GLENN: Where does America go from here?
We are at a crossroads. And we have more things that are coming our way -- economic troubles. We have more decisions to make, and there's a lot of things that the media is just not paying attention to.
Last night, on 60 Minutes, Steve Bannon -- they did an interview with Steve Bannon. And you're going to hear a lot of talk about it. Probably not with you. But you'll hear talk about it with radio and television. And the media will have the story all wrong. Because what they're going to focus on is Steve Bannon and racism.
They want to focus -- and Charlie Rose did this. They wanted to focus on immigration and racism and everything else. I want you to listen to what he said here. Because the media won't. And somebody needs to point this out. Listen.
VOICE: There's no path to citizenship. No path to a green card. And no amnesty. Amnesty is non-negotiable.
VOICE: America was in the eyes of so many people. And it's what people respect America for, it is people have been able to come here, find a place, contribute to the economy. That's what immigration has been in America.
And you seem to want to turn it around and stop it.
VOICE: You couldn't be more dead wrong. America was built on her citizens.
VOICE: We're all immigrants, except for the Native Americans who were here.
VOICE: America was built -- this is the thing of the left: Charlie, that's beneath you.
America is built on her citizens. Look at the 19th century. What built America is called the American system. From Hamilton, to Polk, to Henry Clay, to Lincoln, to the Roosevelts. A system of protection of our manufacturing. Financial system that lends to manufacturers. Okay? And a control of our borders. Economic nationalism is what this country was built on. The American system. Right? We go back to that. We look after our own. We look after our citizens. We look after our manufacturing base, and guess what, this country is going to be greater, more united, more powerful than it's every been. This is not astrophysics.
GLENN: So as I'm watching this last night, I'm thinking to myself, "Is anybody noticing what he's just done?" He starts out with something like, "Amnesty is off the table."
And there's a lot of conservatives -- and I'm one of them. I don't agree with amnesty. However, we have to have a discussion on what do we do? What does an actual plan look like going forward?
So we get stopped there. But we're not listening to what he's saying. Remember, he's talking about white supremacists. White nationalists.
The Nazis are white nationalists. They're not just white supremacists. And that's where this is getting lost. You just stop at the white part.
Well, those guys are racist. Okay. Well, that's kind of a big deal.
But that's not all the Nazis are. They're white nationalists. So Donald Trump or Bannon or whoever -- I don't know. He may be racist. He may not be racist. I don't think the president is a racist.
I've -- I've heard that when you speculate on the president and if he's a racist or not, you get into trouble. Well, that was the last one. Everybody can speculate on this one.
I do know this: That the president and Steve Bannon do believe in economic nationalism. What is that?
You know, it's -- it's strange because I've never heard from conservatives say, "You know, Alexander Hamilton and Polk -- well, Polk was great." The Polk talk I've missed. And then to hear, Polk, Clay, Hamilton, FDR, Lincoln.
Okay. Wait a minute. Hang on just a second. You'll notice he called it the American system. The American system is Henry Clay's system. Now, this is what he said built America. The American system is three parts: One, a tariff on other countries to protect all American industry. Two, a national Federal Reserve Bank. A national bank. Three, federal subsidies for roads, canals, infrastructure. And, by the way, Hamilton added one extra and that was public schools. An American federal public school.
So if you are sitting here listening to him, I want you to know what he is fighting for and what the president -- he says -- at least he says the president is fighting for is tariffs, a central bank, infrastructure bailouts, and federalized schools.
That is the American system that he just quoted. You know who is for that? Socialists. In particular, national socialists.
And the -- the third thing to add to that would be supremacists. White, black, it doesn't matter. People who believe that they are better than everyone else, and they can form a nationalized system that will control everything. It usually ends up being, well, we've got to get rid of some of these inferior people.
That is what Bannon is pushing for. That is what nationalism and the American system actually means.
GLENN: It's really interesting, this economic nationalism that Steve Bannon was talking about on 60 Minutes. And I want you to understand that white nationalism, the -- the racist part, is only half of it. That's only half.
The reason why -- the reason why the Nazis are so spooky is, they have the ability, through a nationalized government of every strong centralized government, to kill everybody they disagree with. That's the problem.
You know, Bill the Nazi down the street is a problem. I don't like Bill the Nazi. I don't know Bill the Nazi. And I want my kids to stay away from Bill the Nazi. But Bill the Nazi is not rounding people up, because he doesn't have the government to do it.
STU: You need that infrastructure to be able to accomplish those tasks. That's why we argue for small government all the time.
GLENN: Correct. Yes.
