BLOGMay 11, 2017

Navy SEAL Who Killed Bin Laden Talks With Glenn: 'We Knew It Was a One-Way Mission'

Robert O'Neill --- American hero, former Navy SEAL and author of the new book The Operator: Firing The Shots That Killed Osama Bin Laden And My Years As A SEAL Team Warrior --- joined Glenn in studio to talk about the incredible mission that ended the life of Osama bin Laden. The honor and heroism displayed by the SEAL team that took out bin Laden becomes even more amazing knowing each team member believed --- and accepted --- it would end their lives.

Here's what O'Neill had to say about their reasons for going:

I knew it was a one-way mission, and most of the guys there did too. But we accepted it because we had the conversation, we're doing this for the single mom who dropped her kids off at school on a Tuesday morning and then 45 minutes later jumped to her death out of the Windows On The World because that was a better alternative than 2,500 degrees fahrenheit inside, holding her skirt down as her last gesture of human decency so no one could see her underwear as she killed herself. You know, she wasn't supposed to do that. The people on Flight 93 that took over the cockpit to crash it in Pennsylvania to save people in Washington. You know, they didn't need to fight. The people in the Pentagon. We went for them because that wasn't their fight. The Port Authority, the police department, NYPD, FDNY. You know, that day, we were asked to take out the guy that funded that, that laughed about it, that thought it was part of his time on earth. We went for that, so we accepted the one-way mission.

The sentiments expressed by O'Neill did not go unnoticed.

"The reason why we cry when our military goes by --- at least, you know, some of the country does -- is because of the honor behind it," Glenn said. "At least me, I get teary-eyed because of the honor behind it. The idea that we can be better than we are today."

In addition to serving his country with honor and distinction, Robert O'Neill launched Your Grateful Nation, a nonprofit dedicated to matching the unique skills of Special Operations veterans with corporate careers, transitioning them from military service to civilian life.

The Operator: Firing The Shots That Killed Osama Bin Laden And My Years As A SEAL Team Warrior is available in bookstores everywhere.

GLENN: Hello, America. And welcome to the program. Glad you're here. We've got a lot to talk about. We've spent the last hour talking about James Comey and Donald Trump. This is turning into a very big nightmare. Apparently, this decision was not made because of the emails from the Justice Department. Those emails, Donald Trump asked them to write. This has been a decision that had been a long time coming, and it looks like for personal reasons, the president has a severe problem with leakage in the -- in the West Wing. The Washington Post has 30 sources on the story that are not saying good things. This is -- this is really not good.

The reason why I bring up the long-time coming -- and it wasn't a snap decision. I think the easiest decision to make in -- in my lifetime, that I've seen a president struggle over, was President Obama struggling over the decision to kill Osama bin Laden. What did it take him, six months or something like that? And finally they were like, "Mr. President, yes or no?" The guy who was there and fired the shot, the operator, Robert O'Neill, is here. Firing the shots that killed Osama bin Laden. And his years as a SEAL team warrior. He has been involved in some of the -- the biggest stories of the last ten or 15 years. And a lot of people don't know all the things that he has done. The guy who has helped the shape the world we live in today. O'Neill joins us right now.

(music)

GLENN: Robert O'Neill. How are you, sir?

ROBERT: I'm well. Thanks for having me here, Glenn.

GLENN: The Operator is the book. Firing the Shots That Killed Osama bin Laden.

I want to -- first, let's just talk a little bit about the country as you see it today. And we don't need to get into politics. We just need to -- I just want to get your sense of, as a guy who has seen countries -- and I know -- you know, I know Special Forces think about and train for -- for countries coming apart at the seams. Are we a country getting more healthy, or less healthy?

ROBERT: I think we're getting healthier now, as far as foreign policy. I worked under President Obama -- I'm sorry, Clinton, Bush, and Obama. And what I've seen -- what I did see over the past few years is the weakening of American leadership overseas. And that's not just -- that affects the entire country, because if our allies see we're not strong, they're going to back down too. And you have instances with China building the islands, you have the Crimea thing with Russia. You've got North Koreans. Everyone is kind of moving ahead because there wasn't a threat of deterrence. I'm not saying we need to go to war, but we definitely need the deterrent, to be able to say, we will do this, if you keep doing this. We lost it for a while.

GLENN: Yeah, I think the most impressive thing this president has done foreign policy-wise is Syria. I think that woke the president up, "Oh, wait. Wait. Wait. This guy means it. He's not just going to sit around." And we've restored a little bit of -- I mean, I think the president of the United States always needs to be a best friend to everybody, unless you are on the wrong side.

ROBERT: Well, yeah. And I think he's doing it the right way too. I mean, he's going to do something up front, and then possibly negotiate in the back. Like the strikes in Syria weren't because we're going to invade you now. It's like, look, we got your attention. Now maybe we're going to do something about it.

GLENN: What should we do in North Korea?

ROBERT: North Korea is -- I think needs to be something done from within, more of an agency thing. As a special operator, I had trouble in Afghanistan blending in, in Afghanistan.

GLENN: No. Long hair, blue eyes?

ROBERT: If we had been in Scotland, I might have been okay. But in North Korea and just with the logistics needed to get in, you're going to have a difficult time. So we're going to need something with an infiltration, hopefully a military coup. Because as the world gets smaller with social media and the internet, the North Korean people are starting to realize, wait a minute. We've been lied to for generations with Kim Il-sung. Kim Jong-il. And then this guy, Kim Jong-un, believing they're gods and having the people believe they're gods. That's what they're doing right now.

GLENN: How bizarre is it going to be to those people?

ROBERT: Well, they don't know any better. You only know what you're taught. I mean, I've been in places in Afghanistan where I might as well have been in the tenth century in some of these valleys. Not only do they not know how old they are, they don't know what time is. And that's -- that's in valleys. North Korea, I don't even imagine. The starvation, the slave labor, all the stuff that's normal to them, because they're taught propaganda.

GLENN: What's the most concerning -- geopolitically concerning thing to you right now?

ROBERT: It's got to be North Korea with the nukes, if they get intercontinental ballistic missiles. That's a problem.

GLENN: If we go to war with them -- if it comes down to, we have to go in and try to take them out, what does Seoul look like, day two?

ROBERT: I think Seoul is going to be a hit, but hopefully with some of the new air defenses we have might work. But it's the whole thing. What if they shoot a missile at you? We'll shoot it down. Okay. What if they shoot 10,000 missiles at you? Something is going to get through. That's a tough one too. And, again, hopefully it doesn't come to a war in Korea. We've seen what happens before. I mean, thankfully, our military is designed to fight big armies, and they'll do it really, really well. But with, now something needs to be with the sanctions imposed by China because they're their biggest trade partner. But it needs to go further because China won't enforce them. If we put sanctions on North Korea and someone is trading with them, then you need to put sanctions on those people that are not enforcing the sanctions. So hopefully it won't come to a war, but Kim Jong-un is a nut.

GLENN: You know, Russia said summer before last that we're already in World War III. He said this to a group of European reporters. And he said, you guys have to convince your leadership -- I've been begging to stay out of war. We're already in World War III. And it's happening digitally.

ROBERT: Putin is saying that?

GLENN: Putin is saying that.

ROBERT: Yeah, he's still mad about the Cold War. Because he's KGB. He been out of it the whole time. He wants that back. So he kind of wants to be at war because there hasn't been a reason for him not to be.

GLENN: But we are -- we are in a cyber war.

ROBERT: Cyber war, no doubt. We're having everything stolen from us.

GLENN: How concerned are you that -- that that's -- I mean, that's -- that is a weapon of mass destruction in the wrong hands.

ROBERT: Sure it is. Uh-huh.

GLENN: How concerned are you that we're not really -- the world is not really paying attention to any of the rules on cyber warfare?

ROBERT: They're not paying any attention. But I'm just hopeful eventually that when we need to take the gloves off, we have people smart enough to do it. We've proven it before with technology. But now we kind of back off because we want this big global society and make sure everyone is equal.

I mean, once -- I mean, when we get into electronic, eventually magnetic warfare, whatever is out there. Hypersonic aircraft. I don't know what's going to happen. You know, I just -- I've been to war a bunch of times. I hope it doesn't come to it. It's not pretty. It's very fast and permanent.

