The Glenn Beck Program - Best of the Program | 8/20/25

Episode Date: August 20, 2025

Glenn reviews the latest D.C. crime statistics released by the DC Police Union, which show that crime is down in almost every metric. But are they accurate? President Trump is setting his sights on Venezuela, but why? Glenn outlines the things that Venezuela is doing that are poisoning Americans, which is leading Trump to another crackdown. The media are claiming that President Trump is downplaying slavery with his latest initiative involving the Smithsonian. Stu gives the critical context that the media is intentionally ignoring. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Well, it's been a whole seven days since President Trump had the National Guard come in and try to help clean up D.C. How's it working out? Also, what's going on down in South America? We are sending, we're sending 4,000 Marines down to South America. Why? And why isn't anybody talking about it, especially when you know what's actually happening, we explain. And pushing back on the outright lies that the New York Times is peddling about President Trump calling out the Smithsonian. on their slavery display.

No, kids, he didn't say slavery is neat. That wasn't the point. The New York Times knows it, and we explain it on today's podcast. Let me tell you about our sponsor. It's real estate agents, I trust.com. Obviously, when it comes to real estate agents, the best of the best, you know,

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Now we know, Brett Bear, Saturday, pulled over in Georgetown. Why? He was talking on his phone and he wasn't supposed to be on his phone while he was driving, which he pointed out clearly. His Mercedes G-wagon, that's my wife's car. That's my wife's car.

He was a, yeah, I got a ticket, whatever. Yeah, I probably had some blow on me, but that's my wife's car. That's definitely my wife's car because it was a white G-wagon. And, I mean, it's clearly a girl's car, Brett, clearly. I mean, G-wagon, girl wagon, that's what it is. You take it in, you park it in the same part. parking spot every day. It's the G-spot. You don't need a real big map on this one. It's a chick car, at least in white. I had so many additional jokes to add on to that. I'm going to stop.

But yeah, that was funny. That did seem to be the focus of his statement. I guess he was on the phone and he wasn't supposed to be. So he got to take it. Yeah, that's a legal in D.C. Yeah. And, you know, good for good for them. Pulling over Brett Bear and giving him a ticket. Good. I'm glad to see it. I mean, you know, not that I want to see everybody. You know what I mean. Everybody, if you're breaking the law, you're breaking the law, you get a ticket. And it's good to see that they, uh, that everybody is getting that. They had, uh, 56 arrests on Tuesday night. Don't have the number today, but it's probably about another 50, um, including a, an illegal MS-13 gang member, which by the way, has MSNBC, you know, they're renaming

to MS now, right? Yeah. Have they thought about MS-13? We give you the newest headlines, 13 times a day. We are MS-13. At least it'd be more accurate,

really. Really, it's pretty close. It's pretty close. That would be... It might be better. It might be actually a better name than MS now. Right. So the stats in Washington, D.C.,

this seems to be working. Robbery now is down 46% versus the previous seven days. So a week ago, the robberies have gone down 46%. ADW, aiding dumb whites. What is ADW? Assault with a deadly weapon. Okay, okay. Down 6%.

Carjacking, down 83%. Car theft, down 21st. down 21% violent crime down 22% property crime down 6%. Now here's what I don't get. After all of those stats, all crimes down 8%. How do you have these huge numbers and then it's all crime is only down 8%? Yeah, maybe, you know what? Maybe people like Brett Bear with this phone is up like 45% and that's offsetting it.

Yeah, maybe that's what it is. Maybe that's what it is. You know, of course, I don't know, because I'm sure there's a law in Washington, D.C., you know, you can't hit your horse to like a lamp post. Right. You know, I'm sure that's still on there. And that's probably gone through the roof. I was talking to Drew Holden yesterday, a writer, and he lives in D.C.

