Best of the Program | 9/12/18

The Blaze Radio Network.

On demand.

Hey, it's Stu.

Welcome to the podcast.

Glenn Beck, also joining me here.

Can we get a President Spartacus?

Is where we start the show today.

I hope we can.

I need one.

I know.

I need a president.

I need a president Spartacus.

It's very, very important.

We

go through Corey Booker's potential run for president.

He's going to Iowa.

I'm going to go ahead and.

No way.

He's just going to help.

I'd say he has no chance, but I've learned not to say that.

That's something.

Over a million ordered to evacuate as, you know, North Carolina looks like it's getting really hard.

The models have worsened significantly in the last 24 hours.

We'll see how that goes.

Also, this is September 12th.

This is the day we all came together.

And I ask you to come together and help us.

We already have over 200 semi-trucks on the road headed towards the Carolinas, loaded with food and water and supplies, shovels and chainsaws.

We have Operation BBQ there who can feed 30,000 people a day.

We have a team from Rubicon that is already on the ground.

Those guys are amazing in helping people in bad situations, but we need your help at mercury1.org.

We talked to Brad Meltz today about his new book and also his experience with his son's homework, which is incredible.

Really great.

And also a professor who is a conservative, as he says it, the only conservative professor he's ever known himself.

English, English professor.

Professor.

Yep.

Talks about how his students

can get offended by words and what he's done to try to solve that at the beginning, a preemptive blast against political correctness.

It's actually a very sad but compelling story at the same time.

And

I felt positive afterwards.

Yeah.

I felt good.

Yeah, and you'll hear it from a guy who's inside and who's dealing with this every day.

On today's podcast.

You're listening to

the best of the Glenbeck program.

It's Wednesday, September 12th.

Glenn Beck.

Well, guess who's coming to Iowa?

Everybody's favorite Spartacus, Senator Corey Booker.

That's right.

He's coming to Iowa.

The senator from New Jersey is moving on from his I am Spartacus moment during the Kavanaugh hearing just last week.

A moment, by the way, that was more heroic than anything I think most Americans have ever seen.

According to Corey Booker.

Now he's preparing to dazzle Iowa Democrats as the featured speaker at their fall gala in October.

Is it too early for me to start printing Spartacus for president bumper stickers?

I I don't think so.

It's never too early because potential Democratic candidates are already jockeying for position.

Seven other Democrats plus Bernie Sanders have made appearances in Iowa just recently, each one nurturing their own Oval Office dream.

Iowa Democratic Party Chairman Troy Price says, we welcome anybody who wants to help us get Democrats elected in 2018, and we're sure happy to have Senator Corey Booker's help.

This dinner is only about the great opportunities ahead of us in this election this fall.

I'm sure it is.

Now, there's two schools of thought here when you show up in Iowa.

You know, it's kind of like, you know, asking the most popular girl in school to the prom.

You can either come out right out and ask her early and often, hey,

what do you think about me, you and me going to the prom?

You know, that's what,

you know, Bernie bernie sanders uh did the other one is to go so so

how you doing

fine

yeah

just wanted to say hi

hey uh i know we just saw each other yesterday but i'm back i i just could i carry your books or something like that that would maybe make you notice me Because then I will ask around, my friends will ask around to see if you like me after you notice me.

That is what Corey Booker and so many people do in Iowa.

They're just hanging out trying to see.

They don't want to ask.

No, no, no, I don't want to be president.

I just, hey, Iowa, I'm just here.

I could I carry your books home from school.

Uh-huh.

Booker has placed four staffers in Iowa to work on the campaigns of state Democratic candidates.

That's usually an indicator that you want to do something with the White House.

But we're talking Spartacus.

Over the next couple of weeks, if Booker

is photographed wearing a hard hat, kissing a baby, eating pancakes in a small-town diner, or doing all three of those things at once, well,

you'll know Spartacus 2020 is a done deal.

But why spend time talking about that

when there's something more important that actually matters

and even Spartacus

cannot help us.

I want to begin the show there.

Let me take a quick just 20 seconds break and then I want to come back with some audio and another piece of a story that you have not heard.

So we got Spartacus, and that's the news that everybody wants to know, right?

Who's running for president in 2020?

Does that really affect you at all?

Is that not as important to you now to strategize 2020?

Or is it better to look at

what the hell is happening to us right now?

Because you can have all the slick ad campaigns you want,

but

who are the Democrats really appealing to

let me let me play something that came out yesterday.

Carol Cook.

She's an old Jimie, a Broadway actress.

Yeah, I remember her in 1956 when she was hello dolly.

And

she was coming out of

some restaurant or a show or something with her husband, who was a spry 90 himself.

