The Glenn Beck Program - Best of the Program | Guest: Vice President JD Vance | 6/16/26

Episode Date: June 16, 2026

Glenn speaks with Vice President JD Vance, who discusses his new book, "Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith," which explores his path back to a relationship with God. Glenn and VP Vance also discuss juggling being Catholic despite the church being led by a pope who seems to be on the opposite side of the political aisle. Lastly, Glenn asks VP Vance to elaborate on the difficulties of negotiating with Iran, as a peace deal has reportedly been struck. Glenn reacts to all the foreign travelers who are coming to America for the FIFA World Cup who are amazed and impressed by American culture. Glenn gives a lengthy monologue on the weaponization of power and warns against allowing the government to gain even more control in the name of safety. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Staples Preferred Business Membership, built for busy business owners, because you've got bigger things to think about. With Staples Preferred, get free delivery, no minimums. Staples Preferred unlocks up to 3% back, plus 10% savings on print and exclusive wireless offers. One less thing on your plate. Actually, a lot less. Visit staples.ca.comfired. That was easy. at J.D. Vance on today, right out of the shoot, you're going to hear that as part of our edited podcast. This is the shorter version of the show, so you can get everything you need quickly.

JD Vance, we talked about his new book, but we really talked about also what's happening in Iran. Some questions were answered. More questions are left to be seen when we see this deal with Iran. Also, I think we're at a turning point in our nation. Should we choose to accept it, Mr. Feld? helps. Should you and your team choose to accept it? We're hearing a lot of great things about America from Europeans who are visiting America. And I went through all of them. We have to restore the belief in America that this is worth saving, that it's unique, that it's different, that it's special, that it's worth saving. And I think we can do that today. And I show you the path on that. And the other thing we have to do is restore our story and our education on what our country, how it's actually built.

Why was it built? And we do that through our summer of education at Torch250.com. We talk a little bit about that on today's show. And finally, a plot against the UFC fight at the White House. It was just revealed today. Several people are under investigation. Some have been arrested, but it was a bombing and shooting plot that is absolutely. terrifying and shows this is no longer a lone wolf situation. This one would have had to be

planned and trained for. And they were moving in and thank God the FBI and DOJ caught them in time. But this comes with a warning. When you're afraid, you will give up freedoms. And I have to tell you, if we make it to election day without a major thing happening, that God has truly blessed us, If something major happens, our government will grow in size and people will rush to anyone who will say, I'll keep you safe. We mustn't do that. So weaponization of government is also on the list. You can hear the full show, get the full three-hour show. I think you get in about two hours and 15 minutes.

But this is the highly edited version, just so you can have a daily consumption of everything you need to know. Here's the podcast. America, welcome to the Glenn Beck program. It is Tuesday. I want to get right to our guest because it is the vice president of the United States. It's J.D. Vance. I've got to talk to him about many, many things, but he has a new book out called Communion. Finding My Way Back to Faith, which I think is a very important book at this time, especially,

even if you're just trying to understand the vice president, who may become our next president of the United States, at least we'll be running for it. and also the times in which we live. We'll get to that. And the Iranian things here in just a minute, let me introduce the 50th Vice President of the United States, J.D. Vance and his new book, Communion, finding my way back to faith.

J.D., you and I, when I'm reading your book, we have an awful lot in common. Your mother, I'm a big fan of Hillbilly Elegy. I mean, what an amazing story. your mother was an addict, my mother was an addict, your mom had a happy ending, my mom did not, your father, you were estranged when you died, it was a lot more severe than mine, I was estranged with my father when he died, and there was so many things that add complexities to your life when you go through all of that, and I hope we have a chance to have a longer

interview to kind of get into that. But I want to start with a, a part of the book where you talk about where you committed to Christ, you were in a cathedral, and you noticed that everything was kind of falling apart, the whole world was falling apart, and you committed. Can you talk a little bit about the moment you chose to commit? Yeah, Glenn. So this is back in the summer of, I think, 2018. And if you remember the time, was, you know, I eventually became a baptized Catholic and very bad time. And very bad time. for the Catholic Church. There was a very bad sex abuse scandal that was getting reported on in Pennsylvania. And, you know, there was just this sense that, yeah, I was curious in Christ. I was

