RADIOFebruary 17, 2023

Space Force Vet: China spy balloon is GREAT TIMING for Biden

Former Space Force Lt. Col. Matthew Lehmeier tells Glenn that the timing regarding the China spy balloon is ‘curious’ and that timing ‘almost always’ matters. He explains why having a balloon in the headlines likely is better for Biden than other, underreported scandals. Plus, Lehmeier tells Glenn about possible alien/intelligent life beyond Earth and our current Cold War with China…

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Matthew Lohmeier is on with us. Hello, Matthew. How are you?

MATTHEW: Glenn, I'm well, thank you.

GLENN: Now, I should say thank you, first of all, for your courage. You had a nice position, as a lieutenant colonel, at space force.

And you came out, and started talking about the dangers of CRT. And what was being done by the Pentagon.

And they didn't like that very much.

MATTHEW: Yeah. Well, thanks for first bringing up this. I did have a good position, so to speak. And I was in command of our nation's space-based missile enterprise, which implies senior military leaders at some point, did, in fact, trust me to be a good leader.

And to make proper strategic assessments, and what not.

But the fact is, I didn't just write an exposé, or a book that I then made public, without first bringing up some of my concerns with senior military leaders themselves.

The entire chain of command of the space force, had been aware of what should properly be characterized as overt left-wing political talking points. Anti-American sentiment in the workplace.

And I was bringing that to their attention. Which included Marxist rooted Critical Race Theory.

In the form of diversion and inclusion trainings.

But they agreed with me, that it was a big problem. That the fact is, who are you going to hold accountable for it?

Are we in the proper climate, that wee created for ourselves, to hold some of these activists accountable?

And apparently, the answer was no, we weren't in a position to try and hold them accountable. And so that led to a former written inspector general complaints, which was dismissed right during the election season, in fact.

And so I wrote a book about it. That was in a unique position, in uniform, to see what was happening, within the ranks of the military. And how divisive that ideology can be.

I've often said, what Marxism does to someone in China, it will do to an American.

And CRTers were increasingly aware, destroys everything it touches.

So it was important to talk up about that, but we've got, as you've mentioned, bigger concerns on the horizon and happening in the country at the moment.

GLENN: Well, before we leave this subject, today I found out that the recruiting for the military is down 25 percent off-goal.

And I saw what the military said. They said, that's because the youth. You know, they just -- they -- they don't see the military as relevant.

Really? How come all of a sudden, after Afghanistan, and after the CRT nonsense.

Your recruiting went down the tubes. That didn't play a role?

MATTHEW: Well, yeah.

One thing, it's easy to tell at a glance, at any given moment, how our recruiting efforts are doing.

But what it's not easy to assess realtime at a glance, is how our retention efforts are doing.

And that's often left out of the headlines. But I talk to service members all the time. They reach out, both thanking me for my book, and also seeking for help, quite frankly. And how to navigate the current politicized workplace in the uniformed services. But they are telling me.

And this is anecdotal, I get it.

but it's real world on the ground Intel, that they and a bunch of people, that are currently in uniform, their active duty service commitments aren't up yet.

But when they are up, they will be getting out of the service.

And so not only do we face recruitment issues. We're going to have a really difficult time, this year and in the next year, retaining folks who have served for a very long time. It's a really tough position to be in, and it's not just COVID's fault.

And it's not, you know, pick the issues that senior defense officials want to point a finger at. And shame and blame.

It's the very policies pushed down the pipe, and hoisted upon our service members, that's hurting morale. And dis-incentivizing them from continued service.

GLENN: We're talking to former Space Force Lieutenant Colonel Matthew Lohmeier.

You can find him at MatthewLohmeier.com. Or follow him on Twitter. @MatthewLohmeier.

I want to switch to the balloons that we've had. I mean, you, as, you know -- you were in charge of our space missile defense.

Do you think we're shooting aliens out of the sky in balloons?

MATTHEW: You know, I'm open to a lot of ideas. But I will tell you, the entirety.

The timing of all of this is really interesting as well.

