GLENNApril 06, 2017

How Adam and Eve Became Victims of the Greatest Character Assassination Ever

Three thousand years before The Happiness Movement told us relationships matter, the Bible had already done it with Adam and Eve.

Bruce Feiler, author of the new book The First Love Story: Adam, Eve, and Us, joined Glenn in studio on Thursday, revealing how a visit to the Sistine Chapel with this daughters inspired him.

"They're complaining. My feet hurt. This boring. I'm like, get into the Sistine Chapel, girls. I'm going to blow your mind. They look up, and one of my girls looks at Adam and God --- the fingers, right? Across the sky --- and says, 'That's only men. Where am I in that picture?' And her identical sister looks up and sees . . . under God's arm is a woman," Feiler recalled.

The woman, of course, was Eve.

"That's when I realized . . . this story has been at the heart of every conversation about men, women and sexuality for 3,000 years. And as crazy as it sounds, maybe it has something to teach us," Feiler said.

Enjoy the complimentary clip or read the transcript for details.

GLENN: Hello, America. Welcome. And welcome to Bruce Feiler. How are you, Bruce?

BRUCE: It's great to with you, Glenn. Just happy to be here. And nice to see you looking so great. This wonderful room. So thank you for having me.

GLENN: Thank you.

We were -- the first time we met, you were riddled with cancer. Didn't know if you were going to make it. And you wrote one of the most honest books. It just -- just grabbed me by the heart and the throat. I don't remember the name of it.

BRUCE: The Council of Dads.

GLENN: Council of Dads. And you were putting together a council in case you died. Here are the -- I pick this guy because of these values. I pick this guy because of these values.

BRUCE: Yeah.

GLENN: It was a fascinating study.

First of all, how are you doing?

BRUCE: I'm well. Cancer-free. And -- you know, they say cured. I'm not sure I like that language. But healthy. Walking around.

GLENN: Good. And then you wrote America's Prophet. Which was another book that just riveted me because it really told our American story and put it into real context. Important context. Now you're a big star and you're on PBS. And you write all kinds of, you know, number one best-sellers. And this one is about Adam and Eve.

And I'm fascinated, especially since you're here in week, because I thought a lot about Adam and Eve. And my relationship with my wife. Just last week, I was pondering Adam and Eve for some reason and how much that story has to teach us. And then, you know, I start reading your book, and, you know, you've taken a little pondering. And taken it the full hundred yards.

Let's start with the Sistine Chapel.

BRUCE: So this journey in some ways begins in the Sistine Chapel. My process really begins at my kitchen table. I have a working wife. I have children. As you know, my kids are almost exactly the age of your children.

And we talk a lot about the changing ways that men and women are relating to each other. Right? This moment of sort of tectonic change. And most -- and I write a lot about this in my last two books, New York Times columns. And mostly it's about technology or the latest app. We're going to do it differently. I care a lot about the ancient world and the Bible. Spent a lot of time in the Middle East. And I can't help, but wondering, is there nothing from the past that's not worth preserving?

GLENN: Uh-huh.

BRUCE: We go to the Sistine Chapel, day one. It's a business trip for my wife. And I'm like, okay. I'm going to take my sleep-deprived daughters to the Vatican. It doesn't go well. They're complaining. My feet hurt. This boring.

I'm like, get into the Sistine Chapel, girls. I'm going to blow your mind. They look up, and one of my girls looks at Adam and God, the fingers, right? Across the sky. And says, "That's only men. Where am I in that picture?" And her identical sister looks up and sees -- by the way, my mother is an art teacher. I never noticed this. Under God's arm is a woman.

She says, "Is that Eve?" And that's when I realized -- I had one of those moments that you know -- you've gone on these journeys writing these things out of nowhere. This story has been at the heart of every conversation about men, women, and sexuality for 3,000 years. And as crazy as it sounds, maybe it has something to teach us.

And you mention Walking the Bible earlier in the lead-up to this in the last hour. So I'm an experientialist. I like to go to places. I climb Mount Ararat and cross the Red Sea. But where am I going to go. Right? I mean, you can go to the Garden of Eden in Iraq.

But what happens is I start tugging on strings, Glenn. And this whole opportunity -- every generation we've looked at this story, right? So Michelangelo and John Milton and Ernest Hemingway and Mark Twain and Beyonce and Bob Dylan and Pope Francis -- so I get to go on like this incredible scavenger hunt, all over the world, trying to look at how people have explored this story and try to figure out what lessons it can hold --

GLENN: So let's -- I'm going to have you on for an hour tonight on television. And I invite you to watch. It will be a fascinating -- trust me, Bruce is a fascinating guy. And I want to talk about your journeys and the different things that you found as you went on these journeys and the way that everybody looks at it.

But help me out with, why does it matter? What can it teach us today? Because right now, I think we are living the Kipling poem. And if you don't know it, look it up. The gods of the copybook headings. We are living those times right now, where everything that is known to be true is just thrown out.

BRUCE: Right. Right.

GLENN: And we're just making it up and saying, "This is true." We have no idea if that's true.

So we throw things out like Adam and Eve.

BRUCE: Yeah. So I think -- look, there's -- I was interviewed in TIME magazine this week on the last page. Eight questions with Bruce Feiler, and one of the questions they asked me was coding class or Bible study? Okay? And what I said was, you know, for my daughters, they like math. And they believe like all kids, that every bit of knowledge is behind that screen. If they look long enough into that computer, they're going to know everything. I was like, you know what, it's rare, and it's kind of counterculture and it's almost outrageous today to say, you can learn something from the past.

So I said Bible study. You know, to me, in some ways, this book is about -- the first love story -- is about, let's remember that there's wisdom in the past.

You mentioned this in the lead-up to this conversation, Glenn. Positive psychology. The happiness movement. What has it said to us? Relationships matter, okay?

You and I have been connected. We don't see each other all the time. We are connected. We have that connection. Happiness is other people.

The big threat is loneliness. Young people, middle-aged people, the opioid crisis, suicide crisis -- what's the first thing God says about human beings in the Bible? Upon looking at Adam, it's not right for humans to be alone.

