RADIOMarch 17, 2022

What the Fed’s interest rate hike MEANS FOR YOU

In an effort to curb rising inflation, The Federal Reserve just announced an interest rate hike of 25 basis points (one-quarter of one percent). It’s the first time the Fed has raised such rates since 2018. So, what exactly does this mean and how could it affect YOU? Carol Roth, financial expert and author of ‘The War On Small Business,’ joins Glenn to break it all down…

You can read more of Carol's take on this issue here: https://www.theblaze.com/op-ed/roth-what-the-feder...

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Hello, America.

Yesterday, the fed raised the -- the interest rates.

And they said, they're going to do it, I think six or seven times more this year. This could get dicey in many ways, for everyone.

And I want you to understand, what happened yesterday. And not in terms of, well, you know, us traders believe. I don't care. I don't watch CNBC. Because I only understand about half of it.

I want to know what this means to the average person. Carol Roth joins us. The author of the war on small business. She gets it. And can explain what it all means. In 60 seconds.

Carol, welcome to the -- welcome to the Glenn Beck Program.

CAROL: Hey, Glenn. Lots of things to talk about.

GLENN: Yeah. Boy, I have a long list for you too. So let's start with what happened yesterday, and why people should care.

CAROL: So I want to take a step back, and talk about, you know, why the fed did what it did. In terms of raising interest rates. What we call 25 basis points, or a quarter of a percent.

100 basis points is 1 percent.

GLENN: Okay.

CAROL: And basically, they were undoing the -- at least attempting to start to undo the effects of what they in part cost.

Their monetary policy, zero interest rate policy, printing trillions of dollars, the government spending trillions of dollars, in terms of fiscal stimulus. Turning parts of the economy off, and wrecking these labor markets supply chain.

All of those things are the reasons we have inflation today, exacerbated by decisions that the Biden administration made around oil and gas, dependents and what not.

So basically, we had inflation.

GLENN: Correct.

CAROL: Which we've all been talking about. As we go to the grocery store, and certainly the fuel pumps and whatnot.

And so finally, they said, we have to do something. Now, I'm going to tell you, this is a little bit of window dressing. Because they were doing accommodation. They were in the market, purchasing securities, last week.

So last week, they were being accommodative.

But this week, we have to maintain our credibility, and we need to do something. So they decided to raise what is called the fed funds rate. It's a rate, where banks lend to each other overnight. In terms of their reserves.

And that reverberates through the market. So they brought that down to a target, of zero to a quarter of a percent. And they had held it there for the last couple of years. And they said, okay. Well, you know, inflation is getting away, we better raise some interest rates. One of our tools in order to do that. And they took the huge step of a whole quarter of a point increase, to do it.

GLENN: Wow.

CAROL: Yeah. They're very -- because they need to be credible.

GLENN: Right. So the last time we had a problem of this size, it took an interest rate of about 19 to 20 percent, if I'm not mistaken.

Raising it a quarter is really -- is a joke.

Where do you think, these interest rates should be?

Not -- not considering killing the economy.

Just where it should be. Should it -- if we were in a healthy country, still, would it be 20 percent, or more?

CAROL: So there's a couple of things to unpack there.

First of all, this is an unprecedented situation. We don't have a benchmark, because we have never had central banks, not just in the U.S. but around the world, printing trillions upon trillions of dollars. This has just never happened before. We've never had governments turn off the economy.

You never have a situation, where there's 1.7 jobs available, for every job seeker, because of what the government did.

So we're flying a little bit blind. I've always been a fan of normalized interest rates. I think it's a horrible idea, to have the fed meddling, and trying to direct things.

I want the market to set it. And so before all of this nonsense started, before the financial crisis, the great recession, financial crisis in '07 and '08, which was really the first time we went totally off the rails, with the zero interest rate policy and the purchase of securities, the interest rates were around 5-plus percent. And that seems to be, you know, a healthy place, where things should be.

We should not be in a place, where we're saying, you know, when you take risks, you shouldn't be getting rewarded for it. You know, 0 percent interest.

It makes no sense. So in reality, you're still at very historically low interest rates. And in a healthy economy, to have three, four, 5 percent, would be completely acceptable. We just have been so addicted to this easy money and this free money for so long, I'm not sure how we get out of this.

GLENN: Okay. So there's a couple of problems with 5 percent interest rates, right now. One would be that people would not be able to afford a new house, et cetera, et cetera. Because of inflation, and everything else.

But the other, that nobody ever talks about, is that we now have a national debt over $30 trillion. And that is just like buying a house. You have an interest rate, on that.

If we have an interest rate of 5 percent, how much more money do we have to pay?

CAROL: Bingo, this is the dilemma that the fed has gotten themselves into, by keeping down interest rates. They've basically given the government a free pass to just spend and spend. And to rack up more and more debt.

And we're at a point, to where the debt is completely out of control.

And, you know, has competed our level of GDP.

So if you think about 30 trillion of debt. And obviously, the fed fund rates. And the interest rate on the debt is not a 1:1 correlation. But we know that as one moves up, the other moves up. So in terms of the interest on our national debt, I want everyone to pay very close attention because this is staggering. For every 1 percent increase, that is another $300 billion, that we have to pay in interest, on the national debt.

That is our tax dollars, that are going to pay more, for things, that we have already purchased.

It is not new purchases. It's literally, a finance charge.

Almost like a credit card interest rate, on stuff we have already bought.

And this is the dilemma, the fed has. Because they know, as they raise interest rates, this is going to get out of control. The CDO. Had made a projection, than saying, this is going to get out of control. But in their projection, they said, well, we think the yield on the ten-year treasury note, gets to about 2.1 percent in 2025.

So, you know, we're going to have to really be concerned, maybe in 2029, the yield on the ten-year Treasury note is at that 2.1 percent today. So multiple years ahead of time.

GLENN: Please talk down to me like I'm in kindergarten.

I don't understand the yield thing with the Treasury. How that works. How that's affected. So can you explain that?

VIVEK: Yeah. It's basically how much the government has to pay on debt.

