Off The Record with John Stossel

Over the last several months, Glenn has emphasized the importance of bringing together individuals who share the same goals and unifying principles so that we can learn from one another. GlennBeck.com is working to fulfill that goal by sitting down with some of the most interesting minds to give you an inside look at who they are and what they are working on.

Libertarian author and television personality John Stossel spoke with GlennBeck.com assistant editor Meg Storm about his personal transformation from liberal to libertarian, why he believes human beings naturally lean towards socialism, and why the federal flood insurance program is a “moral hazard.”

Below is a transcript of the interview:

Hi, John. Thank you for taking the time to speak with me today.

Hello. Nice to talk to you.

So I wanted to start with your background. You graduated Princeton University with a degree in psychology, and yet you have had a very long career in journalism. How did you make that jump?

I hated college. I didn’t much like school. I was on the track to go to grad school, which I thought was necessary. I picked psychology because chemistry was too hard. I thought psychology would be easier, but I didn’t much like it because it had two answers for everything. I found it very soft.

So I took every job interview that came to Princeton just for the experience and some offered free plane trips. I took the longest trip and took that job, which was working as a researcher in a TV newsroom in Portland, Oregon. I had never planned on doing that. I barely watched TV news. But that is where I ended up.

So how did your career grow from there?

They said, ‘We would like you to write scripts for the anchor and do research for stories.’ I did that for a couple of years. And then a fire happened and no one else was around, so they said, ‘Go cover that,’ and I went out and covered it. Then they said, ‘Why don’t you read it on the air?’ And I said, ‘I can’t do that because I have a stutter.’ And they said, ‘We barely notice your stuttering.’ I said, ‘Well, that’s because we closet stutterers cover it up. We substitute synonyms or say ‘uhhh’ until we can get the word out. But that would be lousy for TV.’ But they said, ‘Do it anyway.’

So I started covering things and, in the edit room, snipping out my stutters. But then they said, ‘Go on the air.’ And I said, same story, ‘I can’t. I am a stutterer.’ In this case, they did have to cut me off the air once because I was stuttering so much we ran out of time. I was humiliated. But it seemed to horrify me more than it did others, and I gradually kept being on the air and got help for my stuttering.

How have you been able to overcome the stutter? Is it something that is still a work-in-progress every day?

Less so everyday.

Until I was 30, I had speech therapy. The University of Michigan had a stuttering camp called Shady Trails. When I was a kid, I went to a speech therapist at Northwestern [University].

Once I got into TV, all kinds of charlatans – ah, that’s not fair – people who were sure they could help came out of the closet with transcendental mediation and hypnotism and all kinds of stuff. I finally found a program called the Communications Reconstruction Center in Roanoke, Virginia, and they re-teach you how to speak – slow us way down per syllable. I came out of that much improved. I still have to practice a little, but it is pretty much under control.

I have also learned to just go ahead and stutter on the air. People won’t hate me for it.

(Laughs)

The happiest stutterers are the ones who can stutter in front of other people. I once asked [former GE CEO] Jack Welch, ‘How can you run this enormous company and still have such a severe stutter?’ His is worse than mine. And he said, ‘I don’t give s**t. I just stutter.’

You mentioned you didn’t really like school; you weren’t the best student. Glenn talks a lot about how college wasn’t a good fit for him either. Do you believe in higher education? Do you think it is important? Or are there other ways to forge a career?

Unfortunately, I think it is important as a signaling device – it sends a message to an employer that you have a degree. I think maybe 10 or 20% of the students like that kind of learning. The idea of learning by sitting in class while a professor talks I would think would be laughed at today in that you absorb information three times as fast when you read.

I was bored stiff. I would start every semester saying, ‘I am going to read all the material. I am going to go to every class and take great notes.’ 15 minutes into the first lecture, I was daydreaming because my brain just doesn’t absorb information that way.

I think that helped me in TV though because I was motivated to find ways to appeal to brains like mine – using pictures, simpler sentences, speeding up and slowing down, using sound to break things up. Giving people both the visual and the audio information, I think, has helped me succeed.

Do you have any advice for young journalists?