The Bible gets there 3,000 years before social science. And if you're one of those people who thinks, science, who needs the Bible? Here's a beautiful example where that's not true.

And, by the way, if you're the kind of person that says the Bible has everything, not science. Also, not true. You put the two in dialogue with each other.

So I actually think that the story itself is a beautiful story about resilience, forgiveness, togetherness. They make missteps. They have problems. You can call it sin, if you want to. But they stay together, right? They start together. They leave Eden. They stay together. They have two children. One of them murders the other. They reconcile. They come back together. Right? We know. What's the key to a relationship?

You've been married a long time, as I have. Going on 15 years, in my case. Being able to mend a rupture, right? Heal a broken heart. Get over our mistakes. Admit mistakes. That's key.

Boy, do Adam and Eve do that, and, boy, their mistakes were a lot bigger than ours are. Okay?

Also, there's a kind of balance between independence and interdependence. Like, you need to be together, but you also need to be yourself. Right? I think of this Kahlil Gibran quote that you may know, right? Love is the antidote to loneliness, as long as there's aloneness within it. Right? We have to be ourselves, but be connected. And then to me, the number one thing that I've learned -- and as I've been out there in the country and talking about this book and people responding to it, is that love is a story we tell with another person.

It's co-creation through narration. The storyteller in you can really relate to this. You and I are in a relationship. We have to tell a story together. We hit a bump in the road or we have a downturn, we have to write a new chapter in our story together. And that's what I think is powerful about the Adam and Eve story. Is that, think of all the other figures in the Bible, by the way -- Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, Solomon, Jesus, Paul, what do they have in common? They're all singles.

Adam and Eve, they're a couple, right? Not Adam. Not Eve. Adam and Eve. They're reminding us that that connection is at the start of the human line. It's very powerful. And this especially matters to women and to the men who along with women are rewriting the story. Because this story was weaponized against women for centuries.

GLENN: Yeah, I was going to ask you about that. Because I think that's an important thing to get to, is at least in my faith, we don't look at Eve as, you know, the evil one.

BRUCE: Right.

GLENN: Or the weak one. So -- but a lot of people do. And they're still carrying around original sin.

I mean, it had to be.

BRUCE: Right.

GLENN: How did you -- what did you find on the weaponization of Eve?

BRUCE: Yeah, so when you go back to the original story that created in Genesis 1, both in God's image. What's true for the man is true for the woman. And, you know, there's this kind of seesawing of power, but what happened was organized religion got a hold of the story. They used it. They essentially weaponized it. I think that Adam and Eve were victims of the greatest character assassination the world has ever known. And then -- but what's happened is. I mean, we now live in a world where women are kind of dominating religion. They're propping it up. They care more. They're involved more. They take the responsibility for passing on values, and they weren't going to do it if this story was going to put them down.

I mean, I don't know if you know this story. As you know, it's in the back of my book. Maybe you knew it before. I didn't.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, at the birth of women's movement in the 1840s, she's out there with Susan B. Anthony, fighting for property rights and voting rights for women. And they kept hitting a stumble. Why? Because someone would say, the Bible says, you know, Eve was created second. Or the Bible says, you can't vote because Eve was created from Adam's rib.

And she realizes her biggest problem is not politicians -- it's preachers. So if women are going to have equality in this country, she's got to rewrite the Bible. And she does. In 1895, she writes a book called The Woman's Bible. It goes back to the Adam and Eve story, back to Genesis 1. And says, look, our Creator has us formed at the same time. Don't tell me women are not equal. The book is a landmark. It's a best-seller. It's a disaster.

Okay? The organization that she started with Susan B. Anthony gets together and they kick her out, okay?

So the reason that we all know Susan B. Anthony and she's on our coinage is because Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the most famous woman in America at the time, takes on the most famous couple in the world and gets flattened. Absolutely destroyed. It was not for a century until this story was told again because that's how powerful this -- I think of it as the negative branding of Adam and Eve. You have 3,000 years of negative branding.

GLENN: Yeah, yeah.

BRUCE: But the reason this matters is because today, can anybody deny that men and women stand equally before God?

GLENN: No.

BRUCE: No. It was a 30-century battle to reclaim this story. And why does it matter? Because that's what we want to tell our daughters, that you can stand before God, that you deserve to have a loving relationship, that you can overcome it. We owe this to Adam --

STU: It does make me a little nervous about rewriting the Bible though. Doesn't it sound like that --

GLENN: No.

BRUCE: I'm not saying rewriting the Bible. I'm saying reread the story. Go back to the Bible. Go behind.

STU: Right.

BRUCE: Go behind the layers of tradition. This is what -- I mean, the great -- look --

GLENN: Here. Explain this. Because this will really help. By the way, we're talking about the new book The First Love Story: Adam, Eve, and Us. Bruce Feiler is the author.

Explain this. Because is -- just little things like this that you point out in your book, I think are so important. How was Eve made? From a rib, right?

BRUCE: Not correct.

GLENN: No. Not correct. Go ahead.

BRUCE: It's a tsela. Okay? So the Bible, it says, she's created from the tsela. By the way, the ultimate Hollywood meet cute. Okay? So what you have is Adam -- you have the animals are there and Adam. So Adam -- God creates the animals before. And you have this like swipe left, swipe left, swipe left. He doesn't want a hippopotamus. And he looks up. And God says, you know what, it's not right for you to be alone. I'm going to create one of you. So he falls asleep. And he wakes up, and there's a girl, by the way, and he's happy. This is the one. Right? Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, he's like ready to go.

(chuckling)

And, by the way, very positive. The two of them are naked and know no shame. Sex positive. They're having a good time. It's almost like the honeymoon moment.

But what is she created from? It's not the rib. It's the tsela in Hebrew. Thirty-eight times that word is used in the Hebrew Bible. It means side or side rib. So they stand side by side.

Why do they pick the rib? Because they said a rib is small and insignificant and given to putrefaction. I'm talking church fathers. I'm talking the rabbis. Because women are small and insignificant and given to putrefaction. I mean, even if you put dirt by a side of Adam, Adam is created by the dirt. Right? Put dirt by the side of the road. It doesn't smell. Put a rib, it starts to stink. That's why women have to wear perfume. I mean, you cannot believe what is there.

