RADIOApril 26, 2024

Is Speaker Mike Johnson REALLY a Conservative?

To many, Rep. Mike Johnson came out of nowhere to become House Speaker. But back in 2018, the Daily Beast published an article titled "Meet the Double Agent Who Now Controls House Conservatives," which alleges that Johnson was a "mole" for the House Freedom Caucus to infiltrate the larger Republican congressional groups. Well, things look a little different now that Johnson is in power — he has seemingly abandoned his more conservative leanings to toe the line of the Republican leadership on things like the budget and Ukraine aid. So, is there any truth to the rumors that Johnson is a master of infiltration? Why has he seemed to cave under pressure? Blaze Media Senior Politics Editor Christopher Bedford joins Glenn to weigh in.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: So two years ago, I had this guy on. Christopher Bedford. And he was -- he was writing for the Federalist at the time.

And he said he had written a piece, I think it was two years after the lockdowns. The West troubles aren't ending. They're just beginning.

And I thought, he had some real foresight. And, boy, was he right about that. Christopher Bedford now is a senior editor for politics. Washington correspondent for the Blaze media. He has written for the American mind, the Washington Examiner, National Review. The New York Post.

He was the editor-of-chief for the Daily Caller News Foundation. And we're thrilled to have him at TheBlaze.com.

So -- so help me out on this, Chris.

Because I -- for the life of me, I cannot get my head around speaker Johnson being a secret spy. Do you buy this?

CHRISTOPHER: Not completely. No. First of all, it's great to be on the pirate ship, especially stormy waters. I think it's a great crew to be sailing with.

GLENN: Thank you.

CHRISTOPHER: Here in DC. An article that caught my eye was the 2018 Daily Beast piece, after -- after Johnson became the head of the Republican study committee. Which was founded as a conservative committee that was taken over by Republican leadership under Boehner, and kind of became a hangout spot for Republicans. That's what kind of started the Freedom Caucus.

Now, you saw Johnson had been hanging out with the Freedom Caucus. He's been going to their meetings. He's not been paying dues, which is a big faux pas. It's hard to collect those dues. But they go to pay the few shared staff that the Freedom Caucus has. He's not been -- he's been going to those meetings. So when he became the new chairman of the Republican Study Committee, a lot of his colleagues, Republican, more liberal colleagues said, well, this guy is a double agent. He just sneaked on here. He's pretending not to be part of the Freedom Caucus, the conservative group. But really it's a conservative takeover. And I look at that, and I looked at how since he's become speaker. Someone I had a lot of hope for.

You had a lot of hope for.

I was excited. Wow, this is the first social conservative and Republican leadership in decades. Right?

That cares about this stuff. We might have a fighting chance here, and it's been very disappointing.

GLENN: That might be an understatement.

CHRISTOPHER: You know, the way he seems to negotiate. Whether it's government funding, impeachment, FISA, now Ukraine. Step one is a major decision comes along his way, and he goes back and forth. Step two, he's not sure what to do. He delays it as long as he possibly can. Then he kind of -- tweaks what was originally offered. He pretends it was a win. And he asks Democrats to bail him out.

That seems to be what's going on here. So when you look back at this Daily Beast piece.

When you look at the people who have known him, have known him to be a good man. Which, by all accounts, he is. In his personal life.

You have to what -- what could be driving him?

And it seems to be a classic case of Washington, DC. Extreme ambition.

And an ability to deceive himself, which is not too uncommon. You think a lot of the folks here in Washington are real hypocrites.

Or real bad men. Who claim to be the Lord's work. When, in fact, they're doing their own.

But a surprising amount of them have really convinced themselves, that they are on the good side.
They are on the really creepy quote, the right side of history.

That they are -- they are the good guys, who will come and save the day. And this is why the Lord put them there.

And it really feeds into an incredible ego. An incredible amount of ambition.

And also, just the sad reality. That a lot of these folks are pretty weak. As leaders and people. They are capable, like many of us are, of standing at the back of the crowd. And saying, I agree. This is bad.

Or being a backbencher who said, I am not sending any more money to that bloodbath. I'm going to -- I don't care what the defense industry puts on me.

But I will not let women be drafted. It's easy to say that, when you're not the leader.

But when you're in the center and you take all those arrows and all those meetings from the Intel community, and it's all on you. You have to answer to that.

Well, that's when you find out, who is really a leader, and who is just ambitious.

GLENN: You know, there is -- in your article for Blaze, you've talked to a lot of his colleagues.

And one of his senior staffers that worked with him in 2018 said, the speaker is someone who can forgive himself for lying, because he thinks it's for a higher purpose.

He has an exceptional capacity for self-justification.

That's not good.

CHRISTOPHER: No, it's not good. And it's something I found repeated over and over again, about Johnson. You know, when he ran for Speaker, it's kind of a dark horse, surprise candidate. A lot of his colleagues, Republican colleagues, and even ones who were more conservative were willing to say, you know, I know him personally. He's a man of God.

And, therefore, I trust him. But they didn't want to look at the records.

They didn't want to look at, well, what happens, if leadership puts a little bit of pressure on him. How does his vote change?

Will he actually -- his personal or religious beliefs. His commitments. How do those actually shine, as a statesman. Someone willing to take the arrows. And they don't. The votes don't back him up.

He looked at this, as what I've been told by his colleagues. He's been put in this position.

He's been chosen for this.

And if he needs to lie. If he needs to deceive. And he needs to twist arms to further it.

Then he's on the right side.

Again, I've heard him saying, since the right side of history. The other people are on the wrong side of history.

