RADIOJune 09, 2023

EXPLAINED: Why the Donald Trump indictment is BEYOND 'STUPID'

Donald Trump just became the first U.S. president to be indicted by the Department of Justice on federal charges. He’s facing seven counts related to his storage of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago home. But something about this smells like it’s ALL about politics. In this clip, Pat and Stu — filling in for Glenn — break it all down…

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

PAT: You know, there are cynical people who are going to say, this is all about politics?

STU: No. You think?

PAT: Yeah, they will. I think they will.

STU: Where would they get that idea from?

PAT: These right-wing kooks. Things they come up with. Spur of the moment. They're just so nutty. But some will say, Donald Trump was indicted simply because of political reasons.

And, wow. It's true. He was. First US president former or otherwise to be indicted on federal criminal charges. So fascinating. And it's all over the document thing. It's all over the Mar-a-Lago documents thing.

He had, you know -- what is he -- he's indicted on espionage? Espionage charges?

STU: Well, I think we've all seen spy movies, right?

PAT: Yeah.

STU: And most of the spy movies are based on a person with legal access to documents, that then stores them in their closet.

PAT: They're almost all like that.

STU: Most of them are like. The drama is here. And you find out, oh, he kept him in his closet. Then they bring him into court.

PAT: You know, like a James Bond scenario. That's exactly what comes to mind, right?

STU: Right. Not that they sold them to spies, or foreign entities.

PAT: Which he didn't do, of course.

STU: Or he tried to profit billions of dollars on the nuclear secret. That's -- there's an occasional movie that sounds like that. But most of them are, hey, wait a minute. That area where the closet was, was too highly trafficked. That's usually the plot for most Bond films.

PAT: That area was too highly trafficked. But the garage, where Joe Robinette Biden stores his Corvette, nobody has ever been in there. And it is impenetrable.

STU: Right. You saw mission impossible. The one where Tom Cruise was hanging down from the cables.

PAT: In the garage. Where he was hanging from the garage.

STU: That's where it was shot there.

PAT: Joe Biden's garage.

STU: That's how it happened.

PAT: You would think.

STU: There's so many ways to go here.

PAT: It's crazy.

STU: And I think the most obvious one is the fact that Trump is in the middle of a bunch of investigations by his political opponent. And what are the ramifications of that?

But can I take one little step back from that, first, Pat?

PAT: You may.

STU: Am I the only one who doesn't really care, if Donald Trump or Joe Biden had a few documents from their time in office, that were in their garage or closet?

PAT: Yeah. Yeah. You don't care.

STU: I just don't like really care.

PAT: You don't care.

STU: I just don't care.

PAT: Oh, my gosh. So.

STU: These are documents. Again, like espionage. The guy that was recently leaking stuff to his discord group. Remember this? He had the documents about the Ukraine war. And he was leaking it to his friends in this group. You can see how something like that is a real problem. He put them out into a public forum. A bunch of people who should have had no access to that information whatsoever, got access to that information.

PAT: Right.

STU: Real problem. We don't know what happened to it.

Maybe you can leak two foreign entities. Maybe you can threaten American security.

Maybe you can threaten Ukrainian security. Which seems what they're interested in.

PAT: Oh, that's way more sacrosanct than American security. You are kidding me?

STU: I can see why that would be a real thing to be concerned about. Now, this guy's evidence.

His motivation in this case, seems to be like, I want to be cool among my friend group. I don't think it indicates he should be in prison the rest of his life.

I can understand why this would be a big story. The story we're talking about now. Even if you take, at least what we know of this indictment. And we don't have it yet.

We won't have it until Tuesday, yet. But basically, what's going on here. Donald Trump was president of the United States. He could see any of these documents.

He had all of this information, already.

He left office. You might remember. Pretty chaotic time, when he left office. The period between January 6th and January 20th. Was a little rocky. I don't know if you remember that. He leaves office with a bunch of documents. They say, hey, we would like those documents back. He gives back a bunch of documents, but not all the documents. And no one is accusing them of selling them to the Saudis. No one is accusing him of selling them to the Russians. No one is accusing him of using these to launch a secret war in another country.

What they're accusing him of, is not giving them back in a timely fashion when they wanted them.

PAT: Right. That's crazy.

STU: Look, can they find a legal loophole in this law to get him in trouble on that. It's possible. But step back on that. Does this change the way you think of him? Does this change of the way you think he would govern as president of the United States? Do you actually care?