And he was talking about the crime problem. And he described a situation near his house where a park was closed, one of their local parks. you could go and take a walk and walk your dog or whatever, and it was closed. Why was it closed? Because several hundred teenagers decided to schedule a quote-unquote fight in the park. Oh. So there was a massive brawl that broke out in this park, which meant they had to close the entire park. Now, that's not going to be 200 crimes, right? That's not how that's going to be. It's probably maybe one or two. However, it totally disrupted the lives of the people who lives around this park. See, that's what people.

are, that's what people are missing. You know, Ricky told us that a friend of hers was robbed. Somebody came up, took their wallet. He didn't even report it to the police. He's like, what are they going to do? They're never going to find my wallet. I'm not going to waste my time. So he didn't even report it. I don't know what crime this would be, but I've told you the story last time I was in Washington, D.C., my wife and I were just walking down the street and a guy on a bike, a big black guy who looked insane, and I think he was seriously disturbed. But he rides his bike around. He's like, today's the day. I'm going to kill me a white guy.

I'm going to kill me a white man today. And he's pointing at me. And I'm like, well, too bad you don't see just behind me about 20 steps or two armed security guys. So give it a world, Jack. But I didn't report that. And I think that kind of stuff happens to people all the time in Washington, D.C. It's a quality of life thing as well. You just become used to it.

Right. Like, you know, New York is a good example of this. New York's murder rate, by the way, is one-seventh of Washington, D.C. But we did live and work in New York. One-seventh. We did live and work in New York for a while. And there's just, it becomes part of your life to ignore things that everyone else in the country would never ignore, right? Like you. I'll never, the best example of this, Stu, is you and I on the subway. We were waiting for the subway. And you and I were, were just talking about something and we didn't realize we stood there for maybe three or four minutes and I think you said I think the big one's going to win and I'm like I have my money on him too and what we were talking about we had not discussed it before we had been sitting there talking to each other but both of us while talking were watching two rats yeah fight over us like a like a hot dog rapper or something and it just had begun and I looked at stew and I said We have been here too long. Yeah.

We got to get out. When that's just normal, we've got to get out. Yeah. And I think that is actually part of this. If you want to give a little bit of a break to the crazy people who are defending, you know, Washington, D.C. is this bizarre Disneyland. You almost start to delete these terrible experiences from your mind. It's the only way you can deal with them.

Like I saw one guy actually post. He's like, you know, I'm sick of all these Republicans and Trump and MAGA people saying, you know, how terrible this city is and how much crime there is. You know, sure, I've been mugged. And yeah, I had my car broken into, but this is a great city. It's like, he had, like, really, like, just disjointed himself from those experiences as if they didn't happen. And as if that's normal for people. Yeah, everyone goes through those things.

No, they don't. Like, nowhere else I've ever lived. Did I expect that to occur? But that's not the same, you know, which rat's going to win thing? No. Where you just get used to it. that's politics. If you're mugged,

if it were reversed, and, you know, and crime was going out of control, and Donald Trump was not doing anything about it, and this guy gets mugged, he'd be like, you course, what do you expect? The Republicans are in. They don't care about us.

They don't care. I mean, that's politics. That's not just getting used to it. Getting used to it is having to step over the homeless person or the drug addict or, walking down the street and seeing, you know, people that are all hunched over because they're on what fentanyl or whatever it is. That's the kind of stuff you kind of get used to and you just don't see it anymore until somebody comes to visit you and then they're like, you live here and you're

like, oh yeah, you get used to it. You don't get used to being mugged. You don't. No, no. That's politics. No, but, but you know, you, like the person, was it a friend of Rickies or talking about how the wallet was stolen. Like, it's an experience that you remember. I mean, it doesn't necessarily ruin your life. Like, it's an inconvenience. It's a terrible thing to go through. But you kind of just, like, work it into that city experience at some level, which

is terrible. Like, I, you know, our friends who used to always talk about, like, the city and they, like, they appreciated the grit. The grit sucks. Okay? I don't want the grit. The grit is nonsense. It is, it is, it's a justification for life.

for what you have to deal with on a day-to-day basis. Oh, it's a gritty city. Getting mugged is, there's no charm in that. I'm sorry. You want to have a dive bar that you like attending? That's grit, I suppose. You know, going to a place where you're getting, you know, things stolen from you, or you get beaten, or you get some weird fluid thrown at you, and you don't know what it was.

Like, that's the type of stuff that happens in these cities all the time. I know. I know. It's awful. I know. And that is the kind of stuff. You know, I was just, I just moved my daughter in. I'm not going to say the town, but I just moved my daughter into a town.

