlong and precipitous retreats in Afghanistan, in Syria.

You just get the feeling that this is what he wants to do and that he's been repeatedly talked out of it by the people around him.

So he just announced go ahead and do it.

Yeah.

Right.

Okay.

Let's talk about something that I think, David,

conservatives and all Americans should be very concerned about

right now, but I'm going to really be focusing on it in 2019.

And that is the silencing of voices and social media.

You wrote

an article, Social Media Idealism Collides with Human Nature.

I think that headline says it all.

Explain that.

Yeah, so essentially what I'm talking about there is the frustration that the social media companies are now feeling with how their

platforms are used and their clumsy and sometimes

their clumsy and sometimes censorious attempts to bring their platforms in alignment with their vision.

And so what they imagined was, you know, they're going to create these platforms that are going to bring the world world together and

not just bring the world together, but and transmit and communicate their values.

That, you know, you had these Facebook, Twitter, et cetera, executives, almost all of them uniformly progressive, who believed that these platforms would accomplish progressive things in the world.

But it turns out when you create a platform, when you create a true marketplace of ideas, you also empower a lot of voices you don't like and a lot of voices you disagree with.

And particularly on Facebook, it's very interesting.

If you look at the top publishers on Facebook in the political context, time and again it's it's conservative.

Time and again, it's Republican.

And that's not what Zuckerberg built Facebook for.

And they've done everything they can to hurt those platforms and to hurt the traffic, trying to, I mean, for me, I have, what, 3.2 million Facebook likes and fans and followers.

And

they want me to pay to be able to reach the people who said I want the stuff from him.

I mean, they're doing everything they can to limit the voice.

Yeah.

You know,

and the problem is

they want two things.

They want it all and they can't have it all.

So what they want is to reach every person in the world, and then they also want to spread and inculcate a particular set of values.

Well, if you make your platform

a value transmission device, you're going to limit its reach.

And so they keep trying to square that circle.

They keep trying to say, well, we want everybody on there, but we really truly only want a certain kind of expression on there.

You can't have both, but they flail around often trying to have both, or at least limiting, trying their best to limit the spread of ideas that they dislike.

And this is a real problem.

It creates

almost an unbearable amount of tension because, on the one hand, you have conservatives saying, hey, treat us equally.

We don't need special treatment.

Just treat us equally with other perspectives.

And then you have progressives who happen to be in their peer group, essentially, saying, What are you doing?

You're all progressives.

You want the progressive values spread.

I think you also have a third group of

people that are both sides that look at these really hideous things from anti-Semites or whatever

and say,

you got to get rid of them.

But the correct answer is, I can't get rid of anybody.

It's a platform.

I can't get rid of anybody.

Well, yeah, the correct, I think, and I've been along arguing this, that the correct way to look at this is to not try to reinvent the wheel, but take America's 200-plus years of experience experience with the First Amendment and apply it to these social media companies, not by force of law, and I don't want Congress saying you have to apply First Amendment principles, but I'd say Twitter and Facebook voluntarily applying First Amendment principles and core to the First Amendment jurisprudence is the idea of viewpoint neutrality.

In other words, if we're a platform,

whatever rules we put in place, they're going to be viewpoint neutral rules.

We're not going to privilege a point of view and suppress another point of view.

We're going to create a marketplace of ideas.

And I think that that's the way through this wilderness.

But because they have not done that,

and because they have put their thumb on the scales, you know, sometimes to get rid of really, truly bad people, no question.

But because they have put their thumb on the scales, they're opening themselves to endless charges of double standards.

Yeah.

Because those double standards are very, very real.

And

I'm trying to decide,

Facebook, Google,

you know,

all social media and these big platforms, YouTube.

Are they creating a hostile

civilization?

Are they just empowering that hostile position?

Are they just revealing?

who we really are

I think it's revealing and empowering so I I don't think people are

people are people.

But what what Facebook has been able to do, what YouTube has been able to do, is essentially take all of the flaws of human beings, all of and often all the virtues of human beings as well, but all of the flaws of human beings and put them right in our face all the time.

So that if you know, let's say you have neighbors who live five doors down who have bad ideas about politics.