So what the market demands

And obviously, if there's a lot of demand, for Treasury securities. The price of that goes up.

Then the yield, or the interest that you demand is lower.

Because there's a lot of demand. You have to pay a lot for your debts.

GLENN: But we had been at very, very, very low --

CAROL: Very low.

GLENN: Because the fed was buying up. There was no demand for our treasuries, which is our loan.

CAROL: So let me put it in context, what we're paying currently on our national debt, in terms of a combined interest rate, is somewhere in the neighborhood of projections of 1.4 percent to 1.6 percent. So they've been able to finance that at a very low rate. But that number is starting to creep up. And with the fed increasing interest rates, it will further creep up. And every 1 percent is $300 billion.

GLENN: So if we have an interest rate of five or -- five or six percent, we're talking like between two and three trillion dollars more, the entire budget.

CAROL: Yeah. Exactly.

It's just completely untenable, at that point in time.

So I would -- I would imagine other things happened, in the interim. But this is why, when we talk about things like MMT, Modern Monetary Theory, or what I call Magic Money Tree.

That says, well, you can just print into infinity, because we can just print more. Well, we're now living through that realtime experiment. As you said, no, you can't. It causes inflation.

It has real costs for the average American, and it decreases the value of every dollar that you hold.

GLENN: All right. So the best thing you can do is get out of credit cards. You should cut those up if you can.

CAROL: Yes.

GLENN: And pay them off if you can. Get a refi right now. Because you're probably paying about 16 percent for your credit cards, correct?

CAROL: Yeah. And it could be going up.

And anything that has that adjustable interest rate associated with, some people may have something called an arm and an adjustable rate mortgage. Where it adjusts over time. Maybe it's fixed for a certain number of years. Anything that is adjustable rate debt, is going to increase in price. And if you need financing -- let's say you have a business, and you haven't taken advantage of low rates yet. You're going to want to lock that in on a fixed basis now, because it's not going to get cheaper any time soon.

GLENN: Now, the other problem is, with raising interest rates. Let's say you have a business. And you need a loan.

If the interest rates starts to go up, that kills that business. They can't afford that loan. Just like we can't afford our national debt. Or you want to buy a house. Yesterday, mortgages. New mortgages fell immediately, just on the -- on the whisper, that it was coming.

We are seeing a slowdown in mortgages. Which means people will buy fewer houses. The scary thing about this, is you don't know where that switch is. You're just going to have to kind of guess. And it might shut everything down.

CAROL: That's the needle that the fed is trying to thread, in addition to dealing with the consequences of the national debt. What happens, is as they raise interest rates. You know, their intention is to slow down the economy. I mean, that's basically what it is. They want to slow down consumer demand.

GLENN: Right.

CAROL: But the question is: How do you do that, without creating a recession, or without creating reverberations for the economics of the average American?

GLENN: So can I be really, really cynical? I mean -- in fact, let me go beyond cynical. Let me go into, I'm a thriller writer. Okay? And I'm writing a thriller. And for some reason, this country needs to slow down the economy. But they can't slow down the economy, because then businesses will fail. But they don't really care about the average person. You know what I mean?

That's going to fail. We'll print more money. Put them on welfare. Tell they believe to stay home. Or whatever.

Wouldn't one way to slow the economy, for the consumer, but not slow the economy, for the big corporations, would a war do that?

CAROL: I think that would completely change the tenor of the economy. But I think that raising the interest rates does that, because kind of like we saw over the last couple of years, if you are a big corporation. You take advantage of that debt. You have that war chest. We've had that strong balance sheet. So in terms of the transfer of wealth, that is one way to do that. But the war, that would completely change the tenor of, you know, who benefits. And certainly, it would be the bigger guys versus the smaller guys. But it would be more defense, rather than the financial services industry, for example.

GLENN: Yeah. Okay. Carol, hang on. I have some more questions. And I would like you to explain a couple of other things, coming up in just a second. Give me 60 seconds. We're back with Carol Roth. The name of her book, is The War on Small Business. A must-read.

GLENN: All right. So I want to talk to you about the dollar being the world's reserve currency.

Because I'm watching these sanctions, that are being put on.

And I'm seeing things happen, to where, if I'm another country, especially Russia. I'm going to China, immediately, saying, I want to partner with you. Because they just made my money worthless. I can't get my money out of the central bank. The Federal Reserve. That's my money.

And they won't let me get to my money. If that starts to happen. And then Saudi Arabia starts to sell oil, off of the petrodollar, that's really bad news. And let's say, the West holds together. But half the world is off the petrodollar.

What does that mean for us, Carol?

CAROL: It potentially means the end of the U.S. dollar, as a reserve currency.

GLENN: Explain what that means. Because -- I mean, to the average person. Forget about, you know, the central banks and everything else. What does it mean to the average person? To have half the world get off our dollar?

CAROL: Yes. So this is why I love you, Glenn. Because we take the most complicated concepts in the world.

GLENN: I know.

CAROL: And trying to explain them, as if, you know, it's Elmo and Big Bird here --

GLENN: Right.

CAROL: The idea of being the reserve currency. Is something that's -- you know, has sort of a long history. And it means, particularly in the case of goods and services. But also in the case of oil, that everyone in the world, pretty much agreed to use dollars, for a settlement. And that puts some responsibility on the United States. There's something that is called the Triffin dilemma. And there was an economist back in the 1960s, who basically said, there's a conflict. If you are going to be the world reserve currency, you're going to have to make tough choices. And you're not always going to be able to do what's right, at home, in order to make sure you're doing what's right, in the national sphere.

GLENN: Everywhere. Yeah.

CAROL: And unfortunately, you know, this has been an issue, that's been going on for a long time.

But in recent times. As we've been talking about with the fed and the decisions they've made. They actually haven't done right by either party.

They've been screwing over the average American, with their policy. And transferring wealth. But they've been doing the same thing in the national sphere.

And, frankly, a lot of countries are getting sick of it.