And

she was asked, hey, what do you think about those people that brought the Trump 2020 banner to the frozen show?

Now, why would you do that?

Why would you do that?

What is the point?

So they brought this big banner, they unfurled it right in the front row.

One of the actors broke character and took the thing away and put it backstage.

Appropriate.

Well,

they had to ask, TMZ had to ask

legend Carol Cook about what she thought.

And here's what she said.

Is that a proper venue for

a Trumper to bring a

bunch of that ears?

Oh, this is good.

Where was

it right there?

Her husband says, oh, this is good.

Where will you say it?

Her husband, they've already said this multiple times, times, apparently,

because it always gets a big laugh.

It gets a huge laugh.

So he interrupts and he's going to say, but no, no, no, no.

You say it, because

you're going to be so funny when you say it.

Here's what she says.

I know you just say,

Where is John Wilkes Booth when you need him?

That's what she said.

You're going to ask me who the hell John Wilkes.

No, I know who John Wilkes Booth is.

Thank you, darling.

He killed President.

Where is he when you need him?

He asked your name.

So we need to kill President now?

He did.

No,

why not?

Stop for a second.

So she's like,

you don't ask me about John Wilkes Booth.

I dated him back in the 40s, the 1840s.

So she's.

She is immediately.

The thing that she has said it so many times, apparently, somebody said to her, Who's John Wilkes Booth?

You're not going to ask me.

Oh, thank you, darling.

I'm so sick of the stupid people who don't remember or don't know the history of John Wilkes Booth.

I live on the Upper West Side, and

there are so many Cretans that just don't know their history.

So she is...

She is taking this to

thank you for at least knowing your history.

Instead of, oh, am I going to be in real trouble?

Then the press says, so you think we should kill Donald Trump?

And she's, you have to see the video.

She stands there slyly.

Her husband tries to laugh it off.

You know, I didn't know.

No, this joke means something entirely different.

I'm sorry.

What were we talking about?

We're both senile.

She says, yeah,

why not?

Well, I don't know, other than it being an assassination of a president.

You know, it's usually a bad thing.

Other than, you know, even making that joke

is really dangerous.

Even though, if I would have said anything like that that about President Obama, you would have led a team of senior citizens to try to beat me with their Broadway canes.

I don't know.

Maybe that's why not.

So that's the outrage today.

But I'm not really outraged by it because I know who she is.

And she doesn't affect my life at all.

None of those Broadway people do.

I don't really care.

It should concern the Secret Service.

Not that she said it, not like she's going to be John Wilkesburg.

But that she has said this so much and people have laughed about it so much.

I mean, is the press concerned?

Because words do have consequences.

You never know, even in a joke.

I learned this from them between 2008 and 2016 they taught me very very well that words have consequences and even when you're joking you don't know who might be hearing that and what it might cause them to do they might think you're serious

well yes they might think you're serious course when she said it and she said seriously

well why not

I kind of took her seriously you know I think she meant that

But let's go for today's outrage.

That was yesterday's outrage.

And if anybody, do we have the jingle?

If anybody is addicted to outrage, today's your lucky day.

Addicted to outrage.

Yes.

Here's today's outrage.

On Facebook.

No, it's got the blue check mark.

So this is Twitter.

On Twitter, a woman,

just, I don't even want to just give her first name, Cassandra, wrote, who's going to the MAGA meetup tonight?

So there's a meetup.

You know where she's at.

Who's going?

Okay.

Dreamstar Justice.

He or she wrote in, I'm coming, but I'm coming with a gun, and I expect to get numerous blood-stained MAGA hats as trophies.

Oh,

okay,

all right,

okay, well, that's okay.

We can say things like that on Twitter.

That's okay.

We can, we can, we can say that,

and the press won't even notice it.

Now, here's the thing.

Why has

why did this fail in 1968?

Why did this fail?

For a couple of reasons.

The

communist revolution.

And Democrats, if you are not awake yet

to see that you are in bed with people who want to shut down capitalism,

They want to destroy the Constitution.

All you have to do is listen to them.

Not all Democrats are saying that, but the social Democrats are.

And that's who's running your party right now.

You are a, you're a host.

for a virus that is trying to destroy the Western way of life.

Now, you can either start taking medicine, and I'm not suggesting that you take my medicine and you turn into a Republican.

I'm not suggesting that.

I'm saying you take some medicine and turn into a decent American.

You separate yourself from people like this.

You separate yourself from people who say, you know what, capitalism doesn't work.

If you don't think capitalism works, that's fine.

Then state that loudly and clearly.

But if you do, you need to state that just as loudly and clearly in your own circles and outside of your own circles.

There are people on the far left that are now leaving the far left because they realize how dangerous these people are becoming.