You might not ever encounter them pre-Facebook, pre-Twitter, but now everybody's bad ideas, and by bad ideas, the ones you don't like,

are thrown in your face constantly, all the time on these platforms.

And I think what it does is it sort of takes our natural emotional reaction to being exposed to things we don't like, makes it relentless, and then sort of over time turns it up to, you know, 11.

And

the only way to really escape it is to turn off social media media entirely.

But then you get that sort of nagging feeling that what am I missing?

Am I missing these developments with my grandkids?

Am I missing these developments with my friends on the West Coast?

So you turn it back on for the friendships, and then there it is again, all of the things that you dislike.

And I think it just takes who we actually are and just throws it in our face all the time.

And it makes it worse.

It's a great point because I mean, think about the holidays come around, like whatever, you know, if you have a holiday party that you go to once a year and you know a couple of people there that you don't like are going to be there and you sort of dread it and for like weeks going into that party, we are exposing ourselves to like six or seven hours of that party every day where everyone we don't like is always talking to us.

That cannot be healthy long term, David.

No.

Well, you know, and it's interesting.

If you look at some of the charts of anxiety and depression, especially amongst younger people in the country, the rates of anxiety and depression, they started to really spike around the time that the smartphone became ubiquitous.

And

of course, it's not the phone itself, it's what's on the phone, and what's on the phone is social media.

And you can even see a sharp rise in political hatred that is tied to a couple of specific or correlates with a couple of specific events, and one of them is widespread adaptation of the smartphone.

And so, you know, these that when you when you feel like you cannot avoid or that this good thing that you you like also carries with it this kind of poison pill in the middle of it

that plays on your insecurities, that plays on your emotions, that touches sometimes your deepest beliefs.

Yeah, it can be toxic.

David French, National Review, great article.

Social media idealism collides with human nature.

Thanks, David.

We'll talk again.

Have a great holiday.

God bless.

Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas.

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Welcome to the program.

We have a great guest coming up in a second.

I'm going to see if we can reschedule.

I just got two emails at Glennbeck.com.

And one said, Glenn, yesterday, Hillsbury County deputy, did the most horrible thing imaginable.

He murdered his wife, daughter, and six-year-old granddaughter before taking his own life.

We are all devastated and trying to gather some sense of reality after this surreal tragedy.

We're asking for nothing but prayers, and all I want is to try to help prevent others from going through this.

Please do a show that focuses on helping people who are considering suicide.

So I read this, and then I click on the very next

email.

Glenn, my name is, I'm not going to give you his name.

I'm 25 years old.

I've been listening to you since I was 19, nearly every day.

I've been listening for the last few years.

And I know you don't know me, but I have depression.

Some days are incredibly difficult to get out of bed.

The past several weeks have been perhaps the worst of my life.

Suicide is never far from my mind.

I'm working on it.

I recently switched medication, started seeing a new therapist, and I'm hoping for the best.

My days consist of constant prayer and pleading with my Maker for understanding and some sense of peace and hope.

This doesn't affect you, but it affects me greatly.

Most days lately, your show has been the only thing allowing me to get through my mornings and my day at work.

I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Thank you for what you do, for what you and all of you do, the messages you share.

I admit it's not typically the stories and information that lift me up.

I

some days I do notice it's a bit doomsday-ish.

But knowing that I can tune in and listen to you with compassion and humor with Stu helps me forget about myself, even for just a couple of hours.

Words cannot express how grateful I am.

And even includes, yes, I'm even grateful for Jeffy.

I had real sympathy for him until then.

I did too.

Yeah, I did too.

Yeah.

I want to address both of these next hour.

So

please stand by.

Please stand by.

The fusion of entertainment and enlightenment.

This is the Glenbeck program.

I don't know what it's like at your house,

but at my house, it's nothing but going over lists and running around and making sure you're at the right place and we're at the school for the right thing, and the kids are prepared for this.

And we've got our shopping done for this person, and have you sent out the fruit basket for this?

Have you written the card for so-and-so?

It's non-stop.

It's non-stop.