And so there have been predictions for quite some time, that there was going to be an event -- an adviser actually to the OECD said that it's probably not an economic event. It's a geopolitical event, that's going to expose the system. You know, wink, wink, nudge, nudge. And so a lot of folks feel like the sanctions that were made against Russia, were potentially a cover story. That we know that we'll potentially lose this reserve currency status. So we're going to say, well, we did it, because we had to take a stand.

But the reality is, you know, as we've now shown the world, you can put your money, in our central bank. And you can buy Treasuries. And U.S. dollars.

But you might not be able to access them. Which is not a really good thing, if you're going to be the world's reserve currencies.

GLENN: Correct. Correct.

CAROL: So there's a couple of potential outcomes. And I know you've been talking about this, Glenn. But, you know, one thing that folks have been talking about.

Is does China potentially step into the reserve currency position?

There is an issue around them. Because usually, if you have the reserve currency, you run a trade deficit. And we know that China is a nation of exporters. Are they really going to step into that? I'm not sure.

The other thought is, listen, we've seen so many banks. Central banks around the world. Print so much money. There's all this debt. You can't really just say, we're going to cancel it all. Because there's counterparties. There are people on the other side of the debt. So what could you do to offset that?

GLENN: Hold on. Hold on. Elmo and Big Bird has to stop. Because Elmo says, there's only 20 more seconds left.

CAROL: Okay.

GLENN: So we will come back. Because I really want to hear this -- this other new plan, and canceling debt just opens up Pandora's box, at least in my head. We'll talk about that, coming up more. Carol Roth, coming up in in just a second. Stand by. That's right. Did you get the vaccines yet?

GLENN: We're with Carol Roth. She's the author of the -- of the book, The War on Small Business.

She's a former investment banker. Don't hold that against her. She calls herself a recovering investment banker. She worked on Wall Street for years and years. Then kind of went, oh, I might be on the wrong side here.

And is trying to do everything she can, to strengthen individual businesses. Small businesses all across the country. And I love her for it.

Carol, you were just saying, that one of the options, in this nightmare scenario, which I think is unfolding in front of us. Where the world reserve currency, is not going to be the dollar.

I don't know what it is. But they're going to change the dollar, from what it is. To a digital dollar.

And I don't know how it all shakes out. But probably not very well.

But you brought up, there is all this debt within that we just can't cancel, because there's other people on the other side of that debt. So explain what you think.

That can't happen, you say.

CAROL: Well, I mean, nothing is a never scenario. Right?

GLENN: Not anymore.

CAROL: In an unprecedented situation. And, you know, for people who are students of history, despite all of the wreckage that could come from this, it's a very interest pointing in time. Especially, financially, you had the U.S. dollar as the world reserve currency. You had then us going off the gold standard. Then you had us, you know -- with the petrodollar, basically saying, we will manage the dollar as good as gold for oil.

And then you had the fed, basically go completely rogue. And not do that.

And anybody who is holding reserves, that they're supposed to say, well, the U.S. dollar is safe. And it's a good store of value. We'll keep devaluing it. That's not a thing.

And so -- and, by the way, these are not my theories. I'm just communicating what is out there, from people who are far smarter than I -- everybody by writing up another asset. So is there a neutral asset, that central banks have access to, that's on their balance sheet, that maybe they have been buying, at really good prices, that all of a sudden everybody comes together, and says, well, we'll just write up the value of that?

It's like writing down the -- gold.

GLENN: Gold.

CAROL: So central banks have been buying tons of physical gold. By the way, billionaires have been buying a lot of physical gold as well. And I'm using the term physical, because it's different than the market that is traded.

GLENN: ETFs. Those are ridiculous.

CAROL: ETFs. That's done in dollars. So who is backing that?

But physical gold. So there is a theory going around, that potentially that standalone basis or a basket of neutral metals. Which was thrown out as an idea, early on. When it was pushed aside for the U.S. dollar. That maybe there is this -- meeting of the minds.

And, you know, this is the way that you make all of these other central banks. And countries full. Is you just write up the value of that gold.

So if you think that that's going to happen. And you think that the financial system is going to collapse, you know, then you want to be owning physical metals. And have a store of that.

GLENN: Because when you say, they're going to write off debt, you don't mean people's houses. You mean --

CAROL: No. This is government debt. They cannot write up government debt. Because when you take -- that's a loan, right? You owe the money back to somebody. So the other side of potentially doing some sort of. We'll have mass forgiveness.

Is that when you take something else that everybody else has. And you say, it's more valuable. Overnight. It's magic.

GLENN: That doesn't sound like --

STU: Bad magic trick.

GLENN: Yeah. It sounds like -- we're dealing with a lot of black magic.

Stu and I were talking about this story that came out of Britain. We hadn't heard anyone talk about this. Explain what happened.

STU: Yeah. Just a little background. It's in the London metal exchange.

And it's the price of nickel. Now, I know no one cares about the price of nickel. Just to give you the basis here.

GLENN: Tesla does.

STU: Yeah. That's true. If you're buying an electrical car, it's true. Basically, the last five years has bounced back and forth between 10,000 and 20,000 per metric ton. Okay?

It got up to a little bit above 20,000, in the last few weeks. Obviously, all this time going on with Russia. Russia, Ukraine. Big sources where it comes from, for all these electric batteries. It goes basically from 20,000 to 80,000, in basically a day.

Okay? So four times, in one day. So let me read this: This is from the Wall Street Journal.

GLENN: Listen to this. Have you read this, Carol?

CAROL: Oh, I know this story. I do know this story. So we can talk about this.

GLENN: Yeah, this is crazy. Listen to this, America. This is craziness.

STU: Yeah.

So traders on the London Metal Exchange smelled blood, and nickel prices almost doubled in a short period of time. A Chinese company faced a 1 billion-dollar margin call. That exchange officials felt they couldn't meet. Rather than let it fail, which would have probably taken down several of the smaller brokers that serviced them. The London metals exchange decided to cancel all of the day's trading. More than 9,000 trades, worth about $4 billion.