GLENN: Yesterday, I had a guy on who he wrote the book Homo Deus. And it is about how man is becoming god and is going to merge with machines and everything else. And he said, we are -- we're seeing this already. The military is leading the way to where it doesn't take necessarily a massive army. You can do it --

ROBERT: Oh, yeah.

GLENN: You can do it through the air. You can do it through drones. You can do it through robots and everything else. And he said, "You know, 20 years from now, Army will not be the same. You don't need all those bodies."

ROBERT: No. You probably won't. I was reading an article on the way here today that side the biggest problem with unmanned cars -- driverless cars is human drivers.

GLENN: Right.

ROBERT: If there were no human drivers, it would be fine. It wouldn't be a problem.

GLENN: Correct. Seriously, the problem with humanity is humans.

ROBERT: Yeah, it is. That's a good point.

GLENN: Right.

ROBERT: Well, I've been to four-way stop signs here in Dallas too. I can see what they're saying.

GLENN: Yeah.

ROBERT: That can be an evolution --

GLENN: Yeah, I know. So what does -- what does that do to the mentality, when there is no life to a country like ours? We can just pay for everything and just keep going. There's no life being expended. Does that bother you at all?

ROBERT: That's a lot to grasp. I think it does bother me once you lose the human element. And we're seeing it now with everyone's -- their faces in their phones. Humanity is kind of going -- I don't know. I haven't thought about it that deeply. But if we got wars with machines, eventually they're going to turn on us, we'll have a Terminator type thing going on. Spooky.

JEFFY: You've seen it in action with your military training, has gotten far superior with help from drones --

ROBERT: Oh, yeah. Drones. Lasers. Night vision. Part of the reason we were so successful in combat wasn't necessarily that we wanted it more. Because we're fighting people that know that if they die at our hands, they go to heaven. There's no doubt about it. We just happened to have the lights off, night vision, and lasers. And we're quieter --

JEFFY: Right.

GLENN: And the lasers -- that technology is -- you can paint people, and nobody sees it.

ROBERT: Nobody sees it. Not only that, you can line up an entire room with a floodlight that has a dot in the middle. I've come around corners lit up and have bad guys trying to ambush. And you're like, "Are you kidding me right now?" It's like playing paint ball with my sister. She's not great at paint ball. I was a SEAL for a while.

GLENN: Right.

STU: That's not a game you want to enter into.

ROBERT: No, that's not.

GLENN: I don't think I'm playing paint ball as a guy with SEALs.

ROBERT: We've had them before. Speaking with kids, some of this technology, especially the games they play. I've had kids come up to me and start talking about guns. And because of the games they play, they know more about the guns that I used in combat, to the point they're asking me about, how was the trigger shaved? And I'm like, I don't know, kid. It makes this sound when you shoot someone. Would you leave me alone?

(laughter)

That's pretty funny.

GLENN: Do you think the next generation will be better at killing? I mean, you've read -- I'm sure you've read On Killing?

ROBERT: Yeah. I have. I think probably because a lot of the internet stuff, they're not as sensitive to it. I mean, even with the horrible videos ISIS puts out -- I remember the first beheading video, even before Zarqawi did it. There was -- and I remember seeing it, thinking, that's the most horrific thing I've ever seen.

Now there's so much of it. It's like, oh, another beheading video. Oh, I mean, oh, another suicide bomber. Think about that. Suicide bomber. They're getting desensitized.

And I think a lot of it is the internet. And they might not be as good at it when it's up close, but it seems like it doesn't mean as much.

GLENN: My charity, Mercury One, moved 6,000 people out of Syria and Iraq. Christians and Yazidis. We moved them. 6,000. And we've started a program over there, to where we are going back in and using operators on the ground, not Americans, but people like you, to go in and rescue these moms and children that have been taken. And I just got a report last week that said, the things they were doing to these moms and children, it's a new generation now.

It's just like you said. It was one of the most horrific things they had ever seen. Now, it's the next generation. And I was told, it's beyond your imagination, on how evil.

ROBERT: It's evil. And it's so bad that people won't want to hear it. They won't want to know about it. They pretend it's not there. Even now, it's worth going in, just getting back on ISIS, it's worth going in and wiping them out because of when our kids -- our grandkids will have to fight. I always bring up, if you haven't seen the videos of they call it the cubs of the caliphate. They're these 5-year-old kids that are executing people in horrific ways.

If we don't stop that, what do you think those kids are going to be like in 13 years? Will they be normal?

They're executioners at five. And we'll just kick the can down the road. I hate that analogy. But okay, grandkids, have fun fighting the jihad. You know, it's a real thing.

GLENN: You were part of the rescue attempt to get Marcus Luttrell.

ROBERT: Yes. I was part of the coalition. A lot of us in different places. But we run the airfield when the rescue helicopters went to get him and were shot down. And I actually saw them come back. They were survivors of the second. A turbine 34, I believe, that survived. And then they had us walk in. So we spent about two and a half days awake walking -- we knew -- we knew the trail was missing. We thought Axelson (phonetic) was missing, and we didn't know if there were survivors. So we were walking -- it's like 120 degrees, walking through the mountains of Kunar Province. And that was my first deployment with the lead SEAL team.

GLENN: So when you go in there -- tell me the difference between trying to save that SEAL team and what you think it might have been like to save -- what his name that deserted --

ROBERT: Bowe Bergdahl. I attempted to rescue him too. I was on the base when he walked off too.

GLENN: So tell me the difference between those two.

ROBERT: Well, the difference was Marcus and his crew were in there on a noble mission, trying to kill -- trying to capture/kill Ahmad Shah, a Taliban leader in the neighborhood. They got into a fight, they could handle themselves. They were in there because they wanted to be there. It was noble. And then the rescue attempt was to get in the fight. Really good guys getting in the fight. It got shot down with whatever they say shot them down. And it's something that we want to do with Bergdahl. We know he walked off the day he walked off. The way that we used to work, we'd wake up when the sun was going down. Grab your coffee. Go listen to the brief. And then you start -- you work overnight and then go to bed, you know, during the day.

When we got up that one day, they said, hey, we had this private walk off base, and he got rolled up by the Taliban. And we had to stop the entire war effort and stopped trying to hit high-value individuals and go after this guy, trying to just get intelligence on the fly, always moving.

We were so close to the point to where I actually had the ransom in my hands, that the Taliban paid, to fail me to get rid of Bergdahl, to buy him. But the difference there was that we knew that we're going after this loon -- just misguided deserter. And Luttrell was a hero.

GLENN: So, yeah, you knew he was a deserter.

ROBERT: The second it happened.

GLENN: The second it happened?

ROBERT: Oh, yeah. I mention it in my book. There's stuff that was said, that we were intercepting traffic about how the Taliban really wanted him because they just wanted to abuse him. And that we found this guy on the side of the road. He walked off. We knew he walked off. We spent days -- I think 19 attempts, my team had. We lost one of our dogs on it. He got shot and killed in a gunfight, but I know some soldiers were killed in other attempts to rescue Bergdahl.

GLENN: So how did you -- how do you deal with that?

ROBERT: With?

GLENN: How do you deal with, you know -- how do you deal not -- be frank with you. Not beating the snot out of Bergdahl?

ROBERT: Well, we didn't get him. If we did, we would have wanted to. But it would be important to --

GLENN: To not.

ROBERT: To get him back. Well, you can't. I mean, he's an American. He's an idiot. That's -- being an idiot is not a crime. But deserting is.

GLENN: Yeah.

ROBERT: So we'd want to bring him back and have him properly punished.

GLENN: Because he wasn't treated like he was a criminal.

ROBERT: No. He -- well, he got his punishment with the Taliban. He had -- you know, he got his punishment in their custody. Yeah, but when they came back, they made it political. They wanted to -- you know, he's a hero. He's a distinguished --

GLENN: How did that make you feel?

ROBERT: It was terrible. I mean, the name Bergdahl, when we -- we knew who he was, we know what he was, a misguided deserter. But when they -- they even tried to change it over the course of the years to, well, he didn't desert. He fell back on a patrol, and they grabbed him. Which was not the case at all. He walked -- he mailed the stuff home. He walked off. No question. But they spun it politically like you can imagine politicians will do.