STU: Wow.

BRUCE: Even if you know there was patriarchy, you just cannot believe. But when you look at the story, Adam is into her. Even when they're kicked out of Eden, God blesses them. Protects them.

GLENN: Yeah.

BRUCE: Remember, what's the first commandment God says? Be fruitful and multiply.

He needs them to succeed, and they do succeed. It is a success story. Even with the misstep, even with this, we can't let that overshadow that this has got to get the Biblical story.

But to your point, Stu, this is why I want to say -- you know, who has done more to popularize American history than you, Glenn? I'm serious. I know how you responded to America's prophet. We just heard a session on Calvin Coolidge before we came on here. The reason we can have this conversation about religion today in this country is because of the rewriting of religion. Because we are -- our forefathers, our Founding Fathers said there's going to be a expression of church and state. What did that mean?

That means there was not going to be a state-sponsored religion. So all the places where there's state-sponsored religion in the world, except where there are dictators like Iran, but all -- and like in Europe, those religions have all died. Our religion is still here. Why? Because it adapted. Because it was able to meet people where they were and change and say, religion was going to be relevant to their lives.

GLENN: And become enlightened. I mean, so many of these stories were written this way or spun this way for control. And you --

STU: Because you're talking more about religion than -- because I -- there's a separation maybe between religion as it stands, as an organization, people what they've done with these -- with this original truth.

GLENN: Yes.

STU: And the original truth.

BRUCE: Exactly.

GLENN: You study the Torah, which I would love to actually really study like Jewish people do.

Christians are so far behind the eight ball. They have no concept of what the Old Testament really says. You read it outside of its original language, you lose 80 percent of it. You really do. Do you think I'm exaggerating, Bruce?

BRUCE: Well, I think -- look, when you actually go back and read it -- I mean, first of all, where are people today? Religion is very fluid in this country. Half of Americans change faith in the course of their lives, right? Four in ten Americans are in an interfaith marriage.

We live in a time of fluidity, where you kind of make your own faith. It's harder, but ultimately, it can be more fulfilling. You mentioned the Sistine Chapel at the outset of this conversation. What's the center of the Sistine Chapel?

Not God and Adam, okay? That's the fourth panel. The fifth panel, the one in the center, it's not the creation of Adam. It's the creation of Eve. You have Adam lying to the left, God to the right, and Eve occupies the center of the Sistine Chapel. So Michelangelo did more than anybody to elevate Eve and to kind of fight back against this tradition of downplaying Eve.

And when you go back and you look at the story, you see that they're basically over the 30 centuries this story has been told, it was used to downplay women and elevate women. And now men and women, we're all struggling with it, this story is the road map --

GLENN: I cannot wait to have a long conversation with you today. 5 o'clock on TheBlaze TV. Bruce Feiler. The name of the book is The First Love Story: Adam, Eve, and Us.

Really, really worth it. And join us for this conversation because you're always fascinating. And I've got something that I don't know if you know, but you'll be very excited about to -- to learn if you don't. But if you do, we're going to have even a greater conversation.

Bruce Feiler, thanks for being with us. Now, here's our sponsor this half-hour. Delta Defense. The United States Concealed Carry Association is doing something right now. They want to buy ten people the gun of their dreams.

RADIO

Glenn Beck warns of dangerous government powers in proposed Charlie Kirk act

President Trump and others have posted in support of a proposed Charlie Kirk Act. But Glenn Beck gives a warning: there are 2 versions of this going around. One, proposed by Sen. Mike Lee, would stop the government from using propaganda against Americans. The other would go further, giving the government dangerous powers over truth. Glenn Beck explains the differences as well as what the Smith-Mundt Act was and why an Obama-era decision may be connected to the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Okay. I want you to just spend a couple of minutes with me, and switch everything that you've been thinking on, off for a minute. This is very important. I want to take you back to the world in 1948, okay?

The ashes of World War II are still warm. The Cold War is already beginning to chill in the air, and the Soviet Union has a propaganda machine that is in full swing.

Radio Moscow, Pravda, endless streams of anti-American stories are pouring into the homes of men and women, all across the globe.

And Congress looked at this. And said, we need a counterbalance on this.

America needs to tell her story to the world about liberty and about her finding ideals.

And we need to tell it to the rest of the world.

This is the birth of the Smith-Mundt Act. Okay? We needed to launch things, at that time. Like the Voice of America, and radio-free Europe, and Radio Liberty.

These were not just radio stations. For many who were behind the curtain, these were lifelines.

A Polish dissident in the 1970s or a Hungarian who lived through the 1956 uprising, they'll tell you, they're huddled in the dark, and they have that dial of that radio.

And they can tune it. They carefully tune it, listening to an American voice break through the static and break through the darkness. That says, freedom is real. And the world hasn't forgotten you. They remember that as being very important.

But and here is the key: We, as a society, drew a very bright red line, none of this could ever be used in the United States. Congress rightfully was terrified of unleashing a government propaganda machine on its own citizens. Now, I want you to remember. 1948, Congress is still Democrat.

Okay?

You just had 20 years of the same president, FDR.

They're about to say, no president can serve that long.

The Democrats said, no Democrat president. No Republican president can ever serve that long. Because we were so close to fascism.

So the Democrats are very concerned about the government going fascistic.

And they should know about it. Because they remembered the control commission.

Now, let me take you back to World War I. The Creel Commission is something that nobody remembers, and everyone should.

Because it's what whipped America up in a frenzy, to get us to go into World War I.

You know it, because you remember the I want you Uncle Sam poster. And I've always hated that Uncle Sam poster because of the Creel Commission. I love it. I think it's really beautiful. It was created by an artist, that he didn't create it for the Creel Commission. So, you know, he was innocent. But it was the Creel machine that plastered it on every wall, every post office, every train station.

And suddenly Uncle Sam's finger was pointing at you. It wasn't just a poster. It was a summons. It was you. We need you to go to war. Americans did not want to go to World War I. In fact, Woodrow Wilson said, the other side, he will put you into war. I will keep I out of war. He knew that wasn't true.

