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Did the U.S. pay a terrorist group ransom to secure Bergdahl’s release?

June 09, 2014
Radio Clips

The Glenn Beck Program

On Thursday, Congressman Steve Stockman (R-TX) sent a letter to the White House asking if the Obama Administration authorized any payment to the Haqqani terrorist network in exchange for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. The question is actually a fair one given Haqqani’s history of demanding ransom for prisoners.

According to a press release from Stockman’s office, the Haqqani Network has demanded ransom for high-profile captives in the past, including $5 million for Afghan diplomat Haji Khaliq Farahi and $15 million for New York Times journalist David Rohde. Rohde ultimately escaped before his ransom was collected.


The White House has not explicitly responded to Stockman’s letter. When Townhall columnist Guy Benson reached out on Twitter, a White House official directed him to a blog post that quotes national security staff spokeswomen Caitlin Hayden, who had apparently commented on the ransom claims previously.

“The United States did not provide money in return for Sgt. Bergdahl,” Hayden said.

On radio this morning, Glenn touched on several reports about Bergdahl’s release and the Obama Administration’s actions. While the validity of these reports varies, Glenn, Pat, and Stu couldn’t help but consider the sympathy President Obama feels for Bergdahl on an ideological level.

“This is interesting… It seems like Obama… has liked this story and probably does feel something special for this soldier because he's more aligned with how Obama would be as a soldier,” Stu said. “You know, a guy very conflicted by what he's doing. He doesn't actually believe in a lot of the stuff that they're doing.”

Through published emails exchanges with his parents, Bergdahl expressed his frustration with the U.S. military and the U.S. mission in Afghanistan. Glenn believes President Obama could identify with that mindset.

“I think this is a guy that the president absolutely identifies with… He's wearing the uniform of the president of United States, the flag lapel pin and everything else… He doesn't agree with it. His wife hates the White House. They live there because that's where the president is supposed to live,” Glenn concluded. [But] there are certain things that he takes direct interest in. And I'll bet you, Stu, you're right, that he does see this guy and recognize his plight. He's a guy who went over there, was just trying to help the Afghani people and he is more sympathetic to the Muslim cause.”

The THREE ways RFK Jr. will Make America Healthy Again

The Washington Post / Contributor | Getty Images

One of President Trump's most popular campaign promises was to "Make America Great Again," and he has employed the help of his former opponent, RFK Jr., to make that promise come true.

In an interview with NPR, RFK Jr. revealed the three directives Trump has tasked him as the new head of the Department of Health and Human Services. These directives aim to cut out the "cancer" that Glenn exposed in his latest TV special that has spread throughout theentire federal government.

Here are the three directives Trump gave RFK Jr.:

1. Rid health agencies of corruption and conflicts.

J. David Ake / Contributor | Getty Images

It is no secret that the departments that fall under the HHS, such as the FDA, NIH, and CDC, are rife with corruption. After the COVID lockdowns raised suspicion that these federal agencies did not have the American people's best interests at heart, Americans have been increasingly distrustful of these institutions. Glenn exposed several instances of corruption across the HHS, from Dr. Fauchi's Covid powertrip to the insidious relationship between private entities like Big Food, Big Pharma, and the federal agencies that regulate them.

RFK Jr. has been one of the most vocal critics of the corruption that has turned these federal agencies against the very people they were created to protect and is the best person to reform these institutions.

2. Return agencies to the gold standard of empirically based, evidence-based science and medicine.

Caroline Brehman / Contributor | Getty Images

Under Biden, the HHS has degraded even further than it had before. Scientific methodology and empirical data are no longer the backbones of these institutions. They have been replaced with DEI and other woke agendas. The Department of Health and Human Services is the second largest federal agency, only behind the Pentagon, with a budget of 1.7 trillion dollarsand over 83 thousand employees. The opportunity for waste and negligence is monumental.

Biden appointed former California Attorney General, Xavier Becerra, to the head of HHS, along with Rachel Levine, a transgender woman, as the Assistant Secretary for Health. Before long the second-largest federal agency started looking like a university DEI office, with hundreds of DEI hires adding to government bloat. Instead of battling the diseases and sicknesses that plague our country, the HHS spent the past four years going after pro-life investigators who were exposing how Planned Parenthood sells body parts of aborted babies, opposing the merger of religious-based hospitals to protect transgender and abortion "rights," and wrestling over Obama-era contraceptive mandates with a group of Catholic nuns. This is quackery and waste on an unprecedented scale.

