John Stossel: “Market discipline is the only real protection”

Somehow libertarian John Stossel survived over 20 years at ABC before finally making it over to Fox. The man who Glenn described as, “one of my favorite guys on TV,” joined Glenn this morning on radio to discuss his new book, No They Can’t: Why Government Fails and Individuals Succeed.

Of the 28 years that Stossel spent at ABC, 20 of them were as a libertarian fighting the left and big government. John told Glenn that had “enough of winning Emmy awards and bashing business – I want to explain how government is the bigger problem …and that fight went on for 20 years.”

John’s new book explains a fascinating new theory: small government goes against intuition.

“They no they can't is a reaction to the Obama campaign’s "yes we can",” John told Glenn, “and that came to mean government – and I do think that's instinctive. When we're scared we think we have to turn to government for a solution.”

Stossel used the example of September 11th. “After September 11th I was scared in New York, and they said “we have to have government run airline security.” That made sense to me,” he told Glenn.

He went on to explain that the Senate voted 100 to 0 to federalize the TSA, which we now know isn’t very good. “People don’t know that it [the TSA] costs ten times the old screener costs,” John explained.

Stossel continued this point by using the example of San Francisco, the one big city that still allows the use of private screeners. The screeners are more friends and the lines move more quickly.

“By the TSA’s own tests they find more contraband,” he said. “They’re just better, because they’re a private company, and they don’t want to lose the contract and they do things like run contests for their screeners. It’s great.”

“You could have given me a $1 million. You could have put a $1 million prize. I could have polled the audience and phoned a friend, and we still wouldn’t have been able to guess which city has privatized security being San Francisco,” Glenn said. “How in the hell did that happen?”

John explained that the airport manager in that city just so happened to be the first to use the clause in the law that allows cities to opt out. The TSA has since begun to ignore this requests cities are putting in for the clause, because so many want to opt-out.

“Glacier national park in Montana, where they have triple the amount of traffic in summer, the TSA doesn't adjust the work force,” John said, “it’s a government bureaucracy.”

“You say intuition says corporations are out of control, and government has to police them,” Glenn said to John.

John explained that on the surface it seems much more complicated that market forces could protect you. It seems much easier that corporations need to be controlled so that they don’t go out of control. But, that’s not the case. The corporations get out of control when they don’t reap any of the consequences of their actions. “If they’re out of control, if they hurt their customers, they shrink – they go out of business,” John said.

“That makes sense,” Glenn said. “Because the financial sector is out of control, but it would have solved itself if they would have collapsed back in ’08. They would have learned their lesson.”

“And the investors would have been wiser,” Stossel added. “Market discipline is the only real protection.”

Glenn agreed with John, but no one is getting this message across to the American people.

“If it goes against intuition and the media will not put reasonable people on—maybe there's a flash of light here and there like you were on the ABC—but you can't get into the system to say the American people, ‘look I know your gut says this, but it's the wrong way to go.’ How do you change that? How do you get people to say I want small government?” Glenn asked John.

“I think there's one simple way,” John answered. “You give all your friends a copy of No They Can’t: Why Government Fails and Individuals Succeed.”

“So your book is the key to happiness, and Utopia?” Pat joked. “Wow.”

“It's a Libertarian's dream, and something that we need to read, understand and be able to explain to our friends,” Glenn concluded, “because their gut will tell them the opposite way to go.”

Top FIVE takeaways from Trump's LEGENDARY Joe Rogan podcast

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President Donald Trump sat down for a three-hour podcast with famous podcaster Joe Rogan for what was likely the longest interview of a presidential nominee in American political history.

The interview, which first aired Friday, October 25th, has amassed over 38 million views at the time of writing, making it one of the top-performing podcasts Rogan has ever done. Naturally, the mainstream media tried desperately to spin this interview against Trump by "fact-checking" claims he made about the 2020 election, cherry-picking individual sentences from the three-hour-long interview just to repeat them out of context. They've even gone so far as to tell people not to watch the podcast.

This is all just a coping strategy, as anyone who has seen the interview would tell you, Trump absolutely crushed it! He was sharp, witty, funny, intelligent, strong, positive, and perhaps most importantly, he had actual policy solutions to America's problems. If you haven't had a chance to check it out, here are the top five takeaways from the must-watch podcast:

Tariffs and Federal Income Tax

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Trump repeated a statement he had made at a rally earlier in the week, suggesting that he's considering repealing the Federal Income Tax. He suggested an alternate means of deriving income for our government tariffs. Trump praised the late 19th century, President William McKinley, for his use of tariffs to increase the wealth of the United States before income tax was introduced. Trump said that he wants to use tariffs to tax other countries for stealing American jobs, which would simultaneously protect American industry and lighten the burden of American taxpayers; two birds, one stone.