Within three months after his reelection, we're at war. But he had to bring the country along. So the Creel Commission, through films and songs, films like the Kaiser, the Beast of Berlin, it turned the -- it turned Germany into a cartoon villain. George Cohan, he wrote songs, over there. Over there.

All of these things were done by the government, as propaganda to get Americans to go over there.

And fight. Then the government went even further. And they started hiring these, what were called Four Minute Men.

Now, imagine this, you're sitting in a movie theater.

The film. You're watching maybe the -- the newsreel. And as they're changing the reels, some guy who just in the audience, stands up, walks to the front. Clears his throat. And he delivers this really well-thought out and rousing four minute speech about patriotism. And liberty.

And crushing Germany.

The government had 75,000 volunteers. They gave millions of speeches, when anybody would pause in churches and schools. In parks.

In theaters. They were called Four Minute Men.

This was social media before social media. They were short bursts. And they seemingly were everywhere, and always on message.

Because the message was crafted by the government. Then the Creel group, through our government, published booklets, official bulletins. They planted stories in the press. This is when we really started really getting into the press, and information was -- had one goal. All of the information. And that was rallies for the -- rally support for the war, and drown out anybody that was disagreeing with that. Okay?

The government actually encouraged kids to spy on their neighbors.

That you were encouraged and post -- post men did this.

To go through the mail, if they saw -- if they saw letters that were coming in. Ask they wanted to know, who it was. And are you a German spy. Are you somebody who is going to be against the war?

Postal workers went through your mail. And it was legal at the time!

You were encouraged, operators were encouraged to listen to people's phone calls, and to report if they were on the other side.

This is Germany.

In fact, because of the Creel Commission, Germans, and what's his name?

The head of the German propaganda, oh, what's his name? The German douche bag. I can't remember his name. Anyway, what was his name?

STU: Goebbels, is that who you're talking about?

GLENN: Goebbels.

STU: Although, I like your name for it, frankly.

GLENN: Yeah. Goebbels, the douche bag.

Anyway, he said, we lost World War I because of American propaganda. But we learned how Americans did it.

And that's what Goebbels did in World War II. All of this propaganda. Okay?

By the way, American advertising, up until World War II, it was called propaganda.

What I heard, I wouldn't have said, now a message from our advertiser.

I was delivering literally and it was cool at the time, to call it propaganda.

Because that's what it was. Paid for propaganda.

Bit after Goebbels took it. And did what he did with it. We were like, oh, propaganda is bad!

Okay?

So here's what -- here's what happened because of the Creel Commission. They were pushing uniformity of thought. They did that by making sure Americans were hearing the same slogans. The same images. The same stories from every direction. Which created the illusion of unanimous consent. I want you to think about life today.

I want you to think about life during COVID.

What was the goal of the government.

To crush any dissent, and to control all of the messages that were going out, to make sure that you were hearing the same slogans, the same images. The same stories from every direction, to give you the illusion that it was unanimous consent.

What about the global warming? It's exactly the same.

Then on top of it, the Creel Commission demonized dissent. Okay? German Americans were part of this country forever.

In fact, we were I think two votes away from making German our official language, as the United States, not English. But they were all of a sudden, branded as traitors.

You couldn't -- a priest went to jail, because he gave the last rites to a German who fell down in front of him on the streets and was dying. And a priest spoke German and gave him the last rites in German. That priest went to jail! Okay??

Okay? So they demonized dissent. Then they suppressed free speech. The propaganda campaign dovetailed with the Espionage Act of 1917. The Sedition Act of 1918. If you criticized the draft, if you questioned the war, you could be fined. You would be ostracized, and you would go to jail.

This is Woodrow Wilson, gang. Does any of it sound familiar?

Now, here's what the aftermath was, after the war. When the war ended, the mask came off. Millions were dead, and Americans felt absolutely duped. They felt that they were tricked into going into a war that they were manipulated into. They didn't even understand it. And that's why we were such isolationists, in the 1920s and our 1930s, because our own government had manipulated the population to go in to fight this war, and they felt so manipulated and so betrayed by their own government. They were like, I don't want anything to do with foreign wars, okay?

So why did this -- why did this happen in 1948?

Well, because in 1948, all of this stuff is happening, and we're saying, okay. We need to have some sort of -- some sort of boundary.

Because we're going to start all of this propaganda, for the United States. And it cannot be ever turned on the people of the United States. Okay?

So then why -- why was it repealed?

It was repealed without any really kind of conversation. Because it was slipped in, called the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act.

It was slipped in to a defense authorization bill. Just like it's happening right now, the government didn't pay its bills.

They couldn't come up with the -- with a way to actually fund everything. Because we have to act as an emergency, otherwise all of our war machine. And it's all going to stop. And the world is going to die. And panic and all of that.

;And so somebody has slipped the bill in. And we modernized it.

Why did we modernize?

Well, because don't you like transparency?

I mean, we're doing this overseas. We're doing this propaganda overseas. Do you know -- taxpayer. You're paying for it. Shouldn't you see it?

There was a Congressman Max Thornberry. He was one of the sponsors. And he said, quote, today the law prevents the American people from seeing or hearing the same things we broadcast overseas, and that doesn't make any sense.

We paid for it. Okay. Then they switched that from transparency to, and it's helping fight terrorism. It will let the Department of Defense and the State Department share counter radicalization material both abroad and at home, because we have to modernize this. The internet is everywhere, okay?
So who doesn't want to fight terrorists? Who doesn't want transparency?

Now, here's what actually happened. I'll tell you in 60 seconds. First, Stu.

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(music)

GLENN: So in 2012, the left decides, we have to get rid of this propaganda thing.

Okay?

Once the firewall was gone, and it's just a blip, no one even really noticed it. Suddenly, the government agencies could circulate diplomacy campaigns, inside of the United States.

And we saw this. This is where you get your USAID. The NGOs. Doing all the things here in the United States.

Because they can all do it. During COVID, you saw this.

You saw government-funded messaging, quietly merging with the media campaigns and big tech content moderation. Narratives weren't debated. They were handed out by the government. And then they were enforced. Then take the DHS disinformation governance board.