GLENN: Back in just a second. The name of the book is The Operator. O'Neill: Firing the Shots that Killed Osama bin Laden and My Years as a SEAL Team Warrior. Back with him in just a second.

First, our sponsor this half-hour is Goldline. South Korea's policy on North Korea, about to get a major overhaul. First day in office, the new South Korean president is talking about going to North Korea to meet with Kim Jong-un. I guess that's a little harder than he expected. New satellite images have discovered artificial islands northwest of the North Korean capital now. We believe that they may be missile launch sites. God only knows what's going to happen in North Korea. Hopefully nothing. But if we do go to war, it is not going to be a war like -- let me ask you, Robert, is this another Afghanistan or Iraq?

ROBERT: No. I don't think Korea would be.

STU: Say it again.

ROBERT: I don't think it would be like Iraq. It's going to be something way different. A bigger army, initially. And hopefully, the -- when -- if it was liberated -- if and when it's liberated, the population would realize, okay. This is a good thing, and you're going to get democracy. But you never know with the way they were raised. I mean, we thought it with the Shia. We kind of ditched in the first Gulf War. And the second one, they didn't rise up. And it's a tough one to read the future. I wonder where they're getting that island technology though. It's almost like they have Chinese neighbors.

GLENN: Yeah, that's what I'm concerned about is Russia, China, Iraq. A global meltdown on this one.

[break]

GLENN: Tomorrow, on this program, at this time, this hour, the top of the hour, at five minutes after the hour, tomorrow, we will be joined by Bill O'Reilly in his first interview since leaving Fox. We have a lot to talk to him about. That is tomorrow. Bill O'Reilly in his first interview, leaving Fox.

The operator is with us today. He is O'Neill. Firing the shots that killed Osama bin Laden. We were just talking about Bowe Bergdahl. And you said that you had the ransom in your hands. Was that --

ROBERT: We were near the base. He was on a base that we were on. And he walked off to one of the nearby satellite bases. The small operating post. And when they told us he was gone, we just started launching from there. Our strike team from our SEAL team. And we just started going after -- gathering Intel. And based on what we found on certain targets, we'd go after the next and the next, for a matter of days.

And we got to a point where we got into a house. Big pile of cash. Obviously, some shady characters in there. And the whole, well, my son works construction in Dubai, so he sent these millions and millions of rupees or whatever they were up there. So we had that. We were convinced that was it. We knew we were close, and then they eventually got him across the border to Pakistan.

GLENN: So that ransom was paid by --

ROBERT: The Taliban. To the locals. To take --

GLENN: Isn't that --

ROBERT: I think a lot of it is illegal.

STU: You just saw -- so you saw the payment actually? That's incredible.

ROBERT: We secured an area. Separated the people like we do. And then we went through the stuff. And there's a pile of cash. And part of the trail where Bergdahl was going and had been. It's pretty obvious what the money is doing there. They don't need that money there.

JEFFY: Right.

STU: It could have been bitcoin investment.

GLENN: Which is paying off right now.

STU: Yeah.

GLENN: Paying off really well.

Okay. Back to talk a little bit -- more on his book on killing Osama bin Laden. What that was like. How it was -- what it felt like to be told, hey, by the way, you guys are on your own. Something happens.

And a little bit about what he's doing now to -- to continue to pay in to America. The Operator is the name of the book. O'Neill. Back in a minute.

[break]

GLENN: O'Neill was raised in Montana. Joined the Navy at 19 in 1996. Deployed as a Navy SEAL more than a dozen times. Four hundred combat missions. Four different theaters of war. He was decorated more than 52 times. He's received two silver stars. Four bronze stars with valor. Holy cow. Joint service accomodation medal with valor. Three presidential unit citations. And a Navy Marine Corps accommodation metal with valor. Kind of a big deal.

Lone survivor. He was part of that mission to save Marcus Luttrell. "Captain Phillips" and the Somali pirates, which we're not going to get into today, but it's in his new book called The Operator. I'd love to hear about that. That is one of the most remarkable shooting I've ever seen.

ROBERT: Just getting there from a kiss on my daughter's forehead in her preschool for an Easter Tea Party, to the Indian Ocean in less than 16 hours. Because they let us know then. Then they called us out. And then we're out. Then we're over there. Then we rescued them on Easter.

GLENN: And then -- probably the -- if somebody would have actually gone in and killed Adolf Hitler, those guys would have been known as, you know -- known forever, that story would have been told.

The killing of Osama bin Laden is probably that big. And our president had a hard time deciding whether to do it or not. When you guys went in, it's my understanding, he said, don't call the State Department. You're on your own. If things go wrong, you're on your own. Is that true?

ROBERT: I'm not sure how it went down with that. I know that -- we had talks among the group, what would happen if we ran out of fuel and had to negotiate our ways out. Who were they going to send over to Islamabad to talk with Zardari (phonetic)? Who's going to do what? There's a lot of stuff that we compartmentalized, as far as, we know this, and we know that. We don't need to get involved with the politics.

GLENN: So -- but you went over there, fully expecting to die.

ROBERT: We knew -- I knew it was a one-way mission, and most of the guys there did too. But we accepted it because of -- we had the conversation. You know, we're doing this for the single mom who dropped her kids off at school on a Tuesday morning, and then 45 minutes later jumped to her death out of the windows on the World because that was a better alternative than 2500 degrees Fahrenheit inside, you know, holding her skirt down as her last gesture of human decency, so no one could see her underwear as she killed herself. You know, she wasn't supposed to do that.

The -- the people on Flight 93 that took over the cockpit, to crash it in Pennsylvania to save people in Washington. You know, they didn't need to fight people the people in the Pentagon. We went for them because that wasn't their fight. The Port Authority Police Department. The NYPD. FDNY. You know, that day, we were asked to take out the guy that funded that, that laughed at it. That thought it was part of his time on earth. We went for that. So we accepted the one-way mission.

STU: Because this is your life at stake here?

ROBERT: Yes.

STU: Is it offensive when you hear, say, Joe Biden say this is the most difficult decision in 500 years? I mean, this is -- this is -- if you had only a 1 percent chance of success and you knew there was a 99 percent chance that you were going to do to die, would you have still wanted to go on --

ROBERT: Dying didn't mean we didn't succeed. We knew that if -- I even moved myself from the perimeter to that rooftop team that was going to land there. And we called ourselves the martyr's brigade. Tongue in cheek, because once we get on the rooftop, the whole building is going up. But we're going to --

GLENN: You thought they would blow it up?

ROBERT: He would blow it up. If anyone is going to kill himself in a house-borne improvise explosive device, it's Osama bin Laden. But we accepted that because we got him. I mean, it's better -- it's -- we're going to die eventually. And we might as well get this guy for everybody else.

STU: Jeez.

GLENN: Okay. So you climbed up a stairwell. And you come to the third floor. And you say you come around the corner. And there standing in front of you is a guy who is skinnier.

ROBERT: Skinnier than I thought and taller. But how I got there was incredible. Because we didn't land where we were supposed to -- I was sort of in the back, and I watched my team work. And watching other guys knowing this is their last day on earth, watching them still do their jobs, methodically, slow and smooth. Smooth as (sic) fast. Get through this door. Get through that door. Went up the stairs. Cleared some more rooms. And then when we finally got to the top, I was right in the front with one guy in front of me. And he went up the stairs, knowing there were suicide bombers. He opened up a curtain and jumped on what he thought was suicide bombers. So I watched a guy jump on the grenade. It didn't go off. And that's historically heroic. He did that. And I turned the corner, just based on -- it's not like I came through the skylight and saved the day. I just did what every other special operator would have done. And there was Bin Laden. And he's taller, 6-3, skinnier, short beard, gray nose. That's his nose. He's a threat. He's not surrendering.

GLENN: And he's standing behind his wife.

ROBERT: Behind his wife. And he's sort of pushing her towards me. And he's a matter of feet away.

GLENN: How far?