One of the things that's become quite clear over the last ten days, is that senior military leaders, Jim Mattis included, apparently. And White House officials have known about Chinese spy balloons for years, violating the sovereignty of countries around the globe, and potentially including our own, and apparently not informing the sitting commander-in-chief, at the time. Why we've decided to start shooting them out of the sky. Over north America now, is, in fact, curious. The timing is curious.

And perhaps the timing matters. It almost always does. And perhaps it's really convenient. This sounds like conspiracy theories. And, in fact, it's not.

The fact that we've been trained for the past couple of years, to ask important questions. Perhaps it's really convenient to have those shoot-downs in the headlines right now, instead of any number of things that have been in the headlines.

I mean, there's been a classified document scandal at Joe Biden's residence. There are more revelations about Hunter Biden's corruption with his dad, while he was the vice president, and in dealings with Middle Eastern countries and in China, than at any other time that we've known of before now.

And we've got information that's coming to light about Jim Biden's dealings with the Saudis. We've got a reporting, that came from Seymour Hersh.

GLENN: Hersh. Do you believe that?

MATTHEW: Well, I think it's entirely plausible. And that's important. The guy has done phenomenal reporting for decades. And some of the details he shares in an interview I watched yesterday, are entirely plausible.

GLENN: Right.

MATTHEW: And, in fact, you take a look back, earlier last year, and Joe Biden, because he can't help himself. Is making statements about the Nord Stream two pipeline, ceasing to exist, if Russia, in fact, invades Ukraine.

They do, and then the Nord Stream 2 pipeline ceases to exist. At least temporarily.

And then of course there's the imminent release of the Jeffrey Epstein visitor logs. Unless -- so all of that is swirling about in headlines. And then the shoot-downs come.

Now, I think that the first balloon, that we shot down, was in fact, a spy balloon from China.
They essentially admitted as much.

GLENN: What do they get, that they couldn't get a satellite.

MATTHEW: Well, altitude matters.

So every country that has a space faring capability is engaged in spying on our adversaries.

But you do that, outside of the sovereign airspace of nations. And in space. And we do that with optical capabilities. And we do it from higher up as well. But the closer you are to the earth, the fact of the matter, the better images you're able to take. But what's most concerning, not just more images.

I'm guessing -- I shouldn't say I'm guessing. There are enough images, the world over. It's like, what good does one more image do?

The fact is, depending on what capabilities were aboard that first balloon that we shot down, I think it was on the board in February.

There's any number of other signals, transmissions, code, that could have been either interfered with, tampered with, or received or retrieved by the Chinese Communist Party.

And so is this a first-time event? Likely not, apparently.

But it's totally bogus, that we were told it's the American people. That the concern was for the American people on the ground.

And that's why we weren't shooting it, out of the sky, and we're letting it traverse the entirety of the country.

I mean, any American city, who has been at the commercial airliner. Can take a look around. And tell you, that most places over the continental United States, don't have people living there.

I mean, it's just desolate. And the moment that thing left overhead, any major US city, it should have been brought down.

And it didn't need to be obliterated. I mean, we could have just brought it to its knees, and brought it down, and kept it intact, and tried to be transparent with the American people, about what it is that we think we saw.

And yet, we didn't do any of that. We shoot it down over water, send it to FBI headquarters of all things, and then complain that we can't quite recover all of the capabilities that were aboard the balloon.

I mean, and here's something that is important as a principle for your listener to keep in mind. In relative peacetime, it's difficult enough, as we've seen.

To stitch together, an accurate view of the things that are taking place in politics. But when you're talking about relative wartime. Increased and heightened wartime. It will be near impossible. Because deception is an important part of grand strategy.

GLENN: I unfortunately think that we're getting deception from our own government, to our own people.

PAT: Right.

GLENN: And, you know, one of those things is that China is the new model, which I believe they believe.

But -- but that, you know, they're -- they're -- that they're not hostile to us.

There is plenty of evidence, that they are fighting a war, that we refuse to involve ourselves, or even recognize.

And we're going to pay a high price for this. Do you think that's right or wrong?

MATTHEW: I think it is right. In fact, you almost -- okay. If I was Xi Jinping, I would try to avoid a shooting match with the United States at all costs.

In fact, I didn't see the show that you had mentioned that you had done last night.