This is a direct descendent from this shift. Okay?

It was the government openly declaring it had a role in policing speech at home.

Look at the 2016 aftermath of the elections. Reports now confirm that the US government funds originally intended for overseas information campaigns that had filtered into domestic projects that fact-checked, flagged, and suppressed certain narratives online. The line between foreign propaganda and domestic persuasion was completely gone. Everything they worried about in 1948, was now happening after 2012. Okay. So why am I bringing this up today?

Because after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, we have been asking for this to be reinstated.

This Smith-Mundt Act has to be reinstated. But after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, there is a new wave of enthusiasm for this as there should be.

But some people on our side, are now demanding more than just a firewall.

You go to change.org. And there's petitions for a Charlie Kirk act.

And it will not only stop government propaganda. But it goes further than that. It starts to punish private media. Educators. Social media platforms. For spreading what they call false narratives. So this is -- this is our side saying, yeah, well, now we want the power to do what they did. Okay? Hear me clearly.

Accountability matters! Lives are destroyed, reputations are smeared. And that matters.

But we have systems in place for that.

What this proposal opens is a new door. A terror where government decides, what is and isn't falsehood.

And the government cannot do that. History teaches us. Once the government claims the authority to define truth.

Liberty is gone. Okay?

Now, enter Mike Lee.

Mike Lee has another proposal. Mike Lee has a version. That he is submitting to Congress. And trying to get it passed. And every American should be for this.

Right or left.

Every American should be for this. He's not going to reinvent the wheel. He just wants the old firewall put back. That's it.

Period.

The government must not, and cannot propagandize its own people. Restore the very bright red line that was attacked in 1948.

It's not about silencing speech. It's about preventing the most powerful institution on earth, with the endless resources of that institution, the government.

And the endless reach, from turning its firehose of influence in on the American people.

This is why it matters. I want you to think of -- I want you to think of football.

Oh, boy. Dangerous.

You wouldn't let the referee this a football game, put on a jersey, and join one of the teams. Okay?

But that's what the repeal did. It let the government be both the referee and the player in the arena of ideas. Mike Lee is saying, put the stripes back on their jerseys. Make sure they're in black and white stripes. So we know exactly who they are!

Change.org and some people on our side want to make the ref not only a player, but the judge, the jury, and the executioner. It cannot happen.

This is -- I'm telling you, if this goes through, Mike Lee is proposing something that is clean. Doesn't have any of this in.

So support the Mike Lee Mundt Act. But if you're hearing people talk about, we have to go further, that is the Patriot Act of our day. We're standing at a fork in the road.

Reinstating the Smith-Mundt protections. They're not going to solve all the problems of misinformation, but it reestablishes the ground rules. And tells Washington, you cannot propagandize us, period.
(music)

Once truth belongs to the state, truth itself ceases to exist. Support Mike Lee's bill.

Restore the Smith-Mundt Act.

RADIO

New York DROPS key charge against CEO killer. Here’s why.

A New York judge has dismissed state terrorism and first-degree murder charges against the man who killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Should the charge have been kept? Why is the state only pursuing second-degree murder charges? And will he avoid the death penalty? Former Chief Assistant US Attorney Andrew McCarthy joins Glenn Beck to explain what’s really to blame for these decisions.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: We have a good friend, Andy McCarthy who is a Nashville review contributing editor. He's also a former chief assistant US attorney, and a guy who when he speaks, I almost always agree with him. And when I don't, I'm probably wrong. Especially when it comes to things like this, because this was his expertise. He was a former chief assistant US attorney. And he worked on terror most of his career. I mean, he -- he is -- he is well-versed on terror charges and how to try them.

This Luigi Mangione case, the terrorism charges have been dropped. And, Andy, if I remember right, came out with an article I think last year said, this is not going to stand.

These terrorist charges aren't going to stand. And I don't understand why they won't.

And I don't understand how only be charged with second-degree murder.

When it was clear he was stocking the guy. Privy planned on killing him.

He was waiting for him outside.

That's premeditation, which is murder one.

But I know Andy will have all the answers for us.

Can you make sense of this for us, Andy?

ANDY: Yeah. I'm afraid I can, Glenn.

I think to start with the second point first about why it's murder two, rather than murder one. Back in the McCaughey days, which is like the 1990s in New York, when he was governor.

STU: Yeah.

ANDY: They tried to revise the New York capital murder statute. Because they haven't done a death penalty case in New York in decades.

And this was not -- this ultimately was not a successful effort. They still haven't revised the death penalty.

But what they did, they took the things that you could get the death penalty for, which in New York, were only things like killing a police officer or killing a prison guard in the prison.

And they made those the only murder in the first degree. Variety. Homicide, and all other murder.

GLENN: Why?

ANDY: Well, because they were trying to clean up -- their idea was, they were trying to clean the statute in a way that murder one would be revised as capital murder.

GLENN: Death penalty.

ANDY: Right. And all other murder was going to be second-degree murder, so because --

GLENN: That's insane.

ANDY: What we're dealing with Mangione, under New York law, would not have qualified for the death penalty because that would have been very, very narrow, and it's mainly killing police officers or prison guards.

That puts it into the category of second-degree murder. That doesn't mean, by the way, that it's unserious.

It has a -- I think the -- the offense in New York is like 25 years to life. Societies -- it's --

STU: The guy should get -- I mean, you could. You could argue against the death penalty. But guy should get either the death penalty, or life without payroll.

Not 25 years! This guy -- help me out on this one. How is he not a terrorist? He had the intent to terrorize. He said himself, he wanted people to look over their shoulders.

I mean, he is a textbook terrorist. And premeditation. Textbook!

ANDY: Yeah. To -- to prove terrorism, you have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, an intent to intimidate or coerce a civilian population.

And you have to sort of get out of the -- the mindset that murder is terrorizing. I mean, all murder is terrorizing, to the people who are obviously involved in it. And to the extent that it intimidated people. But we can't turn every murder into terrorism.

GLENN: Correct.