PAT: No. No, I don't.

STU: I just don't care. And to be honest, I don't care if Joe Biden did it either. I don't really care.

PAT: However, I will say, if it's this big a deal, with Trump, you have to reciprocate with Biden. You have to. You have to.

STU: That's my point. Neither of these stories should be the first time a president is indicted on federal charges. It's too stupid of a story.

Like, at least, some of the other accusations, that have been thrown at Donald Trump. Again, most of them have nothing behind them. But at least some of them were serious accusations. This is record-keeping.

What did he, put it in the wrong filing cabinet?

This is what we'll bring a president down on?

It's stupid. It's just freaking stupid.

PAT: Right. But I love the fact that the narrative from the left right now is that it is so important to mention that special counsel Jack Smith would never have brought these charges, if he didn't have mountains and mountains of evidence of wrongdoing.

STU: This one again? We're getting this one again, Pat.

PAT: Yes. We are. Wasn't that the same thing with what's-his-face?

With the Russian hoax garbage?

STU: Right. If you were to plot all these story lines on a chart. And they all started at day one. Right?

And they all had this one run of -- when you found out about them, till their expiration date. Russia. Ukraine.

I don't know. I can't even name all the scandals that they name at this guy. At this point, on the chart, they always say, they have all the information.

They always leak to the press, that they have impenetrable evidence that will bring this guy down.

They always say the same thing at this point.

PAT: It's wishful thinking. They want it so bad. That they claim they have it. And they don't.

STU: They want you to believe it. They want you to believe it, before you see the evidence.

PAT: They're trying desperately to stop him from running for president. At this point, I think they're pretty afraid, that he'll be --

STU: I think that's certainly possible.

They certainly don't want him to be president again.

PAT: Oh, well, that's --

STU: Yeah, I think. You know, I don't -- I go back and forth, on what they're trying to do here a little bit.

PAT: I know. I do too.

STU: From the perspective of, I don't think they could be so naive. That they would not understand, that this would help him in the primary. They have to understand --

PAT: It will be a big boost.

STU: To help him in the primary. It will hurt Ron DeSantis. Tim Scott. And Nikki Haley. All the other opponents. It will galvanize other people in his support.

So it likely will help him get through the primary. It's not a guarantee, he will win the primary by any means. But it's possible, it will help him.

I think it's likely, it will help him. If you consider that the option, then I guess you are saying, either they believe they're either going to beat him in the general. They will hurt him in the general, which I think is a plausible argument.

You know, yes. Us the right, that have followed every aspect of the Russia investigation, are going to say, I can't believe they're trying this again. I can't believe there's another one of these. Some moderate who doesn't know anything about the Russia investigation. Other than what they say on their Twitter feed. Or Facebook feed.

And have no information on this. And just keep seeing. Indictment. Indictment. Indictment.

Could be another story in the general. You it's a real concern, when you think about this stuff.

PAT: Did you see what Jamie Raskin, who was a Democrat from Maryland had to say yesterday about this situation?

STU: Really hard for me to not turn him off. I applaud you, Pat, for sticking with it. And reading what he said. Because I was not willing to go that far.

PAT: Now, I didn't listen to what he said. But I did read it. Because it's only one line.

But he said, Trump put US national security in grave danger.

STU: Oh, stop it.

PAT: By pursuing, quote, yet another lawless personal agenda.

STU: What's the agenda?

PAT: Really? What did he do? He had these in boxes, did he go down there and look at them from time to time?

Probably not. He probably didn't do that. But if he did, so what?

He knew about it, in the first place.

STU: He already knew what they were. That's why he took them.

PAT: If you were alleging that there's evidence that he sold them to Russian spies in the FSB, or KJB, or whoever is in power, in Russia now.

If he sold them to some Russian spy, okay. You have evidence of that. Maybe you have photographic evidence.

Okay. I can go with you on the grave danger thing.

STU: I want to throw him in prison.

PAT: Absolutely. Absolutely.

STU: As I think every member of the audience would. However, that will not be alleged.

PAT: No, it's not. They're not even accusing him of that. Which I guess pretty much means, it's not even alleged.

STU: That's my understanding.

You could be mistaken. Forgiven for that. When you see the word espionage on that. As if this guy was hiding on a trench coat, in a parking garage somewhere. Leaking to Chinese spies.