RFK Jr. and MAHA

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Joe Rogan discussed RFK Jr. and his mission to Make America Healthy Again. He mentioned a startling statistic he had heard from RFK Jr.: that over 70 percent of young American men are not physically fit enough to serve in the military. Trump corroborated this claim with a graph he had brought that revealed the U.S. spends significantly more than most other countries on health care per capita yet has significantly lower life expectancy. This discrepancy is perpetuated by Big Pharma, which profits off our illness. Trump even claimed that he was warned against partnering with RFK Jr. lest he would anger people within the industry. President Trump assured Rogan that he is completely committed to working with RFK Jr. to make America healthy again.

The JFK Files

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In an especially thrilling moment of the interview, Trump claimed to have read a portion of the JFK files and decided to re-seal it after seeing what he read and consulting with trusted advisors. He claimed that well-intentioned, good people asked him not to open the files just yet, and after reading about half the files, he understood why. While he was reluctant to go into more detail, he claimed that there were people who were involved with the JFK assassination and the following investigation who are still alive, and whose names and addresses were in the files. But according to Trump, enough time had passed, and he was adamant that he would unseal the JFK files soon after taking office.

The Biggest Mistake in His First Term

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President Trump discussed what he saw as the biggest mistake he made during his first term. He admited that he was still very new at politics when he was elected into the White House and relied on the advice of the swamp creatures he swore to destroy when building his cabinet. Trump admitted that he made several bad picks, which caused him problems throughout his first term, but he said he is determined to learn from his mistakes, and he's working on assembling a dream team for 2025.

Doubling Down on 2020 Election Fraud

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Despite efforts by the mainstream media to "debunk" election fraud claims, Trump continued to assert that there was interference in the 2020 election. Trump pointed out the Hunter Biden laptop story, which was actively suppressed and denied by the media leading up to the election, despite being true. On top of this, Trump and Rogan discussed the opportunity for cheating and interference offered by Covid with the vast increase in the use of mail-in ballots. Considering how small of a margin Biden won by, Trump argued that between Covid and the fake news media, the notion that the scales were tipped in Biden's favor is not that far-fetched.

Kamala Harris dropped the ball at CNN's town hall

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Vice President Kamala Harris held a town hall on CNN Wednesday night, asking voters questions about the swing state of Pennslyvania. It was a train wreck.

Harris could not give a single straight answer to any question, and would instead lapse into long, word-salad answers. At times even Anderson Cooper, who was hosting the event, seemed fed up with her answers and tried to steer her back on track. There were even a few times that felt like Cooper was practically spoon-feeding the answer to Harris, who still managed to drop the ball.

This town hall was a flop at a time when the polls revealed Harris really couldn't afford it.

She talked more about Trump than herself.

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Throughout her campaign and the CNN town hall, Harris repeatedly promised that her administration would break away from the "hate" and "divisiveness" that supposedly characterize President Trump and his campaign. But despite these promises, it seemed like Harris's answer to every question was to bash Trump. From questions about how she would support or not support Israel to questions about potential Supreme Court reforms, the answer was the same: Orange Man Bad.

Even the CNN after-show panel complained that she spent far too much time talking about Trump. Her performance lacked substance and proved that her campaign isnot about anything she has to offer the American people, it's solely about hating Donald Trump.

She missed the opportunity to further define herself.

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Harris spent so much time Trump-bashing that she never got into any detail about her policies. This was an event designed to give her the chance to lay out her platform and define who she is as a candidate and she utterly failed to do so. As mentioned before, all she really spoke about was Trump, a candidate who almost every voter is highly familiar with. This was a critical failure on Harris's part, she missed possibly one of, if not the last chance to make an impression on voters before the election and according to recent polls, this was a chance she could not afford to miss.

She gave several radical and dangerous remarks.

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The few times Harris managed to reveal some of her policy ideas it became clear why she was being so coy: they are blatantly dangerous. In between her anti-Trump tirades where she makes Trump out to be the biggest threat to the Constitution the country has ever seen, Harris let slip that she is open to Supreme Court reforms, including adding more Justices to the bench. This is known as court-packing and is most certainly unconstitutional, as well as one of the hallmarks of an authoritarian takeover, as Glenn has pointed out.

Harris also spent the first several minutes of the event making dangerous accusations against Trump, calling him a fascist and comparing him to Adolf Hitler. She would echo this sentiment the following day in a surprise address. Glenn explained on his radio show just how dangerous and inciteful this kind of language is and the kind of damage it can do. This looks like a desperate, last-ditch attempt to sway people away from Trump during this critical time of the election cycle.

Meet Trump's dream team who will make America healthy again

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Americans are sick of being sick. In a recent TV special, Glenn revealed one in three Americans suffer from a chronic disease, and it's only getting worse.