curious about Christianity, but I wasn't yet ready to commit. And I was there with my son, actually. I was in this cathedral. It was beautiful. It was completely empty. And I felt this kind of sense of despair at first because, you know, no one was there. And this beautiful old church, no one was there. there was nobody praying. It felt almost lifeless. And then there was just this beautiful sort of ray of light that came through the stained glass windows. And it was the perfect time of day to where, you know, you could see the dust and the light. And I just, I felt this sense. It's, it's difficult to explain. I'm not saying it's rational, but I felt this sense that, you know, yes, the church is going through a tough spot, but things are going to be okay. And I belong here.

And that was sort of the moment that I decided, you know what, for all of my belly aching and back and forth and here are the reasons why to do it and not to do it, like, this is my home and I'm going to try to make this home as successful as possible and contribute as much as I can. And that's what I did. That was the moment I made the decision. Okay, so that seems like a commitment to the church. Is that the same as the moment to follow Christ? Did that come first and then the commitment to the church or are they the same thing to you? Well, I would say that the decision to follow Christ was gradual. You know, there was, I was raised in sort of an unchurched, but very devout household. My grandmother would take us to church

every now and then, but not regularly. I didn't feel like I had a church home. And so I became, as a teenager, sort of an early 20s kid, like a lot of kids who were raised in that, in that, in that background, but weren't properly formed in a real faith community. You know, sort of an arrogant atheist. I was one of these people who thought that I knew better. and I went about trying to achieve every marker of worldly success. I wanted to go to the best schools, and I wanted to have the best job, I wanted to make the most money. I wanted something prestigious to hang my hat on.

And I kind of got to this point where I had won all of these elite competitions. I was at Yale Law School. Things were going very well for me personally. And I was kind of looking around and saying, you know what, those people that I dismissed as simpletons, they're much happier and much healthier and much more interesting people than the elite crew that I seem to be joining. and if they have something that's kind of anchoring them, maybe there's something deeper to what's going on here.

Maybe the inspiration for their character and their wisdom is this Jesus Christ figure that I'd kind of discarded. And so that was not like a conversion on the road to Damascus. That was me slowly seeing reflections of Christian truth in the way that various Christians live their lives and the way that they raise their families. And over time, I just started to think, you know what? there's something real here. And then when you decide that there's something real here, then I think I wanted to give my family what I didn't have as a kid, which is a real formation, like an actual church community. And I kind of, you know, experimented with different churches

and went to a number of different places and eventually, you know, found a home in a church that we love. And that's kind of where we are today. Your story is just absolutely, you were one of the most fascinating guys, I think, alive today. Your story is just, fascinating. You talk in the book about Peter Thiel and you wrote, Peter gave voice to something I'd been feeling, but not fully understood. I was obsessed with achievement per se, not accomplishing something meaningful, but to win a social competition. I think that's what you just addressed. People will say your relationship with Peter Thiel is all about high tech. Some, uncharitably, will say that, you know, he funded your campaign, and so you're going to usher in a new,

you know, high-tech oligarchy. But it seems that your relationship is more spiritual. Is that, was that accurate reading in this? Yeah, so one of the things that happened, so Peter was a friend of mine before, you know, we sort of ever were talking about politics, but, you know, one of the things, and, by the Peter's a very unorthodox Christian. Like, I want to be, I want to be fair on that account. Right.

You know, he's very like unconventional views about a whole host of things. Sometimes I disagree with him. Sometimes I agree with him. But what Peter sort of almost gave me permission is that I was in law school. I was calling myself an atheist at the time. And, you know, he came and gave a talk, and he talked more about spirituality and religion than he did about business or politics. And I sort of realized, like, whether you agree or disagree with this guy, his Christianity is much more interesting than the atheism of the people that I see surrounding me. Like there's something there that I'd kind of dismissed as a kid.