Look, if Donald Trump had a three-some with Eric Swalwell and a Chinese spy and gave them the documents, I would be really worried about that.

PAT: Well, did he wee-wee on him?

STU: I don't know.

Let's ask Christopher Steele, and then maybe we can find that out.

But, Pat, I don't know what happened here yet. Right? It will be months and months and months after, you know, today, that we will probably find out.

PAT: And maybe after the election.

And they'll just continue this garbage.

They'll just continue to throw stuff at the wall, to see what sticks. So they can hopefully derail him by hopefully November 2024.

STU: And at that point, when we do find out, what went on after the election, they will just bury it. Like they'll say, oops.

PAT: What have they said about Russia?

Nothing. They just don't bring it up.

There's no apology. There's no nothing.

STU: All this goes on.

What's the most likely scenario. Donald Trump leaves office. He's a guy who thinks he's been wronged in the election. He's angry. He pulls a bunch of boxes of documents. That he believes is his.

I was in the middle of this.

This is a letter from Kim Jong-un to me. To me. Donald Trump. That's me. My name is at the top of it. It says to me. I bring it home to my house.

Then these people who just screwed me out of -- again, this is Donald Trump.

These people who just screwed me out of an election, now want this stuff back. Screw them. No.

PAT: Oh, absolutely.

STU: Highly plausible.

PAT: Yeah, it is.

STU: Now, is that consistent with the president records act? Probably not.

You know, probably not.

If that's the scenario that played out, they may very well be able to come up with some legal justification, that if he did it, and they knew his intent, they have evidence of his intent. They may very well be able to get him on something.

PAT: We're hearing that every president since Reagan, has done this.

STU: In some form.

PAT: In some form.

STU: Intent is the difference.

What they're saying. Is he intended to do it. Is it possible, he was so angry.

It's possible. It is.

PAT: But so what.

STU: Is that a huge deal?

PAT: No, it's not.

STU: They weren't leaked to foreign entities. Anything in a Mar-a-Lago closet, is certainly more secure than something stored online. Right?

How -- go -- if you live near Mar-a-Lago. Go in there. And try and steal a Diet Coke. See how that goes for you. Go just try to play golf on the course without actually --

PAT: Are you encouraging criminal activity, Stu?

STU: No, I'm not.

I should probably clarify that before the DOJ shows up.

I am not -- I am saying this as a hypothetical thought exercise. It would be darn difficult to play the eighth hole at Mar-a-Lago, getting away with it.

You think stealing stuff out of Donald Trump's closet is going to be easy?

It's not -- it's ridiculous.

The whole thing is completely absurd. And, yes. You might be able to go in there, and find some legal thing you can catch him on.

Fundamentally, what are we asking as people -- as citizens of the United States now. Voters in the United States.

Is this a reason to vote for him, or not vote for him. And the answer is, of course, it's not.

Neither. It should make no impact whatsoever, on his ability to govern.

EXCLUSIVE: Chip Roy Explains His FIERY Rejection of Spending Bill

According to the media, there’s a big fight going on between Republicans over the House’s new slimmed-down continuing resolution spending bill. Some, including President-elect Donald Trump, wanted the bill to pass. But others, like Texas Representative Chip Roy, argued that it still wasn’t ready. However, is the Republican “unity coalition” really crumbling, like the media claims? Rep. Chip Roy joins Glenn to explain what’s really going on. He argues that he IS trying to give Trump and DOGE a 100-day “runway” to fix the country. But he makes the case that, by increasing the debt ceiling by $5 trillion without agreeing on other cuts, this bill gives bad actors the ability to be an “obstacle” to Trump’s agenda further down the line. Plus, he reveals to Glenn that he believes some of these bad actors LEAKED false information about his stance to Mar-a-Lago.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN:

I think we have a great opportunity today. To show you how to have a -- tough conversation, with friends, friends. Where you deeply disagree on something.

But you know that their intent is good. They know my intent is good. Or our intent is good.

And we actually have the same end goal, but we disagree on the path. And we're going to walk away friends.

Chip Roy is joining us today. And, Chip, I love you. And I always will. And I agree with your, we've got to cut spending. We have to. But Liz Wheeler is with me. And we've been talking about it all morning. It's the -- the -- the -- the system of DOGE and Trump, the call-out to the world, in saying, you've got to surrender the Capitol. You know, the bad guys are in and about to take all the money.