And in this rush, we sometimes miss the things that are right next to us.

I begin there in one minute.

This is the Glenn Beck program.

So, we are

hitching a trailer to the back of the truck, and we're going on a little Christmas tour

as a family.

And one of the things that we're doing is we're bringing card games with us, and one of them is Say Anything.

It's a great game that your family can play, whether you're driving, whether you're sitting around the table,

and anybody can play.

And it is just a fun game called Say Anything.

You find it at the toy section at Target.

I think it's, I don't even know, 20% off.

It's on discount now at Target.

But it's a fun game, and you really will laugh hard.

You will go off on all kinds of tangents.

It's one of those games where somebody will say something to you, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

What?

What do you mean?

In a good way.

And there's no politics.

So it's great.

It's called Say Anything.

It's available now at Target.

Get it for the holidays.

You know,

surrender.

Surrender.

Don't talk politics.

Don't, don't, don't try to win at the table.

Just

say anything.

Have fun.

Go get it, Toy Section now at Target.

It's on sale.

It's called Say Anything.

So just a few minutes ago, I looked down at the email and

I got a couple of letters in from

listeners.

And one of them

is in Hillsborough County, that's in Florida.

And

he says, Glenn, yesterday my cousin, Hillsborough County deputy, did the most horrible thing imaginable.

He murdered his wife and his daughter and his six-year-old granddaughter before taking his own life.

We're devastated and still trying to gather some sense of reality after this surreal tragedy.

I'm not asking for anything but prayers,

but I do want to try to help prevent others from going through this.

Please do a show that focuses on helping people who are considering suicide.

Somewhere out there, someone else is hiding anguish, and maybe we can help them before it's too late.

I read that letter, and then

I usually don't read read listener mail during a show, but for some reason I click on the next one.

And the very next one is from a guy who says, I'm 25 years old.

I've been listening since I was 19 nearly every single day.

And

I have depression.

And some days it's incredibly difficult to get out of bed.

The past several weeks have been perhaps the worst of my life.

Suicide is never far from my mind, and I'm working on it.

Most of my day

consists of prayer and constant pleading with my Maker for understanding and some sense of peace and hope.

Back in the 1980s,

I went through

clinical depression,

and it's different.

It's there's

there are people that, and we all go through this, there are people that look at the holidays.

It's the most wonderful time.

Well, sometimes it's not.

Sometimes it's not the most wonderful time of the year.

Sometimes, for some people, it can be the worst time of the year.

Because

maybe

you grew up with great parents, and it was just the greatest holiday, and they decorated, and you remember it was the perfect tree, and the family would get together, and

you can't recreate that.

For some reason, maybe your family is broken up, or maybe your kids are typical teenagers, or

maybe you've lost your job.

I remember

being so broke I couldn't afford anything for Christmas.

I remember

Christmas Eve alone, a divorced guy living in this hellhole.

Carpet smelled like soup, and I was laying down on the floor, feeling bad for myself on Christmas Eve'cause I was all by myself.

And I realized this is not going to end well for me.

And And I had to choose.

Some people, their Christmas was not happy as a child.

People have lost loved ones.

This is the first Christmas since fill-in-the-blank

passed away.

We have a friend, we have two, that lost their husband or wife just recently.

I can't

imagine

I can't imagine losing Tanya and

how everything in my life would remind me of her

and how hard that would be.

I can't imagine losing a child.

I really

I can't imagine it

But if that's what

if that's what you are feeling or if that is the kind of Christmas or holiday you're experiencing

I'd ask you to back up and re-examine Thanksgiving

Think about Thanksgiving.

The pilgrims come over here.

About half of them die in the boat.

They're just dumping their children into the sea after they die.

Imagine that.

They get here.

It is such hostile territory that they can't grow anything.

Another half

half of the half that is left, die

through the winter.

Starvation, sickness, cold.

Imagine having nothing, you are starving, and you're in the northeast, and you are freezing,

and you're all huddled under a blanket,

and there is no such thing as medicine.

You're just praying to make it to the next morning, and your child or your wife freezes to death.

One of you starts to get sick, and you know that's a death sentence.