GLENN: Uh-huh.

MATTHEW: But you referenced a 1999 manual. I presume you're talking about the work you're calling unrestricted warfare.

GLENN: Yes, exactly right.

MATTHEW: By these two Chinese colonels.

Nothing -- in that book, the overarching premise of the strategy to defeat the West, and the United States in particular, is that nothing is off the table, as far as how you pursue the destruction of the United States.

It doesn't have to be direct kinetic conventional warfare and tactics.

And so, again, the American people have to ask themselves, the question.

Must military force be used to destroy a country?

And the answer is of course not.

And the Chinese are aware of that. And so to your point, Xi Jinping, more than frankly, many American people are willing to acknowledge at this point, is well aware of the fact that we're in a kind of code civil war ourselves.

So that combination in combination with the fact that we are indeed in a Cold War with China. And the Chinese Communist Party, and Xi Jinping, is a terrible combination.

And if I was him, I would sit and watch, our own disintegration, from within our own borders.

I would watch bad policy decisions being made by people like Joe Biden and the Biden administration.

And I would cheer that on, and I would influence it in every possible way, that did not involve direct kinetic operations, so that I could emerge. The benevolent superpower, we didn't need to shed a drop of blood, to rise to preeminence in the world stage.

Not only does that allow him to keep some semblance of a reputation intact, it allows him to make claims about the superiority of their worldview and ideology.

The Communist, the Marxist, the Maoist worldview, and it was superior to the capitalist worldview.

And, look, they crumbled under the weight of their own foolishness, while we emerged the -- the global hegemony, not just a regional hegemony, but the global hegemony.

GLENN: All right. Back in just a second. This is a fascinating conversation, and I want to go back to space in a minute.

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(music)
We are talking to Matthew Lohmeier, former Space Force Lieutenant Colonel, a hero in my book. About everything that's going on right now in the world.

Matthew, a quick question.

Do you see war as something we are blindly marching towards right now?

MATTHEW: That's entirely possible.

If you take a look at the national security strategy, and the national defense strategy, both documents are clear that the United States considers China a top security and defense priority.

Now, we're not the war department anymore. We're the Defense Department.

And we're very careful on how we approach a lot of these things. But the fact is, that's been true for a number of years.

We're in a Cold War with China right now.

And it's easy to look back in retrospect, at the USSR, first Cold War within and kind of paint it into a neat picture.

But the fact is, this Cold War idea, is based upon an ideological, geopolitical struggle for global influence.

And just like the Cold War, we're involved in an ideological and geopolitical struggle. For global influence, with China. And they consider themselves at war with the United States. They're just going to be careful about how they approach them.

GLENN: Right. I have about 90 seconds left.

And I just have to ask you. I've seen more stuff from UFOs come from the Pentagon than ever before.

And, you know, the people that I talked to, I strangely find myself at a place going, I think that we may be headed towards a time when we're going to be visited by somebody.

Do you believe -- do you believe that?

MATTHEW: You need to give me more time than the remaining 60 seconds for questions like that.

Here's -- it's funny, I was just chatting with some folks last night about this.

You know, we're quick to want to believe in something like alien visitors from another star system or another planet.

And slow to believe anymore even stories from the Bible, that angels, in fact, come and visited the earth. Now, did they come in balloons?

Absolutely not.

We've got an increasing global military threat from advanced nations all over.

It's far more likely that much of what people have been seeing, has to do with governments.

Now, that said, I am entirely open to the idea, that, of course, intelligent life exists out there.

But to the point you made earlier, are they going to come in their -- advanced spacecraft, just to get shot down over a field? Over the United States, and say, well, shoot, we didn't anticipate the Americans had missiles.
(laughter)
I mean, so there's a lot -- a lot of easy --

GLENN: Right.

MATTHEW: Speculative conclusions we can jump to. But often the simple, realistic answer is more likely the right one. And governments are at work right now, vying for power. And so much of what we're going to see in the headlines has to do with that. And probably not aliens. But about it you want to get a visit from aliens, maybe, you know, get yours some religion and pray a little bit more.

GLENN: Good for you. Good for you. Matthew Lohmeier.