It canceled the trades. Not because of a fat finger error. Which exchanges often cancel. Not because of a rogue algorithm, as regulators claimed in the 2010 flash crash in U.S. stocks, but because someone with too much leverage was going to blow up, with effects on some members of the exchange.

This moral hazard is taken to an extreme. It's always been true, that if you face a 100-dollar margin call, it's your problem. While if you have a one billion dollar margin call, it's the broker's problem. And the authorities might save them. What is almost unprecedented here. Is the exchange authorities decided to save them, with money taken from other traders, who otherwise would be sitting on fat profits.

I mean, you won. You picked the right direction. You've got these huge profits. And they cancel your trade, to save someone else.

GLENN: And it's China.

STU: And it's China.

GLENN: I mean, there is no such thing as a free market with this.

CAROL: No. This is another too big to fail scenario. It happened to be -- I believe it was an individual billionaire, who had made a short set against nickel. So he went in the other direction.

GLENN: Wow. I mean, then you don't -- you don't put the money down on the table. If you don't know what the odds are, and you're not willing to lose your money.

That's like going to Vegas, and -- and placing a huge bet, and when you lose it, you're like, hey.

You know, Caesars. I mean, this is crazy. And Caesars says, oh, we're not going to count that bet.

That doesn't happen!

CAROL: It's horrendous. And it goes back to the integrity of the market. And so many that the retail investors have been rallying against. And it's just another example. And there are big name banks involved. The exchange was actually shut down for multiple days, I believe. Before it started trading again.

And the people who made a bet, and decided to participate in the market, ended up getting screwed out of their profits. But they're never going to get the leniency, if it happens to them on the other side.

GLENN: No.

CAROL: And just the overall integrity, like you said. This is not a free market. It's not a fair market.

And we have too many of these big guys, who are being saved, at the expense, sometimes literally, sometimes figuratively, of the small guys, over and over and over again.

GLENN: And that's what I think people are so sick of.

And when they see this next crash. Especially with Janet Yellen saying, it will be equitable. When we reassemble, it will be equitable. What the hell does that mean? Probably stuff like this. And when they see the rich getting richer. And I don't mean a person who runs a business and may have a million dollars.

I mean the rich.

The elite of the elite. The BlackRocks of the world.

The banks of the world.

I just -- when their debt is being bailed out and real Americans are paying huge money for their food and their gas. And then their home is taken, there's trouble. That's real trouble.

CAROL: Yeah. And unfortunately, that is the scenario. There's one thing to become wealthy, because you earned it in a fair playing field. That's something that we want to celebrate. But we do not want to celebrate, when the playing field is tilted. When somebody has their thumb on the scale. When we have this transfer of wealth from Main Street to Wall Street. Which has been going on for, you know -- in a very large part, for a decade and a half. But it has accelerated over the last year and a half. And, you know, we talk about all of this coming to fruition. And us losing reserve currency status. It's going to mean a slower economy for us. Because we are not in a position. We don't have the strong manufacturing face. Or a competitive pricing. To be able to export. So all these people are like, oh, that's great. We'll reshore the job. They're not thinking in context of the existing economic structure. It will be unfortunately, very painful. But just to have a moment of hope here, Glenn. Because this is really doom and gloom. Is you have to remember, in any time of pain, there's always opportunities. So it is incumbent upon you, to find where those opportunities are. And what --

GLENN: So average person is saying, what is that opportunity?

CAROL: Yeah. It's finding the things that have inelastic demand. Meaning, people will pay prices even when they're continuing to increase and making investments and those kinds of things. Or retooling your business. To be servicing those markets. It's those kinds of shifts, where you have to look for those hidden opportunities.

In what could be a completely new economic scenario for us, going forward.

GLENN: I -- I think what you just said, translates to what I just told my kids.

You get into the job market. You have to be the most effective, efficient, and hard-working employee. Even if you're not at the top of the food chain, you have to be the one that the boss says, oh, we can't.

Because he'll do everything. I mean, he's a little bit. I mean, he works like crazy. You have to be that person. Right?

CAROL: Absolutely. Absolutely. Invest in yourself. And make yourself indispensable to a customer or to somebody that you're working for.

It's a huge competitive differentiation that will only get more important.
GLENN: I would love to have you on, maybe early next week. I just had one of my producers put some stats together on inflation.
And what that actually means to people. I mean, when Biden got in, a hamburger. An average hamburger was $4.40.

Today, that average burger is 601. And if we look at what they say, things are going to be, you know, with -- with the -- what are they saying? 7.9 percent inflation.

That number is going to be $7 force a burger by the time of the next election. I don't think that stat is right. You want to compare apples to apples. Look at how they measured it back in the 1970s and '80s, when we hit it before. That would mean that that hamburger would go from $4.40, to almost $8 by the time we hit a presidential election.

I just want to talk to you about inflation. And how to beat that.

CAROL: Plenty to talk about, would love to.

GLENN: Thank you very much, girl. Appreciate it. Carol Roth. The name of the book is War on Small Business. Make sure you pick it up.

Trump's Tariffs EXPLAINED: Will Canada Cave Like Mexico?

Did Donald Trump start a trade war with Mexico and Canada, or is it all part of his negotiation strategy? Mexico has already agreed to help improve border security. But Canada has pushed back against Trump’s promise to slap 25% tariffs on many Canadian goods. Glenn explains what Justin Trudeau doesn’t seem to understand: This isn’t about “punishing” Canada. It’s about national security and getting the best deal for Americans.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: All right. Welcome to the program. Donald Trump just got off the phone with Justin Trudeau.

Apparently, they're going to talk again at 3:00 this afternoon.

But he's not -- he's not going -- he's not going light on Justin, which I'm very happy about. Canada, immure -- I'm sorry. When we're there too.
-- I don't want to feel like we're pointing out Canada going, you guys suck! We sucked too. We just woke up and changed leadership.

And we're -- we are going in a different direction. Because we've learned the same things you know. Okay? You know it!

This can't continue this way. Right?

STU: Yeah. The one. I have several issues with some of these policies.