Just try it. It used to be you had to go to college. I never went to journalism school or took a journalism course. Many of my colleagues did not. Now it’s even easier to just try something. If it’s video, you’ve got YouTube. If it’s radio, you’ve got podcasts. And you can decide if you are good at it – or your friends can tell you.

(Laughs)

You will then have something you can show people and say, ‘Here are my YouTube videos. Watch one. It will only take you three minutes.’ You will have something much more concrete to offer an employer than a college degree.

Your career has spanned several decades, and you have worked all over the place. How has your career evolved?

You say I worked all over the place, but compared to many of my peers, who would go from this station to that one, I have only worked for three – well, four now. Portland, Oregon, a local station in New York, ABC, and now Fox [News]. With the exception of the first job for four years, I have been around for quite awhile on each job.

I was just surprised to be in this job where I could do interesting work and was well paid, so why give it up? I just kept doing it. Once I discovered the benefits of free markets and realized that almost no one of the air was explaining this to people, I felt I had a moral duty to cover it. That has been my motivator since then.

Can you talk about your personal philosophical transformation from liberalism to libertarianism - how that came about?

I was raised slightly liberal, but not that political. At Princeton, they explained the ideas behind liberalism – though they didn’t say it that way – were the only reasonable ones: The state planned people’s lives. We had experts now that could teach poor people not to be poor, and food stamps would help lift them out of poverty. I just believed all that. I believed it for a long time.

In Portland, I quickly saw how the War on Poverty had unintended consequences. But I was a consumer reporter, so that was mostly what I was covering. I was getting rewarded for bashing business. I won 19 Emmy Awards criticizing business, and there was plenty to criticize, lots of cheaters. But I noticed when I got to ABC that there were fewer national scams to expose. While there were lots of local cheaters in New York and Portland, they didn’t get very big nationally. The businesses that went national were the ones that served their customers pretty well.

I kept reading the conservative and liberal press, and it didn’t really resonate with me. Then I discovered Reason – a libertarian magazine – and it was an epiphany: Oh my God. This made so much sense.

These people were thinking about it a lot longer than I, and they really understand these concepts. I realized I was a libertarian, and, as I read more about it, realized markets have an amazing, underrated power to make our lives better, and yet they are vilified almost everywhere.

What do you think are some of the most common misconceptions when it comes to the free market and competition?

That business wins at the expense of the customer, and that the rich win at the expense of the poor. It is intuitive to think that way. I wrote No, They Can’t: Why Governments Fail – But Individuals Succeed to address our natural intuition, which is socialist.

How so?

We are raised by parents who take care of us. Our instinct is: We want the government – the experts – to take care of things because we have lives. We can’t pay attention to everything. It is also instinctive to think of life as a zero sum game – if I win, you lose. Politicians think that way because that’s how their world works. And lawyers who sue people think that way – you either win or you lose.

But in business, you only win if you give your customers something they want. If you make a big profit, it doesn’t mean you took it from the customer. They customer voluntarily gave you his money. He felt he gained something too. It is why you get the weird double thank you moment when you buy anything.

If you bought a cup of coffee this morning, you gave the cashier a buck, and she said, ‘Thank you.’

She gave you the coffee, and you said, ‘Thank you.’

‘Thank you.’ ‘Thank you.’

Why both? Because you both felt you won.

But that’s just not intuitive. It’s intuitive to think Bill Gates made $50 million because he took $50 million from other people. If that’s the case, how come there is so much more wealth in the world now with all these billionaires? They didn’t take a big piece of the pie. They baked lots of new pies and then took a big piece.

Do you think our education system does economics a disservice in terms of how it is taught?

Yes, but it is hard not to because most people don’t get this.

You have a program – Stossel in the Classroom – that seeks to educate high school students on economics.

I do. We reach about 10 million high school kids every year.

How did that program come to be? Did you see a need?

Yes, I noticed when I was at 20/20 I would meet a teacher and he would say, ‘Oh, I wish I taped that program so I could play it for my students,’ or ‘I did tape that show and played it for my students, and we had a great debate in class that really got them thinking about these things. It was much more interesting than the textbook or my lecture.’

I thought: Gosh, this stuff costs a quarter of a million dollars for ABC to produce. It airs once, and then it is gone into the ether. It would be nice if we could sell this to high school teachers.