Istanbul. It's a college town. Oh, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said it. And it's this really nice, quaint, seemingly crime-free. I mean, it has other problems. But I walked down the street with my wife. We were going to pick something up at a restaurant.

on bringing them back to the apartment as we were all, you know, unboxing. And I'm walking down the street and I said, this is what my childhood was like. This feels like when I was, you know, late 1970s, you know, as I'm coming of age, this is the way the country kind of felt. It was generally safe in areas where I grew up. it was generally safe you know it was clean people respected

one another generally speaking and I know that you know New York City was a hellhole at the same time that I was experiencing that in the West Coast but you don't see that very often anymore and you forget until you go to one of these small towns and you're like

is are they piping in the sounds of birds and stuff because it's like perfect here. No, it's just a small town, you know, that hasn't gone to hell. And you forget about it. You really forget on how great that can be. And you think about the people who are leading this country all live and work in a place where they are justifying these terrible things occurring. They're not living a life that so many other Americans are living, where their towns are sane. And where their towns are sane and they don't have to deal with murder rates seven times the rate of New York City.

So, you know, and this is the trouble with this, of course, in some way is that Washington has tools that no one else has, right? Like, they can call in the federal government to take over their town and bring a bunch of troops in and do all these things that really, that's not an option for a lot of, a lot of cities. They're stuck with the Mamdani's and the guy in Minnesota who is, you know, who is now taking over their city and going to run it in the ground further. It's going to get much worse. Yeah, one of the things that I think you can get back to your story from Washington, D.C., just how prevalent crime was there, that guy that said that. Because you were there. I was there. I was standing

near your security. And you can tell they're so used to just, that's just the norm. They can intimidate you through crime. No fear. No fear. And what cracked me up, maybe you didn't notice this, because we kept watching him. He gave us that crazy eye, went across the street, looked back, and we were still glaring at him as if we're not intimidated by this. And he actually had this look for a couple seconds like, did I not deliver the line correctly? Did it not work? And it just stuck out in my mind because if you refuse to be intimidated by this,

like the administration of Donald Trump is now, refuse to be intimidated by this. And that is what they were doing it right now, essentially. And their power goes away. So in Washington, D.C., I don't carry a gun. you know, I'll travel when I'm in a city like that. I travel with somebody who has a badge and they can carry a gun. And that was the reason why I wasn't really intimidated other than, you know, go ahead.

But my wife was the sweet silence, the sweet, bring me, please bring me the sweet relief silence of death. Wouldn't it be bad if you get up to heaven and it is like, great, glad you hear it. There's an election next week. What? No. But, you know, the average person doesn't have that. Imagine, you know, you're walking your kids to school in the morning and they see that.

Did you see that guy? Where was he? That came up and he was homeless and clearly nuts. I mean, that's part of it. It's not just crime. We have really sick people on the streets as well. And this guy comes up to a mom pushing a baby carriage. just on the street, just walking

by and her own business. And he gets in front of her and blocks her from moving and he's like, this is my baby. Give her to me. Give her to me. And tries to take. And luckily living in a town where others see what's going on and race to the woman's

defense. I don't know if that would have happened in New York City. I don't know if that would have happened in New York, you know, or Washington, D.C. You know, it's you don't dismiss. the quality of life and I'm really anxious to see what happens in 30 days because in 30 days

this is going to Trump loses the ability to do this without Congress acting and I'm anxious to see what happens if he doesn't get that ability and it goes back to the way it was I think the people in Washington DC are going to be really pissed at the Democrats. Hey, you're locked in with the best of the Glenn Beck program back with more right after this. Let me tell you about relief factor. Listen, if you live long enough, one or two things is going to happen. You're going to hurt yourself badly. Or something else is going to hurt you badly.

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You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program. All right. I want to talk to you about something that's right on our doorstep that I don't think a lot of people are watching. I think it was Sunday, Saturday or Sunday, I read an article, and I just kind of skimmed it quickly. And I filed it away, and it was, the United States is moving like a battle group to Latin America. And I'm like, what, we're moving a battle group. What are we, what? We're moving cruise missile ships, like 4,000 Marines.