But there is hope! President Trump has taken notice of our dysfunctional and corrupt system and has assembled a Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) dream team who plan on making big changes once Trump gets back into office. This team plans on fighting back against federal regulatory agencies such as the FDA, which are bought out by Big Pharma and Big Food and allow toxic ingredients that most other countries have banned into our food.

So who is this dream team? Below, we've compiled a list of the most prominent figures who are working with Trump to make America healthy again:

RFK Jr.

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Former Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made the declining health of Americans a focal point in his campaign. After dropping out of the race, he combined forces with President Trump, promising to assist Trump in reinventing federal health agencies, such as the FDA and CDC, to purge them of corruption, and to reduce the dominance of ultra-processed foods full of toxic additives. RFK Jr. has adopted the slogan Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) in reference to Trump's Make America Great Again (MAGA) slogan.

Casey and Calley Means

Over this last month, Dr. Casey Means and her entrepreneur brother Calley have taken the Conservative sphere by storm after testifying in front of the U.S. Senate. The siblings have been making the circuit, speaking alongside Jorden Peterson, appearing on Joe Rogan's podcast, getting a shoutout by RFK Jr., and even joining Glenn on his most recent TV special. Casey and Calley are trying to expose the corruption in the upper levels of industry and federal agencies and fight back against what Dr. Casey describes as a "genocidal health collapse."

Dr. Robert Redfield

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Former CDC Director Dr. Redfield has recently rejoined Trump's Make America Healthy Again team. His experience as the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control means he is familiar with the corruption that rots our federal agencies and has good reason to believe that the Trump administration can turn things around. Dr. Redfield has shown concern for the alarming rate of chronic disease that plagues Americans. He expressed special concern for children, given that over 40 percentof American children suffer from at least one chronic condition.

Can fear win the vote? Democrats have a dangerous strategy to demonize Trump.

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The Democratic Party’s nominee is deliberately spreading false, fear-driven narratives to turn her base against Donald Trump, regardless of the consequences.

Have you noticed how Kamala Harris and her allies in the corporate left-wing media have become bolder in labeling Trump a “fascist”? A recent New York Times article revealed that Democrats have shed their reluctance to use the term. In fact, it has become their rallying cry as Election Day approaches.

What’s the real goal here? According to John Daniel Davidson at the Federalist, Harris and her supporters are using this rhetoric to energize their base — and more disturbingly, to prepare them for violence if Trump wins. The fearmongering isn’t just about driving people to the polls; it’s about creating an atmosphere of rage and chaos.

Let’s show the Democrats that our republic doesn’t bend to fear and certainly doesn’t bend to those who twist the truth for political gain.

Harris is deliberately spreading false, fear-driven narratives to turn her base against Trump, regardless of the consequences. This is the same Kamala Harris who, during the George Floyd riots in 2020, encouraged bailing out rioters and urged the violence to continue both before and after the election.

For example, Harris has claimed that Trump will use the Department of Justice as a weapon against his political enemies if he returns to office. But let’s pause for a second: Who is using the Justice Department as a political tool right now? Harris’ own administration, led by Joe Biden, has weaponized federal agencies against Trump and conservatives for years.

Harris also recently entertained the idea that Trump would round up people who “don’t look white” and throw them into camps. During an interview with Charlamagne tha God, a caller suggested this scenario. Instead of refuting the caller’s paranoia, Harris nodded and said, “You have hit on a really important point.

This kind of divisive rhetoric fuels fear and division in our country. Let’s not forget: Trump was president for four years, and there were no camps, roundups, or authoritarian crackdowns on dissenters. Leftists claim Trump and his supporters spread conspiracy theories, but they are the ones pushing baseless and dangerous claims.

While Democrats claim to defend democracy, they are increasingly aligning with authoritarianism. For example, the EPA funneled billions of dollars to left-wing organizations, including one tied to Stacey Abrams, for “voter mobilization” efforts. This funding came through the Inflation Reduction Act — a taxpayer-funded omnibus bill. Imagine the outrage if Republicans in Congress gave billions of taxpayer dollars to right-wing groups. The media would be in an uproar, and there would be protests at the White House gates. But because it’s Democrats doing it, the mainstream media turns a blind eye. These are the warning signs of an authoritarian regime.

This is why it’s more critical than ever for Americans to see through the left’s manipulation. Trump’s not the fascist here — he’s a threat to the left's power. The real danger lies in the left’s escalating rhetoric, which is designed to incite chaos if things don’t go its way. And let me be clear: That’s exactly what leftists are preparing for.

Don’t let them succeed.

The best way to counter their lies is by getting out to vote and encouraging others to do the same. If every single one of us does this, we won’t let the fearmongering and lies being peddled by Harris and the Democrats succeed. Let’s show them that our republic doesn’t bend to fear and certainly doesn’t bend to those who twist the truth for political gain.

Editor's Note: This article was originally published on TheBlaze.com.