Thank you so much.

Former space force lieutenant colonel, author of the book, Irresistible Revolution. You can find him or follow him @MatthewLohmeier. And MatthewLohmeier.com.

THE GLENN BECK PODCAST

Max Lucado & Glenn Beck: Finding unity in faith

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

Watch Glenn Beck's FULL Interview with Max Lucado HERE

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

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

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

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

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

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

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

BILL: Family okay? All of that?

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

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

GLENN: It is.

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

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

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

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

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

Ultra dangerous.

And a few hours later, Charlie Kirk is assassinated.

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

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

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

People create around their own lives.

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

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

He decided that he wanted to do that.

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

GLENN: Yes, he was.

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

That's what Charlie Kirk did.

And he lost his life.

By doing it!

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

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

But it really isn't.

And this is the ongoing story.

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

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

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

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

GLENN: He is.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And then you have the big Jesus revolution after that.

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

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

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

And you're never going to get them back.

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

Let's run it down.

The corporate media is finished.

In America. It's over.

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

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

And the hate is the key word.

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

I will do it GE today. With major Garrett.

GLENN: Wow.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let me ask you about --

BILL: When am I wrong?

When am I wrong?

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

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

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

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

GLENN: Yeah, okay.

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

BILL: Yeah.

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

So --

GLENN: You think that they could.

BILL: 60 Minutes used to be the gold standard.

GLENN: Uh-huh.

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

GLENN: I don't either.

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

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

They never, ever watched network television.

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

GLENN: Yeah. Yeah.

They don't watch --

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

GLENN: Yeah. Right.

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

Same voices, with huge followings.

Huge!

All right?

We couldn't get on there.

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

GLENN: I know.

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

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

BILL: Yes, it was his defiance.

GLENN: Yes.

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

GLENN: Yes. Yes.

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

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

GLENN: Why?

BILL: Because Putin would use nuclear weapon.

He wouldn't. He's a psychopath.

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

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

GLENN: I'll be there. What time?

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

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

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

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

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

GLENN: Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Should people CELEBRATING Charlie Kirk’s death be fired?

There’s a big difference between firing someone, like a teacher, for believing children shouldn’t undergo trans surgery and firing a teacher who celebrated the murder of Charlie Kirk. Glenn Beck explains why the latter is NOT “cancel culture.”

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: I got an email from somebody that says, Glenn, in the wake of Charlie's assassination, dozens of teachers, professors and professionals are being suspended or fired for mocking, or even celebrating Charlie Kirk's death.

Critics say conservatives are now being hypocritical because you oppose cancel culture. But is this the same as rose an losing her job over a crude joke. Or is it celebrating murder, and that's something more serious?

For many, this isn't about cancellation it's about trust. If a teacher is entrusted with children or a doctor entrusted with patients, publicly celebrates political violence, have they not yet disqualified themselves from those roles? Words matter. But cheering a death is an action. Is there any consequence for this? Yes. There is.

So let's have that conversation here for a second.

Is every -- is every speech controversy the same?

The answer to that is clearly no.

I mean, we've seen teachers and pastors and doctors and ordinary citizens lose their job now, just for saying they don't believe children under 18 should undergo transgender surgeries. Okay? Lost their job. Chased out.

That opinion, whether you agree or disagree is a moral and medical judgment.

And it is a matter of policy debate. It is speech in the public square.

I have a right to say, you're mutilating children. Okay. You have a right to say, no. We're not. This is the best practices. And then we can get into the silences of it. And we don't shout down the other side.

Okay? Now, on the other hand, you have Charlie Kirk's assassination. And we've seen teachers and professors go online and be celebrate.

Not criticize. Not argue policy. But celebrate that someone was murdered.

Some have gone so far and said, it's not a tragedy. It's a victory. Somebody else, another professor said, you reap what you sow.

Well, let me ask you: Are these two categories of free speech the same?

No! They're not.

Here's the difference. To say, I believe children should not be allowed to have gender surgeries, before 18. That is an attempt, right or wrong. It doesn't matter which side you are.

That is an attempt to protect life. Protect children. And guide society.