ANDY: Terrorism --

GLENN: But he did it for. But isn't terrorism about trying to scare the population to either vote different or change the laws to be so terrorized that they -- in this particular case, he was trying to send a message to the -- the industry, you better watch your back, because there's more of me.

And you'll get it in the end.

That's terrorizing a group of people to get them to act in a way, the terrorists wants them to act.

ANDY: Yes.

GLENN: Isn't that how they define it?

ANDY: It's not terrorizing the government to change policy or terrorizing the whole civilian population. What the judge said, this was very narrowly targeted at the health care industry, and this particular health care executive.

And I --

STU: Hmm.

GLENN: Wow.

ANDY: And I just don't think it trivializes the murder to say that it's not a terrorism crime.

GLENN: Okay.

ANDY: You know, the federal government, Glenn, just so we're clear on this part of it. There were two charges brought here. There's a -- the federal charges and the state charges.

So Alvin Bragg, the -- the New York DA, brought the terrorism charge.

GLENN: What a joke.

ANDY: I said, at the time, I thought he was bringing it because he knew the Justice Department wanted to charge this guy. So he wanted to make a splash. Like the Justice Department wanted to make a splash.

When the Justice Department indicted it, even though Biden is against the death penalty, and the Democratic administration was against the death penalty. They indicted it as a death penalty case.
Because they wanted to make a big to-do over it. Even though, you know, if you look at the fine print, they would never impose the death penalty.

They had a moratorium on the death penalty. So in order not to be outsplashed, what Bragg turned around and did was indict this -- what he -- like ten times out of ten, indict only as a murder case.

If you could get Bragg to indict something that was actually a crime. And he decided to make it a terrorism murder case, so that they could compete for the headlines in the press.

Unfortunately, this is kind of what happens in these -- in these cases.

But to your point about stalking and all of that stuff.

The federal charges. Which are the death penalty charges, include exactly what you're talking about.

The fact that this guy was stalked.

That it was done in a very cold-blooded way.

And actually, if he gets convicted in the federal -- can in the federal system, now that Trump is running the Justice Department, rather than Biden, he gets convicted on the death penalty charge, he's going to get the death penalty.

GLENN: Okay. So it's not like he's getting murder in the second degree, and he'll be out in 25 years. The federal government is also trying him. Will it be the same trial?

ANDY: No. No.

In fact, the interesting thing, Glenn. Just from a political standpoint, I hate having to get political on this stuff.

GLENN: I know. Me too.

ANDY: If we can avoid it. The Biden Justice Department was working cooperative with Bragg. I don't think the Trump Justice Department is going to work cooperative with Bragg.

GLENN: No.

ANDY: And the interesting thing about that is under New York law, they have a very forgiving double jeopardy provision. Which basically means, if the Feds go first, that will probably block New York state from going at all.

GLENN: Uh-huh.

ANDY: Because of their expansive protection. And I think what Biden's Justice Department was willing to let Bragg go first.

So that they would go second. And then everybody would have --

GLENN: Trump won't do that.

ANDY: I'm not sure the Trump guys will play ball with that.

GLENN: No. Okay.

So are you confident the justice will be served in this. Oh.

ANDY: Well, I think -- you know, look, I think if your idea of justice served. Are this guy be convicted of a severe murder charge and never see the light of day again?

I am confident in that.

GLENN: Yes.

ANDY: If you believe as I do, that if you're going to have a -- a death penalty in the law, which our Constitution permits.

GLENN: He deserves it.

ANDY: If you're going to have it, he deserves it. And if he doesn't get it. He would be among a long line of people, who probably didn't deserve it and must get it.

Though, I guess it depends on what your idea of justice is. But I guess if we could agree that justice is this guy never sees the light of day again, I think justice will happen here.

GLENN: Right. Okay.

Can I switch to Charlie Kirk?

ANDY: Of course.

GLENN: How is this unfolding? What are your thoughts on this. What are your thoughts on -- you know, I really want to make sure I don't want to go too far. I don't want another Patriot Act kind of thing.

But I do believe, you know, the -- it appears as though, there may have been many people involved. At least in knowing.

What does that mean to you? And what should happen?

What should we be doing? What are we doing that is right and wrong?

ANDY: Well, to the extent -- I'm sorry -- I do -- I do think, Glenn. That this is being very aggressively investigated by both the state authorities and continuing by the federal authorities.

I heard Kash Patel, because I happened to be on television this morning. And they -- they broadcasted that while I was on.

And he was talking about how they are going through all of the social media stuff.

To see, who may have had an inkling about this beforehand. And if there was any conspiratorial activity, they're going to go after it.

Now, the chats that have come out so far, that have been reported in the last couple of days are chats in which Robinson admitted to committing homicide and told the people that he was chatting with -- that he had already arranged his surrender.

If that's all these people knew, that is to say, he had --

GLENN: Then there's nothing there.

ANDY: And he was turning himself in. Well, they might be good witnesses in terms of what his state of mind was at the trial of Robinson.

But I don't think that implicates them in criminal misconduct.

On the other hand, the feds are going to keep digging.

And I assume Utah is going to keep digging.

And if they find out that someone was involved in planning it, I think those people will be pursued.

GLENN: You know, there's probably Texas would be a bad place to commit this crime.

Utah, however, they have the death penalty. And they used the death penalty.

And the governor who I'm not a big fan of this governor.

But, boy, he has been very strong, and I think right on top of this whole thing.

And he said, day one, you will get the death penalty. We catch you. We prove it in a court of law. You do get the death penalty. And I think that's coming from this guy.

ANDY: Well, it's deserving. Because if it's ever indicative of premeditation and repulsive intent, I would say, this is a textbook case of that.

GLENN: The idea that Trump is now going to go after -- possibly RICO charges for people like George Soros and, you know, organizations like that, that are -- are pushing for a lot of the -- the -- the Antifa kind of stuff. Do you see any problems with that. Or is this a -- a good idea?

ANDY: I just think the first thing, before you get into RICO. And all these. You know, RICO is a very complicated statute, even when it obviously applies. So I think the bedrock thing they have to establish, is that you are crossing the line. From protected speech. A lot of which can be obnoxious speech. And actual incite meant to violence. And if you can get invite meant to violence.