I mean, this is what you have when you have an invading force. You know, when you're worried about something, you want to keep calm in some area. You know, we send him over, I don't know, off the coast of Africa because there's somebody doing something. And we send this group over and we're like, hey, knock it off. What are we doing? Okay, well, it's not just to Latin America. It's someplace very specific. Venezuela. What's happening now is not some distant strong man. This is battle lines are being drawn right now between freedom and chaos. Okay. This week, Nicholas Menlo, Doro, who was indicted by the Trump administration, I think in 2020, and then Biden didn't do anything

about it. He was indicted by our own Justice Department for narco-terrorism. He just responded to us and mobilized four and a half million civilian militiamen. So he's now just kind of drafted four million men and said, you're a citizen, but you're also a citizen. But you're also a soldier right now. And he says it's to defend sovereignty against America. Here's what it is. He's trying to protect himself. He's a dictator and he's conscripting an entire nation because he knows the United States is after him.

Why? Why? Well, we have warships three Aegis destroyers and they're anchored right off his coast. and we just doubled the bounty on his head from $25 million to $50 million. And, you know, at first blush, you're like, can we, what are we doing? What? What's happening? I mean, we've lived in a time my whole life where, like, you know, the government can do two things at once.

It should be able to walk and chew gum. Well, we're not just walking and chewing gum. We're walking, chewing gum, putting out, you know, the fire of a burning house, juggling, flaming bowling pins. stopping a nuclear war, dancing the macarena, because everybody in Washington is like 8,000 years old. We're building a death-bought army at the same time, fighting people that want to behead us. Oh, and the Islamists and redistricting Texas.

And we're doing it all at the same time. Why? I mean, we're living Mission Impossible, except our Tom Cruise is 78 years old, which I want you to think about this. I think Donald Trump is exactly, who Tom Cruise will be when he's 78. Just not. He's still running that weird run that he's doing.

Anyway, so Donald Trump is going after Venezuela for two reasons. One, drugs. Fentanyl and cocaine, much of it laced, much of it deadly, and it is being trafficked here in the United States by people who are directly tied to Maduro's government. and it's the so-called cartel of the Sons, MS-13 gang members, all of this stuff is coming from Venezuela, and they are poisoning Americans.

And this is not just a foreign, you know, a foreign security thing or a foreign policy issue. This is this is homeland security. This is actually affecting us. The second one, and I think this is the bigger reason of the two, I mean, they're probably tied, but this is a big. one that most Americans don't know. Venezuela is not some backwater place. It's full of oil and it is a staging ground now for Russia, China, and Iran, Hezbollah.

It has some of the worst people. It's a beachhead for those people who want to see the United States taken down. Oh, Glenn, literally a beachhead. This is insane because I didn't even know a lot of this. We mentioned this maybe a couple months ago. Yeah, we did a, we did a, it was in part of another story. The Trenda Agua stuff. Yeah, that's what it was coming out?

And we were like, wait a minute, what is Hezbollah doing in, in Venezuela? Oh my gosh. So I actually dug through congressional testimony to get some of this information. Now, this is information the American public doesn't really know, but the government knows. So check this out. This is from congressional testimony. In 2011, they tested, Congress testified what Hugo Chavez was doing.

Listen to this. Just the year before in 2010, Hugo Chavez hosted something called the Secret Summit. Like literally. It was called the Secret Summit. Okay. Guess who showed up to Secret Summit? The Supreme Leader of Hamas, the chief of operations for Hezbollah, and the Secretary General of Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Oh, I thought you were going to say Satan.

I might as well have. I mean, this is absolutely nuts. Nobody was talking about that. How can that happen right off our shore? And nobody's talking about it. Glenn, it gets so much worse than that, if you can. So Iranians right now with connections to Hezbollah are on an island off the coast of Venezuela. It's called Margarita Island.

Everyone should Google this right now and check it out. Is Jimmy Buffett involved? Jimmy Buffett would be nowhere near this Margarita Island. All right. The whole world is about to. crash. Yeah, it's not five o'clock anywhere on this Margarita Island. These are some of the things they're doing here, okay?

Again, with the involvement of the Venezuelan government, they are, quote, running money laundering operations, establishing paramilitary training centers. They are recruiting Venezuelan gangs, and listen to this. Sending those people, this is like Trenda Agua, sending them to Iran, for follow-on training. Jeez. This is happening right now. Our government knows about this.