So I found a libertarian who was interested in starting that business, and we, with great difficulty, got ABC’s permission to buy it and offer it to teachers. Almost nobody bought it. And then I started a charity and offered it free to teachers. I thought it would just take off. But things happen more slowly in markets than I understood. Very gradually word spread, and now I am seen by more kids in high school than I am on Fox or would have been if I stayed at ABC.

That’s incredible.

Fox, kindly, once they air, let’s us have the episodes of Stossel for free.

Editor’s Note: You can learn more about Stossel in the Classroom HERE.

What a great resource. Speaking of your Fox show, you have a weekly program on Fox Business. How do you prepare? How do you decide what topics to cover?

I didn’t intend to do my own show. I have always done edited documentaries. I am really the opposite of Glenn Beck in that I am not that verbal. I don’t like to just talk about things. I am not that good at it. I want to write a script and re-write it and re-write it.

But at Fox they said, ‘We want you to come here and do something for all three of our platforms’ – meaning Bill O’Reilly, the regular news outlets, and Fox Business. I had enjoyed, and I still enjoy, speaking to student audiences. When people invite me to speak, it’s nice to hear the laughter or the pushback. So I thought I would do that with a studio audience on Fox. We would discuss libertarian ideas with an audience. And then I discovered it really wasn’t enough to just talk and get pushback --

(Laughs)

So we prepared segments. I just look for what’s libertarian of interest, what’s not being covered by other people from an economic perspective. You have a million people covering crime, politics, and war, and not a lot of people covering markets.

I have a staff of about six people, and we all offer ideas. On Wednesday, we sit down and write the show that we will then do on Thursday. I am one of the rare shows on Fox that over shoots by about 20 minutes, and I edit. I just think it is such a sensible idea because a lot of people say things twice or say things that are in the weeds and unclear.

I don’t know how Glenn and Bill O’Reilly do stuff live and hold a much bigger audience than I have. They are amazing. I can’t do that.

Editor’s Note: Stossel airs Thursdays at 9pm ET on Fox Business.

Switching topics a little bit: What do you see as the main differences between conservatism and libertarianism?

That many conservatives want to police the world. I think we should be involved in the world, but I don’t think we should run it. Many conservatives want to police individual behavior, police the bedroom, ban gambling, ban intoxicants. Libertarians say government can’t police morality, and individuals should be allowed to do anything that is peaceful.

You came under fire last year for not taking a strong stance against the NSA surveillance techniques, and you made a list of 100 things government does that you find more frustrating. One that stood out to me was ‘federal flood insurance for rich people.’ Why does that make you more frustrated than the NSA?

Because I am clear there is no good reason and only destructive reasons to have the flood insurance program.

I am well aware that the NSA is a much bigger deal than any of my 100 things on the list. But with the NSA, I can at least understand the government’s argument that people are trying to kill us. This is a very broad, anonymous form of spying, in which they don’t listen to the content of the calls – as far as we know. They do see patterns, which they say have prevented terrorism 54 times. It is possible they are lying. Government does lie to us. But it does make sense to me that you can find patterns in big data that could keep us safer. There is enormous potential for abuse. I don’t trust my government. But I can see both sides.

With flood insurance, they are subsidizing people to live in dangerous places and then taking money from taxpayers when there is a flood or a hurricane to pay them. Then we build again on the edge of an ocean, and the program goes deeper into debt.

The government claims, ‘Oh, we’ll price it properly. But we have to do this because the free market isn’t doing it.’ Well, the free market isn’t doing it because the government is doing it dirt-cheap. Sure enough, the program was $16 billion in debt before Sandy – I forget what the number is now. The government proposed reforms, finally, that would not turn it over to the private sector – the private sector, through competition, would figure out what the prices should be – but the government proposed raising the prices at least. Riverfront and beachfront homeowners complained to Republicans and Democrats, and they wimped out and postponed the price rises.

It is just a disgusting program that screws poor people, gives money to rich people, hurts the taxpayer, and encourages people to build in dangerous places. It is a moral hazard.

Editor’s Note: See Stossel’s list of ‘100 Things I Hate About Government’ HERE.