You're trying to feed your child.

You got nothing.

Where is God?

We came here for God.

Where is God?

Half of us died on the way here.

Another half are dying in the next eight months.

Where is God?

And when it was over,

when it was over, and they could plant crops, and they could plant corn,

they stopped after the harvest to say, Thank you, Lord.

Only a quarter of them were left.

Thank you.

And it was such a celebration that we still remember it to day.

Yesterday I talked to Eric Bowling, and he's struggling with his faith, and I ask that you pray for him and his wife.

But someday, Eric will

let me say this.

One of the reasons why Operation OUR,

the Underground Railroad, where we're rescuing children that have been enslaved or kidnapped

and forced to be either slave labor or sex labor

is because of a little kid named Gardy.

Still looking for him, they still think he's alive.

He was taken from his church.

His dad was the pastor of a church.

One of the congregants in that church was mad at the pastor.

And so, to get revenge, he kidnapped his child in the middle of

church.

Kidnapped his child.

I think he was five.

And sold him into slavery.

It's happened in Haiti.

Can you imagine?

In church?

And I'm there serving you?

And you allow this to happen?

He couldn't sleep in his own house for a year because he thought,

how could I sleep anywhere but under the stars?

How could I sleep in a bed when I know my son doesn't have a bed?

And he walked all night trying to find his son every night.

It's like 10 years ago.

The horrors that this kid

has gone through, if he's still alive.

His father told me,

I know this is going to sound horrible,

but Glenn,

because of my son,

all of this started,

and the thousands of children that have been saved because of my son,

I believe

that before we came to Earth, my son and I might have even said to each other,

Let's take one for the team.

We can make a difference.

You be my dad, I'll be your son.

He said, I can never actually say it's worth it, because no one would ever choose this.

But I think this was a blessing, not to me, and not to my son, but to thousands of other children.

When you can give thanks, and you can see

God in the worst of things.

That's when you know you're on pretty safe territory.

That should be your goal, to be able to find

peace and God

and peace on earth in the worst of tragedies, in the worst experiences.

Because I will tell you, it is going to get better.

I never believed that.

For years, I didn't believe that.

It will get better.

But that's one kind of depression.

And I want to speak to anyone who has a loved one

or is themselves going through another kind of depression called clinical depression.

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So I have gone through that kind of depression where I've made mistakes or something's happened to me or whatever and it's been bad.

That's normal

and that turns around on its own.

There is something else and sometimes it can be caused by that kind of depression, and it just spirals out of control.

And it is a chemical depression.

The chemicals

in your brain are

just not working right.

And so you go deeper and deeper into a depression, and

nothing,

nothing

seems real or right,

and suicide begins to seem to be a very logical explanation.

Somebody who goes in and kills their family and then kills themselves, that is a sign not of regular depression.

That is a sign of chemical imbalance.

And

the thing that people they don't know the difference, and there is a huge difference,

especially to the person that is experiencing it.

But people will say, you just got to get over it.

Oh, wow, I never thought of that.

Thanks.

I should just get over it.

You know, just think of happy things.

Oh,

okay.

All right.

Boy,

why didn't I think of that?

Oh, maybe I could go to a fair.

Maybe I could just go to watch a comedy.

It doesn't work.

And the people who are experiencing this,

that is

the worst thing you could say to them because it shows you really don't understand and

you think they're a moron, that that's a new idea.

Clinical depression

makes the insane sane.

And it pits you against yourself.

We all have two voices in our head.

One is the reasonable one, and one is the one that says insane things from time to time.

If you are going through clinical depression, all of a sudden that sane voice

is so defeated and so beaten back that the insane voice starts to make sense.

It starts to tell you things that you go, well, that makes sense.

And you are such a drag, and you know you're such a drag that you are starting to hear this voice that tells tells you, you know, everybody would be better off without you.

It's not true.

I wrote a book called The Christmas Sweater that was about my mother's death,

fictional telling of my childhood with her.

Simon and Schuster made me change the ending so it was a happy ending.

They didn't understand that the epilogue, the truth, is a much happier ending than the fake ending that I had to write where mom lived.