Ask that his actions can therefore be justified.

We see this all the time.

You see it in levels like this. With politics.

You see it, of course, a lot in 2016.

With a lot of the left saying, people support Donald Trump, are basically the Nazis.

Well, once you say that, you're on the side of God. And they're on the side of Hitler.

Then you can justify a lot of actions, that I think a moral person cannot otherwise justify.

GLENN: So what do you think is coming for him?

For the rest of us?

Are we just -- are we just stuck with a guy who is pathetic and weak now?

Because the Democrats would absolutely vote to keep him in.

CHRISTOPHER: You know, I'm curious about that. Everyone is on recess right now, and things have quieted down. But the question is: With everything that is coming down next, how will he be able to continue to govern here? Right now, he's essentially, even though he's a Speaker of the House, and supposedly the head of the Republican coalition, he's really governing, as a kind of Prime Minister. A center of left coalition. The union party. Which has already kind of governed DC. Now it's really being open about it.

Where he has half of Republicans on his side. And about two-thirds of Democrats on his side.

So how is he actually going to be able to pass anything with that coalition?

The Democrats will protect him. The Republicans, a lot of them will never come back to him. What's he actually going to be able to do in the next couple of weeks?

I kind of wonder if he's a lame duck speaker. Because he has these folks. But they accomplished their 95 billion. Then, again, there's also already -- there's already leaked rumors, that they're planning the next big handout to the Ukraine War.

That they're planning to come in September. And I suspect, that he'll still be Speaker through September.

But what will happen in November, is either Republicans will lose their slim majority, in which case he won't be Speaker, or they'll win it.

And then he will have to look around. And find out, amongst those liberal Republicans, who are his allies? Who is actually going to put him up for speaker?

And what are the alternatives?

Right now, he's kind of running against Noah.

He could be saying that, but it will be difficult.

GLENN: You being in Washington. Hanging out or around these people all the time. Watching them. Listening to them.

What do you think they think is coming, in November?

CHRISTOPHER: I think people are -- Republicans are cautiously optimistic, for a Donald Trump victory.

But, of course, there are huge amounts of shenanigans, that are already unfolding. There's worries about what will be the new COVID. What will be the new moral panic, that causes the voting can't be done squarely.

And in full view of the public. The Republican national committee, has been trying to mix up its plan for how to -- whether it will be early voting. Or where its lawyers are going to be.

We know it's going to be, I think chaos. Either Donald Trump actually wins and left-wing takes to the streets, like they did in 2016.

Burning cars. Or attacking people. Or Donald Trump loses. And either way, large parts of this country will not be satisfied with the election results. The attention that has existed in 2016 has not gotten any less.

GLENN: How do the Democrats feel? Confident? Worried?

CHRISTOPHER: No. No.

They were significantly more worried before Joe Biden's State of the Union. You saw that in the New York Times, Washington Post, MSNBC, people openly wishing that they had a different candidate. Just like you saw in 2020, people wishing it was Cuomo instead of Joe Biden. And we'll see a lot actually this weekend with the White House Correspondents' Dinner, where everyone will be paying attention to Joe Biden's remarks. Are they clear? Are they concise? Is he funny, like he can be, when he's on? Like he was at some points in the State of the Union? But there is a real fear amongst Democrats, that Donald Trump is coming back. That the constant cycle of drama that they surrounded his entire four years with, hasn't stuck with the American people because so much of it was fake.

So much of it was impossible to remember, because they were fake scandals. Democrats in town are not confident, that they will get the White House. But they are feeling fairly confident about Congress.

GLENN: We're talking to Christopher Bedford. He's TheBlaze senior media political editor. And the Blaze media Washington correspondent.

When do they come back into session?

CHRISTOPHER: This week. Short vacation. And the Senate was even cut down a little shorter.

Because they had to stick around for the American people. Being sarcastic on that.
(laughter)

GLENN: Real quick. Any just on the Trump trial this week.

Biden said -- DOJ said actually, that Trump is the first president to face criminal prosecution, because predecessors, other presidents just didn't commit any crimes.

CHRISTOPHER: Yeah. I remember when Barack Obama left office. Washington Post said, it was a scandal-free administration. So I think there were some voter agents who could disagree with that. The Trump trial is going to be interesting.

It's New York. It's tough. The judge is obviously against them.

But the prosecution has embarrassed themselves so far. The case is so weak. And you kind of forget that, in the hubbub of the news.

That it's reliant on a bunch of liars. The term of misdemeanor, that is outside the statute of limitations, into a felony. Because of another misdemeanor, that can barely be cited. And it took the prosecution two days to come up with that argument.

And at the same time, the Supreme Court seemed like it's going to crack down. And at least limit, what the president is able to do, with his authority.

Because that will help push some of the other trials back, until after the election if that happens.

But at the end of the day, it doesn't matter because he's not out campaigning. He is not able to leave New York. He's kind of stuck. He wasn't able to weigh in the last of the hill fights. They haven't put him in a prison cell. They have somewhat put him in a room. That's something you will see. And you will probably see some jokes about it. That this big fancy dinner they're having this weekend. They will be laughing at us, about how they still managed to stop, probably the greatest campaigner in modern history, from being able to campaign.

GLENN: So do you think that hurts him? Because the people who will vote for him, will vote for him, anyway.

And the ones who are -- the ones who really, they vote for him. But they really don't like his tweets. And his personality, and everything else.

By keeping him off the road. And yet, still, in the public eye, you keep the folks on Joe Biden. And is there any case to be made, that's good? For Donald Trump.