It's entering the debate about the role of medicine. The right of parents. And the boundaries of childhood. That's what that is about. To say Charlie Kirk's assassination is a good thing, that's not a debate. That's not even an idea. That's rejoicing in violence. It's glorifying death.

There's no place in a civil society for that kind of stuff. There's not. And it's a difference that actually matters.

You know, our Founders fought for free speech because they believed as Jefferson said, that air can be tolerated where truth is left free to combat it.

So I have no problem with people disagreeing with me, at all. I don't think you do either. I hope you don't. Otherwise, you should go back to read the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Error can be tolerated where truth is left to be free to combat it.

But when speech shifts from debating ideas to celebrating death, doesn't that cease to be the pursuit of truth and instead, just become a glorification of evil?

I know where I stand on that one. Where do you stand?

I mean, if you go back and you look at history, in colonial matter -- in colonial America, if you were to go against the parliament and against the king, those words were dangerous. They were called treason. But they were whys. They were arguments about liberty and taxation and the rights of man.

And the Founders risked their lives against the dictator to say those things.

Now, compare that to France in 1793.

You Thomas Paine, one of or -- one of our founder kind of. On the edges of our founders.

He thought that what was happening in France is exactly like the American Revolution.

Washington -- no. It wasn't.

There the crowds. They didn't gather to argue. Okay? They argued to cheer the guillotine they didn't want the battle of ideas.

They wanted blood. They wanted heads to roll.

And roll they did. You know, until the people who were screaming for the heads to roll, shouted for blood, found that their own heads were rolling.

Then they turned around on that one pretty quickly.

Think of Rome.

Cicero begged his countrymen to preserve the republic through reason, law, and debate. Then what happened?

The mob started cheering assassinations.

They rejoiced that enemies were slaughtered.

They were being fed to the lions.

And the republic fell into empire.

And liberty was lost!

Okay. So now let me bring this back to Charlie Kirk here for a second.

If there's a professor that says, I don't believe children should have surgeries before adulthood, is that cancel culture, when they're fired?

Yes! Yes, it is.

Because that is speech this pursuit of truth.

However imperfect, it is speech meant to protect children, not to harm them. You also cannot be fired for saying, I disagree with that.

If you are telling, I disagree with that. And I will do anything to shut you down including assassination! Well, then, that's a different story.

What I teacher says, I'm glad Charlie Kirk is dead, is that cancel culture, if they're fired?

Or is that just society saying, you know, I don't think I can trust my kid to -- to that guy.

Or that woman.

I know, that's not an enlightening mind.

Somebody who delights in political murder.

I don't want them around my children! Scripture weighs in here too.

Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. Matthew.

What does it reveal about the heart of a teacher who celebrates assassination?

To me, you go back to Scripture. Whoa unto them that call good evil -- evil good and good evil.

A society that will shrug on speech like this, say society that has lost its moral compass.

And I believe we still have a moral compass.

Now, our free speech law doesn't protect both. Absolutely. Under law. Absolutely.

Neither one of them should go to jail.

Neither should be silenced by the state.

But does trust survive both?

Can a parent trust their child to a teacher who is celebrating death?

I think no. I don't think a teacher can be trusted if they think that the children that it's right for children to see strippers in first grade!

I'm sorry. It's beyond reason. You should not be around my children!

But you shouldn't go to jail for that. Don't we, as a society have a right to demand virtue, in positions of authority?

Yes.

But the political class and honestly, the educational class, does everything they can to say, that doesn't matter.

But it does. And we're seeing it now. The line between cancel and culture, the -- the cancellation of people, and the accountability of people in our culture, it's not easy.

Except here. I think it is easy.

Cancel culture is about challenging the orthodoxy. Opinions about faith, morality, biology.
Accountability comes when speech reveals somebody's heart.

Accountability comes when you're like, you are a monster! You are celebrating violence. You're mocking life itself. One is an argument. The other is an abandonment of humanity. The Constitution, so you understand, protects both.

But we as a culture can decide, what kind of voices would shape our children? Heal our sick. Lead our communities?

I'm sorry, if you're in a position of trust, I think it's absolutely right for the culture to say, no!