This is the only time I've actually seen them doing something concrete to combat it. There's known about it since 2010. Two thousand ten. Known it since 2010. You didn't know that. Nobody's saying that. When, you know, we've argued that, you know, Venezuela and communism and, you know, they were eating the zoo animals. That's what, that's what happens, gang, when you go communist.

and full on democracy. They wanted full on democracy, and that's what you get. That's, you know, hello Maduro. So when Maduro took over, he was kind of the Mamdani, if you will, of Venezuela. He's just a simple bus driver. Uh-huh.

And look what he's done. That's the part we've heard about. Then when the border crisis happened, we started hearing about, oh, well, they're sending gangs in. and they're sending fentanyl and everything else in. We still are not talking about their connections to Iran and Hezbollah and how they have been training people and sending them here.

This is really not good. So Donald Trump clearly knows all of this stuff, and that's why he's offered $50 million for anybody that will turn him in or can tip us off to lead to the capture. And now the reason why we're doing that is, you've got to remember, we've done this before. Noriega was a guy that we, you know, was a drug lord, and he was running a country, and we said we've got to get him.

And we finally did get Noriega, and he went to prison for what he did. But the other times we've done that, Saddam Hussein, and even worse, Omar Gaddafi, That was a Hillary Clinton and a Barack Obama nightmare. And they drug his body through the streets because we assisted the collapse and it became a vacuum. And now Libya is just a nightmare. Just a nightmare.

So is Iraq. We can't let that happen to Venezuela. So we have to be very careful. He can't just say, go get him. We have to be very careful. Unless the people themselves rise up against Maduro. unless the people themselves do it. This is going to be a really tough one,

but we have to stop pretending that this is somebody else's problem because it is our problem. It really is our problem. Those people are already here. And we are also, you know, this one reason why I don't like it when people blame their problems on others. I'm an alcoholic.

Now everybody says, well, that, you know, that's a familial thing. That runs in your gym. jeans. I don't know. I don't think they've ever found that. There's no evidence of that. But you make a good case. I mean, we're riddled with alcoholism in my family. So, yeah, maybe, maybe, but I'm the one who makes the choice. Okay. Yeah, maybe I have that extra gene that's working against me, maybe, but I went into the bar. I went into the store and bought the booze. so we have to start taking responsibility for some of our problems it's easy to say

Venezuela is shipping all this fentanyl into the United States we have to recognize that Americans are buying it now there's one thing to say about addiction once you start buying it then you're addicted to it and it is a nightmare I mean the first time I had fentanyl I I wake up I've woken up on the operating table two times. They cannot keep me down. My body just processes stuff, like, so fast. It's a fast, high-functioning liver. And I was in pain.

You might remember this if you've listened to me for a long time. I was in New York. And they put me under. And then I got out, and they were giving me morphine, I think, percocet, and fentanyl patches. and my doctor after said, why would you let somebody do this to you? And I'm like, well, I was a little high,

and my wife didn't know. I mean, we listened to the doctor. That's when we really learned. Don't listen to the doctor. They don't always know. But they had good intent. They were just trying to keep me out of pain. But the box fentanyl,

I don't know if it still does, but if you get a box of fentanyl from the drugstore, it says black box, you know, warning, for end of life use only. Why? Because it is so incredibly addicting. You take it for a day or two, and you're done. You're addicted to it.

So addiction is one thing that we have to deal with. But we also have to say, Americans are buying this stuff. We have to change our culture and start prosecuting people who are buying this stuff. and treating those who are addicted to it, an understanding with compassion, yada, yada, yada. But we have to also, if you're selling drugs,

you're involved in selling drugs, you should have a very, very long sentence. Very long sentence. You know, don't tell Donald Trump this, but, you know, China does not have a drug problem. Because if you sell drugs, you're executed. I don't even think you get a trial. They just kill you.

let's not tell Donald Trump that because he might like that idea. But it'd fix it quickly. It'd fix it quickly. But we have to take responsibility ourselves. We have to be resilient as people and our communities. We have to have strong families. We have to have a citizenry that knows the difference between liberty and tyranny. We have to understand that freedom does not come when you're on drugs.

It doesn't. That is the worst tyranny. You're a pharmaceutical tyranny. You are a slave to whatever it is that you're putting into your body. That's the real battle. But there is another one off our shore that could heat up. What do you think is going to happen, Jason? Because this is a significant battle group, isn't it?

