Best of the Program | Guests: Max Lucado & John Solomon | 9/12/25

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Today,

we still remember and honor our good friend, civil rights leader, Charlie Kirk.

I talked about that and the importance of why we address him as that now.

And we make that very clear on what he did and what he died for.

We talked to Max Lucato about that and so much more of what, how do we deal with and process all of this.

Also, John Solomon brings us the latest news on the capture of the shooter.

What do we know?

What do we still not know?

Is there anybody else involved?

It looks like

there's a possibility this may go deeper than just this one person, but we're not sure.

And

the families.

Not only did we start a fund for the family of Charlie Kirk,

as a personal

thank you to his family.

You can find it at givesendgo.com slash 912 project.

But I make a case that we need to help that family and the family of Turning Point USA, but also

what some might say is a very controversial message.

I thought about the parents of the shooter for

For everything we've heard so far.

It's a good family that tried to do the right thing.

And I wanted you to imagine their situation because I think it's what Charlie Kirk was preaching.

And for us to truly change the world, I want to show you how thinking small and choosing your thoughts and choosing a right path can make all of the difference in the world.

All of that on today's podcast.

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Now, let's get to work.

You're listening to

the best of the Blenbeck program.

I'm going to play a couple of pieces of

video here.

Cut nine, please.

This is

Erica Kirk and

our second lady,

Vice President Vance's wife, holding hands coming off of Air Force 2 as they land in Phoenix.

She is

coming out.

There's Erica

coming out at the top of the stairs.

And

she's holding

Mrs.

Vance's hand.

You see, Charlie's wife just looks like she's just, you know,

like a widow who,

you know, like Jackie O looked when she arrived back home in Washington, D.C.

Cut 10.

They're loading Charlie's body into a hearse yesterday to bring it

home.

And

you see,

one of the pallbearers

is J.D.

Vance.

And I,

again, I find myself saying this all the time.

This is something I've never seen before in my life.

I have never seen,

well, I've never seen an assassination.

I've seen an assassination attempt twice in my life, but I've never seen an assassination of anyone in my life in America.

And then I don't remember this from the history books, you know, having our vice president or our president involved at this level, moving the body back.

home.

The Vance's are,

I think they're remarkable remarkable people.

I think he's going to be an incredible president.

I think he is going to be an incredible president.

But we,

you know, with the Vance is,

you know, usually a society gets what it deserves.

I'm not sure we deserve the Vance family at this point.

Here's when the plane touched down Air Force 2, when the plane touched down, here's the welcome home from the tower.

Listen.

Welcome home, Charlie.

You didn't deserve it.

May God bless your family.

I will not cry.

President Trump said later this month

the funeral will be held and he is planning on attending.

And I'm assuming that that will be in Phoenix

where they will lay him to rest.

You know, I think we need to stop calling Charlie Kirk an activist or anything else.

I don't, a political figure.

It is time to

time to call him what he really was.

Because of what he died doing, Charlie Kirk is a civil rights icon.

Charlie Kirk was a civil rights leader that was martyred

standing up for civil rights.

And it is time that our side declares that

and stands on that and claims that territory.

These so-called civil rights leaders that have been around for the last 30 years are jokes.

They're money hustlers.

They're dividers, and they have nothing, nothing to do with civil rights.

Martin Luther King was a civil rights leader.

Martin Luther King was that man.

RFK Jr.

could even be called a civil rights leader.

JFK could be called a civil rights leader.

They led.

They led the way.

Everyone else was just playing it for cash and for power.

And I'm sick of it.

Charlie Kirk died

standing up and trying to show people

how to exercise your civil right in a civilized manner.

And they gunned him down before him,

because of it.

It's time to start calling him Charlie Kirk, the civil rights leader.

You have John on?

Yeah, John, how are you?

Thank you for coming on today.

Well, Glenn, I'm well.

Thank you.

I couldn't agree more with what you just said.

You're right on the money.

So, John, John Stossel, or John Solomon, sorry, John Solomon from Just the News.

John,

we have apparently the guy in custody.

What do we know about this?

So we believe he's a man that looks just like the photo.

We believe that after the FBI put out the photos and had some other information they were pursuing about friends and affiliates of this shooter, that

the father and minister apparently played a role in getting this man to surrender.