You know, I didn't need RICO to prosecute the Blind Sheikh, right? I was able to do it on incitements of violence and that kind of stuff. Those are less complicated charges than Rico.

But the big challenges in those cases, Glenn, is getting across the line into violent action. As opposed to constitutionally protected rhetoric.

GLENN: Is there anything to the subversion of our -- of our nation. That you are -- you are intentionally subverting the United States of America.

You are pushing for revolutionary acts?

VOICE: You know, there's a lot of let allegation that arose out of that, in connection with the Cold War and the McCarran Act. And, you know, you remember all the stuff from the -- from the '40s and '50s, forward.

GLENN: Yeah. I know.

ANDY: And I think when that stuff was initially enacted, the country was in a different place.

I think when the McCarran Act was enacted, it was a consensus in the country, that if someone was a member of the Communist Party.

Hadn't actually done anything active to seek the violent overthrow of the US, but mere membership in the party. I think if you asked the question in 1950, most people would have thought that was a crime.

And by 1980, most people would have thought, it wasn't a crime. Based on the Supreme Court --

GLENN: Yeah. I don't.

Look, if you're a member of the Communist Party, you can be a member of the Communist Party.

But if you are actively subverting and pushing for revolution, in our country, I think that's a different -- I think that's a different cat, all -- entirely.

ANDY: Yeah, that's exactly right. But if you had that evidence of purposeful activity, and look, if you had a conspiratorial agreement between two people that contemplates the use of force, you don't need much more than that. You don't need an act of violence. If you have a strong evidence of conspiracy. But you do have to establish that they get over that line and to the use of force, at least the potential use of force.

STU: Yeah, okay.

Andy, as always, thank you so much. Appreciate your insight. Appreciate it.

THE GLENN BECK PODCAST

How to Find God in a Divided World | Max Lucado & Glenn Beck

Glenn Beck sits down with beloved pastor and author Max Lucado for a deep conversation about faith, humility, and finding unity in a divided world. Together, they reflect on the importance of principles over politics, why humility opens the door to true dialogue, and how centering life on God brings clarity and peace. Lucado shares stories of faith, the dangers of a “prosperity gospel,” and the powerful reminder that life is not about making a big deal of ourselves, but about making a big deal of God. This uplifting conversation will inspire you to re-center your life, strengthen your faith, and see how humility and love can transform even the most divided times.

Watch Glenn Beck's FULL Interview with Max Lucado HERE

RADIO

Confronting evil: Bill O'Reilly's insight on Charlie Kirk's enduring legacy

Bill O’Reilly joins Glenn Beck with a powerful prediction about Charlie Kirk’s legacy. Evil tried to destroy his movement, Bill says, but – as his new book, “Confronting Evil,” lays out – evil will just end up destroying itself once more…

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Mr. Bill O'Reilly, welcome to the program, how are you, sir?

BILL: Good, Beck, thanks for having me back. I appreciate it. How have you been?

GLENN: Last week was really tough. I know it was tough for you and everybody else.

But, you know -- I haven't -- I haven't seen anything.

BILL: Family okay? All of that?

GLENN: Yeah. Yeah. Family is okay. Family is okay.

BILL: Good question good. That's the most important thing.

GLENN: It is.

So, Bill, what do you make of this whole Charlie Kirk thing. What happened, and where are we headed?

BILL: So my analysis is different for everybody else, and those that know me for so long. About a year ago, I was looking for a topic -- it was a contract to do another book. And I said, you know what's happening in America, and around the world. Was a rise in evil. It takes a year to research and write these books.

And not since the 1930s, had I seen that happen, to this extent. And in the 1930s, of course, you would have Tojo and Hitler and Mussolini and Franco and all these guys. And it led to 100 million dead in World War II. The same thing, not to the extent.

But the same thing was --
GLENN: Yet.
BILL: -- bubbling in the world, and in the United States.

I decided to write a book. The book comes out last Tuesday. And on Wednesday, Putin lobs missiles into Poland.

Ultra dangerous.

And a few hours later, Charlie Kirk is assassinated.

And one of the interviewers said to me last week, your -- your book is haunting. Is haunting.

And I think that's extremely accurate. Because that's what evil does.

And in the United States, we have so many distractions. The social media.

People create around their own lives.

Sports. Whatever it may be. That we look away.

Now, Charlie Kirk was an interesting fellow. Because at a very young age, he was mature enough to understand that he wanted to take a stand in favor of traditional America and Judeo Christian philosophy.

He decided that he wanted to do that.

You know, and when I was 31 or whatever, I was lucky I wasn't in the penitentiary. And I believe you were in the penitentiary.
(laughter)
So he was light years ahead of us.

GLENN: Yes, he was.

BILL: And he put it into motion. All right? Now, most good people, even if you disagree with what Mr. Kirk says on occasion, you admire that. That's the spirit of America. That you have a belief system, that you go out and try to promote that belief system, for the greater good of the country. That's what it is.

That's what Charlie Kirk did.

And he lost his life.

By doing it!

So when you essentially break all of this down. You take the emotion away, all right?

Which I have to do, in my job. You see it as another victory for evil.

But it really isn't.

And this is the ongoing story.

This is the most important story. So when you read my book, Confronting Evil, you'll see that all of these heinous individuals, Putin's on the cover. Mao. Hitler.

Ayatollah Khomeini. And then there are 14 others inside the book. They all destroy themselves.

Evil always destroys itself. But it takes so many people with it. So this shooter destroyed his own family.

And -- and Donald Trump, I talked to him about it last week in Yankee stadium. And Trump is a much different guy than most people think.

GLENN: He is.

JASON: He destroyed his own mother and father and his two brothers.

That's what he did. In addition to the Kirk family!

So evil spreads. Now, if Americans pay attention and come to the conclusion that I just stated, it will be much more difficult for evil to operate openly.

And that's what I think is going to happen.

There's going to be a ferocious backlash against the progressive left in particular.

To stop it, and I believe that is what Mr. Kirk's legacy is going to be.

GLENN: I -- I agree with you on all of these fronts.

I wonder though, you know, it took three, or if you count JFK, four assassinations in the '60s, to confront the evil if you will.