It's significant. I mean, including 4,000 Marines. I was on a battle group like that, where this is the same kind where we would go and just sit off the coast of like a Middle Eastern country and just wait for something to happen. When you were in it, weren't you off the coast of the coast of a little eastern country and just wait for something to happen? When you were in it, weren't you off the coast of the coast of like Australia, that you were one of the first in after 9-11. Yeah, in one of these battle groups doing exercises in Australia, we got the call went straight to Afghanistan right after that.

So this is like the firepower that could do that. So it's very intimidating. I would assume that is the reason for this. I don't think they'll actually be doing actual, you know, you know, conflict-type kinetic stuff. But I bet that it's just supposed to be, it's supposed to mean to be intimidating. I'm curious if it's supposed to lend support to maybe some of the, you know,

ground people in Venice, to finally tell them, look, we've got your back. If you want to do something about this and finally take your country back, now would be the time. Yeah, maybe we'd be a peacekeeper. Yeah. You know, maybe it would be a peacekeeping force. All right, you sick, twisted freak. What more of me and stew?

Maybe not stew. But to hear the rest of the program, check out the full podcast. We're back with more after this. Let me tell you about Jace Medical. almost every house has a first aid kid. I'm guessing yours does as well. You picture this, the bandages, the antibiotic ointment, maybe a few painkillers thrown in the mix.

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Glenn Beck program. Stu, do you know who Jesse Owens is? Sure. And if so, who was he? Olympian? American hero. American hero? Why?

Why was the American hero? I mean, he won in the Hitler Olympics, if you will. Okay. Can you tell me who Tommy Smith and John Carlos are? Tommy Smith and what was it? John Carlos. John Carlos.

I cannot. I think you're exactly like most Americans. And I want to show you why our lack of knowledge, because I couldn't remember, I know of them. You'll know what they did as soon as I start telling the story. But you don't remember their names. Tommy Smith and John Carlos. It proves a point. Everyone knows Jesse Owens, but not these two.

We were talking last hour. Summarized real quick, Stu, if you will, the New York Times article and how they are presenting this story about Donald Trump with the Smithsonian. Their headline is, Trump says Smithsonian focuses too much on how bad slavery was. And the controversy, of course, you know, I mean, that's specifically making you, designed to make you think a specific thing, right? Like, you're supposed to think he's complaining about how they're saying slavery was bad? Well, what is he saying that they're, that he doesn't want them to talk about it at all? Is he saying that it was good?

Are there good aspects of slavery done? That's what they want you to do. And of course, there's a, there is a selection of our country that will dutifully do exactly that. And it is really weird that a section of our country, much of it has been led by the New York Times. The New York Times is supposed to be the bastion of thought. It's supposed to be fair. It's supposed to be all the news fit to print. What they just printed is not fit because it's not news. That's a lie. It's not news. Period. What he is saying is there should be balance. Balance. Why are we pushing this narrative that America is such a bad place and that we enslaved our people?

and that's the story of America. That's not the story of America. And it's not. It's a part of it. It's an important part of it. But it's not the story. So that's what he was saying. That's the story they didn't want to print.

And they can get away with it because they know their readers want that hate on Donald Trump. Okay? And instead of having the backbone, the spine, and the integrity to say, I don't care what our viewers or our readers want. I mean, how many times have we done this, Stu? And it's caused us real problems. I mean, we've lost millions of dollars over the years at different times

because I have had a point of view and I know it's out of step with you. And I've said it. And I've said, you know, I know you're going to disagree with this, but this is where I am. Because I believe that's what you come here for. I'm not here to feed you what you want to hear. You come here because you want to hear my opinion. And it's just that.

My opinion. My view of the world and its happenings and what it all means. I don't expect you to agree with everything. And the minute I want you to agree with everything or I want, I'll change my view so you will agree with everything, I have nothing left. I have nothing left. And that's where the New York Times is. Yeah, what is the point?