CHRISTOPHER: So far, it actually hasn't hurt him. To your point. And the folks in the suburbs, who maybe voted for Trump in 2016, and voted for Biden in 2020. To your point, they will not be swayed by a rally. They will not be swayed by the kind of puff corn and rah-rah that goes on at those fun events. And -- but they are being swayed a little bit by the incredible unfairness.

The question is whether or not they will actually be able to get felony charges on him. Because that's the kind of thing that does spook those easily frightened voters.

GLENN: Yeah. All right. Thank you so much. Really, really appreciate it, Chris. Thank you.

CHRISTOPHER: It's great to be back.

GLENN: You bet.

Silent squeeze: How the Dems shutdown is CHOKING the economy

The U.S. government shutdown is hoarding nearly $1 trillion in the Treasury, all while government employees are going without pay. Like a body slowly losing oxygen, this squeeze spikes rates, and threatens Main Street first—freezing small businesses, families, and consumers. This is all PLANNED to destroy Trump's economy and give power back to the Democrats. This MUST END.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: So we have hit a critical juncture. A turning point, if you will. On the closure of the government.

And the government needs to open back up. And I'm going to explain it in a way that nobody else will explain it to you. If you're watching CNBC over the last couple of days, they were saying things like, you know, the repo market is under great stress. The banks are getting money from the Federal Reserve. At incredible rates. Highest it's been since 2020.

What does that mean?

What does that mean?

The banks, when they close, they have to have a certain amount of cash in their vaults to cover everything.

It's a requirement by law. And if they don't have that, then they have to go to what's called the repo market, and they borrow money overnight.

And there's interest on it, they borrow it over night. And they give it back in the morning when they open back up. Okay?

It's only done when banks are short of cash. It used to be a very bad thing. Now it's happening all the time. But not at these levels. So let me explain what all of these things mean.

Try to imagine, if you will, that America's financial system is like a living body. The heart, as much as I hate to say it. For this example, is the Federal Reserve.

It doesn't create life. But it keeps the blood pumping. Okay? The arteries and the veins are the banks and the institutions that carry the lifeblood of the economy, money. Okay?

And the capillaries, are like you and me. Every family, every small business, every worker trying to make a paycheck stretch from one week to the next. Okay?

We're not an artery. We're capillaries. Now, in this body, there's something called the repo market. Okay?

This is the place where banks and institutions go to borrow cash overnight. Okay?

Think of that cash like oxygen, okay?

The oxygen exchange that happens in the lungs. It's fast, it's constant, it's invisible. But it is vital. You don't have the oxygen, it doesn't matter what the blood is doing, right?

Every night, money goes out. Every morning, money comes back in. That rhythm is what keeps the entire body alive. Well, in the last few days, that rhythm has faltered, something is clogging the arteries.

The banks, the vessels, they're gasping now for oxygen. So they're going to the fed's emergency oxygen tank. The standing repo facility.

And they're drawing record amounts of cash out, just to keep breathing. Okay?

It's like watching a marathon runner suddenly reach for an oxygen mask at mile three. Why?

Why is this happening?

This is the important part. Because while the government is shutdown, and we might think. Well, that's good. They're not spending money.

Hmm. The treasury is the fiscal liver of the body. And it's storing all of the blood in the liver. Okay?

It's storing cash in a valuate now called the treasury general account. There's nearly a trillion dollars sitting there.

A trillion dollars sitting there.

Not being paid. Every dollar that goes into that vault is a dollar that can't circulate now through the body. So now it's starving everything of cash. Because there's a trillion dollars sitting in the Treasury.

And even though, you can't see it, every second the shutdown drags on. The system is being starved. And the arteries are tightening.

And the heart is straining. And the body is starting to shiver. And that's what's happening right now in the shadows of our financial system.

It's not about Wall Street freed. It's not some obscure number on a Bloomberg terminal. It is about a government that has turned inward, frozen by politics, unable to pass the simplest resolution to fund itself. And because it's doing this, it's pulling all of that pretty sure liquidity. A trillion dollars in cash. The oxygen. The life of our economy, out of the bloodstream, and into a vault.

If you've ever had a power outage in winter, you might know the feeling. Let me describe it this way. First, it's fine. You grab a candle. You grab a blanket. You start the fireplace.

Hours drag on. The house starts to get a little cooler. If it continues to drop on. The pipes begin to trees. And by morning, it's no longer a cute little thing, that, oh, no. We'll just sit by the fireplace. It's cold. Okay?

That's where we're at, financially right now. We are not at the point of collapse. But we are at the point of freezing the pipes.

What does that mean, when I'm talking about the arteries?

The government you shutdown has locked up the treasury's checkbook. That means fewer payments to contractors. Less spending. Less money flowing into the banking system. When less cash circulates, the banks can't lend freely because there's no cash.

Money gets tight. Repo rates, that invisible overnight interest rates. That starts to spike. And when that happens, it affects the capillaries.

You and me. The smallest players. The smallest businesses. The consumers. The credit unions. We begin to feel it first.

Okay?

When arteries clog, at the heart, what's the first part of the body that goes cold? Goes numb. The fingers. The toes. That's us! Here's the tragic irony.

The politicians, you know, the Democratic Party, fighting over principle. They may think it's about posturing, about leverage, about who blinks first. But it's not. While they're playing chicken with our nation's checkbook, it is now time to say, enough is enough! Because the system is gasping for air.

And this is how financial crises begin. We're not in one yet. But, again, the pipes are beginning to freeze. This is how things happen. They happen quietly, not with a bang.