One that I do, is really -- a little bothersome to me. Trudeau is so unpopular, in Canada. So on the way out.

Now there's this nationalist Canadian thing going on. Where they're --

GLENN: Wait a minute. Trudeau is becoming a nationalist?

STU: It's hilarious. He's now getting the benefits of the support, of people who are just rallying around him mindlessly.

Whether the policy is right or not. I just don't like good things happening to Justin Trudeau.

I don't know if that's part --

GLENN: That was an unforeseen consequence.

STU: We will see, obviously, with where this lands, much more important than not.

GLENN: Here's the thing. We have a president that is not actually trying to destroy us.

STU: Yeah. That's true.

Whether you like this policy or not, when it comes to tariffs. You know that the motivation behind it is to make the country better. And I don't know if it's always the motivation behind these policies, when we've seen previous presidents go after them.

Obviously, a lot of Democrats have gone after similar policies. I think a lot of times, their motivations have been much, much worse.

So at least we've got good motivations behind this.

I mean, I think Trump is looking at this and saying, he thinks this will work long-term. I think most clearly, you pointed this out, Glenn, with Panama. With Colombia. Most clearly, he believes they're going to back down from this eventually.

And give us concessions. And I think that's probably the most likely outcome.

GLENN: That seems to be what's happening with Panama.

STU: Yeah, definitely happened with Colombia.

It does seem to be, we are the big boys on the block. And Donald Trump is not only familiar with that fact, but also comfortable with it, unlike other presidents. He's comfortable with us being the big boys on the block.

He's comfortable with us being the world power. That's okay in his eyes. It's okay in my eyes. It's okay in your eyes.

GLENN: As long as you don't become a big bully. I mean, listen to what Justin Trudeau said.

Let's go to cut three, please.

VOICE: Now is also the time to choose Canada. There are many ways for you to do your part. It might mean checking the labels at the supermarket. And picking Canadian-made products. It might mean opting for Canadian rye over Kentucky bourbon, or foregoing Florida orange juice altogether. It might be changing your vacation plans to stay here in Canada and explore the many national and provincial parks, historical sites, these tourist destinations our great country has to offer.

STU: Useless job, yeah.

GLENN: I know he is. I know he is.

STU: He's using this to turn around his own political fortunes. Which is infuriating. He doesn't care about any of this other stuff. He's motivated by his own political interest here.

GLENN: Here's cut six.

VOICE: I think Canadians are a little perplexed as to why our closest friends and neighbors are choosing to target us, instead of so many other challenging parts of the world.

I don't think there's a lot of Americans who wake up in the morning saying, oh. Damn Canada! Oh, we should really go after Canada.

GLENN: You're right!

Why were you targeting us? Why -- why was your -- your number two in command that just quit, why was she targeting people here for, you know, giving to a freedom movement in Canada?

I mean, it's not like you've been our best friend, Justin.

STU: No, he's been horrible.

GLENN: Terrible. But Canadians are great. I love Canadians, and I love Canada. And Canada should love Canada.

STU: Sure.

GLENN: And you should be concerned about what the state of your country is in.

You know, look at your immigration problems. Look at what's happening to your country.

That's what started all of this.

Is the fentanyl coming across our borders. Both north and south.

And the illegals. Stop it. Stop it.

And the great way to stop it is to make sure you stop it at your borders.

From them coming into your country!

That's -- that's really what this is about.

STU: Right. And that's what's clear here.

You know, Trump always says tariffs are his favorite word.

You've talked to him privately about that.

GLENN: I disagree with him on that happen.

STU: A way, I don't think that's exactly what he means.

Tariffs are good, to the extent that they get something else done. Right?

They're not good in and of themselves.

They're just taxes in and of themselves.

They do raise prices on us. The calculation however is, will the pain, that is applied to both sides as Trump has outwardly stated. And it's important to be fair to him.

A lot of people are saying, he's not saying this.

He's saying, there will be pain.

Those are his word. There will be pain on us.

The calculation is, the pain on us, will be the pain less on them.

And they will give first. And then he will get what he wants, outside of the tariffs.

That's the calculation here.

I mean, it is a risky one at times. And, you know, these -- you can call it a trade war or not.

But the bottom line is, when we escalate them, then they escalate. It's -- you could say it's not a trade war. But it kind of is.

I mean, it's a trade competition, if you feel more comfortable with those terms.

But the bottom line is, we believe we're going to win it. That's what he's saying!

And he believes we will win it. And at the end of the day, we get concessions that improve the country. The proof is going to be in the pudding on that.

Will it work? As you pointed out, it has worked kind of with Panama, so far, it seems like.

It's worked kind of with Columbia. It's going to work with some of these countries, it will be more difficult with a country like China.

I think what we saw in his first term.

Was a renegotiation of NAFTA, which basically became the US embassy. Right?

GLENN: Which he still doesn't like. It was the best he could do.

STU: It was the best he could do at the time.

He's I guess not happy with it now.

Because, you know, you're not allowed to put new tariffs either one of these countries in that agreement, which he negotiated. But he wants something better. I mean, how can we be upset with a president who wants something better for the country?

It -- it's just a question as to whether it works or not. The guy -- the Dallas Mavericks traded Luka Doncic this weekend.

The DM came out and said, you'll have to judge me as to how it turns out. We will!

Right? Congratulations, we will!

GLENN: In fact, we kind of already have.

STU: Well, that one, we already have.

That's probably a bad example.

That's exactly what will happen. If this works, and you get something out of it.

People will probably be okay with it, even if it is short-term pain.

Generally speaking, though, the American people only have so much tolerance for that.

And Donald Trump has a finally tuned eye for that type of thing. And I'm sure he will walk that line carefully.

GLENN: He does. Oh, yes, he is.

Yes, he is. And like I said, he's not trying to destroy America. He's trying to save America. And I know that's a new concept, to the American people.

STU: Yeah.

GLENN: I'm sure it's new to Americans as well. Cut one.

Here's Donald Trump talking about tariffs on Europe.

DONALD: Well, you're asking me a question.