Surround, and tell them, come out with your hands up. And that happened. And we scored a massive win, in an entirely new way.

Ask then you stood on principle, one we both agree with.

And it failed!

And so here's -- here's what Liz and I were talking about. Here's what we want to say to you.

And then get your response.

LIZ: Hi, Congressman Roy, this is the way I see it. I want your take on it. I love you. I think you're one of the best members of Congress. I disagree with you on the process that's happening. And I think that is the difference. The process. We elected Donald Trump to be a disruptor. Because Republican members of Congress for decades have been telling they're fiscal conservatives. They want to decrease the debt SEAL. It hasn't happened.

It hasn't -- it hasn't been done. And so Donald Trump comes in with Elon Musk, and uses this DOGE process to first identify these pieces of garbage in the first 1500-page bill. And take those things to the people. We took them to members of Congress. Congress said, okay. We'll listen to you.

So that new process was very effective.

And my question to you is: Once that process was proved to be effective. Which I think is exciting and wonderful.

How do we bridge this divide, with you, to say, okay.

Let's put some faith in this new process. And trust Elon Musk and Donald Trump and the Dow Jones process, to eventually address the debt ceiling, but get this done right now?

GLENN: And not blind trust. Chip.

CHIP: So appreciate you guys. Appreciate being on the show. Particular order. I have to go through a couple of things.

GLENN: Yep.

CHIP: Number one, it's important to remember that my job and my duty is to the Constitution, to God, and the people I represent. I told them, when I came to Washington, I would not -- I would not let the credit card and the debt ceiling and the borrowing of the United States without the spending restraints necessary to offset it.

GLENN: Okay.

CHIP: Right now, all we have are promises and ideas and notions. What I know, that neither of you respectfully no, and that none of your listeners respectfully no are the people that are in the room, that I was in with yesterday. And the day before, who are recalcitrant.

And do not want to do the spending cuts that we need to do.

That I believe the president and the DOGE guys. And everybody want to do.

My job, is to force that through the meat grinder. To demand that we do our damn job. Okay?

GLENN: Okay. So hang on. Okay. So wait. Wait. You're right. You're right. You're right. Go ahead.

CHIP: Number thee, when we were going through the bill, I'm glad the bill dropped from 1,550 pages to 116 pages. Three-quarters of Twitter or X or whatever you want to call it, have been out there spreading false facts that we supported a bad bill and didn't like the better bill.

That's not true. But let's be Lear. The 1400 pages that were cut out. It's a panacea.

There were some good stuff in there. There were some bad stuff in there. There was a lot of disinformation.

There wasn't a $70,000 pay raise. There was a 3,000-dollar pay raise.

I didn't support any pay raise. I didn't support a lot of the stuff in there.

But there's a lot of misinformation. And here's the thing: The 116 pages that were left, and I opposed violently the first bill. I was leading the charge on fighting and killing the first bill.

GLENN: And I love you.

LIZ: The second bill for 116 pages. Turned off -- turned off the pay go requirement. That we slash 1.7 trillion automatically.

And added a 5 trillion that are increase.

My view was, I could not support that, without a clear understanding of what cuts we would get, in mandatory spending next year. And undo any of the Inflation Reduction Act.

The undoing of the student loans. The undoing of the crap with the food stamps.

And everything else. I yield back.

GLENN: Okay. I yield back.

Chip, you're not in a hostile room. We love you. And we agree with your end goals. It's our end goal too. We didn't make that promise that you made to the people that voted for you. So we have more wiggle room here.

But you say -- I think our big difference is, you say, I know the guys in the room.

You're right. You do. And we -- we ceded that earlier today on the show.

You are -- one of us is wrong on trust.

I don't trust any of the weasels in Washington.

But I think Donald Trump and Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have earned enough trust, to get a grace period, here for the first -- maybe the first year.

Or at least six months.

To turn the economy around, and also reduce the size of the government.

And totally flip this thing.

And I know, as somebody who is -- you know, run a company, mainly into a ground. But run a company, and have to switch it, in the middle, and totally reshuffle. That -- that actually costs money, while you're doing it, to bridge the gap.

Because you have to fill up holes while you're filling in the gap.

You don't trust the people in the room. Neither do we.

But we do trust the system that worked on Wednesday with DOGE and Donald Trump.

Where do we disagree?

Can you give them --

CHIP: We don't disagree. And yesterday morning, I was making that precise argument in a room full of conservatives and then a follow-up room with people who will call it, less conservatives.