Before people really woke up and said, enough is enough!

And then you have the big Jesus revolution after that.

Is -- I hate to say this. But is -- as far gone as we are, is one assassination enough to wake people up?

JOHN: Some people. Some people will never wake up.

They just don't want to live in the real world, Beck. And it's never been easier to do that with the social media and the phones and the computers.

And you're never going to get them back.

But you don't need them. So let's just be very realistic here on the Glenn Beck show.

Let's run it down.

The corporate media is finished.

In America. It's over.

And you will see that play out the next five years.

Because the corporate media invested so much of its credibility into hating Donald Trump.

And the hate is the key word.

You will find this interesting, Beck. For the first time in ten years, I've been invited to do a major thing on CBS, today.

I will do it GE today. With major Garrett.

GLENN: Wow.

BILL: Now, that only happened because Skydance bought CBS. And Skydance understands the brand CBS is over, and they will have to rehabilitate the whole thing. NBC has not come to that conclusion yet, but it will have to.

And ABC just does the weather. I mean, that's all they care about. Is it snowing in Montana? Okay? The cables are all finished. Even Fox.

Once Trump leaves the stage, there's nowhere for FNC to go. Because they've invested so much in Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump.

So the fact of the matter is, the corporate media is over in America. That takes a huge cudgel out of the hands of the progressive movement.

Because the progressive movement was dependent on the corporate media to advance its cause. That's going to end, Beck.

GLENN: Well, I would hope that you're right.

Let me ask you about --

BILL: When am I wrong?

When am I wrong?

You've known me for 55 years. When have I been wrong?

GLENN: Okay. All right. All right. We're not here to argue things like that.

So tell me about Skydance. Because isn't Skydance Chinese?

BILL: No! It's Ellison. Larry Ellison, the second richest guy in the world. He owns Lanai and Hawaii, the big tech guy and his son is running it.

GLENN: Yeah, okay.

I though Skydance. I thought that was -- you know them.

BILL: Yeah.

And they -- they're not ideological, but they were as appalled as most of us who pay attention at the deterioration of the network presentations.

So --

GLENN: You think that they could.

BILL: 60 Minutes used to be the gold standard.

GLENN: Uh-huh.

BILL: And it just -- it -- you know, you know, I don't know if you watch it anymore.

GLENN: I don't either.

So do you think they can actually turn CBS around, or is it just over?

BILL: I don't know. It's very hard to predict, because so many people now bail. I've got a daughter 26, and a son, 22.

They never, ever watched network television.

And you've got -- it's true. Right?

GLENN: Yeah. Yeah.

They don't watch --

BILL: They're not going to watch The Voice. The dancing with this. The juggling with that. You know, I think they could do a much better job in their news presentations.

GLENN: Yeah. Right.

BILL: Because what they did, is banish people like Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly.

Same voices, with huge followings.

Huge!

All right?

We couldn't get on there.

That's why Colbert got fired. Because Colbert wouldn't -- refused to put on any non-progressive voice, when they were talking about the country.

GLENN: I know.

BILL: Well, it's not -- I'm censoring it.

GLENN: Yeah, but it's not that he was fired because he wouldn't do that. He was fired because that led to horrible ratings. Horrible ratings.

BILL: Yes, it was his defiance.

GLENN: Yes.

BILL: Fallon has terrible ratings and so does Kimmel. But Colbert was in your face, F you, to the people who were signing his paycheck.

GLENN: Yes. Yes.

BILL: Look, evil can only exist if the mechanisms of power are behind it.

And that's when you read the front -- I take them one by one. And Putin is the most important chapter by far.

GLENN: Why?

BILL: Because Putin would use nuclear weapon.

He wouldn't. He's a psychopath.

And I'm -- on Thursday night, I got a call from the president's people saying, would I meet the president at Yankee stadium for the 9/11 game?

And I said, when a president calls and asks you to meet them, sure.

GLENN: I'll be there. What time?

BILL: It will take me three days to get into Yankee stadium, on Long Island. But I'll start now.

GLENN: Especially because the president is coming. But go ahead.

BILL: Anyway, that was a very, I think that Mr. Trump values my opinion. And it was -- we did talk about Putin.

And the change in Putin. And I had warned him, that Putin had changed from the first administration, where Trump controlled Putin to some extent.

Now he's out of control. Because that's what always happens.

GLENN: Yeah.

BILL: It happened with Hitler. It happened with Mao. It happened with the ayatollah. It happened with Stalin. Right now. They get worse and worse and worse and worse. And then they blow up.

And that's where Putin is! But he couldn't do any of that, without the assent of the Russian people. They are allowing him to do this, to kill women and children. A million Russian casualties for what! For what! Okay?

So that's why this book is just in the stratosphere. And I was thinking object, oh. Because people want to understand evil, finally. Finally.

They're taking a hard look at it, and the Charlie Kirk assassination was an impetus to do that.

GLENN: Yeah. And I think it's also an impetus to look at the good side.

I mean, I think Charlie was just not a neutral -- a neutral character. He was a force for good. And for God.

And I think that -- that combination is almost the Martin Luther King combination. Where you have a guy who is speaking up for civil rights.

But then also, speaking up for God. And speaking truth, Scripturally.

And I think that combination still, strangely, I wouldn't have predicted it. But strangely still works here in America, and I think it's changed everything.

Bill, it's always food to talk to you. Thank you so much for being on. I appreciate it.

It's Bill O'Reilly. The name of the book, you don't want to miss. Is confronting evil. And he takes all of these really, really bad guys on. One by one. And shows you, what happens if you don't do something about it. Confronting evil. Bill O'Reilly.

And you can find it at BillO'Reilly.com.

Glenn's Show Prep

How Adam and Eve Became Victims of the Greatest Character Assassination Ever

Glenn Beck warns of dangerous government powers in proposed Charlie Kirk act

Transcript

New York DROPS key charge against CEO killer. Here’s why.

Transcript

How to Find God in a Divided World | Max Lucado & Glenn Beck

Confronting evil: Bill O'Reilly's insight on Charlie Kirk's enduring legacy

Transcript