No. You should not -- because this is not policy debate. This is celebrating death.

You know, our Founders gave us liberty.

And, you know, the big thing was, can you keep it?

Well, how do you keep it? Virtue. Virtue.

Liberty without virtue is suicide!

So if anybody is making this case to you, that this is cancel culture. I just want you to ask them this question.

Which do you want to defend?

Cancel culture that silences debate. Or a culture that still knows the difference between debating ideas and celebrating death.

Which one?

Could passengers have SAVED Iryna Zarutska?

Surveillance footage of the murder of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska in Charlotte, NC, reveals that the other passengers on the train took a long time to help her. Glenn, Stu, and Jason debate whether they were right or wrong to do so.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: You know, I'm -- I'm torn on how I feel about the people on the train.

Because my first instinct is, they did nothing! They did nothing! Then my -- well, sit down and, you know -- you know, you're going to be judged. So be careful on judging others.

What would I have done? What would I want my wife to do in that situation?

STU: Yeah. Are those two different questions, by the way.

GLENN: Yeah, they are.

STU: I think they go far apart from each other. What would I want myself to do. I mean, it's tough to put yourself in a situation. It's very easy to watch a video on the internet and talk about your heroism. Everybody can do that very easily on Twitter. And everybody is.

You know, when you're in a vehicle that doesn't have an exit with a guy who just murdered somebody in front of you, and has a dripping blood off of a knife that's standing 10 feet away from you, 15 feet away from you.

There's probably a different standard there, that we should all kind of consider. And maybe give a little grace to what I saw at least was a woman, sitting across the -- the -- the aisle.

I think there is a difference there. But when you talk about that question. Those two questions are definitive.

You know, I know what I would want myself to do. I would hope I would act in a way that didn't completely embarrass myself afterward.

But I also think, when I'm thinking of my wife. My advice to my wife would not be to jump into the middle of that situation at all costs. She might do that anyway. She actually is a heck of a lot stronger than I am.

But she might do it anyway.

GLENN: How pathetic, but how true.

STU: Yes. But that would not be my advice to her.

GLENN: Uh-huh.

STU: Now, maybe once the guy has certainly -- is out of the area. And you don't think the moment you step into that situation. He will turn around and kill you too. Then, of course, obviously. Anything you can do to step in.

Not that there was much anyone on the train could do.

I mean, I don't think there was an outcome change, no matter what anyone on that train did.

Unfortunately.

But would I want her to step in?

Of course. If she felt she was safe, yes.

Think about, you said, your wife. Think about your daughter. Your daughter is on that train, just watching someone else getting murdered like that. Would you advise your daughter to jump into a situation like that?

That girl sitting across the aisle was somebody's daughter. I don't know, man.

JASON: I would. You know, as a dad, would I advise.

Hmm. No.

As a human being, would I hope that my daughter or my wife or that I would get up and at least comfort that woman while she's dying on the floor of a train?

Yeah.

I would hope that my daughter, my son, that I would -- and, you know, I have more confidence in my son or daughter or my wife doing something courageous more than I would.

But, you know, I think I have a more realistic picture of myself than anybody else.

And I'm not sure that -- I'm not sure what I would do in that situation. I know what I would hope I would do. But I also know what I fear I would do. But I would have hoped that I would have gotten up and at least tried to help her. You know, help her up off the floor. At least be there with her, as she's seeing her life, you know, spill out in under a minute.

And that's it other thing we have to keep in mind. This all happened so rapidly.

A minute is -- will seem like a very long period of time in that situation. But it's a very short period of time in real life.

STU: Yeah. You watch the video, Glenn. You know, I don't need the video to -- to change my -- my position on this.

But at his seem like there was a -- someone who did get there, eventually, to help, right? I saw someone seemingly trying to put pressure on her neck.

GLENN: Yeah. And tried to give her CPR.

STU: You know, no hope at that point. How long of a time period would you say that was?

Do you know off the top of your head?

GLENN: I don't know. I don't know. I know that we watched the video that I saw. I haven't seen past 30 seconds after she --

STU: Yeah.

GLENN: -- is down. And, you know, for 30 seconds nothing is happening. You know, that is -- that is not a very long period of time.