What do you see as the future of the libertarian movement? Rand Paul is getting a lot of attention ahead of 2016. Do you think the American people are ready to embrace libertarianism?

I want to believe it. I hope so. But I have no clue. I am not an expert judger of what Americans believe. I only speak to maybe 1,000 people a year, and there are more than 300 million people in the country. They surprise me all the time. But I am delighted Rand Paul is doing well, and I share many of his beliefs.

What do you see as the biggest problems facing this country right now?

The growth of the state. Thomas Jefferson said it is the natural progress of things for government to grow and liberty to yield, and I fear that is what will happen because we are already $17 trillion in debt and we are promising to pay my generation Social Security and Medicare. There is just no way there is enough money – especially to pay for Medicare. So we are going to have to stiff somebody. My generation votes, so I doubt they’ll stiff us. They can’t raise taxes enough to pay for it. If they do, there will be riots.

So they will probably inflate the currency in a horrible way, and then there will be social unrest and terrible things. People, I fear, will blame on the capitalists and call for more government. It’s a nasty spiral of ignorance.

Well, on that uplifting note…

(Laughs)

It was so great to talk to you. Thanks, John.

Thank you.

This transcript has been edited and condensed.

Media cover-up: Why Clinton deported six times more than Trump

Genaro Molina / Contributor | Getty Images

MSNBC and CNN want you to think the president is a new Hitler launching another Holocaust. But the actual deportation numbers are nowhere near what they claim.

Former MSNBC host Chris Matthews, in an interview with CNN’s Jim Acosta, compared Trump’s immigration policies to Adolf Hitler’s Holocaust. He claimed that Hitler didn’t bother with German law — he just hauled people off to death camps in Poland and Hungary. Apparently, that’s what Trump is doing now by deporting MS-13 gang members to El Salvador.

Symone Sanders took it a step further. The MSNBC host suggested that deporting gang-affiliated noncitizens is simply the first step toward deporting black Americans. I’ll wait while you try to do that math.

The debate is about control — weaponizing the courts, twisting language, and using moral panic to silence dissent.

Media mouthpieces like Sanders and Matthews are just the latest examples of the left’s Pavlovian tribalism when it comes to Trump and immigration. Just say the word “Trump,” and people froth at the mouth before they even hear the sentence. While the media cries “Hitler,” the numbers say otherwise. And numbers don’t lie — the narrative does.

Numbers don’t lie

The real “deporter in chief” isn’t Trump. It was President Bill Clinton, who sent back 12.3 million people during his presidency — 11.4 million returns and nearly 900,000 formal removals. President George W. Bush, likewise, presided over 10.3 million deportations — 8.3 million returns and two million removals. Even President Barack Obama, the progressive darling, oversaw 5.5 million deportations, including more than three million formal removals.

So how does Donald Trump stack up? Between 2017 and 2021, Trump deported somewhere between 1.5 million and two million people — dramatically fewer than Obama, Bush, or Clinton. In his current term so far, Trump has deported between 100,000 and 138,000 people. Yes, that’s assertive for a first term — but it's still fewer than Biden was deporting toward the end of his presidency.

The numbers simply don’t support the hysteria.

Who's the “dictator” here? Trump is deporting fewer people, with more legal oversight, and still being compared to history’s most reviled tyrant. Apparently, sending MS-13 gang members — violent criminals — back to their country of origin is now equivalent to genocide.

It’s not about immigration

This debate stopped being about immigration a long time ago. It’s now about control — about weaponizing the courts, twisting language, and using moral panic to silence dissent. It’s about turning Donald Trump into the villain of every story, facts be damned.

If the numbers mattered, we’d be having a very different national conversation. We’d be asking why Bill Clinton deported six times as many people as Trump and never got labeled a fascist. We’d be questioning why Barack Obama’s record-setting removals didn’t spark cries of ethnic cleansing. And we’d be wondering why Trump, whose enforcement was relatively modest by comparison, triggered lawsuits, media hysteria, and endless Nazi analogies.