There's a period in here, am I going to oppose tariffs by the European Union? You want the truthful answer, or should I give you a political answer? Absolutely.

STU: He wants stuff, and this is how he gets stuff.

GLENN: Yeah. But what does he want?

STU: I mean, various things from various countries, right?

GLENN: Yeah. He wants. The big things, he wants an end to the World War II order.

Where we are protecting Mercedes Benz. Allowing Mercedes to come in here, and have all kinds of access to our market. And Ford can't.

We don't have that!

We don't have that in Germany.

Why? Because we wanted to make sure the German countries could recover. And all the car companies could recover.

You know, the world is just not a good place without all that citron.

So that's what that is all for.

That's why we did that. And it never changed.

And it's got to change. It's over.

It's got to change. The other thing that absolutely has to change. They have to pay their 5 percent. Into NATO.

You've got to pay it.

STU: That's -- everyone is in this agreement.

GLENN: Yeah.

STU: It exists with the terms of the agreement.

GLENN: Uh-huh.

STU: In place. Follow them.

That's not a difficult thing. We're doing a lot more than everyone else, anyway.

Even if we all pay 5 percent, we're the ones footing the bill. We're the ones basically running that organization.

The least you can do is get to whatever that percentage is.

GLENN: Yeah. And that's fine if you don't.

If you don't want to do that, that's fine.

Then the agreement doesn't exist, and we're not going to protect you all the time.

You know, Winston Churchill. He had to beg the United States to come in because the Americans don't want to be involved in everybody else's business. We don't!

Our government, our state department seems to want to.

The military industrial complex wants to. But the American people don't!

So we're totally fine with that, Europe.

We don't think that's a good idea for you. But, you know, in time, you will learn to defend yourself. And then you will probably get pissed off at the French and start bombing them.

And then we'll be in it all over again. Again, we don't recommend it.

But go ahead. We're not protecting.

What do you think Justin Trudeau will say, if we said, oh, well, you don't want to protect your borders.

Okay. All right.

You want a trade war. Okay.

Well, I think we're done helping your military.

I mean, that's -- we win at the end. Hopefully, we'll never get to that. We win at the end.

STU: They have to know that.

GLENN: Yes, they do. They do.

STU: They have to know that.

I'm not surprised they're retaliating, with the 25 percent tariffs of their own.

Obviously, there are a lot -- we do send a lot of products to Canada as well.

We are the second largest exporter in the world.

GLENN: But --

STU: So we do send products to a lot of these countries. And it will burn those companies. And it will hurt at times.

If these things even get into place. We're not even in place yet.

Would it be surprising at all, if there was a most of negotiating. No.

GLENN: Let me ask you. He was just on the phone with Justin Trudeau just a few minutes ago.

Hung up the phone. What's he doing at 3:00 this afternoon?

Getting back on the gonna Justin Trudeau. This is a negotiation.

GLENN: Yes. Exactly. You can't get too worked about it. Because you don't know where the story ends.

GLENN: We have no idea. We're not the ones negotiating.

Here's what we do know, our negotiator is trying to get the best deal for us.

And he's a businessman. He understands it. Unlike attorneys who run the rest of the world.

THE GLENN BECK PODCAST

NEW EVIDENCE: Shroud of Turin Shows Exact Moment of Resurrection?! | The Glenn Beck Podcast | Ep 243

In 2022, a prize of one million dollars was promised to anyone who could recreate the Shroud of Turin. If the Shroud is a forgery, that should be a simple task. Yet, no one has accepted the challenge. “The Shroud of Turin is the most lied about artifact in history,” says distinguished New testament scholar, Pastor, and President of Christian Thinkers Society, Jeremiah J. Johnston, who guides Glenn through a scientific, historic, and theological exploration “beyond the mystery” to the “message of the Shroud.” Discredited and marginalized as a relic only relevant to the Catholic faith, Jeremiah contends that the Shroud of Turin has something to offer every follower of Christ. He reveals what he believes to be the rare blood type of Jesus, the real design of the crown of thorns, and why, in his opinion, Christ was buried at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Glenn shares what he saw when given a behind the scenes look at the artifacts housed in the Vatican, and asks Jeremiah whether he is concerned about the AI recreation of the face of Christ. Not only may the Shroud of Turin provide a deeper understanding of the crucifixion, but does it also miraculously uncover the exact moment of Christ’s resurrection? Find out in this paradigm shattering episode of the Glenn Beck Podcast.

Glenn GOES OFF on Senators Trying to Block Trump’s Cabinet Nominees

What's actually going on in Washington, DC? President Trump's cabinet nominees like Tulsi Gabbard, Kash Patel, and RFK Jr. faced hostile confirmation hearings as both Republican and Democratic senators grilled them on insane things. But why would Bernie Sanders, for instance, oppose RFK Jr., a fellow critic of Big Pharma? And why would someone like Doug Burgum get an easy pass to lead the Department of the Interior when climate change is allegedly the biggest crisis we face? It's because these senators don't actually care about "truth," Glenn argues. They care more about preserving themselves and stopping any nominee who will expose their corruption. But the American people have had enough. The truth WILL be revealed. And that's why Trump needs his cabinet ...

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: All righty. I have a few things to say.

Let's start with, who is having a hard time getting confirmed?

Okay. Let's just go through the names here in a second.

What's really being discussed here.

Who is under the gun?

Let's start with Pete Hegseth. What is he going to do?

He's going into the Department of Defense. He's looking for those weasels, that have been changing everything in our Defense Department.

Has been culling anybody who disagreed with Joe Biden.

Anybody who thought Donald Trump might be right.

They got rid of all of those people.

Then they committed another atrocity, I believe, for our military.

Demanded that you get the COVID shot, or you were out! It was crimes, incompetence, maybe crimes of incompetence, in Afghanistan, at least. They were trying to control the message. Control the military through DEI.

So Pete Hegseth is a target. Why? Because he's going to find out what's going on. He's going to run investigations. And he's going to stop it.

Okay! Next. FBI DOJ.

So why -- what is he going to do? What is Kash Patel going to do when he gets into the FBI?