STU: Right.

GLENN: In reality.

STU: And especially, I saw the pace he was walking. He certainly can't be -- you know, he may have left the actual train car by 30 seconds to a minute. But he wasn't that far away. Like he was still in visual.

He could still turn around and look and see what's going on at that point. So certainly still a threat is my point. He has not, like, left the area. This is not that type of situation.

You know, I -- look, as you point out, I think if I could be super duper sexist for a moment here, sort of my dividing line might just be men and women.

You know, I don't know if it's that a -- you're not supposed to say that, I suppose these days. But, like, there is a difference there. If I'm a man, you know, I would be -- I would want my son to jump in on that, I suppose. I don't know if he could do anything about it. But you would expect at least a grown man to be able to go in there and do something about it. A woman, you know, I don't know.

Maybe I'm -- I hope --

GLENN: Here's the thing I -- here's the thing that I -- that causes me to say, no. You should have jumped in.

And that is, you know, you've already killed one person on the train. So you've proven that you're a killer. And anybody who would have screamed and got up and was with her, she's dying. She's dying. Get him. Get him.

Then the whole train is responsible for stopping that guy. You know. And if you don't stop him, after he's killed one person, if you're not all as members of that train, if you're not stopping him, you know, the person at the side of that girl would be the least likely to be killed. It would be the ones that are standing you up and trying to stop him from getting back to your daughter or your wife or you.

JASON: There was a -- speaking of men and women and their roles in this. There was a video circling social media yesterday. In Sweden. There was a group of officials up on a stage. And one of the main. I think it was health official woman collapses on stage. Completely passes out.

All the men kind of look away. Or I don't know if they're looking away. Or pretending that they didn't know what was going on. There was another woman standing directly behind the woman passed out.

Immediately springs into action. Jumps on top. Grabs her pant leg. Grabs her shoulder. Spins her over and starts providing care.

What did she have that the other guys did not? Or women?

She was a sheepdog. There is a -- this is my issue. And I completely agree with Stu. I completely agree with you. There's some people that do not respond this way. My issue is the proportion of sheepdogs versus people that don't really know how to act. That is diminishing in western society. And American society.

We see it all the time in these critical actions. I mean, circumstances.

There are men and women, and it's actually a meme. That fantasize about hoards of people coming to attack their home and family. And they sit there and say, I've got it. You guys go. I'm staying behind, while I smoke my cigarette and wait for the hoards to come, because I will sacrifice myself. There are men and women that fantasize of block my highway. Go ahead. Block my highway. I'm going to do something about it. They fantasize about someone holding up -- not a liquor store. A convenience store or something. Because they will step in and do something. My issue now is that proportion of sheepdogs in society is disappearing. Just on statistical fact, there should be one within that train car, and there were none.

STU: Yeah. I mean --

JASON: They did not respond.

STU: We see what happens when they do, with Daniel Penny. Our society tries to vilify them and crush their existence. Now, there weren't that many people on that train. Right?

At least on that car. At least it's limited. I only saw three or four people there, there may have been more. I agree with you, though. Like, you see what happens when we actually do have a really recent example of someone doing exactly what Jason wants and what I would want a guy to do. Especially a marine to step up and stop this from happening. And the man was dragged by our legal system to a position where he nearly had to spend the rest of his life in prison.

I mean, I -- it's insanity. Thankfully, they came to their senses on that one.

GLENN: Well, the difference between that one and this one though is that the guy was threatening. This one, he killed somebody.

STU: Yeah. Right. Well, but -- I think -- but it's the opposite way. The debate with Penny, was should he have recognize that had this person might have just been crazy and not done anything?

Maybe. He hadn't actually acted yet. He was just saying things.

GLENN: Yeah. Well --

STU: He didn't wind up stabbing someone. This is a situation where these people have already seen what this man will do to you, even when you don't do anything to try to stop him. So if this woman, who is, again, looks to be an average American woman.

Across the aisle. Steps in and tries to do something. This guy could easily turn around and just make another pile of dead bodies next to the one that already exists.

And, you know, whether that is an optimal solution for our society, I don't know that that's helpful.

In that situation.