Not me saying this, people in the far left.

They're saying it.

They are separating themselves because they realize these guys will kill people.

You give them power and they will kill people who disagree with them because they're already trying to silence them on the fringes, but they've already also started to take off the masks and say, Yeah, we don't believe in capitalism.

We don't believe in the Constitution.

We believe this is a failure.

We've got to try something new.

Great.

But is that you as a Democrat?

Is that who you want in your party?

Because anybody who is saying that on my side, I reject.

Anybody who says, yeah, and I'm going to the pussy ad party and

I'm going to collect a lot of blood-stained pink hats, I reject.

I call out, and if I think they're serious, I report them.

If that was on Twitter, I would, and it was a,

you know, somebody on the right, I would

notify Twitter.

Oh, that hurts your side.

No, it doesn't.

It helps my side.

Because the reason why things failed in the 1960s is the violence.

Americans, I don't care who you are,

but the majority of Americans, and it might be 52%,

but the majority of Americans

do not want to overturn the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, even if they don't even know really what it means.

But they certainly do not want to be a part of violence in the streets.

They do not want to be a part of killing people.

They don't want to be a part of assassinations.

Here we are with the same atmosphere of 1968.

We have been so blessed not to have assassinations, and you have

Broadway stars joking about it.

Anybody who's serious

is not joking about that.

Anybody who really knows what time we're living in?

We're not joking about that.

We want no part of that.

And that includes many, I believe, Democrats.

I could be wrong.

But I don't think so.

I think there is a different kind of tea party coming for the Democrats.

I think they are exposing themselves now for who they really are, anti-capitalist communists,

people who will come and eat their own

because they're already doing it.

And the intellectual leaders of the left are beginning to leave

and say, I want no part of this.

I am more afraid of the left than I am of the right, and I'm really pretty afraid of the right.

The wise people

have already caught on, and they're getting out.

I don't think it will take much longer for the Democrats, the people that are your neighbors in the center of the country.

I don't think it's going to take much more for them to say, I can't be a part of this at all.

But they have to know that they're not just going to be an orphan.

We don't have to agree with each other, but as long as we agree on decency, the Bill of Rights and the Constitution, we can be friends forever.

The best of the Glenbeck program.

So, you know, I

worked really a long time on this book, and I, it's,

it's a book that I feel passionately about,

and in the same way that I did about common sense.

When I wrote that, I felt that I was alone,

and I considered just releasing it

on the internet as anonymous.

And then Simon ⁇ Schuster reminded me about contracts and the written word, so I couldn't do that.

But

I felt as strongly about that.

In fact, I went to Simon ⁇ Schuster and I said, please don't publish this in Hardbound.

Please.

I want to make this as cheap as possible.

I want this to be $8

so people could buy two of them as opposed to one and give it to a friend.

So I have been giving it to some friends, and

I just got an email back from a guy who shall remain nameless

because he lives in a dicey part of the country where he cannot say who he is but he is you know who I'm talking about Stu he's a a brilliant guy yeah brilliant guy and doesn't always agree with me

he said Glenn I want you to know I finished the book today

then I deleted my Twitter account not that I used it that much and Facebook let me lead with my conclusion and then walk through my notes because I asked him I said tell me what you like what you didn't understand yada yada yada he said in the beginning of the book which is so interesting because I knew it because I hadn't heard from him for a while and I knew uh-oh he's he's having a problem with this Let me lead with my conclusion then walk through my notes.

In the beginning of the book, I felt like I was just reading three different books in one.

But about two-thirds of the way way through, I realized, one, you can't ask or expect someone to read three books.

And two,

all of the information had to be in a single book.

And it was actually exactly the right way to do it.

For a lot of the book, I felt like I know what you're saying, but I mean, you're not talking to me because I don't have an outrage addiction problem.

But at some point, I got the sense of what it must feel like to realize you're in denial and actually have a problem.

By the last few chapters, I had a sense that this was exactly the book I needed to read right now.

It's been a rough few months.

And he goes into some personal problems.

One of them was, one of my friends, a buddy of mine, I just found out is now a transhumanist who thinks humans need to be extinct and animals are more important than people and religion is just a cover for racist and rapists.

I also feel like I'm golden handcuffed in a job and I want to wake up and leave but I can't and I have to hide who I really am.

I don't drink

but I have to admit I do like some outrage when I come home after a hard day.

Hi, my name is Blank and I'm a rageaholic.

By the end of the book, I realized this might be the book you were born to write even if it's before its time.

I hope people read this cover to cover and don't set it down halfway through and not pick it back up.

The ending is the most important part.

But here's the thread you were running throughout that stood out to me that I just need to sort out.