Not with a crash. But with tightening. With the arteries getting clogged. All of a sudden, you have a widow maker. And you didn't see it coming.

Because it's a slow, silent squeeze that begins in the overnight funding markets. The kind of plumbing that nobody ever looks at, nobody ever talks about.

Nobody even understands. Do you understand how the pipes are working in your house, behind your walls? I don't even know where they go. I know they eventually go down and out, but I don't know. And all of a sudden, you find out, when a pipe bursts.

Make no mistake, if this continues, it won't just be the banks that are hurting. It will be your mortgage rate. Your credit card interests, your grocery bill.

Because the system has to begin charging more for everything. Because they are paying more in interest, to hoard what little cash is out there.

The longer it goes on, the more cash goes into the government, and it sits there.

It's -- it's like watching your bloodstream start to clot!

You're not going to feel it right away. But if it reaches the heart. Reaches the brain. The damage can be fatal.

So here's the one truth today, on the economy, that the media won't tell you, or -- they fail to explain it. The repo market.

What the hell does that mean!

Why are you only talking to the people on Wall Street. Why don't you tell the people who are going to be affected first.

How can an alcoholic DJ figure out a way to explain this to the average person?

But you can't!

This shutdown is not just a political stalemate.

It is a self-inflicted wound.

We are at a point now, where the government is literally draining oxygen from the economy! And the Fed is in triage mode. Pumping emergency liquidity into the veins, just to keep the patient alive. The question is, how long can the patient keep doing CPR, before they tire out?

How long before, we need to start printing money.

The cure is not money printing.

It's governance. It's having a damn adult in the room. It's lawmakers that understand that starving the bloodstream to win a headline is not courage. It's madness!

When -- when will the Democrats stop this game, the shutdown has to end!

Not because Wall Street wants it. But because Main Street needs it!

The blood of the American economy. The trust, the liquidity, the stability.

It's not infinite.

And once the heart starts to falter, it takes more than an emergency repo to bring a nation back to life.

This must end!

"The Most Dangerous Place on Earth Right Now!" - SHOCKING Details of Nigeria's Christian Genocide

Across Nigeria, Christians are being hunted, churches burned, and entire communities wiped out — yet the world remains silent. In this powerful discussion, Glenn Beck and Rep. Riley Moore uncover the horrific truth behind Nigeria’s Christian genocide and the shocking indifference from global leaders. This silent war on faith is one of the greatest humanitarian and moral crises of our time. Will America stand up for its brothers and sisters in Christ before it’s too late?

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: All right. Riley, let me talk to you about Nigeria, and what's happening in Nigeria. It's the scariest, most deadly country in the world, if you happen to be a Christian. And nobody seems to -- to be talking about it. And, you know, you have been involved in, you know, urging Secretary Rubio to say Nigeria is a country of particular concern, which I don't what an that means exactly. What doors does that unlock?

RILEY: Yeah. So that is -- that designation actually fits in the U.S. Code. So it does unlock 15 different Levers for the President when a country is designated a country of particular concern. That could be holding development money, that could be going to international institutions to free assistance through there. That could also halt security assistance, which would be arms sales and training and things like that, that have been going on in Nigeria. We could sanction individuals. It gives the President the authority to do a number of different things that can really, I think, leverage the Nigerians to actually start caring about our brothers and sisters in Christ, who are getting murdered for the professions they're facing in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

So I think this is a good first step, and we're going to see how the Nigerians react to this now. I've been having meetings with Departments of State.

We are going to meet with the Nigerians here at some point as well, here in DC.

So we're going to see what they're going to bring to the table. But also the President, who always puts all options on the table, has said, if they don't start fixing this, they're there couldn't potentially be kinetic military actions on -- in Nigeria.

GLENN: What does that mean?

Boots on the ground?

RILEY: No. To me, it does not mean that. To me, you have -- you have complex issues that are going on, over there. Where you have in the middle band of the country. This is where the Fulanis are. And these are herdsmen. And this is where you get this radical strain, obviously. Islamic terrorists, these Fulanis. These are herdsmen, tribes, and they have been attacking Christians in that middle band. In the northern part of the country is mostly Muslim. Southern part of the country is mostly Christian.

So that middle part, where they graze their cattle and all that, is where you see a lot of these flash points and murdering going on. But then in the northern part of the country is where you have ISIS, Boko Haram. They are operating there. And where they're taking over towns and communities, as we saw in Syria, right? Previously. Same type of thing.

GLENN: Yeah.

RILEY: CAIR is enfranchising, going on over there, all through the Lake Chad region, actually. So that's where I think, if it made sense to have some type of military action in forms of an airstrike or something like that, to -- to be able to tamp down some of the leadership and break up some of that structure in there.

That's something that would make sense. But to me, just speaking for myself, I want to try to work with the Nigerians, for them to do the right thing here.

President Trump obviously I mentioned, on Truth Social. Needs to specifically look into this. Which we are doing here in Congress. I want them to do the right thing.

I think the Nigerians actually have the chance right now to actually strengthen their relationship with the United States, if they're going to do the right thing.

But we can't allow to continue the slaughter of Christians where we have over 7,000 just this year, have been killed, for being Christian.
We can't allow that to continue, as a Christian country ourselves, which we are.

I know we're -- you know, some may debate that. I promise you, and nobody knows more about the founding of the country than Glenn Beck. Is that this is a Christian nation, founded on Christian values.

And we have to stand up for these people. Because nobody else is paying attention to this. Other than you, and some folks at Fox news. And that's really about it.