ROBERT: Three or 4 feet. Just standing right there, and basically in the doorway. And just based on his movement -- he's not surrendering. He is a suicide bomber. And I need to treat him like a suicide bomber. That's why I shot him in the head. And I've dealt with suicide bombers before. There's stories in the book. It's so big and loud, and it's over fast. That if you don't shoot them in the head, you're going to die with them. And it was over before it started. I shot him.

GLENN: Did he have a vest?

ROBERT: No, he didn't. But I thought he did. He wasn't surrendering.

GLENN: All right. So you shoot him in the head. It's not like in the movies. They don't go flying back on the bed.

ROBERT: He fell straight down. His head went -- as I was looking at the bed, right to the bottom left-hand part of the bed -- his wife was there. And we just -- I grabbed her to move her aside. Gave her a brief search. Sat her on the bed. And I remember looking over, and his son was standing there. Like a 3-year-old. And I remember as a father just thinking, this poor guy has got nothing to do with this. And I picked him up and then moved him. And at that point, other SEALs are coming in the room. And that's when it kind of hit me. And a buddy came up to me and laughed. And he goes, are you all right? And I was like, yeah. What do we do now? And he smiled. And said, well, now we find the computers. You've done this hundreds of times. I'm like, yeah, you're right. I'm back. And he goes, yeah, bro. You just killed Bin Laden, so your life just changed. And we did the rest of our clearance. Found what we could electronically.

GLENN: What happened to his body?

ROBERT: We put it in a body bag. We carried him out on a helicopter. Brought him back and showed him to the admiral. Some of the analysts. Brought him to another spot. The FBI did a lot of DNA tests on him and photos. We handed him off to some rangers. They flew him out to the Persian Gulf and then disposed of him. That was it. It was a good call too. People ask about that too. And I get all the wild conspiracy theories about he was this and he was that. And you didn't kill him.

GLENN: I'm telling you, he's in the freezer next to Walt Disney, and the Jungle Book crew is right there. That's what's happening.

You've started a -- you've started a 501(c)(3).

ROBERT: Uh-huh.

GLENN: You've started a mission. It's -- your charity is YourGratefulNation.org. What is it?

ROBERT: Yes. I got out of the Navy at about 17 years, which is three years shy of a pension. And I realized how difficult you think it is to find a job. Because all you know is what you're doing. But you have skills especially as a veteran but especially as a special operator that employers want, which is stress management, team building, show up on time, loyalty, things like that. And they'll hire. And I talk to a lot of guys that want to get out, but they -- they'd rather go to combat than fill out a resume. Because at least combat makes sense. So what we do with Your Grateful Nation is we find out what line of work they want. It's individualized. Find out what they want. Where they want to live. We'll find that company. Get them a mentor. Put them through a nine-month program. And then they get placed in their second career. And it's -- the best email I get every other day -- you know, we placed Staff Sergeant Jones with this job with Fox Sports. Or we did this, and this guy is working at Merrill Lynch. And having the families -- the wives at some of the events we have, they'll just say, we couldn't have done this -- our family could not have done this without Your Grateful Nation. It's the best feeling. It's my passion --

GLENN: I'll tell you, the servicemen that I know -- and everybody has -- well, not a Bowe Bergdahl. But every -- you know, every profession has dirtbags in it. But there is a higher percentage of honor and integrity, I think, in the armed forces than any other --

ROBERT: Oh, no doubt about it. And the one thing you can't teach in college, that they said the military guys have is loyalty. They're so loyal. And, honestly, Your Grateful Nation started as, let's help the vets get jobs. Now it's, do you want to make your company better? We'll give you someone to --

GLENN: Are we still -- is the Navy that you went into, in '96, is it still the Navy that it -- I mean, a lot of parents that listen to this program are very concerned, especially over the last eight years. But they wonder what the rot has been. We've -- you know, we've taken out just war theory. I mean, we've changed fundamentally.

ROBERT: They -- a lot of the social experimentations affected it quite a bit. A lot of the verbiage -- like they said -- my favorite word, and I even use it in the book is shipmate. I love the word shipmate. They took it out of boot camp because it's derogatory. You can't call people shipmate. I love that term.

GLENN: Why is it derogatory?

ROBERT: They changed it to sea warrior.

GLENN: Oh, my gosh. Sea warrior.

ROBERT: I mean, that's just -- that's again hiding from the big elephant dungarees in the room. Come on.

GLENN: Oh, my gosh.

ROBERT: I mean, as far as the other stuff, there are places you don't need the military to test social experiments. I mean, should there be women in combat? Well, we've had women in combat. Should there be gays in the military? We have had gays in the military. Nobody cared. But the media wanted to make a big thing out of it. A big political thing. Said, yeah, they're here. They're doing fine. Why do we need to -- morale is so big in the military. In units in combat, you need to have morale high to succeed. And when you start putting nonsensical baggage on, it wears on the morale. There's no reason for it.

GLENN: Who is it we had in the last couple of weeks that was talking about the -- you know, all of the restrictions put on our military that, you know, it's --

ROBERT: Rules of engagement.

GLENN: Rules of engagement are just insane.

ROBERT: Yeah, that's a tough one. People shouldn't be wondering if they're going to go to jail for taking a shot when it's -- I had a -- a thought though, since we're experimenting. The person who is in an office typing up the rules of engagement, you should have someone shooting at them while they're typing.

(laughter)

How are you going to defend yourself? You sit there and type --

GLENN: The operator is the name of the book. Firing the shots that killed Osama bin Laden and my years as a SEAL team warrior.

Robert O'Neill writes it in a way that you are standing there behind and seeing everything and feeling everything that he felt. The Operator is the name of the book. And his charity, if you want to get involved, is YourGratefulNation.org. YourGratefulNation.org.

Thank you so much.

ROBERT: Thank you for having me.

GLENN: Appreciate it. You bet.

RADIO

"Rama-Hanu-Kwanz-Mas" - Glenn Beck's HILARIOUS Christmas Song that Triggered the Woke Left

For over two decades, the cultural battles surrounding Christmas have revealed a deeper transformation happening inside American life. What began as political correctness has evolved into a fractured culture where speech is policed, reactions explode into extremes, and sacred traditions are pushed to the margins. From the early warnings mocked in parody songs, to today’s chaotic backlash and misuse of “cancel culture,” the shift is unmistakable. Even the quiet beauty of A Charlie Brown Christmas—once a staple of American childhood—now feels radical, a reminder of the faith, truth, and simplicity our society has forgotten. This episode traces the long arc of how Christmas became a battleground in the modern culture war—and what that reveals about the country’s soul.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: So something I worked on this weekend from Glenn AI. It is our first -- our first -- I don't know if I should even announce it. I'm sure, I will not be proud of it soon. But our first offering from Glenn AI. And you'll be able to get it tomorrow.

You know, I thought -- I was thinking about a song we did years ago. Called Ramahanukwanzmas.

And I was thinking, in the time that we did that -- Stu, do you remember the year?

Sara, is it marked on the recording? What year -- it's not? It happened in 2003, Stu, do you know?

STU: I have to look it up. I probably have some record of it.
GLENN: Yeah, really early. Yeah, really early on.

And it was -- it was just as this, you know, war on Christmas thing was happening. And we were making fun of political correctness. And, you know. I was listening to it.

And I thought, oh, my gosh. This is so early on, that we were using words that you just wouldn't even use now.

You know, we were mocking this -- this coming political correctness.

Not knowing how bad it was really going to get. So I wrote putting Christ back in Christmas.

Kind of like, you know, enough. Enough. Enough. We're putting the Christ back in Christmas because we don't care.

That era is over. It's over. But here's where it began. Twenty-five, 27 years ago. Listen to this.
(music)

GLENN: Wow. I mean, did I hear the word "queer" in there? Not in the way that you would you use it today. What were we thinking?

STU: That's the technical definition of the word, at least one of them.

GLENN: Yeah.

STU: We think we used it appropriately. But, you know, I don't know. That was pretty -- like, I was looking quickly, like the YouTube there is a version of this, that if you remembered. When that song came out, we -- it played for a few years. And then some listener made an animation of the song.

And then it -- that animation was uploaded to YouTube, 17 years ago. And they called it a classic. Like, this is an animation of Glenn Beck's classic Christmas song.

So it's been a long time.

I don't know exactly how many years, but a lot of them.