I've been able to see the clouds on the horizon as long as I can remember and I know

whatever is coming is building up to something that's going to be a very rough go.

I worry there's a big step missing that would be required to make people understand this book.

Something similar to Rock Bottom in AA.

I have assumed that it will be civil war or a world war or both.

Can we as humans skip over that rock bottom and go right to the healing?

That's the part I have to pray on, and I still doubt I'll have the answer.

I think for your audience, the answer is yes.

But who else?

I don't know if you can be a better person without rock bottom,

but we all have different rock bottoms.

I have friends who are not going to shed their outrage because it feels good

and

they like it and they feel that for the first time

they're winning.

And I can't argue with that.

You are pushing back, you are opening people's eyes to...

You are saying the things that you weren't allowed to say to the mainstream media, and you've got them on the ropes.

I agree with you.

However,

that is a short-term high,

and it does feel good.

And I understand, as an alcoholic, that sometimes you're in so much pain that you will pick up the bottle and you will drink.

And at the beginning, it just feels good.

And you say to yourself, I need this.

I need this to blow off steam.

I need this to be able to cope with the day.

It's been a horrible, horrible day.

And I need it.

And this just makes me feel better.

I even got to a point to where I was saying to myself, I was a better dad as an alcoholic.

I have to drink because it slows me down enough to be able to play with the kids and be with the kids so I'm a better dad.

No, I really wasn't.

And for a short period of time, maybe it did slow me down enough because I'm riddled with ADD.

Maybe it did slow me down enough to be able to play with the kids, but in the long run, it made me a horrible dad.

Because all the alcohol did was

let me avoid what the real problem was.

And the real problem is not Donald Trump.

That is not the problem.

If Donald Trump was sucked into space suddenly because some Broadway actresses had a portal and they could open up the envelope of space and just suck him out.

That wouldn't happen because of Space Force, but go ahead.

Okay,

that's probably why he wants Space Force.

But

our problems wouldn't change.

They would just move to Mike Pence.

So it's not Donald Trump.

And it's not that

they are the Democratic Party.

It's not the Democratic Party.

The Democratic Party

is being consumed because they are playing host to a very dangerous virus.

And that virus is post-modernism.

And once you understand that, you will understand that it relies on chaos.

Do you remember when I said years ago, chaos is going to be the operative word?

And

I remember because I saw the word chaos

with the 12th Imam.

And the ideology of those who are behind the government in Iran is the ideology of the 12th Imam that he will return and he will wash the world in blood.

No, I'm sorry, that the world will be washed in blood by his supporters.

And when they create enough chaos, that's when the 12th Imam will return.

Well, that's another way of saying Armageddon.

But they specifically use the word chaos.

And then I noticed Russia, the chief advisor to Russia, is a guy whose symbol is the ancient symbol of chaos.

And he's trying to destroy the Western way of life through nationalism.

Through chaos.

What was the goal of

Russia?

Because we're arguing about Donald Trump, we're missing the point.

The point was not about getting Donald Trump elected.

The point was to cause chaos.

It was to pit us against each other and our institutions, to get us to not believe in the government, not believe in the FBI, not believe in the election, not believe that

we can hold fair elections, not believe in the Republicans, not believe in the Democrats.

You'll notice what they did is they pitted the Democrats against each other.

By the only thing they did was expose them

for

dividing the party in half.

Well, what did that do?

That caused chaos with inside the party.

Putin is applauding.

This plan has worked out far better than he could have ever hoped

because we've turned on each other.

If Lincoln was right,

this country will never be destroyed from the outside.

It will only be destroyed when we turn on each other

in chaos.

And when you're afraid because things are chaotic, and when you are afraid because someone is beating up on you,

all reason

leaves.

You go back to your lizard brain.

We cannot engage in chaos.

We cannot engage in outrage.

We must

instead

re-fortify the fort and the walls around reason.

And both sides have to do it.

And we have to have reasonable conversations.

Somebody said to me last week, Glenn, I think the big difference between us is

you believe in reconciliation, and there are people that we cannot reconcile with.

And I said,

oh,

I understand that.

I'm not stupid.

Martin Luther King did not say, hey, go hug it out at a cross burning.

You don't, no, they want to kill you.

Now, if there is a cross burner who takes off the hood and says, you know what,

I see the error of my ways, I can reconcile with you.

But if you still want to kill me, if you're still trying to destroy the Bill of Rights and the Constitution, I can't reconcile with you.

I can love you.

I can despise the things you're doing,

and I don't have to hate you, but I'm not going to give you the power over my life to

make me outraged.

That power belongs to me.

You cannot make me outraged.

My outrage comes from me.