And that started me down, again, this way of sort of re-exploring and rediscovering my own faith. But, you know, definitely, you know, seeing this guy who was smarter than anybody I had met, who was obviously very wealthy, very successful, sort of realizing that this idea that I had in my head, that Christianity was for superstitious people and atheism was for smart people. And that was the kind of the, that was the categorization that I had made falsely. And there were a lot of people, Peter was one of them, but there were a lot of people who slowly over time revealed that to be fundamentally an arrogance that was deeply corrosive to my own soul. You, you are in a religion and a political party. I think that is hard to square at times because of the Pope, you and Marco, you know, you have things you have to do as the president.

or vice president of the United States. Um, your foreign policy objectives in Iran. The Pope is against, uh, the, you know, what you have to do on immigration. You view it one way. He views it another way. Even now, I mean, the press is even saying, you know, the fraud task force initiative is, you know, an attempt again just to target Somalis. Um, how, how do you, how do you thread that needle with a pope, a guy who seems to not appreciate what you believe politically, and yet he's your spiritual leader? Well, I think a couple things. First of all, I think this is true of sort of all

Christianity, as you have, you know, certain people who are going to disagree politically with what me or the president or Secretary Ruby or anybody else does, and they're going to try to say you're not being Christian enough. And one interesting thing is that often those criticisms are made by people who say, I don't believe in Jesus, but you're not being Christian enough, which I always roll my eyes at a little bit. Now, obviously, that's not true of the Pope. The Pope is explicitly the leader of the Catholic Church. I'll say two things about the Pope, Glenn. So the first is that oftentimes I find that when the media reports on him as an antagonist of Donald Trump, or somebody who just rejects wholesale everything that Donald Trump says, and then I'll read what he

actually says, and I realize the Pope does sometimes have disagreements, but he's actually much more nuanced and much more subtle than what the media gives him credit for. They want to play up the conflict. But even on the immigration issue, yes, he's criticized some of the policy directions that we've taken, but he's also said it's right for a nation to have borders, that newcomers have a duty to integrate into their host cultures. Like, those are things I very much agree with. The media doesn't talk about that because it's driving the narrative of conflict, but I actually think the Pope's thinking on how to apply, you know, Christian teaching to the world today is, is much more complicated than the left-right media spectacle drives home.

You know what I saw the cover of the book a few weeks ago? I just looked at it quickly. I thought it was communism. I was like, oh, he's going to write a book on communism. And it's communion is the name of the book, Not Communism. At a time when a vice president should be talking about communism, et cetera, et cetera, that's the obvious thought. why is it important that you wrote a book on communion?

Well, because one, I obviously had a very complicated, but I think in some ways a very common way to finding my own faith, where I was raised, Christian, fell away from it, and came back to it. I mean, now I think a lot, and I think a lot of Christian parents are asking themselves the question, why is it that we, or maybe they've raised a kid who's fallen away from the faith, or maybe they're raising children in the faith, and they're sort of thinking about why didn't that stick, or how do I make it stick so that they don't have the same journey that I did?

I think there are a lot of people, especially in the wake of Charlie Kirk's assassination, who are thinking about spirituality, who are going back to church. We see a lot of young people in particular who are returning to church, but maybe like me, they didn't have the proper formation. And so I thought that this was something important that I wanted to say. It's obviously not a very political book. It's not a conventional politician's book. It's not like I have the eight-point policy proposal in the final chapter to solve all the problems.

But I just thought it was something that was valuable and meaningful to say. I've been writing this book for 10 years, and I kind of had this moment of, well, I'm either going to publish it now or I'm never going to publish this thing. So I might as well just get it out there, say what I need to say. And obviously, you know, people are going to take from it what they will. But the one thing I'd ask, Glenn, is that if you find it meaningful, great. but I think that there are so many different pathways to Christ. And I think, you know, for some people, it's the Pentecostal church that my dad called home. For some people, it's the Southern Baptist Church that a lot of my friends call home.