But facts don’t drive this narrative. The villain does. And in this script, Trump plays the villain — even when he does far less than the so-called heroes who came before him.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Exposed: America’s ancient power grid is a national security disaster

Allan Tannenbaum / Contributor | Getty Images

If America wants to remain a global leader in the coming decades, we need more energy fast.

It's no secret that Glenn is an advocate for the safe and ethical use of AI, not because he wants it, but because he knows it’s coming whether we like it or not. Our only option is to shape AI on our terms, not those of our adversaries. America has to win the AI Race if we want to maintain our stability and security, and to do that, we need more energy.

AI demands dozens—if not hundreds—of new server farms, each requiring vast amounts of electricity. The problem is, America lacks the power plants to generate the required electricity, nor do we have a power grid capable of handling the added load. We must overcome these hurdles quickly to outpace China and other foreign competitors.

Outdated Power Grid

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

Our power grid is ancient, slowly buckling under the stress of our modern machines. AAI’s energy demands could collapse it without a major upgrade. The last significant overhaul occurred under FDR nearly a century ago, when he connected rural America to electricity. Since then, we’ve patched the system piecemeal, but it’s still the same grid from the 1930s. Over 70 percent of the powerlines are 30 years old or older, and circuit breakers and other vital components are in similar condition. Most people wouldn't trust a dishwasher that was 30 years old, and yet much of our grid relies on technology from the era of VHS tapes.

Upgrading the grid would prevent cascading failures, rolling blackouts, and even EMP attacks. It would also enable new AI server farms while ensuring reliable power for all.

A Need for Energy

JONATHAN NACKSTRAND / Stringer | Getty Images

Earlier this month, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt appeared before Congress as part of an AI panel and claimed that by 2030, the U.S. will need to add 96 gigawatts to our national power production to meet AI-driven demand. While some experts question this figure, the message is clear: We must rapidly expand power production. But where will this energy come from?

As much as eco nuts would love to power the world with sunshine and rainbows, we need a much more reliable and significantly more efficient power source if we want to meet our electricity goals. Nuclear power—efficient, powerful, and clean—is the answer. It’s time to shed outdated fears of atomic energy and embrace the superior electricity source. Building and maintaining new nuclear plants, along with upgraded infrastructure, would create thousands of high-paying American jobs. Nuclear energy will fuel AI, boost the economy, and modernize America’s decaying infrastructure.

A Bold Step into the Future

ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / Contributor | Getty Images

This is President Trump’s chance to leave a historic mark on America, restoring our role as global leaders and innovators. Just as FDR’s power grid and plants made America the dominant force of the 20th century, Trump could upgrade our infrastructure to secure dominance in the 21st century. Visionary leadership must cut red tape and spark excitement in the industry. This is how Trump can make America great again.

POLL: Did astronomers discover PROOF of alien life?

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Are we alone in the universe?

It's no secret that Glenn keeps one eye on the cosmos, searching for any signs of ET. Late last week, a team of astronomers at the University of Cambridge made an exciting discovery that could change how we view the universe. The astronomers were monitoring a distant planet, K2-18b, when the James Webb Space Telescope detected dimethyl sulfide and dimethyl disulfide, two atmospheric gases believed only to be generated by living organisms. The planet, which is just over two and a half times larger than Earth, orbits within the "habitable zone" of its star, meaning the presence of liquid water on its surface is possible, further supporting the possibility that life exists on this distant world.

Unfortunately, humans won't be able to visit K2-18b to see for ourselves anytime soon, as the planet is about 124 light-years from Earth. This means that even if we had rockets that could travel at the speed of light, it would still take 124 years to reach the potentially verdant planet. Even if humans made the long trek to K2-18b, they would be faced with an even more intense challenge upon arrival: Gravity. Assuming K2-18b has a similar density to Earth, its increased size would also mean it would have increased gravity, two and a half times as much gravity, to be exact. This would make it very difficult, if not impossible, for humans to live or explore the surface without serious technological support. But who knows, give Elon Musk and SpaceX a few years, and we might be ready to seek out new life (and maybe even new civilizations).

But Glenn wants to know what you think. Could K2-18b harbor life on its distant surface? Could alien astronomers be peering back at us from across the cosmos? Would you be willing to boldly go where no man has gone before? Let us know in the poll below:

Could there be life on K2-18b?