It was before even the woke thing was a thing. What we were talking about was the precursor to the woke thing.

Which has now gone through so many different variations.

Where you had -- gosh, we must want to be politically correct. We should be able to say whatever we want.

And then you weren't able to say anything. And then you had, like, the George Floyd era, where you went to prison if you said anything then.

GLENN: I know. I know.

STU: Now we're on the other side of that.

And it's like, now everyone is saying everything sometimes to an extent that isn't necessarily -- necessarily appropriate.

Example of that, from over the weekend, was the Cinnabon story. Did you see this at all, Glenn?
GLENN: No, I didn't.

STU: The -- the woman working at Cinnabon, apparently has -- I think maybe Somalis come into the Cinnabon. I don't know. They get into some sort of argument. The phone turns on. They're filming her, as she tells them that she -- she calls him the N-word multiple times. And says that she's proud of being a racist.

And, you know, you might not be the shocked to hear that Cinnabon fired her for that. But see, I don't think that's cancel culture. Just so we can be clear.

GLENN: No. That's not cancel culture. No.

STU: No, I'm pretty sure it's difficult to employ someone calling customers of the store the N-word repeatedly, while working at the store.

GLENN: Right. And proud to be a racist. No. No, I don't.

STU: That's different. We lose track of these terms sometimes.

Now she's gone on to -- you know, one of these sites. I don't know if it's GoFundMe. But it's one of them, and people have put up, like, oh, gosh. She's been cancelled. Please help her.

And she's raised $100,000. It's like, you should not be rewarded for $100,000 for saying the N-word at Cinnabon.

GLENN: No, you should give that to rappers.

STU: Yes, somewhere again --

GLENN: Theater ones who should get the money for using the N-word.

STU: Yes, exactly.

GLENN: We've learned that how many times.

STU: I feel like we -- sometimes, when society makes a really bad call over a long period of time, people get angry and want to push back against that appropriately.

And that keeps extending itself until it's no longer an appropriate pushback against that bad thing.

It's just its own bad thing.

And I don't know. Maybe we should realize that.

GLENN: So when was the last time you watched a Charlie brown Christmas?

STU: It's a great question.

Probably last year. Or the year before.

I haven't watched it this year, yet.

GLENN: Yeah. I watched it last night. With my eldest daughter Mary.

And we watched it. And we've been talking about watching it for a while. We watched it last night. The night before dinner.

And you think that, oh. Simpler times.

Simpler times.

Look at, the gospel of Luke is in that.

Right?

Doesn't anyone know the real meaning of Christmas?
I do, Charlie Brown. That was not -- nobody thought that that special was going to work. Did you know this? The Charlie Brown Christmas. They thought was slow, boring, and way too sad.

And no child was going to -- was going to embrace it.

Coca-Cola went to CBS and said, I -- you want to talk about, it's all a giant syndicate, you know.

Coca-Cola went to CBS and said, we want a Christmas special to advertise in.

And so they went to this guy, Lee Mendelson, who had just done a documentary on Charles Schultz. And they had become friends with Charles Schultz.

And he said, you know. Would you do a Christmas thing?

And he said, I don't know.

I'll do it.

And so they went back and forth.

And the animator said that we have to have real children voices.

And I want to use a really sparse soundtrack. I just want to -- I mean, want to make the music really important.

So we went to the -- the jazz band, to do the Charlie Brown Christmas stuff.

And Charles Schultz said, I'll only do it if we include the gospel of you Luke. And CBS said, we can't put the gospel of Luke in there.

I mean, that's -- that's a bridge too far. Back in, what? 1964 or '65.

So the year -- I think it's the year after I'm born, it airs. So they're making this, while my mom is pushing me out. They're making the Charlie Brown Christmas. Okay?

And it was controversial back then, to put the Christmas story in.

They finish it. They expect it to last one year. Everybody at CBS is like, just don't tell Coca-Cola. Nobody is going to watch this thing. And it turned out to be, you know, a huge, huge blockbuster.

It ran for I think 35 years. Every single year. They only played it once. I remember as a kid, tonight is Charlie Brown.

Tonight is Charlie Brown. Don't forget. Tonight is Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer. And Frosty the Snowman. As a kid, it was the -- that's all you talked about on those days, on Christmas.

In the Christmas season. You would say, how many days until Charlie Brown. Don't forget. Watch it tonight. And we watched it for 35 years. On CBS.

Then it -- in 2001, it moved to ABC. And now it's on Apple TV. And they have all the peanut stuff.

But I was thinking as I watched last night, how much money has this made?

And who has you all that money?

Who got you all that money?

Who are still paying for these? It had to be a fortune. A fortune.

STU: Worth every penny.

Think about that. The exposure to -- like, you're rooting for the kid, talking about God!

Like what is that -- what an incredible dynamic, that played out.

It is unbelievable watching it. And how out of place that particular thing feels, in a way.

Because, you know, as you note, the sort of sparseness of the production of it.

The whole thing just stops. And there's that long walk to the stage, before he goes into the speech. It is really -- it totally draws can't attention.

GLENN: It was slowly in the 1960s. They say it was too slow in the 1960s.

So imagine -- I mean, that's why we feel it today. Imagine what our kids think about this. Oh, God. I watched three TikTok videos by the time Linus said there was something. And he said, turn on the lights!

It was like, it's crazy. It's crazy.

STU: It really is an amazing thing. And it has a way of drawing your attention in.

It's so sparse. And reasonable medical probability like, the pacing of it is so awkward. And especially in that moment. You can't help, but kind of lean in.

You know, you're like, wait. What's he about to say? Then he just goes into like, reading the Bible. It is -- it is an amazing moment in American television history. And thank God it exists! I mean, it is something that probably is introduced, you know. A ton of kids to this stuff for the first time.

RADIO

Why THIS viral claim about my new AI is IMPOSSIBLE

Glenn Beck recently made headlines for releasing a promo video of his upcoming interview with George AI. Outlets like Right Wing Watch and CNN claimed that George AI was just “echoing” Glenn’s beliefs. But Glenn explains why that’s “impossible.”

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Last week, was it last week? I introduced you to George AI. Now, what George AI is a proprietary AI system that has a giant electric fence around it. It has everything that the Founders from our collection, it will grow from here. But from our collection, it has the writings, the documents. The journals. The books that were written at the time, the books that they read, that they said influenced them.

The Federalist papers. All of this stuff. All in one proprietary AI system. And it can't go out and look for other things. It also must memorize everything.

Unlike an AI that can hallucinate, they hallucinate because AI is very good at remembering the beginning and the ending. But it's not good at the middle. So it will look at the beginning and the ending. And, yeah. And kind of, like, went like that.

No. It didn't go like that. Stop being lazy.

But ours memorizes every word. Word-for-word. And it can give you the words from the Founders in their own language which sounds really mechanical and reads. It's really hard to read.

Or it can, you know, dumb it down to my level or your level or your kids' level. And it can speak at our level. But it cannot change their words or their meaning.

We police this like crazy. And we're not releasing wide open to the public, until we have lots of beta testing.

Because we want to make sure we have caught everything because the last thing we want is anything that is -- is anybody's opinion, except for theirs!

You would be able to put in a bill, and say, is this constitutional?

Where does this violate the founding principles?

And it will tell you, you can put in a story and say, what are the principles that we lost that are causing this?

You could put in. Like we talked about today.

There was a story about the case that is in front of the Supreme Court right now. About, you know, having, you know, some sort of expert running, you know, the administration.

And the -- the president and Congress can't fire them.

Well, I know the answer to this. But I ask George AI.

I put the story in. And I said, what did the Founders say about things like this?

And I asked specifically about the Federalist papers. And it said, while it doesn't specifically talk about this.

It does say X, Y, and Z.

And as I explained earlier on the show, I mean, it may as well be explicit. Because it's talking about exactly the same thing. But that's what it does. Now, I released an interview that I did with George. Okay?

And it's so funny the reaction because Adam Kinzinger just said, this is the stupidest thing I've ever seen, and I was in Congress for 12 years.

Oh, well, Adam. Oh, okay. Yeah. I'm going to listen to you.