I think what's really cool and dynamic about American Christianity is that we're sort of forced to reckon with a lot of very complicated issues because our faith is constantly being challenged, both by non-Christians, but also I think importantly by our fellow Christians who are asking very important questions about the meaning and nature of God. God, that's what I love about the American church. And that's one of the things that I hope to contribute to in some small way. So I have to ask you a couple of questions on Iraq, or I'm sorry, on Iran. Sure. We are supposedly, we have now apparently electronically signed a peace deal.

We don't know what is in it yet. You've come out and said, you know, some of the things are wrong that are being said. How do you negotiate with an apocalyptic end times 12er regime? and what makes you confident that we can, as the president has said on the outset, get no support for proxies, end of the missile program, and no nukes. Do we have those? And how do you lock them in with, I'll be honest, crazy people that think they're living in the end times? Let me say a few things about this.

First of all, Glenn, you know, the president is, one of the most important lessons that he's given me in international negotiation or anything. is you don't trust anybody. I don't trust the words. I don't trust the commitments that they have committed to stop funding terrorism and to stop, you know, building or buying a nuclear weapon. Those commitments are there, but I trust people's actions. And so the way that we set up that deal, given the president's directives, is if they perform the things that they say they're going to perform, then they get a lot of relief. And if they don't perform any of those things, then they get nothing. And for the United States, either way, Glenn, we're in a great position. They don't get one cent of

American money regardless of how this deal takes place. They don't get any sanctions relief unless they perform. But we got the Straits of Hormuz open. Oil is now down below $80 today. We have their military still destroyed, their defense industrial base still destroyed, their nuclear program still destroyed. And now the president's saying, you know what, if you want to behave like a normal country, we're going to treat you like a normal country. And if not, the United States still has all the cards and there's no skin off our back for entering into this negotiation. and no support for proxies, end of the missile program, and no nukes for sure. Correct, Glenn. And if they don't do that, then they don't get any of the benefits of the bargain.

And that's really the whole point here, is I keep on sort of hearing people say, well, the Iranians get this or the Iranians get that. And they miss out the part where the Iranians get some sanctions relief, you know, the ability to sell their oil, for example, if they do what they promised they would do. That's the fundamental point of this deal is we reward good. behavior. We don't do anything if the Iranians don't meet there into the bargain. So I like your stance on, you know, you're a very big skeptic on military interventionalism, as I am. We have to learn our lessons from the 20th century. As a Christian, however, it is hard

to watch a regime slaughter its own people who are just to use an American term, yearning to breathe free. We hoped that we would be able to have, you know, a free people in Iran by the end of this. It doesn't look like that is part of the plan at all. Can that be done without military interventional, without regime change, which I don't want, you don't want, Trump doesn't want? Well, I think what the president has said is when we've given the Iranian people an opportunity here, their military is substantially weaker. I mean, it's effectively gone. Their conventional military is effectively gone. If the Iranian people want to rise up and make, you know, their own country or make their own political future, then obviously the President of the United States would be happy

to deal with whatever new government they produce. But we're not going to force that on anybody. I think this is what is fundamentally different from Trump's foreign policy compared to, you know, Barack Obama's or George W. Bush's is we will empower people on the ground who yearn to breathe free, but we're not going to force them to do what, you know, we're not going to force them to elect their own government. What we're going to do is pursue our best interests. And what did the United States want out of this?

We wanted an Iran that didn't have a nuclear weapon. We wanted an Iran that had a conventional military that it was not able to threaten its allies in the region. And that's what we got. And so the president is saying we accomplished what we wanted to accomplish. We accomplished what we needed to. I think it's actually a great virtue and wisdom of the president's foreign policy that he's not now saying, you know what, now we're going to go do something else that's not related to our core national security objectives. he's saying, we got what we came for.

Let's negotiate with these guys to see if they're willing to change their behavior. And if not, we still got what we came for fundamentally. Well, I appreciate all the hard work that you do. I know how tired you are. That guy never sleeps. So thank you for all of the hard work that you guys have all done. Your next interview, I think you're going right from this to the view. And I don't know why you're, and I know you talk about it in the book, so you won't say it, but I will.