It just takes longer to get there.

But I I think around

I think around 18 I was convinced that I was going to repeat her life.

You just get into this place to where you're going going to repeat it.

That's the stock I come from, that's my genetic background.

And then, when real clinical depression hits,

you are all consumed by.

I just want this to stop.

Please just make this stop.

And you will try anything: drugs, alcohol,

theft,

sex, anything to make it stop.

And when you've run through all of those things,

then you realize, I'm just damned.

There's nothing.

That's a lie.

That is a huge lie.

I want to speak to you if you are somebody who is going through this or can recognize anything that I am saying,

I have been right where you are.

I have lived it.

I have family members who have lived it.

And I'm the one

who chose differently.

My family would not have been better off without me.

I wouldn't even know my children.

I wouldn't have my children.

In the book The Christmas Sweater, I talk about a dream that I had, and it's a real dream, but it comes forward in the Christmas sweater as a scene.

And

the one line is: I'm shown what life can be like on the other side of the storm.

And

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And my guide said, that's what's on the other side of the storm.

And all I said again was, it's so warm here.

You may feel left out in the cold right now, but you are not alone.

Please reach out for help.

Please reach out for help.

There are millions of people like you and like me that understand what's going on.

You're not alone.

Things will get better.

And when they do, you too will say,

it is so warm here.

You're listening to Glenn Beck.

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A couple of weeks ago,

I read a great article from Charles Duhigg, and he's the author of The Power of Habit.

And it was the article is about how we're all angry and we're all outraged.

And what struck me as so interesting is he quoted a study that came out in the 1970s of a guy who was doing an anger study and found out that

there's good anger and bad anger.

And when anger gets out of control, it just burns everything down.

And we are now into that, what I would call addicted to anger, addicted to hate, addicted to outrage.

We're in that phase.

And how do we pull that back and still recognize that there are things that people should be angry about?

You know, that we're not angry for

invalid reasons, per se.

We just don't have a control of our anger anymore, and we're not doing anything positive about it.

And so I wanted to get Charles on with us.

Welcome to the program, Charles Duhig.

How are you, sir?

I'm good.

Thanks for having me on.

Sure.

So first of all, tell everybody about the study that happened in the 1970s and what he found.

It's really interesting.

So a researcher at the University of Massachusetts Amherst sent a survey to everyone living in a small town in Massachusetts.

And he asked this basic question,

think the last time you were angry and tell me what happened.

And it was 14 pages long.

It was a long survey.

And he found that dozens, hundreds of people actually responded to this thing.

And what they did is they described when the last time they had become furious and what had infuriated them.

And what he expected, the academic, was that they would say, look, I'm really sorry I got angry because it made everything worse.

It just exacerbated all these tensions.

I should have kept my temper in check.

But what he found is exactly the opposite.

People said that when they got angry, when they shouted at the person who was driving them crazy, things actually got better.

That not only did it feel good to be able to communicate what was bothering them, but that the other person listened really closely.

That all of a sudden they started taking their concerns seriously and they would sit down and try and find some resolution together.

And this is actually what we know about anger, that for the most part, when anger is expressed interpersonally from one person to another, it actually helps tamp down tensions rather than exacerbate them because it's this very dense form of communication.

It forces us to listen to each other and to try and come to some type of resolution, a catharsis of what's bothering someone in the first place.

So then how has

this

cycle turned into this where it is only increasing anger?

We're not listening to each other.

You even see people screaming at each other and they are not listening.

Right.

And there's a couple of problems going on right now.

The first is that when you think about anger nowadays, so much of it is expressed online, or it's expressed on the screen, right, over a news station.

And as a result, the people who are the focus of that anger, they're not listening.

They're not part of that conversation.

And their reaction is to punch back rather than to take seriously what the person is saying.

That's part of the problem.

Another part of the problem is that in in the last 20 years, there's been this huge group of professionals,

the outrage merchants, who exist now to fan the flames of this anger.

This is companies, it's cable news, it's Twitter and the Facebook, it's political campaigns.

One political professional told me that the way you win campaigns now is through fear and anger, because that's the surest thing to get people into the voting booth.

