BLOGFebruary 20, 2018

Our Nation Is Suffering an Epidemic of 'Fatherless' Children

James and Kimberly Snead, the couple who welcomed Nikolas Cruz into their home after his adoptive mother died in November, described the 19-year-old Florida school shooter as “very polite” and “normal,” during an interview on “Good Morning America” Monday. James Snead and his wife had tried to help Nikolas by letting him move in with them when his adoptive mother died last November. His adoptive father died in 2004.

“The latest school shooting in Florida is the ultimate nightmare,” said Glenn on the show today. “I don’t care who you are, it hurts your heart. Our hearts ache for the families of the murdered and injured students. There aren’t words for this kind of tragedy.”

Here’s One Way We’re All Losing in the Gun Control Debate

Besides being a young male, the Florida shooter has something else in common with almost every single mass shooter in recent years — he grew up without a father, noted Glenn. “This isn’t to drum up sympathy for the murderers. And obviously, not everyone who grows up without a father has their life ruined, becomes a criminal, or worse. But America has an epidemic of fatherless homes and we are only getting worse.”

In 1960, just 5 percent of American children were born out of wedlock; today it’s over 40 percent. “Marriage means nothing to people,” Glenn said. “Our society is feeling the stress of more than half a century of this epidemic. So many of our children are lost and it’s getting worse.”

This article provided courtesy of TheBlaze.

GLENN: Where do we begin today?

I guess the quote, "He looked lost, absolutely lost." That's the way that James Snead described the 19-year-old Florida school shooter. He saw him up close. He was led inside of police headquarters in handcuffs.

James Snead and his wife had tried to help the teenager.

They had been -- they took him in. He was living with them. The shooter's mom who had adopted him when he was a baby, died last November. His adopted father died in 2004.

So this couple took him in. The latest school shooting in Florida is the ultimate nightmare. And I don't care who you are. It hurts your heart.

Our hearts ache for the families of the murdered and injured students. And there aren't any words for this kind of tragedy.

It's unreal to me that we're referring to this as the, quote, latest school shooting. We are caught in a vicious cycle of tragedy. And it's dividing us, because we're all trying to win.

We're -- we're pointing fingers. We're blaming. And we're -- we're making the other side into monsters.

When something like this happens, it's natural to scramble to pinpoint something or someone to blame. It's the human way of trying to make sense of a tragedy and trying to make things better.

It's the gun. It's the person. It's the FBI. It's the social services. It's the school district.

We all want to prevent this. All of us who -- those who believe in the Second Amendment and those who don't, we all want to solve this. But nobody has all the answers. And there isn't a single solution. And -- and we as a people are being pushed into ridiculous corners. The political hard left sees no issue other than guns. And you'll notice, it's, why won't the Republicans do anything?

And the hard political right sees no issue beyond gun rights. They're just coming after our guns.

Well, they can argue all they want. But that leaves this huge, deep canyon of problems, all in the middle, that everyone is refusing to even look at.

We're sick as a society. A kid could have walked in the 1960s into any gun store and bought any gun and all the ammunition he wanted at any time and no questions asked.

We didn't have shooters. There were more guns per capita 150 years ago than there are now. We didn't have people going in and doing this. Why?

What is happening to us? It is clearly not the gun! There is something deeply wrong and ill in our society.

Have you heard anybody talk about this one fact? The Florida shooter had something else in common with almost every other single mass murderer in recent years.

He grew up without a father. Why aren't we talking about that? The data is so clear about the links between fatherless children and violence and suicide and dropping out of school and drug and alcohol abuse.

Of the deadliest mass shootings in the last 15 years, nine of them were committed by males under 30 years old. Seven of those nine came from fatherless homes.

Now, this isn't to drum up -- oh, we're trying to -- no, we're not. We're trying to understand it.

And obviously, not everybody who grew up without a father has their life ruined, becomes a criminal, becomes a murderer. But America has an epidemic of fatherless homes! And we are only getting worse.

We are now saying that every single choice is acceptable, when we don't know if that is true.