Why are you hanging out with the sad cat ladies? What do you need from the view? What do you hope to get from the view? I would appreciate the prayers of you and your audience, Glenn, because I'm certainly going to need it here in about 30 minutes. But, you know, the precedent's attitude on this is, and I really do believe this, is you go everywhere, you go anywhere to try to take the message.

I mean, we'll talk about the book, obviously. We're going to talk about, I'm sure, about the Iran deal, about other policies of the administration. I just, what I love about this administration is we go everywhere. And the view has a lot of, a lot of people who watch it. Now, most of them are not sympathetic to the administration, but if every 10 people who watch that show are not fans of ours, but you get the message out to one open-minded person,

that was worth it in my view. And that's how we're going to win the future is actually to go out and persuade people even in hostile places. Good for you. Good for you. JD Vance, thank you very much, Mr. Vice President. I appreciate it. Talk again.

Bye. You bet. You bet. Bye-bye. Let me just take a quick break. 10 seconds station ID. I'm getting shouted in my ear the whole time. Gotta go.

He's got to go. He's got to go. He's got to go. I know he's got to go. I know he's got to go. I've got an interview to do. But Ricky, your initial thoughts on what he had to say. I was really, really proud that you asked the crazy cat lady question.

and it But it also affirmed my hunch that he is doing a worldwide book tour with even the crazy cat ladies because there is no demographic he wants to leave untouched for future presidential run. And he is one of the guys

that can meet with anyone and can handle any room. I mean, he's a very rare politician that can not pander but handle himself in such a way to where, you know, in a room of 100 people, maybe, you know, two or three will say, wow, that was actually a really good answer,

you know, in a very hostile room. He has a way of being able to handle that. So, you know, good for him. He became a rock star. Sorry, I was just going to say quickly. He became a rock star during the election when he would go on all this opposition media. and come out completely unscarred.

He's a great debater. I've only got a minute. Jason, did he say what you needed him to say on the, you know, no interventionalism? And I tried to hold him to that. I think, yeah, and I noticed that. I think that deserves a lot more discussion because I'm trying to interpret how he answered and where I see they can wiggle out of some things. Okay, well, let's, I didn't, I didn't feel he was trying to get wiggle room, but I, but let's talk about it.

We'll get into that next, analyze what he just said about Iran, because that's more than I think he has given, or anybody has given on Iran, so far. But apparently we have a digital signature on some deal. They're going to be releasing the details. The president is still with the G7 summit over in Europe. He'll be coming back and we'll have more on all of that. And the summer of 250 continues. More in a minute. You're listening to the best of Glenn Beck.

Need a little more? Check out the full show podcasts. Anywhere you download podcasts. Father's Day is coming up. It's right around the corner. And every year we all go through exactly the same exercise. We try to find a gift for dad, even though most dads spend their whole lives, you know, insisting I don't need anything.

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first purchase. American-dash-giant.com slash Glenn. Hello, America. You know we've been fighting every single day. We push back against the lies, the censorship, the nonsense of the mainstream media that they're trying to feed you. We work tirelessly to bring you the unfiltered truth because

you deserve it. But to keep this fight going, we need you. Right now, Would you take a moment and rate and review the Glenn Beck podcast? Give us five stars and lead a comment because every single review helps us break through big tech's algorithm to reach more Americans who need to hear the truth. This isn't a podcast. This is a movement. And you're part of it, a big part of it. So if you believe in what we're doing, you want more people to wake up.

Help us push this podcast to the top. Rate, review, share. Together, we'll make a difference. And thanks for standing with us. Now let's get to work. Hello, America. Welcome to the Glenn Beck program. I want to share some good news with you.