But the third thing that's happened is that anger only works when you think it's going to actually change things.

When people stop believing that the system is functioning well, that it's working for them, then that anger actually becomes this desire for revenge.

You're not interested in having the other side hear what you have to say.

You're interested in beating them,

being victorious over them, vanquishing them.

And when that happens, anger is no longer a productive, healthy force in our lives.

It becomes something that despoils, that corrupts, and corrodes.

I think that's where we are.

Would you agree?

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Yeah, absolutely.

And a lot of people, when they talk about this, they look at politics right now, right?

They look at

whether you're a supporter or not at the White House, and they say the president fans the flames of anger.

But it's a mistake to say that we're angry right now just because of who's occupying the Oval Office.

This is something that has been building for the last 15 years.

And Trump is someone who uses that anger effectively.

it's going to persist even once he's gone.

So this is,

I just, I love this article, Charles, because I thought you just nailed it.

Thank you.

But it is, you know, I say to people all the time, you know, because there was a time when people just hated my guts.

And I'm like, you know what?

Listen, I've got some perspective here.

Imagine a world where Glenn Beck is hit by a bus or a falling safe right now.

Does the world change?

No.

Donald Trump, Barack Obama, they're killed by a bus.

And does the world change?

No.

It's us.

It's us.

They are a reflection

of us.

And

when he leaves office, somebody else is going to be doing it.

And how do we break this cycle?

Well, I think a big part of it is two things.

First of all, to recognize the reason why people are so angry right now is that they feel like the systems

that surround them have stopped working.

Psychologists and sociologists refer to this as procedural justice, right?

We don't feel the need to take justice into our own hands when we feel like our courts are working well, our economy is working well, our elections are working well.

But ever since the financial crisis, there are wide swaths of those nations who saw banks got bailed out and they didn't have any relief for homeowners.

On the left, you have folks who saw an election occur where their candidate won the popular vote but lost the presidency.

That undermines your faith in these institutions like the economy and our democracy.

And as a result, that makes people angry, but also makes them feel powerless.

So, Charles,

I was so afraid this morning because I was reading some articles about Harvey Weinstein that they thought

they were going to dismiss the charges today and not take him to court.

And I thought, if that happens,

what do so many people in America now say, there is no justice.

There is no justice.

That's exactly right.

Right.

And the fact that after the financial crisis, no one from Wall Street really went to jail, right?

It feels completely infuriating, and it makes you feel powerless.

And what do you do when you're angry and powerless?

You pick up a pitchfork.

You start cheering for the guy who seems to say to you, the system's rigged.

We just need to burn it all down.

That we need to drain the swamp.

It's not surprising what's going on in Washington, D.C.

right now, because

the preconditions are all there.

But you asked how we make it better.

And the first thing we do is we reinvigorate those institutions.

We make sure that the courts hold people like Harvey Weinstein and Wall Street accountable.

We make sure that democracy isn't being undermined by foreign actors or by a system that seems to turn up its nose at the popular vote.

But equally, we also have to look within.

There's a really interesting experiment that was done in Israel where they were able to take some of the angriest people and make them more tolerant by essentially holding up a mirror to them and showing them what you're saying is so extremist, it's so distasteful, you ought to be embarrassed by it.

That is right now Facebook and Twitter for many of us.

It's that mirror.

Look at the people you follow, and if they say crazy things, stop following them.

We have to take responsibility for managing our own anger.

And we have to set an example for our kids and our siblings and our spouses.

We have to become the the less angry change we hope to see in this nation.

I applaud you for

this article and the way you handled it because nowhere in the article did I see you take on one side without, in the very next paragraph, taking on the other side.

And

I thought that was

really good and healthy because

that's not what we're getting on either side.

We're not getting people saying, here it is over on the right.

Here it is over on the left.

Now knock it off.

Here's what's happening.

And it's interesting.

Some of the commentary on Twitter about this article is people saying, why do you keep on letting the Republicans off the hook or why do you keep on letting the Democrats off the hook?

But the truth of the matter is,

this politics of anger, it was perfected by both the left and the right.