GLENN: Oh, I tell you, you know, I was planning on bringing my cameras with me. And I was going to go to Nigeria in the first quarter. And I have had briefings and warnings from the highest levels. Do not go.

You are not going. And I said, yes, I am. I want to bring this story.

You can't go. I've been to war zones. And this one, they're like, this is the most dangerous place on earth right now!

That's pretty remarkable, that nobody is really talking about it.

RILEY: It really is, and it's this silent genocide, that has just continued on since 2009, where we've had in between 50 to 100,000 Christians murdered for their faith. Our brothers and sisters over there, suffering, and no one has done anything about it. You might remember the bring back our girls movement around 2012ish, '14.

GLENN: Yeah. Yeah.

RILEY: Seventeen of those girls have still never been brought back. People forgot about it. It's fine. Boko Haram just has them. It's not fine.

It's not okay. And there are a lot of Levers that the administration is able to pull here, I think to get the Nigerians on the right course.

It's not that they don't have resources. This is an oil rich country. With a lot of critical minerals.

They have the means to be able to do this, at the end of the day, it's a question of prioritization. And what their goals actually are. And we need them to focus on this. Or the President will start to focus on it.

GLENN: Well, I will tell you, 19,000 churches have been burned.

And yet, from what I'm hearing, there are some in the Nigerian government that are like, no. This is not what's happening. This is not about genocide. It's not about Christians. It's just squabbles.

Really? Fifty to 100,000 people. And 19 thousands of individuals people have been burned in little squabbles, that don't have anything to do with radicalized Islam?

RILEY: Exactly. And this is the excuse I've gotten from people on the ground, look, do terrorists kill other people other than Christians? Yes, of course they do. But we're talking about five to one is the ratio, Christians versus non-Christians are being killed over there right now.

Secondly, I want to point out for everybody, President Trump has a designation in Nigeria. It means his first term.

It was taken off by the Biden administration. Because they claimed the killings had more to do with arable land and herders, and actually the root cause was climate change.

GLENN: Climate change.

RILEY: Yeah. That's why these killings were happening. Because of climate change. Where that's why we saw the murder rate just skyrocket during the Biden administration.

And President Trump, who cares very deeply about these issues, he's not going to allow that to persist anymore.

GLENN: He said, if there is an attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet. Just like the terrorist thugs that attack our cherished Christians.

I will tell you, I've -- you know, been reading up on it. And doing our homework.

And, you know, it reminded me of how the Germans went into Poland. Where they would just take whole communities. They would put them in the church. And lock the doors. And burn it to the ground.

That's what's happening in Nigeria. They're doing the same thing. They're burning churches. Not just burning churches. They're gathering Christians up. Putting them in, locking the doors, and then burning it down so that all of these women and children and men die in a fire in their church. And it's horrific. It's horrific.
What does the average person need to do?

RILEY: Yes. The average person needs to call their number of Congress and elevate this. And make this an issue that is on their radar, that they care about.

I'm introducing resolution which would be a sense of Congress, that we support the President. And we support the people and the Christians of Nigeria, and their plight.

And we condemn what the Nigerian government is doing, in action around this. That resolution should be getting introduced here soon.

So that would be something that would be hugely helpful.

GLENN: Wow.

It will be interesting to see who votes for that, and who doesn't.

That would have been -- that would have been a no-brainer 15 years ago. Just a no-brainer.

And now, I wonder if you can even get that passed. That's sad. Sad.

RILEY: It's sad. And I think we need to put it to the test. Put it to the test.

Certainly, if I'm whipping the votes, I don't have Ilhan Omar in my "yes" column.

But, you know, let's -- let's put it to the test here.

The TRUTH about Zohran Mamdani and communism

Is New York City’s new mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani a socialist or a communist? Glenn Beck takes a look at history to explain why it doesn’t really matter: BOTH lead down the same road …

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: You know, we've been talking about socialism, and Donald Trump is getting pilloried in the press for calling Mamdani a communist. And I find this ritual here, that we're going through is just, you say the word socialist, and, you know, 25 years ago when I said that these people were socialist, everybody said, "Oh, my gosh. You can't call them socialists. That's an outrage." I said, "The mask is going to come off, that they can't wait to tell you they're socialists."

Now Donald Trump said, you know, Mamdani is a Communist. And everybody is like, oh, my gosh. Look at this hysteric from the Cold War. He's just -- he's out of the Cold War radio drama.

So let me just clear this here. Because the difference between the two terms, you know, is really not some great firewall of virtue here. As if one leads to like Scandinavian candles and the other leads to gulags. That's not what's happening.

What we've forgotten here is what always is forgotten. And that is how Karl Marx actually talked and saw the two. He didn't draw, you know, polite little distinctions. He described socialism as the transition. The necessary scaffolding that leads to communism. That's Karl Marx. So socialism for Karl Marx was the road, not the destination.

Communism is the end of that road. He wrote -- he wrote an essay, the Critique of Gotha Program. And Marx said, under socialism, from each according to his ability, to each according to his contribution. Under communism, to each according to his needs. The only difference here is timing. It's not philosophy.

It's not goals. It's just how far along the revolution you are, okay?

Socialism is the bridge to communism. According to Karl Marx, don't take it from me. Communism is the completion of socialism. It's -- it's the antithesis of a free market system. Even Lenin called socialism the first and necessary phase of communism. So it's not partisan rhetoric. Okay?

This is the literal architecture of Marxist thought. But can we get out of the theories of all of this?