We don't know much more than that.

Hold on just a sec, John.

Would you do me a favor and would you check?

Because everybody's using the word minister.

And in Utah,

the word would be bishop.

If he was an LDS member, it would have been bishop.

And I'm interested to know.

I don't have that level of detail.

I've been asking, obviously, because it is Utah and you think that way.

But we don't know.

It's only been described by law enforcement to me as a minister or a clergy person.

So we don't know more than that.

Hopefully, we'll know more soon.

But you're right.

It's the right question to ask.

We've been asking it.

And they're still interrogating.

They're still doing search warrants and other things, but they feel pretty confident based on the way this came through.

And I think the question now becomes, in what circle was this young man working?

And what ideology was he lured into?

It sounds like he comes from a good family, obviously a family, if

accurate about the father's cooperation, even doing the right thing at a painful moment like this.

But in what circle was he walking?

And where was he getting radicalized?

And what was the ideology driving this?

And I think we're going to learn a lot about some entities and groups in Utah that will maybe give us some sense of what was festering festering right below our noses.

This is a problem on social media,

particularly in the last five years.

We've allowed a lot of different ideologies and groups to fester, and they're picking off our children, even children that come in good homes.

And we'll have to just wait and see.

But that's the early assessment I've gotten from law enforcement.

A lot of

parts to be filled in, but they feel very confident they have the man.

that the danger to the public has diminished.

That doesn't bring much solace to Charlie Kirk's family, but knowing the guys in custody, I think is good for the entire country.

I have been informed, and without revealing

any specifics, but I have been informed that

they are

looking into

groups that may have been involved.

You know, this is kind of like,

where was that, in Texas, the shooters where they had people that were helping.

It was coordinated.

And have you heard anything about a possible coordination?

That it wasn't just, you know, duping some kid and brainwashing some kid, but

there was actual coordination and possibly foreign coordination.

They're looking at some things.

I don't think they've come to an assessment yet.

I was familiar yesterday

about a look at a couple of groups that they were looking at.

And I don't think they've made a full assessment.

I think that's why the debriefing and the getting his phone, getting his computer, getting his video gaming connections, anything that that's the part of the phase that they're in now.

There was some leads that they were looking at that pointed to, as I said on TV the last couple of days, some possible, there was a tip from a foreign country about

some operating entities in this area of Utah that might have been involved.

It was just a tip.

I think they're trying to put those pieces together.

We'll find out more in the day or so, but they're open to that possibility.

I don't think they've closed down a certain certitude to it yet.

Yeah.

Tell me what you know about,

what's his name?

Sky

Valaldez.

Is that it?

Yeah.

He is

the guy who apparently

had a SoundCloud account.

And on August 7th, he posted something, Charlie Kirk dead at 31.

And he's had a couple of other things like that that he has posted in the last few months.

Do we know anything about this guy?

No, I don't yet.

I'm aware of the reports.

I know that the FBI is aware of the reports.

I don't know whether they have found any relevancy to that or whether it's just a provocateur.

We just don't know.

I've not been able to reach this gentleman.

We're trying to do due diligence, but I know of no reason at this moment.

of a connection other than these reports and the SoundCloud.

We understand that.

I know the FBI was aware of it, but

there's chatter all the day.

One of the great challenges in the world we live in today was so many people wanting to be provocators,

so many people wanting to express hatred.

We've mainstreamed hatred, we've made it fashionable in certain circles of young people.

It's almost shocking to me, but you're sorting through.

And

when you're the FBI and you got a thousand leads, some are provocators.

Is that a provocator?

Is that the guy about to commit the next murder?

You don't know.

And I think that's one of the things.

I think the bigger lesson from this is we've allowed a culture culture of hatred and intolerance to literally boil over to the idea now that people don't have any prohibition talking about wanting to kill someone in an open space.

I mean, most murderers are secretive.

People are talking about those ambitions.

Look at the gentleman that was rolled up in North Carolina a couple of days ago talking on if it was YouTube, I'm going to kill a bunch of kids in a school.

We we've allowed this this culture to boil into a place where it is very dangerous.

Any person could be a stick of dynamite lit.

And I I think that's what's dangerous.