Right-wing watch, which I think is Soros-funded, oh, good. Glenn Beck has created an AI George Washington. You'll be shocked to learn that the AI George Washington, created by Glenn Beck sounds exactly like what would happen if a Glenn Beck built an AI George Washington, sound exactly like Glenn Beck.

Impossible! It's not speaking my word.

It's only speaking their words.

It's impossible. It has no information about me, at all.

There is no -- it is a firewall between Glenn AI and George AI. There is a firewall.

It has no outside information. It does not know who I am. It doesn't care who I am. It doesn't care who I am. It is only focused on their words.

Let me play, if we can, can we play a little bit of what I -- what I played, the actual George AI?

I just want you to -- I want to ask yourself because CNN. In fact, play the CNN clip.

CNN led with this last night.

Play that. Play that, if you will.

VOICE: The greatest danger to our republic lies not in foreign arms or political faction.

GLENN: May I just interrupt you for a second. Could you just dumb it down for a little bit?

VOICE: Okay. Wow. That is Glenn Beck, interviewing an AI version of George Washington, if you couldn't tell. Who is apparently ripped now, wearing a tight T-shirt. And he echoes Beck's beliefs. So for tonight's news at night cap.

GLENN: Stop. "He echoes Beck's beliefs."

So you cannot say that this is accurate. Because then you would have to say, I was right!

That I am interpreting the Founders in the correct way.

So you have to say, there's something wrong with this AI.

You know nothing about it. There is something wrong with this AI.

This can't do that.

This is just echoing Beck's beliefs. No. It's impossible for that to happen.

But they're making this into -- I mean, the tags on this are right-wing extremists.

George Washington extremism.

Play the actual George AI clip.

And tell me what's extremist about any anything that he is saying here?
(sot plays)
George, we have programmed a lot of information, given you a lot of information on what's going on in today's America. Based on your writings, the writings of the rest of the Founders, what is it that you feel is the biggest problem, or where we should start to fix things?

VOICE: If I may speak plainly, my countrymen, the danger. The greatest danger to our republic lies not in foreign arms or political faction. But --

GLENN: May I just interrupt you for a second.

Could you just dumb it down, just a little bit?

VOICE: Okay. I do have 29 points, and they're all referenced to exactly what we've said.

GLENN: Speak in today's language.

VOICE: Okay. Okay. I get it.

Let me speak to Americans: If I'm honest, America's biggest problem isn't political or economic. It's all moral. We've drifted from the virtues that make liberty possible in the first place. Freedom. To be free, you have to have insulin. You have to have faith.

You have to have character. And if you don't have any of those things, laws. Laws can't stop anything. And they mean little, government terms, weak or oppressive.
You have grown skeptical of truth. You're reckless with debt. You're comfortable blaming, instead of building anything. And in my time, we understood that self-governance begins with self-control. Do you even recognize what self-control is? Public virtue matters, more than public opinion. You keep electing these people, expecting things to change, but you haven't changed.

The fix is not going to be found in Washington, DC. It's going to be found in every home, every school, every heart.

You know, where are the citizens who value duty over comfort? Principle over popularity? America was built to be a moral and self-governing nation. It's only that foundation that will still save her.

GLENN: Okay. So how is that -- yes. It does sound like me. Yes, it does sound like me.
You know why? Because I sound like the Founders. That's why. I didn't -- I didn't -- I wish I could say, I made all this stuff up. I wish I could say I'm that brilliant. Yep. The Constitution and the founding documents, they all sound like me, once you dumb them down. No! No. I had to work through them, and I dumbed them down so I could understand them. And I've been saying them my whole life. And that's why he sounds like me because I sound like him. But the thing is, it's being labeled as extremism.

That we're supposed to be moral. We -- we have to have discipline, faith, character. Is that extreme? That our laws won't mean anything because nothing can hold it together, if we're not those things.

Government will either become too weak or too oppressive.

What do you disagree on that? How do you disagree with that?

Are we currently worried that we will become too weak? Or are we currently worried that we will become oppressive?

Either way, that's extreme. Because that's your view in the media. That Donald Trump is becoming oppressive. Right?

That we're growing skeptical of truth. How is anyone in the media thinking that's Glenn Beck, or that's -- you know, that's some extreme thing. Yeah. You know it. You know we're skeptical of the truth. You're the ones telling it to us, and you're the one with the dying rating. So that's clearer. You can't admit that America -- agree or disagree, that America is skeptical of truth? That we're reckless with debt? That we will not -- we point fingers to blame. We won't take any personal responsibility for anything, we won't self-govern? We have no self-control? That we -- we look for opinion over virtue?

That the answer won't be found in DC?

And that nothing will change, unless we change.
Wow, that's so unbelievably deep, isn't it!

Let me tell you why there's this -- this thing going around now. I mean, I've released three minutes of George AI.

Three. Three. Wait. Wait until next year.

Wait until by this time next year, wait until you see this thing open up full throttle. They are going to wet their pants. So they know, they know exactly what I'm doing. They know, they must discredit it. Because they know the power of AI. Because they've been using AI to lie to you. To manipulate you. To use algorithm to do all of that stuff. I'm not using any of those.
I'm not pushing this out. Hoping anybody will do anything with the algorithm. I want you to find it.

I am inviting you to ask him yourself. When you ask him, you can say, what are all the footnotes, do you see the points that come out on CNN? I have 26 points and they're all documented to what I said. Yeah. They had to cut that out. Because I'm providing that every time. Every time, you're on George AI, we'll show you the documents and where it comes from. They can't do that, they rely on opinion. George AI relies on documented fact.

And I can't wait for you to be a part of it, next year. January 5th. It will make their eyes bleed. And that gives me.

That's -- you know, blood is red. Their eyes. The white. And the red. It's like a candy cane. It makes me think of Christmas at this time.

RADIO

Trump FINALLY said the OBVIOUS part out loud

The media is furious because President Trump’s new National Security Strategy criticizes Europe...or they just misunderstand it. Glenn Beck reveals what this strategy actually says and why he’s ecstatic that someone is FINALLY saying these things!

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: So at the Reagan National defense forum over the weekend, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Dan Caine, Raizin Caine, hints at a possible conflict in our own neighborhood, and everyone is freaking out.

Here's cut one. Listen.

VOICE: Yeah, I mean, we -- we -- we have not.

If you have looked at the arc of our deployment history over the last few years, we haven't had a lot of American combat powering in our own neighborhood. I think that's -- I suspect that's probably going to change. We'll see what we're ordered to do.

And, of course, we follow that guidance. But we're definitely spending some time here now.

Oh, my gosh. He means war! And maybe in San Francisco!

No, he doesn't. Let -- can I just go through and give you the meaning of the national security strategy that just came out from the president?

And everyone is freaking out about it. And I think the president deserves a round of applause. The reason why everyone hates it, is because it is the exact opposite of what everyone told us for 100 years, we should be doing. And for 100 years, you've seen what we've done, and you've seen where it's gotten us: Nowhere, quickly.

America is standing in this doorway right now. And behind us is the chaos that we've just lived through.

We've missed thrift, bipartisan, you know, foreign policy class, that somehow managed to squander the greatest advantage that any nation has ever had. And just ahead, at least according to the National Security Strategy is a course correction so sweeping that honestly, it reads like a rediscovery of the American civilization itself.

Because this is what this document is.

It's not just a list of foreign policy goals.

It's a declaration of what America actually is. And what it must never allow itself to become, ever again.

For the first time in decades, the strategy knits, the obvious.

Okay?

We lost our way after the Cold War!

Yeah. Yeah. We did. Yeah. We tried to run the world while hallowing out the nation that -- that, you know, was supposed to do the running. We were hallowing ourselves out. We outsourced our factories. Our borders. Our sovereignty. And even God help us, our sense of purpose.

We have no purpose.

We treated global institutions as if they outrank the Constitution. And they don't.

We protected everybody else's borders, except we let ours collapse.

We defended, you know, abstract world orders, while neglecting the American worker who actually paid for everything.

And this new strategy has outlined. I mean, it just says what you've been saying for a long, long time.

Enough. Enough. I've had enough.

And it lays out what America -- what Americans and America should want!

And it starts with something, you know, really revolutionary in its simplicity. It says, we need a safe, sovereign republic. That protects its people.