RFK Jr. is tasked with rooting out the corruption that sprang forth with the Biden administration's DEI agenda and put science back in our health policy.

3. End the chronic disease epidemic with measurable impacts within two years.

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

Today, despite our modern technology, Americans are sicker than ever before. 129 million Americans have at least one chronic disease, 42 percent have two or more, and 12 percent have more than five. Life expectancy is at a twenty-year low despite the fact that we are spending more than ever on health care. Even our children are sick, with a staggering 40 percent of school-aged kids having at least one chronic disease. One in nine kids has ADHD, and one in 54 has autism, both representing a steep increase over past decades.

America is sick, and Big Pharma is just rolling in the profits. This is where RFK Jr. comes in. He aims to find the cures and preventions to these diseases and make Americans healthy instead of lifelong patients.

POLL: Is Matt Gaetz in trouble?!

ANGELA WEISS / Contributor | Getty Images

Trump is assembling a dream team to take on the deep state that has burdened the American people for far too long.

It's no surprise Democrats have been pushing back against Trump's nominations, but one person in particular has been experiencing the most resistance: Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, Trump's pick to serve as his Attorney General. The controversy centers around a years-long House ethics probe regarding sexual misconduct allegations made against Gaetz several years ago. Despite the FBI conducting its own investigation and refusing to prosecute Gaetz, his nomination re-ignited interest in these allegations.

Democrats and some Republicans demand the House Ethics Committee release their probe into Gaetz before his Senate confirmation hearing. Conveniently, earlier this week, an anonymous hacker obtained this coveted report and gave it to the New York Times, which has yet to make the information public.

Glenn is very skeptical about the entire affair, from the allegations against Gaetz to the hacker's "anonymity." Is it another case of lawfare by the Democrats?

Glenn wants to know what do you think. Did Gaetz commit the crimes he's accused of? Will he still be appointed attorney general? Let us know in the poll below:

Is Matt Gaetz guilty of the crimes he is accused of committing? 

Will Matt Gaetz still be appointed to Trump's cabinet?

Was the "hacker" really some Democratic staffer or lawmaker? 

3 BIGGEST lies about Trump's plans for deportations

Rebecca Noble / Stringer | Getty Images

To the right, Trump's deportation plans seem like a reasonable step to secure the border. For the left, mass deportation represents an existential threat to democracy.

However, the left's main arguments against Trump's deportation plans are not only based on racially problematic lies and fabrications — they are outright hypocritical.

Here are the three BIGGEST lies about Trump's deportation plans:

1. Past Deportations

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

The left acts like Donald Trump is the first president in history to oversee mass deportations, but nothing could be further from the truth. Deportations have been a crucial tool for enforcing immigration laws and securing the country from the beginning, and until recently, it was a fairly bipartisan issue.

Democrat superstar President Obama holds the record for most deportations during his tenure in office, clocking in at a whopping 3,066,457 people over his eight years in office. This compares to the 551,449 people removed during Trump's first term. Obama isn't an anomaly either, President Clinton deported 865,646 people during his eight years, still toping Trump's numbers by a considerable margin.

The left's sudden aversion to deportations is clearly reactionary propaganda aimed at villainizing Trump.

2. Exploitative Labor

John Moore / Staff | Getty Images

Commentators on the left have insinuated that President Trump's deportation plan would endanger the agricultural industry due to the large portion of agricultural workers in the U.S. who are illegal aliens. If they are deported, food prices will skyrocket.

What the left is conveniently forgetting is the reason why many businesses choose to hire illegal immigrants (here's a hint: it's not because legal Americans aren't willing to do the work). It's because it is way easier to exploit people who are here illegally. Farmowners don't have to pay taxes on illegal aliens, pay minimum wage, offer benefits, sign contracts, or do any of the other typical requirements that protect the rights of the worker.

The left has shown their hand. This was never about some high-minded ideals of "diversity" and "inclusion." It's about cheap, expendable labor and a captive voter base to bolster their party in elections.

3."Undesirable" Jobs

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

Another common talking point amid the left-wing anti-Trump hysteria is that illegal aliens take "undesirable" jobs that Americans will not do. The argument is that these people fill the "bottom tier" in the U.S. economy, jobs they consider "unfit" for American citizens.

By their logic, we should allow hordes of undocumented, unvetted immigrants into the country so they can work the jobs that the out-of-touch liberal talking heads consider beneath them. It's no wonder why they lost the election.

Did the Left lay the foundations for election denial?

Chip Somodevilla / Staff | Getty Images

Did Glenn predict the future?