Well, he's going to investigate crimes, the weaponization of the FBI. Also, the way that they protected those in Congress, or those in power.

I.e., the Hunter Biden laptop. I.e., the FISA courts.

So he's looking for bad guys, while also trying to clean it up. Because you can't clean it up, if you don't know who the bad guys are.

Then you have the Director of National Intelligence. And Tulsi Gabbard. She's under fire. Why?

Well, she needs to go in and expose all of the black ops, and those leaking lies to the press. And shoring up lies to the members of Congress.

And rooting out the darkness between the members of Congress, the White House, the military industrial complex, and the intelligence community.

What is RFK? Why is he being challenging?

Because he's going to expose the lies of COVID, the corruption, and corruption with pharmaceutical companies.

He's going after and breaking that all up. These are all big businesses. You know, big businesses, for congressmen and senators. And the government!

This is -- this is the center of public/private partnerships. Okay?

And they all involve people who want to go in and find out the root of what's really going wrong here! So they're all under attack.

But what did the Democrats say, is the existential threat to the republic, and all mankind?

What was it?

STU: Global warming!

GLENN: Global warming. Global warming. Guess who just -- whose nomination just flew by!

Doug Burgum.

STU: Burgumentum, yeah. It sure did fly by.

GLENN: Doug Burgum. That is weird.

STU: You would think for Department of the Interior, the concern for a bunch of people who think global warming is the big concern.

GLENN: What he's going to do is reverse a lot of the things and make coal, gas, oil exploration okay for many parts of the Interior of the United States.

He sailed through!

Now, how does he sail through, if he's just going to be -- his role will be to destroy the opposition to oil, gas, and coal?

Notice what he's not going to be doing. He's not going to be investigating the government.

So forget about what we said about the biggest threat. No, no. The biggest threat seems to be the people who are looking into corruption!

So I was a little outraged. I've been a little outraging all week.

And I want to clarify things. And make very, very clear.

We're talking about threats to our democracy.

That's what they said. And I believe that to be true! We're talking about the rule of lay. Right?

But let's -- let's actually look at what is being said in the so-called confirmation hearings.

On day one, with Bernie Sanders and RFK. America's favorite millionaire socialist was railing about onesies.

Onesies! What? That's the great moral crisis facing this country? While we teeter on the edge of war. While the economy is in free fall. While we have corruption all throughout our government? With COVID and pharmaceuticals. Onesies is the thing you're bringing up?

While the very institutions, he claims to protect, have all been turned into political weapons.
Then when RFK Jr had the audacity, the unmitigated gall to point out, that this self-styled champion of the working class was the single largest recipient of pharmaceutical money in 2020, what happened? What happened?

The old man went -- oh! I knew this was going to come up in my socialist dreams.

What did he do?

He did what they all do. He had to silence RFK.

He had to have him dismissed. He needed to discredit him.

He needed people not to hear what RFK was saying.

The same man who spent decades raging against corporate greed. Suddenly has nothing, but caveats and excuses, when the money was going his way.

Now, I don't think it was. But let's just say, that was a lie about Bernie Sanders!

Let's just say that RFK just made that up.

Okay. What had to happen?

Well, Bernie Sanders needed to be able to clarify. Right?

He needed to be able to say, that's not true. And here's why that's not true.

But he couldn't. Okay? He just had to shout it over what RFK was saying. He had to silence and talk over RFK to stop the accusation.

He needed to defend himself, and explain. That's what would happen in a fair system.

But no one on the receiving end can silence the senators. No one on the receiving end can talk over them, and say, that's a lie! And get the control of the room back, so they can set the record straight. The senators can. See, the questions are akin to, when did you stop beating your wife? And I think that was an actual question for Pete Hegseth, last week. Was it not? When did you stop beating your wife?

These hearings are not advice and consent as the Constitution requires. They are smear, destroy, and delay.

Let's move on to Kash Patel. The man accused, without any evidence, of course, of planning to weaponize the DOJ and FBI. That's laughable!

Who is accusing him of that? The very senators, who have spent the last 20-plus years. Weaponizing the entire government, against the American people.

The same people who oversaw the raids on journalists. The spying on sitting presidents. The suppression of political opponents. The imprisonment of pro-life activists, while violent rioters just walked free.

Are these the people who have the audacity, to clutch their pearls about the politicization about law enforcement?

The hypocrisy is so thick, I almost choked to death on it!

And then there's Tulsi Gabbard. God bless Tulsi Gabbard.

When she finally got a chance to speak, she laid it out, plain. Corruption in our intelligence community, is not a theory. It's a fact!

It's a matter of record. It's not even in dispute.

But did anybody talk about that?

No!

Smear, silence, destroy.

Instead, they smeared her. She's a Russian agent.

She's a traitor. She's a spy for Syria. She doesn't care about the Constitution.

These people are so desperate to maintain their stranglehold on power, they will destroy anyone who has -- who has the gall or the opportunity to expose them. They're all rallying around the idea that these people must be stopped, why?

Why did Doug fly through with the Department of Interior, if that's the biggest problem? Because that's not the biggest problem.

They know the biggest problem right now is, they're about to be exposed. So they have got to destroy and delay and stop these people.

They asked her if Edward Snowden was a traitor. They weren't interested in their answer. Because the truth is too dangerous for them. They're not interested in an actual answer on any of these questions.

Here's the truth: Is Edward Snowden a traitor?

Well, I don't know. We could talk about that back and forth.

But I know he shouldn't have ever had to blow the whistle.

Especially to the press.

But it's because of this very committee, senators, it is because of many of you, in fact, you from Colorado, that are questioning me on that!

You were in the Senate, at the time.

Why did -- why didn't -- why wasn't he comfortable coming to you, to blow the whistle.

Why is it he couldn't, become a whistle-blower?

He had to go to the outside press?

See, all of the things that they were doing, that he exposed, I don't like the fact that he exposed them.

Because it hurt the United States. But I'm glad he exposed them. Because what you were doing. What you in Oversight were allowing to happen for years, was against the Constitution.