That's where the New York Times is. Yeah, and I think, you know, we obviously care about the country. We care about these issues that we talk about every day. And those are like, I don't know, macro concerns, right? These are the high-level stuff everybody thinks about, you know, oh, gosh, what's going to happen with the economy? What's going to happen with our freedom? What's going to happen with religious freedom? Whatever the big issue we're talking about of the day is.

but there are also like micro things that you do that are part of your job. And like one of the things that keeps me up at night is the idea of somebody in this audience walking into work and having a conversation with a coworker and repeating something that they heard on our show only for that coworker to say, what are you talking about? That's not true. And then prove it. Like that is a nightmare. I've had a thousand times working on this show.

Yeah, me too. I do not want to put our awesome audience in that position. I hate that position. I want them to know. I want them to be the one who because actually you're wrong and here's why and then have them prove it because they have the facts and they have it backed up. And like- And that's honestly why I have said over and over and over again, A, don't trust.

Don't take it from us. Don't trust. I don't want your trust. I don't ask for your trust. Your trust is nice. I appreciate it. I am honored by it. but I'm telling you, I'll get it wrong.

And don't trust in men. Men will always let you down. Trust. Trust in God. Verify everything else. And the only way that this truth, the only way you can fight for this truth is if you know it yourself. So you might hear me tell a story and go, wow, is that true?

And then hopefully my ultimate view of what I do is I'm a gateway drug, I get you interested in a story and you're like, that can't be true. Or, wow, that's really true. And you start going down this wormhole of history. And you start looking at things and going, wow, you know what? I didn't even know this. Glenn, did you know this? Because that's when life becomes exciting is when you're on a constant road of discovery.

And it becomes yours. When people say, Glenn, I wish you were with me because I was talking to my friends and I couldn't remember. You shouldn't have to remember. And I know there's so much going on that you need us to do shorthand for you. but, you know, the ultimate goal is to get you so you know it so well that you don't have to remember. You'll know how to get on your phone and go, wait a minute, hang on just a second. You get on your phone and you can find the facts. You can find the story.

You can prove it, as Stu just said, not with my words, but with the actual facts, with the documents, et cetera, et cetera. And the New York Times is not expecting that from their audience anymore. They're, in fact, expecting them not to do homework. and it's doubly insidious because they are playing to their audience and they've sold their soul to that audience. But then they also know that the New York Times sets the table for everybody. Anybody who is a journalist, they look to the New York Times. Is it in the New York Times?

Okay, then it must be. Also, the New York Times, whatever they print, especially if it's got a catchy headline like that, it will go out and become very, very viral. So they're not only scooping up the intellectuals that they've already scooped up that just want to hear that one side and point of view, they're not really intellectuals anymore, but also they're getting the dummies on the street that only read that headline who go, yeah, well, he's a racist, he likes slavery. Okay. So it's just an insidious business that they're in. Now, I just told you a minute ago what Donald Trump was saying, and I happened to agree with him, the

Smithsonian is a garbage can right now, an absolute garbage can. It's taken everything and it has its own perspective and that's what it's going to tell the world who America is. I want to go to a museum where I learn something. I learned something about the bad and the good. We got it. Slavery was bad. We got that.

Tell me something else that maybe I don't know. Okay? Jesse Owens. Jesse Owens, a hero. Everybody loves Jesse Owens. Why? Well, it wasn't always that way. You know, Jesse Owens, he didn't want to go to the Olympics.

He pissed everybody off because some people said he should go to the Olympics that show a black man can beat the white god of the Germans. And they wanted him to go to do that. Others said he shouldn't be used as a tool of our government. to do that. And so when he decided to go, he really didn't want to go because he just didn't want to go. He wasn't, you know, he's like, I'm not a symbol.

I'm an athlete. But he went. And when he went, he became a hero to those who saw that and said, see, Germans, white supremacy, really? Look at that. Look at Jesse Owens. But when he came back, he wasn't greed. all the Olympic winners were

brought to the White House. Jesse Owens was not invited to the White House by Roosevelt. Franklin D. Roosevelt. The god of progressives. He wouldn't have that black man at the

White House. So he was he goes over. He proves to the world that he is, that whites are not superior. And then he comes back And he's rejected in his own country by his own president. It's an incredible story. He led a very tough life, but as it went on, he became more and more a hero.

We recognize him now as a hero. By the 1960s, the guy was absolutely known as a hero. He was very patriotic. He became an attache or, a spokesperson or something for the State Department, and he would go around the world talking about America. And yeah, America has its problems, but look at the progress we're making. Okay?