President Obama's motto, change we can believe in, was a really subtle way of capturing anger.

It's saying, change,

not like all those other people who lied to you.

And obviously President Trump uses anger very, very effectively.

He is a tool, sometimes a weapon.

And it is on the left and right.

This is not a problem that gets solved by blaming one side.

It's a problem that gets solved by people coming together and saying, and I've used this phrase, radical centricism, right?

I'm a firebrand of a moderate.

It's the people who come together and say, look,

we understand that compromise is part of the American system.

We just just want to find people who are willing to speak to each other civilly because we know that's where the best compromises come from.

Radicalism and fanaticism, it has never done this nation well.

Whether it comes from the left or the right, it never ends up being in a good place.

I was struck by

your part on Cesar Chavez on trying to put the anger back into the bottle

because it was very reminiscent of

Gandhi.

You know, people think that Gandhi went on to a hunger strike, you know, to stop the injustice.

No, he was trying to put anger back into the bottle of his own supporters.

That's a rare person.

Do you see that?

It is.

I see the need.

Do you see the leaders that are willing to self-destruct for

to help put the anger back in the bottle?

I do.

I do.

I think that there there are leaders like that right now.

I think that they're out of favor, frankly.

So I think that they are making some self-sacrifices, and we tend not to appreciate them for those self-sacrifices, right?

I mean, just look at the number of people who have retired from the Republican Party and retired from political office.

I think a lot of those people are folks who said, look, either I want to take a stand, like Jeff Flake, right?

Whether you disagree or agree with him, he clearly was saying,

I want to speak out when I don't have to.

Or there's other folks like Paul Ryan who I think have said, look, I'm just not willing to participate in this, what I need to become in order to succeed.

But the truth of the matter is that when you're dealing with an angry group, they tend to not appreciate the sacrifice you're making.

That's why it's called a sacrifice, right?

Even Ted Archavez or Gandhi at the time,

they came under intense criticism for the actions they took to try and tamp down on the anger of their followers.

It's only in retrospect, oftentimes, that we see it as a selfless act.

And I guess, to your point, I think one of the things we could do right now, and look, there's plenty of people listening who disagree deeply with Paul Ryan or with Jeff Flake or with others on the left who have stepped down from office rather than

in order to sort of sacrifice their career for something bigger than themselves.

I think whether you agree or disagree with them, we ought to have a space in our vocabulary to say, I respect that these are public servants.

I I respect that these are people who've spent their lives trying to help others.

And even though I disagree with them, I respect that they are at least stepping down or leaving or sacrificing for something that they think will make the world a better place.

And though I disagree with them, I am going to respect that act.

We are so jaded

and so not trusting of people's motives that

it's hard to get there.

Charles, thank you so much.

And

I hope to talk to you again.

Thank you so much.

Charles Doohig, author of The Power of Habit.

And the article

is really worth your time.

He does,

I think he's probably on the left because I always think everybody is on the left.

But he's probably on the left.

But when you read his article, he takes both sides on really hard.

And you may not agree with

his

political philosophy, although I didn't see it there.

You should listen to the research that he's pointing out and the history, the marks of history that prove this to be true.

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Let me give you a couple of headlines here.

Financial Times has named George Soros the person of the year and the standard-bearer of liberal democracy.

Another headline.

George Soros gave $500,000 to activists who accosted Pam Bondi at a movie theater.

That sounds like the standard bearer of liberal democracy, doesn't it?

They fit together, though, with the way the media is.

Cuba is now blaming Donald Trump for the lack of bread, eggs, meat, and rice

in the country.

The lack of.

Yesterday, in the annual press conference with Vladimir Putin, he does it once a year, whether they like it or not.

He expressed fears of nuclear war and warned of global catastrophe.

Trump yesterday just single-handedly said, yeah, bump stocks, they're out.

And

in a must-read story, China has made an artificial star.

Yeah, like the sun.

An artificial star six times as hot as the sun.

It only ran for 10 seconds, but it did get to 180 million degrees in 10 seconds.

Then I decided: we shut this off.

That sounds like fun.

We should look into that.

You're listening to Glenn Beck.