Could there be an alien civilization thriving on K2-18b?

Will humans develop the technology to one day explore distant worlds?

Would you sign up for a trip to an alien world?

Is K2-18b just another cold rock in space?

Our children are sick, and Big Pharma claims to be the cure, but is RFK Jr. closer to proving they are the disease?

For years, neurological disorders in our children have been on the rise. One in nine children in the U.S. has been diagnosed with ADHD, and between 2016 and 2022, more than one million kids were told they suffer from the disorder. Similarly, autism diagnoses have increased by 175 percent over the past decade. RFK Jr. pledged to investigate the rising rates of neurological disorders as Secretary of Health and Human Services, and this week, he announced a major initiative.

Earlier this week, RFK Jr. announced that the HHS has embarked on a massive testing and research effort to uncover the root causes of autism and the sharp spike in recent diagnoses. The HHS Secretary vowed that the results will be available by September of this year, leaving many skeptical about the study's rigor. Conversely, some speculate that the HHS may have unpublished studies revealing critical insights into these disorders, just waiting to see the light of day.

Glenn brought up a recent article by the Daily Wire referencing a New York Times piece in which experts questioned the legitimacy of ADHD diagnoses. Glenn agreed and suggested that people are just wired differently; they learn, work, and study differently, and the cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all school system simply fails to accommodate everyone.

New York Times' ADHD Admission

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

Earlier this week, the New York Times published an article that made a shocking admission: there are no concrete biological markers for ADHD. The clinical definition of ADHD is no longer supported by the evidence, and there are no physical, genetic, or chemical identifiers for the disorder, nor is there any real way to test for it. The paper also admitted that people diagnosed with ADHD would suddenly find that they no longer had any symptoms after a change of environment, profession, or field of study. This suggests that "ADHD" might simply be a matter of interests and skills, not a chronic brain sickness.

The most horrifying implication of this admission is that millions of people, including children, have been prescribed heavy mind-altering drugs for years for a disorder that lacks real evidence of its very existence. These drugs are serious business and include products such as Adderall, Ritalin, and Desoxyn. All of these drugs are considered "Schedule II," which is a drug classification that puts them on the same level as cocaine, PCP, and fentanyl. Notably, Desoxyn is chemically identical to methamphetamine, differing only in its production in regulated laboratories rather than illegal settings.

Worse yet, studies show that these medications, like Desoxyn, often provide no long-term benefits. Testing demonstrated that in the short term, there were some positive effects, but after 36 months, there was no discernible difference in symptoms between people who were medicated and those who were not. For decades, we have been giving our children hardcore drugs with no evidence of them working or even that the disorder exists.

RFK Jr's Autism Study

Alex Wong / Staff | Getty Images

Autism rates are on the rise, and RFK Jr. is going to get to the bottom of it. In the year 2000, approximately one in 150 children was diagnosed with autism, but only 20 years later, the rate had increased to one in 36. While some claim that this is simply due to more accurate testing, RFK Jr. doesn't buy it and is determined to discover what is the underlying cause. He is an outspoken critic of vaccines, asserting that the true scope of their side effects has been buried by greed and corruption to sell more vaccines.

RFK Jr. doesn't plan on stopping at vaccines. Similar to ADHD, RFK Jr. suspects other environmental factors could increase of autism or exacerbate symptoms. Factors like diet, water quality, air pollution, and parenting approaches are all under investigation. It's time to bring clarity to the neurological disorders that plague our nation, cut through the corruption, and reveal the healing truth.

Neurological Intervention

WIN MCNAMEE / Contributor | Getty Images

Big Pharma has been all too happy to sit back and watch as the rate of neurological disorders climbs, adding to the ever-growing list of permanent patients who are led to believe that their only choice is to shell out endless money for treatments, prescriptions, and doctor visits. Rather than encouraging lifestyle changes to improve our well-being, they push ongoing medication and costly treatments.

All RFK Jr. is doing is asking questions, and yet the backlash from the "experts" is so immense that one can't help but wonder what they could be hiding. Both Glenn and RFK Jr. have their suspicions of Big Pharma, and the upcoming HHS study might be one of the most important steps to making America healthy again.