I mean, history gives us warning. Much more vivid than any theory. You know, we would like to imagine that the worst horrors of the 21st century came from one beast alone.

And we think that's Hitler. But actually, a bigger beast was Stalin. But if you want to look at Germany from 1930 to 1945. You see something really uncomfortable.

A socialist movement that curdled into something monstrous, while it never called itself communist. In fact, the Nazi government. The national socialists. The Nazis were not communists. They were against the communists.

They killed communists!

But they shared the same foundational belief. That the rid is disposable, and that the state defines the truth.

They both believe that rights are not given by God, but administered by political power. And that dissent on any of this, has to be crushed for the good of the collective.

That is the -- that's the definition we should care about!

Socialism doesn't to give full marks communism to become catastrophic. It just has to replace the individual conscience with the will of the state. And don't you see, that's what's happening here? They'll crush you! They'll destroy you. You disagree with them, they'll destroy you. Even if you've been on their side. I am going to share eye story with you, from 1979 that happened. That I don't think most people understand. And in New York, you better understand it.

When a society accepts the premise, that premise, history shows the -- the slide can accelerate from a utopian promise to industrialized cruelty. Horror show.

Like that!

Germany saw it. Russia saw it. China saw it. Cambodia. North Korea.

Cuba. I mean, it's all right there, just different flags. Different slogans. But it's the same structural error.

So can we stop with this mocking of the language?

You know, people laughing. Oh, you said Mamdani is a communist, but he's just merely a socialist. You're missing the point entirely.

The issue is not whether the label is technically perfect. The issue is the philosophical DNA is exactly the same. Collectivism over the individual.

State control over personal agency. Central planning over free will.

And that the belief that human nature can be engineered by a political force. That's where it always goes wrong. It doesn't understand human nature. So you can argue all you want, about where socialism ends and where communism begins, but honestly, that's like, hey, kids, memorize the date of this war.

Why? Why? I'm never going to use that fact again. What difference does it make? The thing we should care about is, why was that war fought? What happened at the end of that war? When communism and socialism, we should be saying, where does that road lead?

I can tell you that the road always begins with the state controlling your choices. Okay?

It will control your choice of energy, money, your children's education. Your speech.

Your job. What you drive. And it always ends with never greater liberty. It always ends the same place. In a society that has forgotten that freedom is fragile.

That power concentrates. That people are the same over and over and over and over again!

Human beings. They go bad! Especially when you give them power, and they're told they're part of a grand collective. Humans are willing to commit horrors they would never do as an individual.

That's the biggest thing. You get these horror shows of 100 million dead, because it's a collective!

We're all doing it. I'm not doing it. Everybody is doing it. That's the warning.

That's historical. And we ignore it at our own peril. Now, the problem here is, is that socialism is on the rise. And communism will be next.

Remember, when I first started talking about Obama, they -- I was -- I was raked across the rolls -- the coals, every day for even suggesting he might kind of like socialism. Now, socialism is fine!

So that road is still going to -- we're going to continue rolling down that road. And any country that goes into socialism -- we're not talking about a capitalist. We're not talking about Sweden anymore.

In fact, we are actually talking about Sweden. Look at the road they're going down now.
I mean, they're going into their own kind of authoritarian rule with Sharia law.

That is coming to Sweden. We are not talking about this friendly socialism. We're talking about the complete abandonment of the free market entirely. We've been this stupid little hybrid, that doesn't work. It only causes misery. We've been this hybrid.

And it doesn't work in a country this large and a country this diverse.

But look if you're -- you know, if you grew up after 9/11, where have you seen capitalism work for you?

Okay? You've seen, I know I've seen it. I've seen the rich get richer. And I don't mean the rich.

I mean the really, really, really rich. The ones that the Democrats never really talk about. They say they hate the rich. The rich have to pay their fair share.

But they're hanging out with George Soros. They're hanging out with the Ford Foundation. They're hanging out with Bezos and all of these other people. Because that's -- that's -- that's real control! Okay?

They don't hate those guys. They never do anything to affect their taxes. They don't pay taxes. Because they have the money to put it into trusts and everything else.

You don't have that!

So when I say, I've seen it happen. I've seen the rich get richer.

You know who the rich are?

Citibank. These banks that have been taking our money through bailouts, when do we get that money back?

When do you get that money back?

You don't!

You don't. That's why this is working. That's why you can say, socialism is neat. Because nobody knows the killing machine that socialism actually is. Nobody has any idea. Look at the killing machine. Look at the killing machine that's being built in socialist Canada right now.

What is it? MAID is the third or fourth biggest killer. It kills one in every 20 Canadians. Why is that happening? That's not out of compassion. That's because they're running out of money for health care. That's what that's about. Get them off the dole! Stop it. Now, if they're earning a lot of money, get them in, because we can still get their money, but let's make sure they're making money. If they're getting old, if they are cripple, if they fought in a war and just can't has come it themselves, if they're super, super young, if they have an expensive cancer, let them die. Help them die!

That's because they're looking at the collective, not the individual. And that's -- that's the beginning of the dark killing machine in a socialist country. And Canada is -- is -- I mean, it has socialized medicine. The problem is, it's all failing. Socialism always fails.

Capitalism has -- has taken people out of poverty. Solved problems. Healed people. Given people heat and houses and cars and airplanes. All of that is because of the free market. All of that is the free market.

You get rid of the free market. You put it in the hands of governments. And you have monsters. Monsters. And we know it, because we've seen it over and over and over again.

But our -- if you're -- if you -- if -- if you don't remember, or barely remember 911, you've never been taught any of this.