Strong families. Strong industry. Strong borders. Strong energy.

And a renewed cultural -- culture that knows its own story, and isn't ashamed to tell it.

What is possibly wrong with all of that?

Strong borders. Strong family. Strong industry. Strong energy. Renewed culture that knows its own story and isn't ashamed to tell it. That's why everyone is freaking out because they don't want any of these things.

None of the elites want those things. A sovereign republic? No. He's laying out, we want the world's strongest military, but also the world's strongest economy. And the world's strongest spirit.

And without that, this policy says nothing else holds. And that's true!

And you know it's true. It says the era of mass migration is over. Not slowing it. Not managing it. But ending it.

We know that's true. It says, the government's job is to protect God-given rights. Okay. Where did you get that idea?

I don't know. The Declaration of Independence. Why is that controversial?

It's not to manipulate elections. It's not to police speech. It's not to hide behind bureaucratic language while crushing dissent.

All of that is found in the Bill of Rights. It's not controversial.

It demands allies actually act like allies and pay their fair share. Controversial? It doesn't seem like it. It promises reindustrialization. Did we learn anything from COVID?

Is it a bad idea to have everybody else make our stuff, and then we wait for boats?

Energy dominance, a national defense industrial base that's built for the world we actually live in. Not the world our think tanks wish existed.

And then it turns outward. Then it begins to look outward to Europe and the rest of the world, because the rest of the world is shifting under our feet right now.

And nobody is willing to say it. In the Western hemisphere, we should return to something that we should have never abandoned in the first place. And that's what Raizin Caine was just talking about. The Monroe Doctrine.

Call it the Trump corollary, but the principle is timeless. This hemisphere is ours to secure. And hostile powers will no longer get a free pass to set up shop in our backyard. How is that -- how is that controversial?

Cartels, it -- it outlines, will become a national security target. Manufacturing comes home. Partnership replaces dependency. Then it talks about Asia. And the message is really clear.

We'll compete with China. Economically, technologically, and militarily, and we'll do it from a position of strength. Not by pretending that Beijing is suddenly going to go, you know what. We're just a giant, friendly teddy bear.

No. No. We're going to do it by accepting the reality and prepare accordingly.

But we'll still work with you.

Just don't become an enemy of ours. And we won't become an enemy of yours. That means that we have to rebuild industry.

It means we have to secure the minerals. We have to dominate the technologies of the future. It means that we ensure that no single power controls the Indo-Pacific walkways that keep the global economy alive.

Hello! China. Taiwan. Japan.

Then it gets to Europe. Which, you know, of course, if you have colonial eyes. Oh, my gosh.
All this document says is what European leaders won't even dare whisper. Europe is dying. The entire continent is dying. Not just economically, but as a civilization. The Western civilization is dying!

Declining bitter rates. Uncontrolled migration. Censorship. Loss of identity. Regulatory suffocation. We would like Europe to be strong again. Europe to be Europe again! Stable. Sovereign. Confident. Peace in Iran.

Stability with Russia!

Revival at home.

That's what America would be like. Because it would be good for us. But it would also be good Europe.

Because if Europe collapses into chaos, the entire Western world will pay the price, and it will be a very heavy price.

But they don't like that. Oh, no. You can't say that.

Oh, Europe is pissed at us for saying that. Gang, we all know. Look at Europe. They're dying. They're dying!

It won't be long. And if they don't change their ways, and they do fall, this document also says something else.

We're not going to honor NATO for any country that falls. You become a Muslim country, you're not a NATO country.

You fall and you're some other country.

You're not a NATO country.

We're not defending you. Now, in the Middle East, this document says, the forever wars is over. We declare them over.

How is that not a good thing, that we should all be celebrating? And not because the region suddenly became peaceful, but because America is finally strong enough strategically, diplomatically, militarily. To shift from a constant crisis management to long-term stabilization. Iran has been weakened. Israel has been backed. The Abrahamic Accords have been expanding. Energy dominance has returned to the US.

What does that do?

Well, that reduces the old chains that kept us entangled in every sand dune from Syria to Yemen!

We're out. Finally, Africa.

My gosh, what we have done to Africa with our State Department and USAID.

All we do is export ideology instead of opportunity.

He says -- Trump says, in this national security document, that's over.

We're flipping the strategy. Trade, minerals, energy, peace deals. No more lectures. No more nation building. No more endless aid with no accountability. Does any of this sound scary to you?

Does any of this sound crazy to you?

I -- I don't think so. It's saying everything that seems common sense to me. It's saying, America is allowed finally to love itself again and to be who she should be.

And let everyone else be who they should be. You know, it has a right and responsibility to defend itself first! To put its people first!

It's saying sovereignty is not a dirty word. Borders are not immoral. American workers are not expendable. Free speech is not negotiable. The nation state, not the NGO. Not the global boardroom.

Not the transnational committee. That's the fundamental building block of a free world.

How is this bad again? How is it that this is so dangerous?

In short, it's a blueprint for a country that wants to live again. Really live again.

Now, the question is: Do we -- is the president reflecting the national spirit?

Do we want to live again? Do we want to be relegated to the dustbin of history, or does America have other great work to do?

Because that's really the question.

Which is it that you believe?

Which is it that you want?

I want a strong nation. I want our youth. I want, you know, people coming out of college. To have jobs. To be able to buy a house.

I want those things.

I think they're necessary. I think they're important. I think it's just as important to understand our history.

To know who we are. To not be ashamed.

Learn from it. But not be ashamed of it.

We didn't do it. Our forbearers did.

We learned from it. We are better than that.

My gosh. Oh.

I read these freakouts. And I honestly think, my gosh, am I living in a -- I'm living in some weird parallel world, where I read all of these newspapers and magazines and everything else. With their commentary today about the national security.

And they're all freaking out.

Saying, this is the worth thing he can do.

He's going to tear the whole country. The whole nation, and the world apart.

No. He's just stating what people feel.

And not just Americans. Go talk to the people in Europe.

Ask them. Take this document and make it about England. And see if all the people in England tonight can see exactly the same way.

And if you put a name attached to it, it wouldn't get that person elected. It would. It would. Because everybody is feeling the same way about their own country.

I don't have a problem with the rest of the world.

But it's time for us to concentrate on us. It's time to concentrate on saying, you know what, there's something special about us. England can say that. They brought us the Magna Carta. They are now torching the Magna Carta. I would love to hear that story.

The things that make France, France. I don't know. The whining and everything else. That is unique to France. Italy. Germany. It's unique to them.

I want them to be those guys. I don't want them to be another version of us. I want them to be them. I want them to do well. And be part of the family of man and the family of nations.

But I don't want anything to do with whatever they do, they do.

Same thing with Israel. And Saudi Arabia. You do you, boo. We're going to do us.

When we can get together, we will. Don't screw with us. And we won't screw with you.

This is our national strategy. That's exactly what our national strategy.

I say amen, President Trump!

Finally. Finally somebody is saying what everyone is thinking.

This is like you've gone to school, you know, for 18,000 years.

You're some -- yeah. Some doctorate in God only knows. International development and studies.

Women's studies.

Unless you've got that!

You're looking at that, and going, yeah. All that makes sense.

All of that makes sense. Now, the question is: Do we want it?

And will the people actually back it?

Because strategy on paper, that's only words.

Until a nation finally finds the courage to believe in itself again. And say, that's what we must do.

RADIO

Magna Carta under threat: UK's dangerous shift AWAY from freedom

The United Kingdom is now arresting over 12,000 people a year for "speech crimes" and is debating doing away with trial by jury for many crimes. Glenn Beck warns that if this can be done in the birthplace of these principles (under the Magna Carta), it can happen to the entire West if we don't END this insanity now!

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: So let me just start here. Because there is -- there is another story that is out in our newsletter today, that talks about how people of college age are freaking out, after Charlie Kirk's death. They don't want anything controversial on campus.

I mean, that's the reason why colleges and universities had protection of free speech, in the first place.

Was to be controversial. To be able to say the things that nobody wants you to say.

And it's really important.

But let me -- let me first remind people of what the Magna Carta is.

It's 1215? The Magna Carta is Latin for the great chart.