And I'll decide when I'm going to be outraged and how I'm going to react to everything that you're doing.

And I know that if we are going to save the Western way of life,

then we must go to the principles that the Western way of life was

founded on.

And that is reason and logic.

And, yes, the teachings of Jesus Christ.

Love one another.

Treat them as you want to be treated yourself.

Even when they slap you across the face.

That is not a retreat.

You never retreat from your principles.

There is a time to fight.

But this is not the time because that is exactly what they need.

They need you to respond and be vitriolic, vengeful, spiteful,

because that's the way to destroy

everything that has taken centuries to build.

This is the best of the Glenn Beck program.

Like listening to this podcast?

If you're not a subscriber, become one now on iTunes.

And while you're there, do us a favor and rate the show.

Glenn Beck is coming live to talk about the right path forward and to make fun of the people standing in the way.

He might not be able to save the country, but at least we can all go down laughing.

Glenn Beck Live, the Addicted to Outrage tour, on tour this fall.

I believe we have Brad Melter

on the phone.

He is the author of a new children's book that we'll talk about here in a second called I Am Neil Armstrong.

But Brad, it is

the day after 9-11.

Where were you on 9-11?

I was in Washington, D.C.

My nine-month pregnant wife worked in the U.S.

Capitol, and she was driving to the Capitol after the towers were hit.

And she said, you know, I wonder if they're going to up security at the Capitol because and then she stopped on the side of the road, Glenn, she pulled over off on the side and said, wait a minute, the Capitol has terrible, terrible security.

I have a bad feeling I'm not going to go into work today.

And we all know now, of course, that the Pennsylvania flight was believed to be headed to the Capitol.

So those people on that flight in a different universe with a twist of fate,

It was headed right for my nine-month pregnant wife.

And we owe those people forever.

And I came outside because our dear friend Michelle Heidenberger, our neighbor who lived truly across the street from us,

she was the flight attendant on the Pentagon flight.

So needless to say, when we were searching for the 9-11 flag,

it was one of the most personal searches we've ever undertaken.

I have to tell you, one of the most incredible stories I think I've ever heard.

I had no idea that your wife was nine months old and pregnant.

I don't even know how that happens.

It's weird, but I was going to say it's an amazing

pregnancy.

I want to bring up the flag because the flag, the one that was, you know, that was flown by the firefighters, that famous shot of the firefighters with the flag, that flag went missing quickly.

You are the guy who found the flag and

returned it to ground zero.

And then,

if I'm not mistaken, your child was just assigned

a homework assignment.

Right?

Can we,

this may be the greatest thing that's ever happened to me.

So,

I'm leaving for the book tour for I Am Neil Armstrong yesterday.

I am an hour away from headed for the plane.

My son walks in, my young son walks in and says, Dad, look what our homework assignment is.

And it's a homework assignment about the person who finding the 9-11 flag and my son proudly says dad they don't mention you in it they just mentioned that a TV show found it and I was like son you are going to crush homework tomorrow

and the best part of Glenn the best part of this is I wake up this morning I just found this and it has gone to national news.

I put it on my Twitter account.

Yahoo just picked it up.

It's become a national news story that the guy who found the 9-11 flag, that his teacher assigned an assignment on him and she didn't even know.

So the funniest part of the whole thing is at six o'clock this morning, I get an email from the teacher that says, I'm so sorry.

I didn't know it was you.

And I'm like, it's fine.

It was so many of us.

It was obviously one of the great blessings of my life is to play a small role in its return.

And the fact that it leads to one of the greatest, you know, she said, I said, you don't understand.

I need to thank you because this comedy bit is going to play forever.

Oh, and your son, your son sees you as a hero.

And that's fantastic.

I mean, anything that will reinforce, you know, my dad is cool, I think is

an impossibility, right?

That's like the fine gravity is that my dad is cool.

So yes, we will take it any day.

So did Yahoo know

that on 9-11 you were married to a nine-month-old who was pregnant?

That's the bigger story.

It really is.

It really is.

Yeah.

Okay.

Tell me about the

book, Neil Armstrong.

The reason why I'm having you on is I love your books in the first place.

I love your adult books, but the children books are just fantastic for children.

They teach principles and they teach all about heroes.

I wanted to have you on because Neil Armstrong been in the news recently.

I mean, I really believe, Glenn, that, you know, it is no coincidence that he's in the news.

And it's not just because of, obviously, the ridiculousness that the new movie apparently doesn't have implanting the flag.

It's not just that I wrote a book and these things happen for a reason.

I believe that in all times of history, you don't get the heroes you want.

You get the heroes you need.

There's a need out there.

And I think a humble person like Neil Armstrong is the hero we need right now.