We're conducting a grand experiment on the human race. And we have no idea -- do you know what really -- really the effects are, of your kids on social media? No. We can guess. I can tell you this, the leaders of Silicon Valley, they don't have their kids on Facebook. They don't have their kids on Instagram.

What do they know that we don't?

We don't know what that effect will be in 20, 30 years. It may be nothing.

How about video games? How about violent movies? Do you know that the -- that you can say all you want, my kids know. Well, they don't. Until they're 24, they don't.

The brain is different in children. Do you also know that even your brain, it doesn't separate fact from fiction. You can. You can.

You can look at that and go, well, that was a movie. But your brain processes the traumas exactly the same thing, as if you would have seen it firsthand. How many murders have we all seen? How many violent murders have we all seen?

Have we even noticed that heads pop on the screen now? That people take head shots and they pop and you see the gore?

Where were the people that used to say all the time, well, I don't want to see all the gore. That's in everything now.

You know, this -- this kid, he shot two people in the head. Head shots are pretty difficult.

Not only are they difficult in skill level, head shots are also really difficult emotionally. It -- it took us over 100 years to get people to do head shots on the first time shooting a human being.

There are so many problems. But can we talk about some of them that we can solve? In 1960, 5 percent of American children were born out of wedlock. Today, that's over 40. Forty! And it's not getting better, because marriage means nothing to people.

Why does it mean nothing? I hear the lecture my grandmother gave me. Do you think my grandfather and I loved each other all those years? Well, yeah, grandma, I kind of did. No. Marriage is hard.

Sometimes we chose just to stick it out, because we were married and it meant something. I don't want to bring more anger and divisiveness, boy, that is the problem. Our society is feeling the stress of more than half a century of this epidemic.

So many of our children are lost. And it's getting worse. Look at the depression and suicide rates. It's getting worse.

They have no moral compass. No truth to anchor their souls. Our schools, we should remove guns. Well, you've already taught them that you use a finger gun and it's dangerous. And yet, it seems to be getting worse, because the problem is in the soul. The problem is inside each of us.

How many of our kids are growing up without an identity? Or, you know what, a fake identity. They're growing up with a fake identity. Everything is great. You're perfect. You're special.

You know what, that's a lie. You're not -- I'm sorry. Your singing wasn't so good. Let's find some things that you are good at. Because everything is good at something. Just, not everybody is great at that.

Our kids don't know who they are. In the US, genealogy websites are the second most visited category site, after pornography.

Genealogy. Why? People are trying to figure out who they are. What is true? Where did I come from?

Having a father isn't a guarantee of anything. It's not a cure all. We make our own choices. We're responsible for our own choices. And there are plenty of abusive, or fathers that are in the home, but are completely absent. Trying to be a good dad. Seems like a niche thing these days. Trying to be a good man, I don't even know what that means. How do we expect a teenage boy to understand what a man is, when you can't even talk about it?

Try to understand what a -- what is a man? Tell me, what is a man? What is a good man? Is a good man a guy who picks up the recent Sports Illustrated bikini issue that doesn't have them in bikinis at all, but has -- what is it? No more hashtag bullcrap written all over their bodies, so we can teach our kids not to objectify women, through the objectification of women. Oh, my gosh. How do you expect a young man to grow up? How do you expect them to know what's right and what's wrong? What's up and what's down?

Our society is running the narrative right now that men are bad. That we don't place cultural value on masculine influence. We think we've evolved beyond the need for fathers. We don't need them anymore. Because they've done too much damage, you know.

And, men, you're not off the hook. We have not done ourselves any favors with our behavior. Too many of us are pigs. Too many of us are lazy. Too many of us are absent. And I include myself in these.

The unpopular truth is, we need a nuclear family. We need a father. We need to know what a man is.

The nuclear family is -- is not -- is not something from the 1950s. It's from the beginning of time. It's the bedrock of every society. And our bedrock has deep cracks into it. And it is starting to shake into sand.

You want to know what you can do? If you're a dad, dig in and do better. If you have the means, reach out and be a father figure to somebody who doesn't have a father.

We can make a bunch of reactionary laws, but laws mean nothing. Eventually, we can all be in a prison. And somebody will still be shivved in the prison, because it's not the shiv or the gun, it's what's inside.