You've never been taught what it actually means. So you're seeing this play out, over and over again. Look at that guy, look at, he's not going to have to pay a price. He's just going to get away with it. And he's taking all of our tax dollars. Okay. I hate all of that.

This capitalist system, it's corrupt!

You're seeing that play out in real time. You're not seeing anybody actually go to jail for these things.

Of course, you think that it doesn't. I don't think it works the way it is right now!

But then you're -- you're given this false utopian promise. Without any information.

Read the warning label on socialism!

Where has it ever worked?

Show me where it has worked!

And don't say Sweden. Sweden.

Sweden is falling apart right now. Do you know why?

Because Sweden, everybody was blond hair, blue eyed, they were all related to each other. It was a small, little country.

You can do it when everybody is the same, and it's small. It will work in -- to some degree!

But the minute you start going diverse, the whole thing falls apart. So you want to be Sweden?

Go ahead. Look at Sweden today.

I don't want to be Sweden.

Read the warning label. That's our job, to show that warning label.

It's our job to teach what's not being taught. This is a death cult.

Stay away from it. Warning. Warning.

Could Comey FINALLY go to JAIL thanks to this smoking gun?

Is this the 'smoking gun' evidence that could put former Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation James Comey behind bars? Just the News CEO John Solomon joined Glenn Beck to reveal some shocking new revelations, including Comey’s own emails allegedly authorizing anonymous leaks to the NYT on the Clinton case, potential handwritten notes proving he KNEW Hillary’s team approved the Russia collusion hoax, and a possible email from Comey referring to Hillary Clinton as “President-elect Clinton." Will a Northern Virginia jury hold the Deep State accountable? Or will politics bury the truth again?

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: John Solomon is with us. He is the CEO and editor-in-chief. In chief of Just the News. If you don't check that every day, you're really missing out on a really great news site. Justthenews.com. John, I have made a promise with my audience a long time ago, I do my best not to waste their time.

And as I'm looking through the things I want to talk to you about, I have to start with this question: Is any of this going to mean anything in the end, or is this -- are we just spinning our wheels and wasting our time, talking about how the deep this scandal with James Comey is becoming?

JOHN: That's a great question. And I don't think history has an answer yet. It will really depend on the tenacity and the focus of the Justice Department, the prosecutors, and the jurors that are going to catch these cases. Right? Are they willing to rise above politics and say, "We don't want an FBI that goes after people based on their political color, not the quality of the evidence against them."

And that is what began on 2015 on James Comey's watch, a different type of FBI that seemed to go after Donald Trump and his associates, regardless of evidence, and protect Democrats like Hillary Clinton and Hunter Biden, even though the evidence against them was pretty strong, as we ultimately found out from the IRS whistleblowers. So we don't know yet. Listen, these are going to go to trial if the judge lets them go to trial.

The judge in the Comey case seems to be giving the prosecutors a hard time there already. But that's going to be litigated. I'm going to go up to the Supreme Court. It will be a long battle.

But the question is, is the fight worth it?

I think if you don't punish the people that created this mentality, you have deficits in America for a long time.

Banana republic, prosecution arc. And I think that's not what Americans want. They want to say, the FBI is above politics. It hasn't been in the last texted, until the last few months, under Kash Patel.

GLENN: Okay. So let's talk about what the new evidence is the -- the burn bags.

The hidden rooms. And the evidence that now has been found that -- that shows Comey looks like he was lying. To Congress. When he said, no.

I didn't know anything about it.

JOHN: Yeah. Yeah. So let's remind people what the alleged lie is, what he's been accused of and indicted of. He told Congress in '17, and then reaffirmed, unequivocally in 2020, that he never asked any of his staff to provide information to the news media. The government, Kash Patel found significant documents that go to the contrary. They chose not to go after James Comey. So in the Bill Maher administration, they knew the same evidence, but they didn't go after him. What is the lie?

He told Congress, I didn't -- one, I never authorized anyone to leak to the media anonymously about the Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump cases. And, two, I don't think I knew anything about an intelligence intercept that Hillary Clinton was setting up a fake Russian collusion hoax, that we ended up investigating.

Well, we now know, first, his own emails, with his own top lieutenant, Daniel Richmond. A former lawyer who he brought into the special government. The FBI. There's an FBI employee, showed that James Comey, told him, good job, and make them wiser as he was briefing them on how he was anonymously trying to spin the New York Times and provide information to the New York Times about the Hillary Clinton case.

So directly on point to the testimony he gave. I didn't authorize him to leak about Hillary Clinton in their emails. So this guy was leaking it. He was affirming it, and saying, go ahead. And he was encouraging him to make that reporter wiser. In other words, give them more information anonymously.
So that's the first lie. The second lie -- and, by the way, the grand jury bought that evidence, that we believed he lied.

GLENN: Okay.

JOHN: And that is what we call the Clinton planned intelligence. Was Comey, as John Brennan claimed. And as other evidence -- did Comey know, did he pay attention, did he have some awareness that as the FBI was starting to investigate the Russia collusion ruse, the hoax, that Hillary Clinton had been interpreted, or her people had been intercepted, showing that she approved the plan. He said, it doesn't ring true. I don't think I knew about it.

Well, in a locker, in a burn bag, they found some handwritten notes of James Comey, that appeared to include the briefing from John Brennan where he clearly knew, that Hillary Clinton had been intercepted -- or, her team had been intercepted, saying she approved this plan to hang a fake Russian shingle on Donald Trump's campaign house. Now, those are handwritten notes.