And I wrote the book purposely

because I wanted my kids to learn that kind of humility.

I mean, this is a children's book.

It teaches you about, of course, the space launch.

But Neil Armstrong used to never use the word I.

He used the word we.

We did this.

His quote was, when they took the Apollo mission, mission, he said, Please tell everyone who worked on this that this is their launch.

Tell them that they'll be riding with us all the way.

And he meant the scientists, he meant the mathematicians, he meant the people who sewed the tailors who sewed the spacesuit together.

Remember when humility was a great American value?

I wrote, I am Neil Armstrong because I want my sons to learn that humility.

I want my daughter to learn that kind of humility again because we've lost it.

Was the outrage over the flag

was that?

what did you make of all of that?

You know, so here's what I think.

I mean, let's be very clear.

The movie's not out yet, so no one's seen it.

Apparently, I tried, of course, to check it out.

Apparently, the flag is featured predominantly, but let's also be clear.

Landing on the moon was an American achievement, without question, right?

It happened because the President of the United States said, we are going to do this.

We're going to do it together.

And it was America who got us there.

It was a race against the Russians, truly um i think that the the the the big mess up that they made was simply that they you know the star of the movie said oh it's a it's a human achievement it's not a human achievement i mean certainly humans were responsible it's an american achievement um but from what i hear neil armstrong's sons uh said the flags feature predominantly i'm going to trust his family that if they're happy with it i'm going to be happy with it and i tend to not want to get in controversies where no one's seen the movie and we just want to have a controversy because we're having a controversy that seems you know antithetical to what Neil Armstrong stands for, which is that be humble and let's be calm and let's hold it together.

What did Neil Armstrong do

with

his life after the moon?

I had lunch with

Buzz Aldrin, and I brought my dad because I thought, how cool is this that my dad can come with me to have lunch with Buzz Aldrin?

And

we sat there, and I have to tell you, it was the saddest,

it was the saddest thing I've ever seen because he talked about, you know, his alcoholism and everything else.

He got back, and, you know, he was just a guy who went on tour to try to raise money and awareness for NASA and, you know, keep things going.

He's obviously really accomplished, very, very bright.

But how do you beat going to the moon?

And

he couldn't let that moment go.

I don't know if I could, but he couldn't let that moment go.

He's very different than Neil Armstrong.

What happened with Neil Armstrong?

Yeah, Neil Armstrong was a different guy.

You know, they picked Neil Armstrong instead of Buzz Aldrin.

They had this moment where they had to pick who's the first one out.

That's a choice.

It's not just who gets to the door.

It was a clearly calculated plan, and they picked Neil Armstrong to be the first one as opposed to Buzz Aldrin.

There was big controversy.

Buzz obviously campaigned and wanted to be out there.

He was not chosen.

They picked Neil Armstrong because of his humility, because he was the guy who wasn't going to put his face on a t-shirt and go out there and try and make money off of it, because he was just going to go back to Ohio and be fine with the achievement.

And, you know, I think the best way you can always show someone's character is look at their childhood.

Neil Armstrong, when he was eight years old, the thing he wanted to do more than anything else, he wanted to climb this big maple tree in his backyard.

And when you climb a tree, you got to make a plan.

It's a puzzle, right?

You grab one branch and then you got to grab this branch.

And as he's grabbing one of the dead branches, the branch snaps.

And Neil Armstrong falls 15 feet, lands flat on his back, has a wind knocked out of him.

His sister comes running over, says, are you okay?

She goes and grabs their mother.

The most important thing, and this is the opening of I am Neil Armstrong, the children's book, is this moment.

I teach my kids, the most important thing that Neil Armstrong does after that moment is he gets back up again.

He gets a job mowing grass in a cemetery because he wants to fly.

He buys toy planes, saves his money.

Then he saves up for a pilot's license.

He gets his pilot's license.

He's a teenager before he gets his driver's license, becomes a test pilot, of course, an astronaut.

And we all today celebrate that giant leap for all mankind that Neil Armstrong took.

But we need to teach our kids.

that you don't get to take the giant leap until you take the thousands of smaller steps before.

We got to teach our kids what hard work really means again.

That to me is what this children's book stands for.

And I think it shows, to answer your question, what and how Neil Armstrong Armstrong was able to deal with it because he was built from that solid American value system that let him say, I am not my achievement.

I'm just a man.

Brad Meltzer was fine.

Brad Meltzer, thank you so much.

I am Neil Armstrong.

It's available at bookstores everywhere.

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

Matt Walsh is a one of just a great, great writer and somebody who really sees the world and refuses to go down the path of insanity.

He wrote for many years for The Blaze.

He's now with the Daily Wire.