Was against our rule of law.

So he shouldn't have had to have blown the whistle.

You, all of you, sitting right here on this panel, you're in charge of oversight. You failed!

And you dare question me. Maybe you should do your damn job. Maybe you should stop the unconstitutional surveillance programs, before they ever begin.

These are the people that oversaw the FBI lying to the American people about Hunter Biden's laptop. The laptop that proved the sitting president of the United States and his family took tens of millions of dollars from foreign adversaries, including China!

The same China that is threatening the United States, threatening Taiwan, the same China that these very senators allowed to buy up American farmland and land around our own military bases.

The same China that floods our streets with fentanyl, while their partners in Mexico, butcher Americans, at the same border. While these same senators do nothing, while millions of unknown, undocumented people flood over our borders. And have empowered the cartels.

Don't you dare ask me who the traitor is, Senator!

Don't do it.

Where are you on any of these?

Let me ask you, Senator. Let me all of you.

Who is the traitor here?

Is Edward Snowden the traitor that just has to be executed?

Because treason comes with execution. So is he the traitor here?

Is he the biggest traitor? That happened 15 years ago. Your technology on spying, and corruption, is far beyond anything he ever said!

Is he the traitor? Or is Senator, let me ask you, the president.

President Joe Biden, is he the traitor for taking millions of dollars from our enemy!

Is his family? Did they commit treason? Or is it the people under your oversight, who knowingly spread false information, to protect that family?

Or is it you, Senator? Are you complicit? Are you corrupt, or are you just simply incompetent!

Because it's one of the three. Incompetence. Corruption. Or outright treason. Which is it, Senator. That's what I would like to hear.

Pick one! Because the country is waking up. And the American people are demanding an answer.

And we will get it in the end.

You cannot build this house of lies.

It's already crumbling around. Now would be the time to tell the truth, senator.

Because we're looking for a lot of answers here.

Who was actually executing the duties of the president of the United States, in the last six months?

Maybe the last four years.

I don't know how long. When did you know, Senator? Did you know who was protecting? Who was silencing anyone that was trying to say, maybe we have a problem here? The president is clueless.

By the way, while we're on this topic. Who was responsible for the coup?

To overthrow a president of the United States!

Because that's what it was.

How did that happen?

Who was actually there? Who made that happen? And then selected Harris to be the democratic candidate. Who did that? How did that happen? I'm so interested to know, because none of it is constitutional. And why did, whomever actually came up with the huge list of names for presidential pardons. Include so many of you!

Senators.

So many congressmen, so many people who dared to point the finger my way. Who was in charge of that list. And why are you on those lists?

Is this the reason you're afraid of people that are simply looking for the truth?

Because I want to be crystal clear on what this really is.

I'll continue in 60 seconds.

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Ten-second station ID.
(music)

GLENN: I want to be clear at this point in my rant, of what this is really about. What's really happening in Washington, DC, right now.

This is the Deep State, and all of the corrupt senators, right now, fighting for their survival.

That's all this is.

It is the act of desperate people doing all they can, to stay out of jail. Literally, stay out of jail. You start exposing the corruption in the military-industrial complex.

It goes right to the senators. You start exposing the corruption, and the black ops that are happening in Intel community, it goes right to the senators.

You start exposing what happened next at the DOJ and FBI. It goes right to the senators.

They're all Oversight. Many of them benefited from these things, politically. And in power. They're trying to stay out of jail. This is the ruling class. Democrats and Republicans panicking for the first time in decades, their grip on power is slipping.

Because this president is appointing people in all positions, that are going to go grab it by its roots, and root it out! And show it to the American people. At best, it's -- it's those who have been in bed with the intelligence and military complex.

Who believe at best, that war and American intervention works. Doing all that they can, to keep their secrets and their secret policies, that keep us in these wars, alive.

The problem is: None of their old tricks work. We've had these tricks for over 100 years.

Conspiracy theory. That's a Karl Marx thing. That was used by Woodrow Wilson.

That was used again, by the Soviet Union. And the plants here in the United States.

Call them conspiracy theorists. Discredit them.

Destroy them. You've called us so many names now. We don't believe any of them.

Words don't have any meaning anymore. Your tricks don't work. The smears. The leaks. The media hit jobs.

The fake outrage.

You've played that role too many times. It's a -- no.

It's a Mexican soap opera. A Spanish soap opera. They're so over the top, they're hysterical.

You've played that role too many times.

We know. We know the system is corrupt. We know the game is rigged. And we know there is no moral high ground left for you to stand on.

WEF'S Terrifying Plan to Revive the Great Reset EXPOSED | Ep 409

“By 2030, you will not recognize life on this planet,” Glenn Beck foretells in this episode of Glenn TV. We are at the precipice of a new form of intelligence — but not in human form. There’s a global arms race to find out who will be the first to create artificial general intelligence and then superintelligence. It’s no longer a matter of if it will happen but when and who will pull it off first. The wolves are at the gates. China just unveiled DeepSeek, an AI chatbot that claims it’s on the same level as ChatGPT. Glenn downloaded the Chinese app so you don’t have to, but what he found was dystopian. The other wolf at the gate is the World Economic Forum, which just held its annual gathering in Davos. While this audience helped crush Klaus Schwab’s dreams of a Great Reset and a weaponized ESG system, the WEF elites have a new sinister agenda called the “Collaboration for the Intelligent Age.” Glenn reveals what’s in their plans in their own words. But can the U.S. afford to stay out of the intelligence race while globalist elites plot ahead? Trump put our enemies on notice when he announced the Stargate Project, which got a $500 billion investment in AI infrastructure from Oracle, SoftBank, and OpenAI. This could be the Manhattan Project of our generation, but can we trust the tech titans suddenly flocking to Trump? Big Tech veteran and Brownstone Research CEO Jeff Brown tells Glenn, “No ... they are still actively censoring political content.”

BlazeTV subscribers get exclusive access to Jeff Brown’s entire interview available now at https://get.blazetv.com/glenn/.