GLENN: Yeah. That is in his handwriting, that he clearly understood. And so now you've got him on -- on two really significant lies. That show that this whole thing was -- was -- they were in collusion with one another. And all of this was bogus.

And they knew it from the beginning.

JOHN: Yeah. That's exactly right. That's why, when you look at this. And then take the third bag of this. Those notes were never produced in earlier subpoenas to Congress or other investigations. They were found in a room, where it appears, according to the government, there is an effort to get rid of or hide this evidence.

So it hadn't been hidden from prior subpoenas, according to the government, according to Lindsey Halligan, the prosecutor. And then, two, it looked like they were in burn bags. Meaning, they would never be there.

Now, some other people said, oh, well, there's electronic records of it.

It turns out according to the government, there was no electronic record of the note. Meaning, if they had been burned or destroyed, it would have never happened.

Now, why would James Comey want to lie about this? Because as we see in these same emails, it appears he had a motive.

His motive, as he wrote, his colleague is, I fully expect to be working for president-elect Hillary Clinton. She's talking this way, before the election in 2016.

He thought Hillary was going to be his boss. And as he wrote Dan Richmond, he said, I think Hillary Clinton will be, quote, unquote, pleased by the way I handled her email chase. In other words, he reopened it and cleared her a second time.

And when the smoke cleared, Hillary would like to keep him out as FBI director. That's the insinuation of those notes. So --

GLENN: Yeah. I want to get the exact. I want to give the exact phrase he wrote. A president-elect Clinton will be very greatly.

JOHN: Yeah. Grateful, I'm sorry.

GLENN: Wow.

JOHN: Yeah. Grateful. So he expected it -- that's his mindset in the fall of 2016.

And he opens up an investigation on Hillary Clinton, what we now know to be a ruse. Bad evidence. An agency had to lie to the FISA courts to get the FISA warrants. If his motive was that, or his thinking was that. He probably does not want to admit that I was warned, that maybe this was all a joke before I allowed this investigation to go forward. Before I affixed my name to a FISA warrant that the courts have now said was misleading, false, and violated the law. So that is the context at which the prosecutors are going to try to bring this -- bring this case. Now, it's going to be in northern Virginia, where there are a lot of federal workers and a lot of anti-Trump sentiment.

Can they get a conviction? We don't know. But is it worth trying to do it? Most people I talk to said yes, because the alternative is you have by inaction a sanction, which is what Bill Maher and John Durham did by not bringing this in 2020.

GLENN: Yeah. Yeah. All right. Can I switch topics. There's something that came out today. James Comey's daughter, and the Epstein case. Apparently, James Comey's daughter sent a message to Epstein, that if you don't have to prove it. But if you can show us anything that ties Donald Trump to this, it's going to go a lot easier for you.

Can you give me this story?

JOHN: Yeah. I've seen it. I've not been able to corroborate it. In this world of media today. I've been super careful. It's hard to know if things are true. I haven't found anyone yet who seems to know the proof on it.

It's possible. Who knows? I mean, prosecutors make these sort of deals all the time. And as we know, it seems in the last decade or two, I think when you have to go back to the era of the Ted Stevens prosecution. The IRS pursuit of conservative groups. And maybe the prosecution which turned out to be malicious and wrong of Virginia governor McDonald.

There is a culture that began at the beginning or around the time of the Obama era. Where winning for prosecutors is more important than winning fairly or on the face of the evidence.

And that's why these cases ultimately got overturned. That mentality exists in the Justice Department.

And then when you add the nature of politics, the Trump Derangement Syndrome that seems to come in, in 2015. You have a very dangerous prosecutorial and law enforcement system that's easily weaponized and can easily cheat.

And unless you got multi-million lawyers, you probably will get hosed, because very few people will find the grounds to overturn this.

And that it is crushing power of the state, that Jim Jordan talks about. Chuck Grassley talks about. That Donald Trump wants to reform.

And I don't know, in this case, whether Mr. Comey did this or not.

Because I can't confirm it yet. But if I knew, I'll come back to you.

GLENN: Right.

JOHN: The scenario does go on. And we've seen it. And it's very, very troubling.

There's a case coming up in New York, where the FCC has to admit that there were journalists writing fake stories that were then used to justify investigations of companies.

A system of cheating to get a consequence regardless of whether it's warranted, is something we all have to take a deep breath. We have to fix it. Or we won't be any the different than rectangles and Iran.

GLENN: I will tell you, that I am so glad to say, that you said, I can't confirm this.

I haven't found a source to confirm it.

Because when I read that story, it looks as though one of the people that is telling this story is the guy who was in jail, with Epstein, who would also have motive for making something like this up. So, you know, I don't want to exonerate her.

And I don't want to condemn her. I just want the truth.

And he doesn't seem like a reliable source.

JOHN: Yeah. I think we have to get the evidence, and try to -- listen if the lead is something -- let's check it out and true -- find out if it's true.

We learned that Russia collusion wasn't true. I think we'll learn that most of Ukraine impeachment wasn't true.

And I think today, we just have to dig in first. Get the facts.

But we will -- we will do that. I promise, I'll get back to you, as soon as I know what I can find out for the government.

GLENN: Yeah. Thank you, John. I appreciate all your hard work.

John Solomon from Just the News. Go to JusttheNews.com. Follow him. John Solomon. JSolomonReports on X. But he is an old school journalist. Investigative reporter. Has worked for everybody, until everybody was like, you can't say those things. That's our side!

And then he just left and did his own thing. And I'm very grateful for it.

Editor-in-chief of Just the News. John Solomon