Those who like this culture deserve to be held accountable.

We've got to start holding those who are boiling the water accountable.

And I have to tell you, the biggest group that I have seen, I mean, I've been, I've been,

thank God for the ladies of the view.

There's been a lot of people that have come out with good statements, et cetera, et cetera, and condemned all of this.

But the biggest group of people that seem to be celebrating are teachers.

And I find it interesting that the president of UVU, UVU, President Tomunez,

has not made a statement at all.

The university did, but the university president didn't make any statement on this.

And I think that's an abomination.

And I would like to know why.

What are her feelings?

Yeah, those are important questions.

And you're right.

Academia has been a big part of the radicalization of

the last two generations, Millennial and Gen Z.

Gen Z is trending more conservative in general, but there are segments of it that are getting poisoned.

And

there's this romanticism of righteous revolution, which is basically sanctioning hatred and sanctioning violence and sanctioning that the ends justify the means.

And I believe in free speech, even if you're stupid, you're entitled to your free speech.

But we have to find that line where we protect people from the exercise of free speech.

when it targets a vulnerable person who's capable of being turned into a weapon.

And we don't know enough about this case to make that assessment yet, but we do know many painful cases before Charlie Kirk's assassination where that is the imperturbin footprint.

And I think everyone that's in the business of education, everyone that's in the business of media, those who showed such bad taste on news shows, I never thought in my life I would live to a time to see journalists exhibit some of the behavior.

I saw on news shows in the immediate aftermath of Charlie Kirk's assassination.

We all have a responsibility to clean this up if we're going to keep kids from going down the cliff.

And we're not having a serious enough conversation about it.

We do it for a day or two and then we move on, but it's still festering.

And our enemies, China, Iran, Russia,

they're helping boil it.

I was watching in real time

as we were doing our work on Charlie Kirk and trying to break stories and keep people informed, watching a bot farm, numerous bot farms, foreign bot farms, trying to inflame our dialogue.

And so our enemies know know we're vulnerable to it and they're adding things, right?

And then

we got a tough situation.

I have a lot of confidence that we're at a moment of clarity and I think there'll be a lot of responsibility in the next few days.

And maybe this suspect's story will shake us all to the ground enough to start coming up with solutions.

Because we started talking about it with the Virginia Tech and Columbine shootings.

We haven't come to grips with what's happening in the social media era.

But we'll get there.

I have confidence that Americans are going to get the right thing done.

So, John, would you, just this a personal request, because I trust you, and

I've watched you, read you, and listened to you for a very long time, and I think you are really a truly and honorable American.

Thank you.

I am concerned the last time we went through something like this, we came up with the Patriot Act, and that was a really bad thing.

And

would you, I would ask that if you see anything brewing like that from either side, their side, our side, anybody's side,

that you would alert me and alert America as soon as and early as you see any kind of inklings arising of that.

We cannot go too far the other way.

No, I mean, listen, you know where this is going to start?

It's going to start in our homes and our churches and our communities.

That's where it's rightfully fixed.

It's where we all got, it's where we all got.

I mean, COVID kind of woke us up.

Like, what's going on in our schools?

I know.

We have to fix this.

Government's not going to fix this.

We have to fix it as a people.

And hopefully this is a moment of clarity for all of us.

But we'll see.

It's terrible that we had to lose Charlie to get to this moment.

But I know he'd want us fighting for the solution.

I know he would, too.

John Sullivan, thank you so much.

Just the News, CEO and editor-in-chief of Just the News.

If you're not reading Just the News every day, you should be.

Justthenews.com.

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Now back to the podcast.

This is the best of the Glenn Beck program.

My good friend and just a man who has brought so much light to the world, Max Lucato.

Hello, Max.

How are you?

Glenn, I'm like you.

I'm just sad.

I feel a heaviness in my heart.

We knew the week was going to be somber because of 9-11.

But we went to

just a different shadow, a different level of sadness at this assassination of a good man.

I'm sorry for you.

I know that you

have a personal connection,

and I know that you treasure the wonderful state of Utah.

And

what a heartbreak for this to happen in that wonderful state.

So there's just a variety of emotions that I'm feeling.