Just a few days after the election and President Trump's historic victory, the New York Times published a noteworthy article titled "How Russia Openly Escalated Its Election Interference Efforts," in which they made some interesting suggestions. They brought up several examples of Russian election interference (stop me if you think you've heard this one before) that favored Trump. From there, they delicately approached the "election denial zone" with the following statement:

"What impact Russia’s information campaign had on the outcome of this year’s race, if any, remains uncertain"

Is anyone else getting 2016 flashbacks?

It doesn't end there. About two weeks before the election (October 23rd), Glenn and Justin Haskins, the co-author of Glenn's new book, Propaganda Wars, discuss a frightening pattern they were observing in the news cycle at the time, and it bears a striking similarity to this New York Times piece. To gain a full appreciation of this situation, let's go back to two weeks before the election when Glenn and Justin laid out this scene:

Bad Eggs in the Intelligence Community

BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI / Contributor | Getty Images

This story begins with a top-secret military intelligence leak. Over the October 19th weekend, someone within the U.S. Government's intelligence agencies leaked classified information regarding the Israeli military and their upcoming plans to Iran. The man responsible for this leak, Asif William Rahman, a CIA official with top security clearance, was arrested on Tuesday, November 12th.

Rahman is one of the known "bad eggs" within our intelligence community. Glenn and Justin highlighted another, a man named Robert Malley. Malley is an Iranian envoy who works at the State Department under the Biden/Harris administration and is under investigation by the FBI for mishandling classified information. While Malley was quietly placed on leave in June, he has yet to be fired and still holds security clearance.

Another suspicious figure is Ariane Tabatabai, a former aide of Mr. Malley and a confirmed Iranian agent. According to a leak by Semafor, Tabatabai was revealed to be a willing participant in an Iranian covert influence campaign run by Tehran's Foreign Ministry. Despite this shocking revelation that an Iranian agent was in the Pentagon with access to top-secret information, Tabatabai has not faced any charges or inquires, nor has she been stripped of her job or clearance.

If these are the bad actors we know about, imagine how many are unknown to the public or are flying under the radar. In short, our intelligence agencies are full of people whose goals do not align with American security.

Conspicuous Russian Misinformation

Chip Somodevilla / Staff | Getty Images

The story continues with a video of a man accusing former VP candidate and Minnesota Governor, Tim Walz of sexual assault. The man alleged to be Matthew Metro, a former student of Walz claimed that he was assaulted by the Governor while in High School. The man in the video gave corroborating details that made the claim seem credible on the surface, and it quickly spread across the internet. But after some deeper investigation, it was revealed this man wasnot Matthew Metro and that the entire video was fake. This caught the attention of the Security Director of National Intelligence who claimed the video was a Russian hoax designed to wound the Harris/Walz campaign, and the rest of the intelligence community quickly agreed.

In the same vein, the State Department put out a $10 million bountyto find the identity of the head of the Russian-owned media company Rybar. According to the State Department, Rybar manages several social media channels that promote Russian governmental political interests targeted at Trump supporters. The content Rybar posts is directed into pro-Trump, and pro-Republican channels, and the content apparently has a pro-Trump spin, alongside its pro-Russia objectives.

Why Does the Intelligence Community Care?

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

So what's the deal? Yes, Russia was trying to interfere with the election, but this is a well-known issue that has unfortunately become commonplace in our recent elections.

The real concern is the intelligence community's uncharacteristically enthusiastic and fast response. Where was this response in 2016, when Hillary Clinton and the Democrats spent months lying about Donald Trump's "collusion" with Russia? It has since been proven that the FIB knew the entire story was a Clinton campaign fabrication, and they not only kept quiet about it, but they even played along. Or what about in 2020 when the Left tried to shut down the Hunter Biden laptop story for months by calling it a Russian hoax, only for it to turn out to be true?

Between all the bad actors in the intelligence community and their demonstrated repeated trustworthiness, this sudden concern with "Russian disinformation" that happened to support Trump was just too convenient.

Laying the Foundations for Election Denial

Brandon Bell / Staff | Getty Images

This is when Glenn and Justin make a startling prediction: the Left was preparing for a potential Trump victory (remember, this was two weeks before the election) so they would have something to delegitimize him with. They were painting Trump as Putin's lapdog who was receiving election assistance in the form of misinformation from the Kremlin by sounding the alarm on these cherry-picked (and in the grand scheme of things, tame) examples of Russian propaganda. They were laying the foundation of the Left's effort to resist and delegitimize a President-elect Trump.

Glenn and Justin had no idea how right they were.