I think that there is a revival going on in America, and I don't mean just spiritual. While I think that is happening, we need an awakening. But there is a spiritual revival happening. But there's another kind of revival. And I think it stems from this feeling that I think the average American has, maybe 60% of America, enough is enough. I'm tired of hating. I'm tired of it. Enough is enough.

and I want to run down a couple of things because I think what is bringing this to the forefront is FIFA. I think all of the people who are soccer fans that are traveling from all over the country, all over the world are coming to our country and they are now saying the truth about America and Americans are relieved to hear it

and it's renewing our spirit. I think there is an American colonial, if you will, revival. And I don't mean colonialism. Colonialism. Let's go conquer a bunch of people. I mean it in the old way. That we're actually starting to, there's a revival of being proud of our country and our heritage. And I want to explain that. And I'll take you through it step by step on what people are showing us that thank God somebody is. We'll do that here in 60 seconds. You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck podcast. Hear more of this interview and others with the full show podcast. Available wherever you get podcasts.

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If we make it through this summer without a major terror attack, it's a miracle. Please pray for our law enforcement officials who are doing everything they can to keep us safe. But there is a balance there. And I want to tell you first about what happened because it is truly frightening the details that has just come out. And then I want to give you a warning on that because the power that I, the power that our government can grab in a moment of terror is terrifying in and of itself. And I'll explain coming up in a sec. First, let me tell you about Z Factor. Let me ask some, how rested are you today?

You feeling awake? You're all perked up, full of energy, ready to take on whatever the, go take on the day. You're ready for that? Or do you want to punch her in the face when you hear that? It's probably, I mean, not always, but it's probably want to punch her in the face because you didn't sleep well, okay? Difficult sleeping, staying asleep. Something. affects millions of people all across America and maybe even you. And a lot of the options to fight it are not good options. They either don't work or maybe they're, you know, harmful over time or, you know, you're out half naked in the street and you have no idea. What happened? What was I doing last night? Really bad. Don't take those options. Try Z Factor. Comes from the makers of relief factor. 100% drug-free. It helps you fall asleep faster, sleep better, and stay asleep longer.

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was disrupted by the FBI and saw its law enforcement partners spring into action. Here's what we know so far. Five people were in custody as of Monday. Investigators have identified 23 individuals as part of what they describe as a potential network of plotters. So we're no longer talking a lone gunman. It's not a lone wolf anymore. Now, who are these people? officials say the alleged plan involved using explosive-laden drones to strike buildings near the event. That's what we saw happen in Ukraine.

That's what when we saw, I warned and said, this is not a good development and warned that this was the future of warfare. So they plan on using drones that they strapped with explosives. it would trigger a mass evacuation and funnel crowds toward a pre-stage sniper team. A second phase allegedly called for storming the White House gate. This is pretty elaborate. And the funneling in is what we've been talking about what terrorists have been planning on doing for a while.

What they do is a strike. And then when the EMS and everybody else shows up, when everybody starts running there, that's when the real terror strike happens. FBI learned of the threat on June 10th, secured probable cause for an arrest in Cincinnati, where one suspect was taken into custody. Investigators later uncovered signal chats

in which multiple people allegedly discussed the attacks on the UFC event. An initial review of one suspect's iPhone revealed at least 23 signal users discussing pre-operational activity. Some participants allegedly planned to travel to Fredericksburg, Virginia on June 12th or 13 to prepare for the attack. One suspect allegedly told investigators the goal was to target capitalist elites, billionaires, or politicians who received donations from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, otherwise known as APAC.

Now let me see. Who does this sound like? capitalist elites were targeted, billionaires, or politicians who were in bed with APEC. That does not sound like a right-wing plot, does it? Investigation spanned at least 12 FBI field offices. Cash Patel credited agents to the Department of Justice law enforcement partners with acting quickly. The event drew an estimated 4,300 attendees, including 1,200 active duty service members, as 14 fighters competed, blah, blah, blah,

the alleged scheme comes amid a series of threats and security incidents involving Trump and senior administration officials highlighting concerns about political violence. We are on the edge, gang. We are on the edge. And when it happens, a couple of things could happen. Let me tell you what the left is counting on, that it will tear us apart even more

and that we will do the opposite, of what we did on September 11th. What we did on September 11th is we united. We came together. We didn't care about your politics. We didn't care who you were, your class. We didn't care if you're a billionaire or, you know, poverty ridden. We stopped people in the street. Do you remember doing this? You would pass people in a store or something and you could see it in their eyes and there were a complete stranger and you would say, are you okay? Are you okay? We would hug strangers. We would help strangers. That's who we are.