That's what Donald Trump is saying. Yes, look at the problems we have. We should know that Jesse Owens was not invited to the White House by Franklin Delano Roosevelt at the time, but he now works for the State Department. And he's spreading the message that, yes, We did those things, but we're getting better. Now let me tell you about Tommy Smith and John Carlos.

I told you that I was in the portrait gallery, which is a garbage can. Not the art, but the building, they have turned it into a garbage can. It's disgusting. And then some of the stuff is not about America. I told you, why is there that girls bike, you know, with, a Cuban flag and a chase sticker on it. What the hell is that? And it's not just that one bike, because I could go into that room and go, okay, well, there's that bike. And so let me figure out the context of it, et cetera, et cetera. But by that time, I was so sick of all of the propaganda,

I didn't care to learn about it. And I went into one of the last rooms right before the bike. And like the vertebrae of a dinosaur, there was these hanging from a ceiling. They had taken the cast of, I think Tommy Smith, who held up his fist. It was one of them. Maybe it was both. But they held up their fist in 1968, say, black power. Okay? Black power, that's panthers. They were terrorists. So they hold up black power. So some artist took the cast of both of their fists and their forearms and made it into this art sculpture. where it's just an arm and that fist over and over and over again, and they laid it out like a giant vertebrae of an animal.

And it takes up a good portion of this huge room. It is the main feature of that room. But you don't even know their name. You don't even know their name. Tommy Smith and John Carlos. Why? Well, I think you don't know their name because they weren't effective. Why?

because they were promoting black power, black panthers terrorism. That's not America. That's not America. Let me tell you another story that you don't know. And if you want to put that vertebrae up, great, put that vertebrae up. But I want this story told in the same room and prominently displayed next to the vertebrae. So, Owens was not part, Jesse Owens was not part of the 1968 Olympics. He was traveling around the world, but he was in Mexico City, and I think he was at that moment in the stadium for the black power.

Okay? And in Mexico City, here's what I, let me just say what I can verify. I'm not going to tell you what I, the story I think how it worked. Let me just what I can absolutely verify. After the protest, Owens met privately with Smith and Carlos in Mexico City. multiple accounts say he tried to counsel them and his message was very different from theirs. Owens urged them to avoid confrontation and to think how their actions would be perceived internationally. He reportedly told them that they could accomplish more by working within the system rather than defying it so dramatically on the world stage.

Now that sounds like let's have a cup of tea and just talk. I don't think that's the way it happened. This is my opinion. I don't think this is what happened. Because there are other accounts that said, while he understood the anger of the black American, because he had lived it, unlike they lived it, he had lived it decades before. So he understood what they claimed they were going through. In comparison to him, really not so much.

He was very upset that they embarrassed the United States and undermined the Olympics. Remember, he's an athlete. That's why he didn't want to go to the Olympics in Berlin. He's an athlete. He's not a politician. He's not a symbol. And he's like, you're undermining the purpose of the games in the first. first place. It's the games and it's a unifying thing where we bring all nations together.

And that's not what the Olympics are for. They're not for political protests. In 1968, Jesse Owens was seen as a model of racial progress and progress had been made. He was the African American who humiliated Adolf Hitler and the Aryan supremacy narrative in 1936. He then made progress from a guy who could not even go to the White House to now being part of the government preaching patriotism and patience in the civil rights struggle all around the world. Patience. Patience. This is what really hacks me off on this story.

Patience. Why are progressives historically from the early 20th century? Why are progressives called progressives and not communists? because you could call them communists or fascist in the early 1900s. That was the model they were going for. Why aren't they called those things? Because back in those days, that wasn't deemed a bad thing. We didn't know yet.

They're called progressives because communism and fascism required a bloody revolution. And so these guys were sane communists, sane fascists, if you will, that said we don't want to have a bloody revolution. We want to take it step by step, bring people along, have patience, and we will finally get there. So that's the way to win, according to the progressive of the era. What does he do? He's saying, you can't do this.

You're embarrassing. You're setting us back. You're dividing. Stop it. Patience. which is a good progressive trait. Hmm. Which one won in the end?

Which one actually furthered civil rights? The communist black panther black power guys that you don't remember? Or Jesse Owens? Because it's the same choice we have to make today. Revolution or work within the system.