I stand shoulder to shoulder with you, though, in acknowledging that this is a very, very dark

Max, we're airing the podcast.

It's out for Blaze TV subscribers today.

Tomorrow it'll go everywhere.

And I think, honestly, I've been thinking about it every day since we recorded it.

And I think it's one of the more important podcasts that I've ever done.

Your words are so,

so important and so clarifying, especially now.

But we recorded it before Charlie was killed.

And I wanted to give you the opportunity to add an addendum to what we talk about.

Can you give us any thoughts on how to process all of this and what the job is for those of us going forward and how we can guard ourselves from going dark?

Yes, yes.

Thank you so much for that opportunity.

I'll do my best to just offer a few

abbreviated ideas.

Let's acknowledge, first of all, this for what it is.

it's tragic it's just tragic uh it's the death of a good man but

it it and that's enough but if there's even more it's the uh fear that this fragile treasure that we call free speech is going to uh be taken away we treasure this idea of free speech And we must monitor it.

We must be good curators of it.

And so

what we're experiencing this week is a sadness and a fear, a sadness that something we treasure is lost, a fear that will never recover.

In the topic, the podcast you and I had, which was a wonderful conversation, we talked about how an untruth tends to lead to a false narrative that leads to an overreaction.

I tease.

I call it a UFO.

But an untruth.

Untruth leads to a false narrative that always leads to an overreaction.

An untruth in this case,

in this case, could be, you know, the world is going over the edge.

Our country is lost.

That's an untruth.

That's not true.

That's not true.

We can rise above this.

We can be better than this.

We can call each other to be better citizens than this.

But there is an untruth that's going to surface that's going to cause somebody to say

it's too late.

We've gone too far.

That'll lead to a false narrative.

They may try to treat this pain inappropriately with violence themselves or violence against themselves, and that leads to an overreaction.

An overreaction.

It's going to be an angry outburst.

It's going to be increased violence.

It's going to be isolation.

So we've got to stand against that and speak truth.

Here's the truth, Glenn.

The truth is we have a beautiful country.

We are treasured.

We are privileged to live in the greatest country in the history of the world.

That's the truth.

And the right narrative is we can rise up above this.

I would call upon those in my generation, I'm 70,

speak to your children, speak to your grandchildren, tell them that we got through this in the 60s and the 70s.

It's tragic.

It's horrible, but we're going to be better because of that.

And let that lead to a good reaction, a reaction in which I personally make a decision.

I'm going to be more respectful of those with whom I disagree.

I'm going to put the golden rule to practice as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.

I'm going to be a better neighbor.

So we can be better because of this.

And that's my prayer.

I think that's the decision.

I don't know how this is going to impact the entire nation, but I do know it can impact me.

And I'm resolved, and I hope all of our listeners today are resolved to be a better person because of it.

You know, Max, I've talked about God on the air when it was really uncomfortable.

In fact, one of the reasons I left Fox was I was told by Roger Ailes, stop talking about God.

And I was in his office and I said, okay, okay.

And he called me back a month after that and he said, do you know how many times you've said, you remember this conversation we had?

And I said, yes.

And he said, do you know how many times?

And I said, no.

And he said, I think you counted.

And I think it was like 92 times.

You mentioned, you said the word God 92 times in the last month.

And I'm like, yeah, well,

I'm sorry, but that's what I believe.

And

now,

when I was doing it back then,

I knew how dangerous it was in a way because people were not willing to share the gospel.

They weren't willing to talk about God in public.

Charlie, one of the things that he did was he has made this, he and others have made God

an open conversation.

God is back in a big way for millions of Americans.

And I really think

I've seen so many posts on X and Facebook this week.

I read one yesterday on the air that just said, I don't know what this is, but I just feel like going to church and giving my life to Jesus.

I think

this could be the beginning, just as though the way I feel the assassinations in the 60s helped lead to that Jesus revival in the 1970s.

I think there's a revival coming.

Amen.

And we're seeing that.

You know, we're seeing young

Gen Z lead the way in church attendance.

It's up by 27% of young people are saying they want to attend church and that is being led by males.

Typically, you know, we're always being critical of the guys because they don't go to church.

In this case, it's the guys who

are leading the way.

And And so that's super encouraging.

Charlie Kirk embraced a Christian worldview.