And these reactionary laws will make us feel better for a while. Because we fixed it. But you cannot legislate the deepest needs of the human soul. And those deepest needs are to be known, to be heard. To have a place, to be accepted, and to be loved.

RADIO

The Most SHOCKING Moments of Glenn's White House Visit with Trump

Glenn shares behind-the-scenes stories from his incredible trip to Washington, DC, and the White House. When Glenn sat down for an exclusive interview with President Trump, he didn’t think Trump would also give him a personal tour of the White House, including the Oval Office, his latest troll of Hillary Clinton, and even his personal residence and the Lincoln Bedroom. Glenn describes the historic treasures Trump showed him, like a copy of the Gettysburg Address. But Glenn can’t tell his favorite parts of the day because of an NDA. But he gives a hint: Trump is NOT at all who the media portrays him as.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

STU: Welcome back, Glenn. Back from DC.

GLENN: Thank you. Interesting week.

STU: I bet it was.

GLENN: Interesting week.

STU: Yeah.

GLENN: Learned an awful lot. I've got to go up at least a quarter. Every quarter. There is so much going on. It is moving so fast. And you get a -- you get a completely different perspective when you're actually there talking to the people that are moving the pieces. And I had a lot of conversations that I can't divulge on the air.

I can't say, unfortunately -- I was with the president yesterday.

And it was an incredible, absolutely incredible -- and the thing I was most excited to share was his heart. He -- it was amazing.

Did the interview. Went into the Oval Office. And he left me alone with my wife in the Oval Office for like five minutes. Now, I'm like.

He was lucky, I didn't go through the drawers.

You know, I look -- where is that little hidden puzzle piece, that I saw on national archive.

But, I mean, he left us alone for five minutes. Nobody is left alone in the Oval for five minutes.

And he walks in five minutes later. Tania was so uncomfortable. Like, I don't know what to say.

What do I do?

And I'm like, they said, make yourself comfortable.

So have a seat, wherever you want. You know, probably not behind the desk. But have a seat. So we just go around. And I was alone with the Declaration of Independence. I mean, it was incredible in the Oval Office!

STU: Any part of you think, maybe I just kind of put -- fold it up. Put it in my pocket. Nobody notices. None of that?

GLENN: No. Uh-uh.

STU: Darn it.

GLENN: This is the first time I've been in the Oval Office. The first time you're overwhelmed. The first time you're like -- because it's a magical place. It really is a magical place.

STU: Sure.

GLENN: And so he said, he walks in. And he's like, you know, nobody -- I'm like.

STU: He said, what?

GLENN: Nobody sits in here without the president. Or, you know, without somebody else.

STU: Right. Yeah, that's really rare.

GLENN: And I said, I'm aware of that. He said, but I knew you would want to look at everything. So I thought you would be more comfortable if you were here by yourself. Oh, it was fantastic.

So we sit down. We talk. We go do the interview. And while we were talking in the Oval, we were conversing about a few things. And he said, and Abraham Lincoln came up. We were talking -- he is well-versed on the presidents. He is becoming a historian. He really is! He's really done his homework.

And he said, are you a fan of Abraham Lincoln? I said, yeah. And he said, you ever been to the Lincoln bedroom? I said, no. Want to go?

I'm like, wait. Of course I do. Yes. Let's do this interview.

So we do the interview. And he -- I'm told, he only has 40 minutes. Now we've just eaten ten.

And so we go. We do the interview. And his aides are cutting us off. And I'm like, I've got at least ten more minutes of questions.

And so we're getting cut off. And as we stop. His aide says, sir, the National Security Council is waiting for you.

And he says, right. I'm going to take them to the Lincoln bedroom first.

And they're like, the security counsel is meeting right now. They're waiting for you.

He said, let them wait. I'm going to take -- so he takes us, the longest way possible. He takes us through the entire White House, room by room.

Shows us all of the meanings behind things. All of the amazing, amazing -- like nobody knows about the White House. Takes us to the -- takes us to the basement, which is not really the basement. You know, it's the actual first floor where all of the guests come in. And they come up the grand staircase and everything else.