I have been following his work on happening with the Catholic Church because he's Catholic and I'd I'd like to get somebody's opinion who doesn't have an axe to grind with religion or the Catholic Church.

So Matt, welcome to the program.

How are you?

Hey Blenn, thanks for having me.

So can you tell me what the hell happened with the Pope yesterday?

Well

that's I mean what

There's a few things going on, but I think the thing that's caught a lot of people's eyes here in

the United States is that uh he got up and and said that uh satan is at work in the church which i i agree with that part of it but uh he said that satan is at work amongst the accusers satan is the great accuser and he is uh he is you know victimizing the poor bishops through i i guess he didn't specify any more than that but i guess he's saying that uh the people that are accusing the bishops are Satan and

also the faithful Catholics who are demanding answers.

I guess we are also in league with Satan.

That appears to be what the Pope is insinuating, and I find it absolutely horrific.

Tell me a little bit about the scandal in Pennsylvania, because depending on who you're listening to,

I don't know who to believe.

You know,

you listen to the New York Times, and their spin is, yes, these things happened, but most of them happened a long time ago.

And

while the Pope was involved a little bit, it's more on the fringes.

And this is only being brought up because this is a war between the people who want a more traditional church and

the people who agree with Francis.

Yeah, it's a very weird thing for

traditional, quote-unquote, traditional Catholics like myself.

It's a weird thing to see the media all of a sudden circling the wagons around the Vatican.

It's just we've never seen seen anything like this.

Usually, they're very eager to

blame the Vatican for anything.

But so,

in Pennsylvania, you do have, you know, you have the grand jury report from about a month ago, I guess, now, which talks about abuses among priests and also cover-ups by bishops.

And that dates back, you know, it goes back, I think, 50 or 60 years.

And much of it, a good percentage of those abuses

were

20 years or more older.

And so I guess some apologists are now using that as a reason to say, well, look, this problem has been contained since then, so this is old news.

And maybe they could get away with that.

Maybe they could get away with that excuse, if not for the fact that there has been this problem in diocese across the country.

And now they're talking about another investigation in New York, another one in New Jersey.

And then on top of that, you have two other things as well.

You've got Cardinal McCarrick,

the most prominent cardinal in the United States, who has been, who's, you know, all this information is coming out about him now and his abuse, not just of children, but of seminarians, of young men.

And then you've got someone in the Vatican, a high-ranking, former high-ranking official who wrote an 11-page letter indicting the Pope himself and accusing him personally of covering up.

So all of these things together just make it impossible to minimize this or to claim that it's all in the past because it's not.

This is right now.

These are things happening right now.

And what about the claim that this cardinal in the 11-page letter, this guy has been against Francis the whole time and is just using this to try to get to Francis?

Well, number one, it's irrelevant, but that's just a character assassination.

Even though it's true that even if it's true that he's got some kind of axe to growing with Pope Francis, that doesn't mean that he's wrong about what he's saying.

The question is,

are the accusations true or not?

And it's very relevant that of all the men accused by Vigano, Archbishop Vigano, the accuser, of all the men accused, none of them have actually denied it, not a single one, including the Pope.

But secondly, that's actually not true.

This Archbishop Digano has had a long reputation as someone who is a whistleblower, who stands against corruption, is not afraid to root out corruption.

That's what he has

a reputation for.

He doesn't have a reputation for trying to undermine the Pope.

This is the first time he's ever done this.

The Pope has been there for six or seven years.

This is the first time Digano

has come out and said anything like this against the Pope.

So I just, I think that accusation is just incorrect.

So what does the average Catholic do now?

What are they thinking?

Yeah, that's a million-dollar question.

And there are a lot of Catholics who, and I hear from a lot of Catholics, and talk to a lot of Catholics personally, and many of them are on the edge of or over the edge of despair at this point

because they just look at the church and they think, well, I think for a lot of, especially for a lot of devout Catholics, I'm talking about the ones who really care about their faith and go to church and really try to live according to it.

The thing is,

it's not easy to live according to the teachings of the church.

A lot lot is asked of us, and I think rightfully so.

But then when we look, and you know, we're trying so hard to live according to these teachings and making all the sacrifices necessary, and then we look and we see that the people running the church don't apparently even care about these teachings at all,

it's very deflating.

But what I would say, you know, as a Catholic, you know, I'm not leaving the church over this.

I think either you believe that the Catholic Church is the true faith and you believe that it has a historical claim to being the true church or not.

And if you don't believe that, then I guess you're not Catholic.

You shouldn't be Catholic.

But if you do believe that, then I think these scandals, as awful as they are, they don't change that, don't change that simple thing.