That is to say that we were created to live in a perfect relationship with God, with each other, with nature.

We're living in a fallen world right now because of sin.

Interestingly, the first fruit of that fall of Adam and Eve was an act of violence.

One brother killed the other.

When we're distant from God, we get distant from each other.

When we're at peace with God, we can be at peace with each other.

But Charlie acknowledged that we're in a season in the long eternal history of our relationship with God in which many people reject him.

And the consequence of that is anger and sin and rebellion and distortion and hurt.

But the day is coming in which

the goodness of God will be made plentiful on the earth and we will reign and rule with him in peace.

That's the Christian worldview.

Charlie embraced this.

It's essential.

I think secularism sucks the soul out of a person.

It turns them into an empty, self-centered person.

I believe the Christian faith, rightly accepted, causes us to set our focus on our Maker, and that's how we were intended to live.

You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck podcast.

Hear more of this interview and others with the full show podcast available wherever you get podcasts.

Do you know how we change the world?

We don't change it through

big moments.

The world changes because of big moments.

But if we want to

change the world ourselves,

We have to change ourselves first and we have to be great examples.

You know,

I've been struck all week because I've been listening to my friends and their podcasts, and I've talked to my friends on their podcasts and off the air.

And I've had so many conversations this week with the people that you listen to all the time.

And we're all in the same place, and we're all saddened, deeply saddened.

Some are very worried.

And we all

have done shows and said things on and off the air that I don't know if the left would would do.

I've been listening to people on the air and I've taken calls today and

nobody is screaming for blood.

And I am so proud of us.

It gives me such profound hope

because

the tone would be extraordinarily different if it was happening the other way around.

And you know it.

But let me take it, let me take you to an uncomfortable place.

Let me tell you a story that

we just don't even think of.

We have the shooter in custody now.

And by all accounts, he was a good kid and went to college and then just was all screwed up.

And I want you to think about that family for a minute.

We've been thinking about Charlie's family.

We've been thinking about his children as his right and we must and we must, we have a duty to take care of them.

But I want you to think about the family of the one that pulled the trigger.

I want you to just pause for a second and imagine for a minute.

A mom, just like you were a mom,

you know, holding her baby boy and whispering prayers over the crib, just like you did.

A dad who worked long days, believing if you just keep food on the table and discipline in the home and you try to do the right thing, your son is going to grow up as strong and he's going to do good.

Brothers, sisters, cousins,

all of them now watching in horror.

As the name that they all share is now cursed,

as their mailbox fills not with condolence but with hatred.

Imagine being that family in a few days going to the grocery store.

How afraid you would be.

Just not even that somebody would do something, but just going through the gauntlet of stares.

The

people that are questioning you and

You imagine how alone you would feel at that moment?

You would just want to crawl into a hole.

You would be questioning and tearing yourself apart.

What did I do wrong as a parent that my kid did this?

What did I do wrong?

You'd already have that, and then you'd have no one, no one outside of the family that would be with you.

The neighbors across the street that you've known forever and have known you.

Friends that fall silent.

You're no longer a friend.

Maybe the church pew that you go to, it's the one next to you sits empty now.

Nobody's sitting next to you.

What would it mean?

What would it do

for them to see just one neighbor?

Maybe somebody they barely even know, maybe somebody they don't even know.

They're in the grocery store and they're expecting all of these glares.

And they pass somebody that offers them not a glare, but just a glance of kindness, not approval, not excuse, but just a small recognition that the tragedy has claimed their family as well.

I don't know if I could have done this if I hadn't have raised my children and made so many mistakes that I have made.

You know,

I'm learning some ugly truths about myself in this last year.

things that I have a lot of work to do.

And,

you know, when I got into radio when I was 13 years old, and this,

this is my best friend.

This has never rejected me.

This is, I can tell it anything.

And my kids have noticed that I

spend so much time with you.

When I go out in public, I love talking to you.

And I've realized recently,

to my shame, that

my relationship with you may be the only relationship I'm good at.

I don't know how to do other relationships, and I tried to be a good dad, and I've tried to do just like you have.

We all have.

We all have.

But raising a kid is the hardest calling on earth.

If you are a parent, you know it, especially today.