Had it not some magnanimous gift from the king.

The king. King John from England. He was -- he was losing a battle. France was just cleaning England's clock.

The baryons and all the lords and the ladies. Said, you know, this king sucks a lot. This king sucks a lot.

And we've got to stop him. Because he's destroying everything.

And he -- he had lost most of the land, to France. And then he started just imposing huge taxes on everybody. And -- and because nobody in the lower class had any -- this all happened with the lords and the ladies. And they were like, enough. Enough. Enough.

You're abusing your royal power.

Well, nobody had ever said that before. That just didn't happen. He had a divine right. He's the king. But in England, they said, no.

You still have to be moral. You have certain laws, and you can't just do these things.

And so what they did, is they got him to agree to the great charter, the Magna Carta. And it placed the king under the law. Before that, the king was the law. So now the king is under the law: It created the principle of due process. Never before did we have that.

You can't be imprisoned, punishment or stripped of property, except by the lawful judgment of your peers or the law of the land. So this creates jury trials. It creates habeas corpus. Protection from arbitrary arrests. All of these things. The government now has to justify itself in a court of law.

That's revolutionary, okay? It also limited taxation without consent. Which we interpreted later as no taxation without representation. Rule of law. Jury trials. Rights of the accused.

Limits on government. Protection of property. Accountability of leaders. All of that comes from the Magna Carta. Okay?

That gave birth, 500 years later, to us and our ideas. Okay?

Now, England, the birthplace of the Magna Carta is now thinking about getting rid of jury trials and arresting more than 12,000 people every year for what they call speech crimes. 12,000!
Now, I want you to think about that.

In Russia, in the same year this stat came out. The latest year that we have, 2023. In 2023, Russia arrested 4,000 people for speech crimes against the Russian military for Ukraine.

4,000 in Russia, 12,000 in England.

The number I saw. We don't have all the numbers. But the number I saw that were arrested for speech crimes in China was 120.

Okay?

Not for violence. Not for theft.

Not for treason.

12,000 in England for words.

Okay. Now, well, that's going on, now the Prime Minister is floating the idea of eliminating, if not most, many jury trials.

It will only be for murder, manslaughter, oh, and something else like that.

Okay?

So, in other words, if you're like, I believe you should be able to read the Bible in your own language, in your own home, Tisdale.

You don't get any hope. You don't get a jury trial. You get the court. You get the king trying you, not a jury of your peers.

This goes against the Magna Carta, the lawful judgment of your peers. Okay?

That's the safeguard that stands between you and an out-of-control state. This is the first and ancient firewall against tyranny. It is what makes England, England.

And if England of all places, tosses that aside, what does the word "free" mean anymore?

Okay? What does it mean? You can't speak, and then you have no jury -- trial of your peers. Wait. What? First of all, understand this: A nation that polices speech is not free!

A nation that dissolves juries is not just unfree, it's prepping for something worse!

Because the entire architecture of the western world, the liberty that we have, rests on a single radical belief.

The truth does not need a king. The truth shall set you free. Who? Is it not what. Who is the truth? Okay.

No king, but Christ. Because Christ is the truth. That's the Western world!

A person's conscience does not need a permit. Speech does not need a bureaucrat's approval before it leaves your lips! That's the West.

That's what built the world. What took it from darkness, to today.

Freedom is not granted we the state. Freedom preexists government.

Government's only legitimate job is to protect it!

Now, here's the dark little secret, that every single tyrant, and every politician knows today. If you control speech, you control thought. If you control thought, you control people.

If you control people, you don't ever have to worry about controlling the government because no one will ever challenge you again!

This is why it is so essential for any side to go, you can't talk to them.

Don't talk to them. Don't listen. Don't question.

You can't hear that. No. They can say whatever they want. But I have a right to refute it. That's why free speech has to be absolute. Not mostly free.

Not free unless it makes Billy over there cry and uncomfortable.

No. I'm sorry, Billy. You don't like it. Refute it.

Freedom that depends on somebody else's freedoms is not freedom!

Freedom that requires government approval is not freedom! Freedom that can be revoked because a bureaucrat doesn't like your tone is not freedom. Once speech becomes conditional, everything become conditional. Your rights, your property, your conscience, your place in society. Because you only live by permission! Never by principle!

We live by principles. Not people!

Who is actually free?

Who is actually free?

The England that once declared the king himself to be subject of law, or the England that now arrests a man because he's posted the wrong meme?

12,000 people!

Can't find one in 2023 that was arrested for that in America. Not one. The England that gave us John Locke, the philosopher of natural rights. Is that person free?

Or the England that now warns citizens that context doesn't matter, if their words cause someone, anyone, emotional harm.

Britain is about loss. But this is not just a British problem. This is the canary in the coal mine for the entire west.

Because these are the people that came up with it. When the mother country forgets its own legacy, jury trials and freedom of speech. When the random that once stared down monarchs now cowers before hashtags and activists and speech tribunals, than somewhere deep inside the Western soul, a light is flickering.

We must remember here, before that same darkness reaches our shores. Because it's already coming on to our beaches. It's already there. There is no such thing as partial liberty. Freedom of speech is the First Amendment for a reason!

It is the guardrail for every other right!

If you lose the First Amendment, you've lost freedom. And if you lose the Second Amendment, you've lost the ability to defend that first freedom.
It's number one for a reason!

You must be allowed to speak, to gather.

To have a free press!

To question your government. You must have those abilities. You must be able to say, especially about government, the worst things about your government! And question them.

And demand answers. To petition them.

That's all in the First Amendment.

It is the pressure valve that prevents so it's from blowing itself up.

The more we contain speech. The more we say, don't talk about. Don't talk about. Can't say that. Can't say that.

The more the pressure builds up. The more likely we blow ourselves up.

It's the mechanism where the powerless can speak to the powerful.

It's the shield that protects dissenters. Unpopular thinkers, prophets, reformers. And, yes, even the offensive.

Look, there are, quote, unquote, historians now who are getting all kinds of bullcrap about Hitler and everything else.

None of that is true. I don't want to silence them. They have a right to say it.

I have a right to say you're wrong! And show you the evidence of what makes them wrong.

That's the way it works. England is about to forget all of this!

They are truly the birthplace of these kinds of ideas, and those ideas led to our idea of real freedom!

No king!

If they forget this, we cannot -- we believe so -- because there won't be anywhere else in the world to go.

The lesson of history, the lesson that history whispers quietly at first. Then louder. And then finally. And we're about at this point, with a scream!

Is that when a state describes which words are allowed, it will eventually decide which thoughts are allowed. Which beliefs are allowed.

Which citizens are allowed.

In the end, in the end, the prisons don't need bars.

The cell will be in your own mind!

Do you understand that, America?
Do your kids understand that?

We don't even know what it means to be free. I thought this weekend, a lot about as opposed to truth shall set you free.

Thought about a lot. In fact, maybe I'll talk to you about it in a minute or so.

Because I don't think people understand what it means to be free.

We think everybody in the world is free. They're not!

And you're about to really find that out!

You want to be tree, or do you want to be safe? Because you cannot have both.

When safety is defined by those who fear your liberty. It's over!

We used to be people who would explore. We were people that crossed the oceans when everyone said we couldn't. We -- we went to space when everyone said, it's impossible. We crossed mountains that no one had ever crossed. We forged -- we forged a nation of really different people. And lived side by side for so long, yes. With bloodshed from time to time. But generally, in ways that nobody had ever done before. Freedom. Freedom is grand. But it's really dangerous. It's messy. Freedom offends you, a lot. Get over it.

Real freedom, real freedom is the only thing that has ever allowed the human spirit to rise above a king. Above a tyrant. Above the mob. Above the bureaucrats. Real freedom that belongs to you. Given to you by God. And that's what they're about to lose in England. The Magna Carta. The simple idea. No man. Not even a king. No man is above the law. Do we have that here?

Do you think no man is above the law? Or do you think there is a class up in the political range, somewhere, that if you're on the right side, don't worry about jail. That's what the Magna Carta tried to stop. That's what we have forgotten even, and they're about to get rid of it entirely.

The modern west is drifting into far more -- far more sinister creed. No man is above offense.

And that is how civilizations fall.

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