GLENN: Republican. Yes.

CHIP: And so we were making this argument. And then someone infamously. Something leaked out of the room, somehow out to Mar-a-Lago. That I was being resistant. Because I was negotiating trying to get the agreement to achieve the objective that you just said. I was trying to get, okay. In fact, yesterday morning, I made the argument to a group of conservatives. We need to give the president runway. We need to give him his first 100 days. We need to appreciate JD, and Vivek, and all the people -- and everybody involved. For the president to achieve the objective.

But to get there. We have to make sure that the guys in the room, that are an obstacle to that, don't have the ability to block it.

Because information flow matters. And when those guys tell the president, they can't achieve X.

Then the president will not achieve X. Our job was to force and demand, guys, we need actual understanding of what the cuts will be.

And because otherwise, we're asking us to accept a 5 trillion-dollar limit in our credit card increase. In exchange for nothing!

Literally, in exchange for nothing, but -- but hope.

So our job was to force that change.

Unfortunately, while I was trying to make the argument that we needed something in order to get the votes, someone leaked that down to Mar-a-Lago, and the president reacted.

But now I have to now manage that.

GLENN: Right. I know. I know.

CHIP: They're trying to enforce change in town.

GLENN: So hang on.

We have to leave this. Because I'm going to run against the clock.

I could talk to you all day about this. You were in a meeting this morning about J.D. Vance. Can you tell us anything about that meeting?

CHIP: That meeting happened, because despite what happened yesterday, I'm trying to get this done. Last night, talking to JD, we worked to get this meeting done. We had some good progress this morning.

But there still remains people concerned about spending. That we can work out, what agreement we can reach. On what spending cuts. We can actually get next year, in exchange for giving the vote on a debt ceiling increase.

So it remains fluid. Progress was made. But we have to keep working on it.

And I left that meeting to talk to you. Soil get an update in a minute.

GLENN: Thank you for that, by the way.

I hear there is a new bill that may be coming today.

Is that the one you're talking about?

Or is this another bill that could be another nightmare?

CHIP: Despite other people leaking crap, I refused. I can't say, because it's not been decided by the speaker.

And it's not right to talk about things they're talking about in private meetings.

GLENN: Yeah, but it's -- it's this speaker. I mean, is he really the speaker anymore, Chip, really?

CHIP: We need to hear what bill we need to get forward. And I can't talk about the private meetings. But, look, I'm going to keep fighting for what I promised people that I represent.

I'm going to fight to cut spending. I am going to represent article one.

I'm going to support the president's agenda, but we've got to do that together.

GLENN: Okay.

Chip, thank you.

I think we can -- I think we agree, but I await to see what that means to you. Because we may just have to agree to disagree on this.

But I love you. And I still want you to replace Cornyn.

CHIP: The short version is, for inflation's sake, we cannot increase the debt ceiling $5 trillion without knowing what we're getting for it.

And I don't think anybody should disagree with that.

GLENN: But you don't disagree that Elon Musk and Trump and Vivek are serious about gutting the system.

CHIP: I believe that is their objective. I believe there are obstacles to that objective. And I need to know the sincerity of how we deal with those obstacles, both structural, and human. And we have to figure that out. And that's my job.

America's Favorite Villain Is Ready for Nuclear Fallout. Are You? | Glenn TV | Ep 401

In this episode of Glenn TV — a theatrical how-to guide to survive the breakdown of society after a nuclear attack, according to the new movie “Homestead” from Angel Studios. Glenn Beck interviews the movie’s star and executive producer, Neal McDonough, who plays the head of a family trying to survive as society is breaking down in a postapocalyptic world. You’ve probably seen Neal in everything from the hit TV shows “Yellowstone,” “Suits,” and “Justified” to movies like “Captain America,” “Minority Report,” and the groundbreaking mini-series “Band of Brothers.” Glenn asks Neal what it’s like to play a villain so often, how TV and movies are changing, and how he survived Hollywood as a devoted Christian and husband who refuses to do onscreen kissing scenes with any of his female co-stars. They also discuss his battle with alcoholism, what it’s like working the legends like Sylvester Stallone and Kevin Costner, and the cultural craving for Western cinema. Note: Angel Studios is a sponsor of “The Glenn Beck Program.” Get your tickets for “Homestead” at https://Angel.com/Beck.