You don't have any idea what you're doing.

You have no idea.

Everything has changed.

Nothing with our kids is like it was.

I can't even relate to it.

I feel horrible for the kids of today because I don't know how to help them.

And we can pour ourselves out.

We can be there.

I really have tried to be there for my kids every step of the way.

We've tried to teach them the scriptures.

We tried to pray without ceasing.

You can sacrifice as a parent until there's nothing left to sacrifice.

And still, you can lose them because the world is waiting.

Bad friends, social media, dark influences, the illness of the body or the mind, or

frankly, the poisonous philosophies at the schools and universities that now train our young men and women, not in the light of God and good, and

yearn to be better, but in grievance and shadow.

And any one of those influences can reach out and grab and snatch one of our children that we have loved beyond measure.

We can do everything right,

and they can still be snatched.

And then we're left

saying, Lord, what did I miss?

What did I fail to do?

What could I have done different?

I urge all of us to see this family of the shooter.

We're not seeing monsters.

We are not.

We are seeing what any one of us could have become, should fate or

frailty just twist the lives of those we love.

What sets us apart is the commandment from Christ to love our enemies.

You know, character doesn't count when you're not under pressure.

It doesn't count.

You can be the nicest person in the world, but when you're under extreme pressure, that true character comes out on who you really are.

We are under extreme pressure.

So who are we really?

Are we like

those we stand against?

Are we like or do we love our enemies?

Do we actually put that into practice?

Do we pray for those who persecute and hate us?

You know, when Jesus said all this stuff, he wasn't naive.

He more than anybody else knew the pain of betrayal and the sting of an unjust death.

And yet, while they drove nails into his hands and wrists, into his feet,

while they pushed a crown of thorns deep into his head,

he offered mercy

to the thief on the cross, forgiveness to those who were driving nails.

The last couple of days, we've done everything we can to honor Charlie's life.

And in the coming days, we need to honor Charlie's life again by picking up the torch and

picking it up where he left off to defend freedom and civil rights.

But more than anything else, the reason why Charlie Kirk was a true civil rights leader is because he was a Christian first.

He was a God-fearing man first.

He could love his enemies.

He could speak to his enemies with

a civility that is beyond most of us.

If we want to honor his memory truly,

then that's the torch we should pick up.

To be a better disciple of Christ.

To be so much better as individuals than the world would expect us to be.

Because that's what will change everything when we are so much better than what the world would expect us to be that it's almost breathtaking

the amish

the amish when they forgave the mother and comforted the mother before they even had all of the bodies out of the school where the shooter had killed their children, they worried about the mother of that shooter and went to comfort her.

And they went to her home and surrounded her.

She was terrified when she saw out her window that there are all these Amish people, and she knew her son had just killed all their children.

You should hear her testimony.

She was terrified to open the door.

She opened the door and they started to weep.

And they said, Sister, you're not alone.

We lost a child, and you lost a child.

And they made her promise, You will never move from our community.

You are now one of us.

You are not an outsider.

You're one of us.

We grieve together.

That's breathtaking.

That's hard.

Showing rage is so much easier.

Being mad is so much easier.

But saying kind thoughts,

showing compassion is so hard

to lift our gaze above the abyss of vengeance

and instead see this one broken family

who, like us, only wanted to raise a child to the light.

This is what I mean by what I've been saying lately.

Think small, dream big.

I want to heal the world.

I don't know how to do that.

But if I think small, I realize the greatest act of civil courage is not shouted in the streets.

It's whispered in each of our hearts, Lord,

heal them too.

Let me be more compassionate,

more empathetic.

Let me be more like you.

ABC Tuesdays, Dancing with the Stars is back with an all-new celebrity cast.

You have the crew.

Robert Irwin, Alex Earle, Andy Richter, Shen Affleck, Darren Davis, Lauren Howreggi, Whitney Levitt, Dylan Efron, Jordan Childs, Iloria Baldwin, Scott Hoyd, Elaine Hendricks, Sanielle Fischel, and Corey Feldman.

This season, get ready to feel the rhythm.

If you got it, flunt it.

Dancing with the Stars premieres live.

Tuesdays, 8-7 Central on ABC and Disney Plus.

Next day on Hulu.