All they mean, and we should keep in mind as Christians that, look, I mean, Jesus Christ chose 12 apostles, one denied him, one betrayed him, only one was there with him at the cross on Calvary.

So

there's a long precedent of this kind of treachery going all the way back to the very beginning.

The Pope, however, being the leader, I mean, when I saw this story break, we were on the air and I said, you know, if I'm the Pope, I get onto the plane today

and I hold a press conference in Philadelphia or Pittsburgh and I say, I am here because we take this seriously and the children are the most precious to us.

I mean, you want to be Francis.

That's what you do.

And you hit it straight on.

For him to

not answer any of the questions um

and and then on top of it to come out later and say well you know it's the devil is making people do this is

in my opinion obscene

i mean it is obscene i mean there's there's there's you know you could use a lot of different words to describe it um i think that the pope's behavior throughout this entire scandal and apparently going back you know through his entire papacy according to vigo his behavior has been cowardly um it's been despicable I mean, like I said, it's just, and it for, again, for a devout Catholic to say those kinds of things about the Pope, I mean, I don't say that kind of stuff lightly.

I mean, I would say that lightly maybe about a politician, but I don't say it lightly about the Pope

because I do have so much obvious respect for the office of the Pope.

But because of that, and when I see what this man is doing to that office and how, in my opinion, he's acting in ways that are disgraceful, I think we have no choice as Catholics but to stand up and say that.

So what does disappear what does that mean?

Is there a chance this pope is removed from office or leaves office because of this?

As far as I know, there's not any way to actually remove a pope because he's not a president and he can't really be impeached as far as I know.

However, I do think that bishops and cardinals and the laity if they were to stand up in essentially one voice and say there need to be big changes.

This pope has failed us, he needs to step down.

I think if that pressure

was put on and

there were enough people saying that and being consistent in their outcry,

I think maybe this Pope could be, let's say, encouraged to step down.

But, and I think, I hope that will happen.

I think it should.

I don't think it will, though, because this Pope has obviously shown what his strategy is going to be.

And that's going to be, number one, to ignore the charges that are currently against him.

He said nothing about them.

And then, number two, to recast the entire thing as, you know, essentially making the bishops into victims.

And in order to get past that, what would be needed is the laity, we need to stay focused on this issue,

even as the media forgets about it and disregards it, and as the Pope doesn't address it, we would have to stay focused.

But unfortunately, in a modern society, it's hard to keep people focused and concentrated on one issue for very long.

So I'm afraid that like a month from now, nobody's going to be talking about this anymore.

And the Pope will have just essentially gotten away with it.

That's what I'm afraid afraid is going to happen matt this this guy has not been you know traditional and he's you know he's he's done a lot of things that a lot of catholics or traditionalists would say oh yeah that's really weird this is in a totally different category would you have ever expected this pope to react this way to a scandal this big

No, I didn't.

Although now that I see him acting this way, I see that there are plenty of reasons.

There was plenty of precedent for it because this has actually been there's been this pattern, maybe not with scare, with with scandals up until now, but where he'll say something or issue some kind of proclamation or write something that's very confusing to conservative Catholics.

And we're thinking, wait, wait, is he contradicting Catholic teaching?

What's going on here?

And then he's asked to clarify and he just refuses to.

He's been doing that for the last six years.

So now he's just taking that strategy and applying it to this.

But no, I didn't, when

these allegations came out against him personally, I really did not.

I honestly thought that he would at least say something within the first couple of days.

The fact that he said nothing is to me, I mean, it's really shocking to me.

And as I said, I find it utterly, completely disgraceful.

I mean, for him to take the name of Francis, I don't think this is the way St.

Francis would have dealt with it.

No, certainly not.

And this is, I mean, this is not how any

Pope or not.

This is not how any Christian should respond.

And, you know, there are some people that have made excuses for the Pope saying, well, when Jesus was accused,

he didn't say anything.

You know,

When we were talking to Herod, Jesus refused to respond.

But this is not the same thing.

And

when Jesus refused to answer accusations against him, the reason why, in those cases, why he refused, is because the accusations were disingenuous.

They were men in bad faith.

The people that were saying it didn't really mean it, didn't really care.

They were just looking for an excuse to crucify him.

And Jesus knew that, so he wasn't going to entertain it or humor it.

That's why Jesus remained silent.

That's not the case here.

People are, there's actually real scandal going on.

People are are legitimately distressed and in despair over it, and they want some leadership and they want answers.

And so, for the Pope to look at those people and treat them like we're all a bunch of herods is, I mean, it's unthinkable.

Matt Walsh, thank you very much.

We'll continue to read your blog on the Daily Wire and

thank you for keeping us abreast on what's happening.

Matt Walsh from The Daily Wire: The Blaze Radio Network

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