But it's the basement. And he's walking through. And he's showing me a troll, first of all.

I have to show you these paintings. I just see this painting of Laura Bush. And Laura Bush and Hillary Clinton. Up on a wall. He said, I walk by them every day.

And I say, this is not right. And he said, and then I got this painting of me. And, you know, it's me, with the flag face. Looking kind of tough.

And he said, I thought I put them between the two. And it had just gone viral. Just released a picture of him. And just gone viral.

It was a troll. The guy is just trolling. And he said, yeah. Don't you love it?

I just think it works. This trio really works. And I said, can I get a snap of them?

So we did this picture, the two of us, you know, on the ground floor of the White House. The tour goes by this every day.

Okay?

And all of a sudden, this thing goes viral. And they start -- memes start to be made, with J.D. Vance. In the pictures, they change -- people just started changing all the pictures behind us.

This is a meme before -- you know, going off before we finished.

And then he takes us upstairs. Takes us through all these things.

And the -- the aides keep gathering. There's like 20 of them now, following us. And I keep hearing, sir, the national security is waiting. He's like, I know. I know.

And so we got up to the executive residence. And the reason why he had to give us -- the reason why he had to do this tour, is because you're not allowed in the residence. And you're not allowed into the Lincoln bedroom, without the president of the United States.

It's the only one that can do it.

Melania cannot come down and do the tour.

It has to be the president. He's telling them. I'm sorry. But rules are rules. And so he takes us up, into the Lincoln bedroom.

It was the most incredible thing I have -- I mean, it's like -- it's a time capsule. It's really his bed. Which is about 6 inches longer than like the big king-size bed. It might have been longer than a California queen. It was very narrow.

Like, obviously, you know, he's not like Hugh Hefner. It's a very narrow bed.

But very, very long.

The mirror on one hand was extended to, you know, for somebody who is like six-nine, I think. Barron could use that mirror.

And then on the other side of the room is a writing desk.

And on this one table, all these things about his son. Lincoln's son who had died. And this really eerie picture of Lincoln. This painting.

And the president said, that was his favorite painting of himself. And it's really. It was spooky almost.

STU: Hmm.

GLENN: And I couldn't take a picture. You're not allowed to take any photos in the Lincoln bedroom.

And I was so bummed because I couldn't wait to show them we. But they're in his writing desk. And on it, is the Gettysburg address. One of four of the Gettysburg addresses. He gave -- Lincoln was at Gettysburg. And said, Mr. President. That was a great speech.

Do you have a copy of it? And he said, sure. And hands him a speech.

And says, here. This is a New York reporter. Takes it. Types it up, and then throws it away.

So during the war, Lincoln writes four copies of the Gettysburg address.

In the four copies, only two of them say, this nation under God. Two of them don't say that. And we don't know why.

But the one there says, this nation under God. So it was just almost like a spiritual thing. We come down, and we're ending the tour.

And I said, I have to ask. I said, I know you're Donald J. Trump. But -- now, what do you think I'm going to ask. Because he cuts me off right there, and he tries to answer. And I was amazed that he knew what I was even going to ask. Where do you think I'm at? I know you're Donald J. Trump, but --

STU: I mean, it could be anything obviously.

GLENN: He said every day, and that's the right answer! But I didn't still know if he knew what I was talking. And I say, every day?

And he said every day, Glenn. I wake up every day, and I -- I say to myself, I can't believe I'm in this house.

STU: Hmm.

GLENN: I mean, he's still humble about it. He's still -- he respects that place. I mean, a lot of the -- well, he didn't tell me this. So I don't think I signed anything about it.

He didn't tell me this.

So the -- the word is, that Hillary stole a lot of the glass door knobs at the White House. Okay. That's the word.

Don't if it's true.

But stole them. He came in, and he redid all of the doorknobs, and they are beautiful. This guy has put serious money into the White House.

And he's never going to get any credit. And the rumor was, on those doorknobs, that they were going to take them out. I don't know if they did on Biden. But they don't want any of the Trump stuff in there. And took out the doorknobs.