So you can say, "Well, I disagree with all that, that racist part." But if you're not paying attention to the nationalist part, that's a problem. That's a real problem.
STU: It's -- it creates the conditions that terrible things like that, like the Holocaust are possible. Right? Now, obviously we're not talking about the exact same system here. But it's that strain of nationalism that led in Germany and many other places.
GLENN: With the Nazis here in America, you are talking about exactly the same strain. You're not talking about it with Bannon, per se.
STU: No.
GLENN: I don't know if -- I don't want to say that Bannon is a racist, you know, or a white supremacist at all. I don't think he is. But --
STU: He --
GLENN: He is playing footsy with those people and only condemning half of the ideology. And the scary part of the ideology is having the conditions to where you can force that ideology on others. And that's the nationalist part.
STU: One of the things Bannon did before he came into the political eye was he worked for a company, I think it was World of Warcraft, the video game. And in there, you mine for fake video game gold. And he started working for a company that hired farms of people to mine the fake video game gold and sell the gold -- the fake gold, to people for real money that played the game.
So they would have people go in by the thousands and play the game to get these credits, right? And sell the credits to people who liked playing the game, but didn't want to work so hard for the credits. And they'd pay money for them.
Now, the business was a complete disaster, as many of his have been. And it fell apart in a sort of catastrophe situation. However, the interesting part of it was that was where he sort of found the fuel. Because that gaming community was so insular and so passionate, that he found, those sort of quirky weird movements could provide a lot of fuel for a much larger movement. And that's where it's believed he got the idea to bring in the movements like the alt-right and take the energy that they had through these really passionate niche sort of beliefs, to drive a candidate, if he could -- if he could find -- if he could convince them that this candidate was friendly to them.
GLENN: See, here's the problem with this, is the average person is being driven right into the arms of -- of these spooky people, quite honestly. Driven right into them. And I don't think most people understand how that is happening.
Can we play cut three? Mike Lee. Mike Lee is fighting for religious freedom. And the reason why this is happening is -- something we're going to address next hour, that happened on Capitol Hill, where senators were questioning a person's Catholicism and saying, "I'm not sure if you're qualified to be able to serve in the federal government," because you are a Catholic.
It was crazy. Now, listen to what the warning is here from Mike Lee.
MIKE: Another one of my colleagues, he even went so far as to ask Professor Barrett to confess her faith under oath in the committee.
"What's an orthodox Catholic," this committee member asked. "Do you consider yourself an orthodox Catholic?" If these remarks had been some sort of bizarre, one time aberration, I probably would have passed them over, in silence.
But I feel compelled to speak out. Because I wonder whether a pattern might be emerging, a pattern of a hostility toward people of faith who come before this body.
Just a few months ago, another eminently qualified nominee, Russell Vought appeared before the Budget Committee to be considered for a post at the Office of Management and Budget.
One of my Senate colleagues used his time to question this nominee. Not about managements. Not about management or about budgets, but about the nominee's evangelical Christian beliefs.
"In your judgment," asked this senator, "Do you think that people who are not Christians are going to be condemned?"
Now, Mr. Vought explained to the committee that he is an evangelical Christian and that he adheres to the beliefs espoused by evangelical Christians. But that apparently wasn't good enough for the questioner who later stated that he would vote against Mr. Vought's nomination because he was not -- and I quote, what this country is supposed to be about.
This is disturbing. This is not what the country is supposed to be about. Some sort of inquiry into one's religious beliefs, as a condition precedent for holding office in the United States government. These strange questions have nothing to do with the nominee's competence or patriotism, or ability to serve among and for Americans of different faiths, equally.
In fact, they have little to do with this life at all. Instead, they have to do with the afterlife, what comes after we die, in this life.
To my knowledge, the ONB and the Seventh Circuit have no jurisdiction over that. This country is divided enough. Millions of Americans feel that Washington, DC, and the dominant culture despise them. And how could they not when they see their leaders sitting here, grilling patriotic citizens about their faith, like inquisitors? How could they not feel like their values are not welcomed in this chamber, within this government?
Religious freedom is of deep concern to me, as a Mormon.
GLENN: Did you hear what he just said, that people feel like their leaders despise them.
This is a very dangerous seed to plant. And, quite honestly, both parties -- and not just on religious terms -- you know and I know, Mitch McConnell, he doesn't like you.
The people who are the upper ends of the party, they don't like you. They're embarrassed by you. That is a dangerous seed to plant.
And they've been planting those seeds in Washington for a while. And that's what gives people like Bannon and white nationalists, black nationalists, Antifa -- it gives them the opportunity to grow, because you need a protector. We need to change that culture.