But he's -- he's poured a ton of money upgrading that house, and he'll never get credit for it.

But he deserves it. All right. I'm going to talk to you a little bit about what we talked about on the important stuff here in just a second.

STU: So you were able to go through all of this, and look at all these incredible documents.

This is kind of like your fantasy league life, right?

GLENN: Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh.

STU: Every document you could ever want. Every piece of history you could ever look at.

You would spend no time actually being president, if you were president.

GLENN: I don't know when this guy has time. I really don't.

Some of the Secret Service guys said, he's here, in the middle of the night, working on stuff.

He'll do full day.

Then he's there. Who is up at this hour?

It's him.

STU: That's not the way the media presents him.

They say, he's watching TV.

Watching Fox news all day.

GLENN: Oh, there's no way.

This guy has learned so much.

There's no way I had a conversation with him, five, six years ago. No way.

STU: You notice a difference?

GLENN: Oh, huge. His learning curve is straight-up.

Absolutely straight-up.

And in the interview. There's nothing. I could have said things.

Remember the nuclear triad question that he was hit with?

Where he didn't really -- there's not a question I could ask him, where he doesn't know the answer.

Literally. Literally.

I mean, everything I ask him off-air or on-air, he's there. He knows it. If it's happening in the world, he knows it. I don't know how he keeps up like this.

STU: It is -- I mean, his energy level is impressive. There's no doubt about that.

I don't know. The bar was set pretty low the last four years. But his -- that's been one of the things, I don't think there's ever been really much at -- disagreement on.

The fact that we -- we did, years ago, went around with candidates, around Iowa, for example. Just in campaigning, and it was like, oh, gosh. By the end of the weekend, I wanted to sleep for a week.
Because it was just so much.

Running around. Doing -- can't imagine being president of the United States. He's always energized.

GLENN: He's always energized. I mean, and I saw him. When I got on to the plane last night. Because I know, he went from -- he went from my interview, directly to the National Security Council.

And then by the time I'm sitting at the airport, there's a video of him meeting with the people that were in the lobby, waiting for him all of these veterans.

And he's doing stuff with veterans on TV.

I mean, the guy is just boom, boom, boom.

Remember Joe Biden was like, he'll have -- he'll have some pudding.

STU: Oh, yeah. The pudding and the lid.

GLENN: And the lid. And that's it.

This guy is going non-stop.

STU: Obviously, we're just setting up the main course here.

Which is your interview with him.

That airs on Blaze TV tonight.

GLENN: It was on last night.

STU: I watched it on Blaze TV last night. It airs on YouTube tonight.

But, you know, you guys went into -- every -- every topic. Any questions he didn't -- you know, he didn't think he wanted to go to or wasn't comfortable with. Is there anything that he was off-limits? Anything like that?

No. He was joking with me. He was going across the hallway. He said, after the interview, he said no. Try to be kind to me.

Well, if you don't, I'll just say, he's over. He's worthless. He'll do whatever you want.
(laughter)

But, no. There was nothing. In fact, we didn't -- you know, we wouldn't. And we didn't give him any indication. Other than it was about the 100 days. And everything that's gone down the last 100 days and were coming.

So that's pretty broad. He said a few things.

And I want to give I one of them here. We were talking about the tariffs.

STU: Uh-huh.

GLENN: And I said, you know, how do you negotiate, when you have a group of elites like the WEF. When you have China who is against you.

And the world trade -- or, the World Economic Forum.

All the elites in England.

That are -- they're fine with the great, Great Reset. How do you negotiate with people who don't mind blowing the whole thing up?

Listen to this.

DONALD: I don't have to negotiate. I don't have to negotiate. I'm talking to people out of respect. But I don't have to. So we're this giant store that people want to come in and buy bye from. We're the United States. We have the richest consumer, et cetera, et cetera. Right?

But we're not going to be that way for long if we do something. But we're this giant store, and they all want to come in and take our product. But to take our product, they are going to have to pay.

And we will either make a deal with them, or we will just set a price. Because some countries are worse than others. Some countries have ripped us off really badly, and some countries have just ripped us off a little bit, but almost all of them have ripped us off. Because we've had really poor leadership. And what's going to happen, is we're going to negotiate -- we are negotiating with 70 different countries. But we're negotiating. We're showing great respect. But in the end, we may make deals. But either that, or I just set a price. I said, here's what you will pay for the privilege of servicing the United States of America.

And they have an option. They can maybe talk to me a little bit. Or they can not jump.

You know, they don't have to shop at this big store. Or they can shop.

But in any event, they will have to pay. Look, we owe 36 trillion for a reason.

The reason is: The trade. Also, the endless wars, the stupid wars that we fought. We're going to the Middle East. We blow up. We leave. We don't get anything.

And you're a big fan of exactly what I'm saying. I mean, let's not do this. Let's not do that.

It's stupid. Endless wars. Endless wars. That they don't even want us. You know, we got into wars. They didn't even want us.

So all of that stuff. You know, when I left four years ago, you know, we had no wars. We had no Israel and Hamas. And, by the way, it would have never happened. Because their enemies were broke.

They were broke.

I have sanctions so strong on Iran.

They were totally broke. They had no money for Hamas and Hezbollah. We didn't have Russia-Ukraine. That would have never happened by the way. We didn't have the Afghanistan embarrassment. One of the great embarrassments in the history of our country.

We didn't have any inflation. Don't forget, I charged China hundreds of billions worth of tariffs. They talk about inflation. We had no inflation.

Because that doesn't cause inflation.

Stupidity causes inflation. High energy causes inflation. When they took over my energy -- we were making it like nobody has ever seen.

GLENN: I know.

DONALD: And then the prices doubled. By the way, because of that, Putin went in. You see what's going on now. It's going down.

GLENN: Yeah, I do.

DONALD: It makes it much harder for Putin to prosecute the war.

GLENN: It was fascinating.

We talked about a few things.

Judicial insurrection. Was one of them!

Another pretty strong response on that one, as well.

SNEAK PEEK: Glenn Gives a Tour of the Roosevelt Room in the White House

Ahead of his First 100 Days interview with President Trump, Glenn gives an exclusive tour of the Roosevelt Room: Theodore Roosevelt’s Nobel Peace Prize and Medal of Honor, Barack Obama’s private papers, and the legendary doorknobs that Trump installed in the White House.

EXCLUSIVE: Trump Tells the INCREDIBLE Story of Elon Musk, Nikola Tesla, and His Uncle

Immediately after his First 100 Days interview with President Trump, Glenn knew he had to ask one more question, even if it was off the record: How incredible is it that Trump is working with today’s Nikola Tesla, Elon Musk, when Trump's uncle was the man put in charge of sifting through Tesla’s files when he died?! But instead of having a private conversation, Trump decided to let Glenn’s audience hear the story too …

EXCLUSIVE: President Trump on 'Judicial Insurrection,' Tariffs, and 100 Days in Office | Ep 429

In just his first 100 days in office, President Trump has moved faster to fix America than anyone expected. He created the DOGE, shut the border down, dismantled USAID and its wasteful spending, and put the world on notice that it can’t take advantage of America any more. But there’s still much more to do, and Americans have questions about what’s next. Glenn sits down with the president in the Roosevelt Room of the White House for his first one-on-one interview about his first 100 days. Glenn asks Trump what the real goal of his tariffs is, whether Elon Musk is really stepping back from the DOGE, whether Mexico is a failed narco-state, what his plans are for the cartels, and how he may react to the “judicial insurrection” of judges blocking his deportation orders. Trump also reveals his game-changing plans for AI and American energy, why he’s not “negotiating” with Europe or the world, whether Putin or Zelenskyy has been easier to deal with, and why he believes Glenn will “be surprised” by congressional Republicans soon.

►BONUS CONTENT: See my exclusive tour of the Roosevelt Room and don’t miss President Trump’s extended interview, where he shares how his uncle—once the government’s go-to expert on Nikola Tesla’s files—is now connected to today’s Tesla, Elon Musk. These are must-see moments you won’t find anywhere else. Watch now at BlazeTV.com/Glenn.

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