Americans reveal themselves at times of crisis. Now, are we still those same people? That's the only really remaining question. That's why I have been preaching for years. Don't close your heart. Don't close your heart. Do everything you can to keep your heart open. Keep it soft.

Remember who you are. Don't get angry. Because only if that charitable part of your heart is open where you can still recognize even the people who you don't like as spiritual family members, part of the human race, we won't make it. And they're counting on us turning on each other and it growing. We have to decide right now, we're not going to do that. we are going to come together. We will be the Americans we were on 9-12. And it's going to be harder because there are going to be those in our own communities

that are still pushing, still blaming, still, you've got to be the person that says when everybody is running one way, you need to be the person that is brave enough and in touch with the spirit enough to be able to stand up and go, don't, don't, don't go that way. listen, you know me. Don't go that way. Please don't go that way. And know that some of are going to continue to run past you in the wrong direction. Just be calm, cool, and collected. The other place we're going to need cool heads to prevail will be in Washington, D.C. Because the government will look to gain more and more power. And it will happen with the Republicans,

just as fast it will happen with the Democrats. and they've already weaponized this government. It's not too late, but it is soon, almost impossible to stop soon, if we don't get it under control. I don't care how you vote. This is one thing that we all should unite on. You know that scene, we've seen it in movies a million times. It's seen usually in a mob movie where somebody walks into a store,

neighborhood guy standing behind the counter his little grocery store, he's worked there his whole life, his dad built it, his kids stock the shelves after school, you know, and then a local guy walks in in a nice suit and he almost

offhandedly says, nice place you got here. Shame of something happened to it, huh? Everybody understands what's happening immediately. Everybody understands. That threat only works because the mob already controls the pressure points.

I watched, what is the new Dutton show? Is it Dutton Ranch? Yeah, right, Dutton Ranch. Tanya and I were watching that last night. And I won't give anything away in case you haven't watched it yet. It's really good. I love Beth and her character.

But there's corruption and it's in this town and it's deep in this town. And one of the characters is kind of like faced in this situation. What are you going to do? I mean, you know what to do what the right thing is, but it's basically like that. Be a shame if you said anything now, you know, it'd be a shame if something happened to you

because, you know, basically we control everything. And that's what has happened in America, okay? The threat only works if you control the unions and the permits and the cops and the judges and the banks and the loans and the trucking routes. That's real power. Real power doesn't kick your door in. it just sometimes makes it impossible until you cooperate. And if that doesn't work, then, you know, be ashamed of something happening.

If that doesn't work, they burn your house down. And you know the police are never going to do anything because they own the police as well. That's the conversation that we should start having. That's the way we should start viewing our government. That is the healthy way to view a government. Never give them enough power so they can do those things. and whether people like hearing it or not, the story didn't begin with Donald Trump or Obama or Biden.

This road goes back more than a century. You, I mean, when America first fell in love with the idea that experts should manage society. Ricky, what is the name of that podcast that we have on, on Torch 250? Is it the experts or control freaks? Oh my gosh, that is such a good series. Nathan Nipper wrote this before he wrote the American story.

And he is our historian. He is really super good, a great writer. And he wrote Control Freaks. And it is a whole podcast series about how did we get here? How did we get to a place to where you won't even listen to yourself anymore? You won't listen to your mom. You'll listen to an expert. You won't listen to your mom about raising your kids.

And look at the damage we've done by listening to experts. This started in the early 1900s, okay? In the early 1900s, we fell in love with this. Progressives looked at Europe the same way, you know, youth, many of us in our 20s, might have looked at, you know, Scandinavian socialism. It's easy to see centralized power and it's modern and it's efficient and it's scientific. It doesn't work. But on the surface, it looks kind of good, right?

You know, the Canadian health care system. It looks good until it catches. is up with you and then it's horrific. Woodrow Wilson actually argued the Constitution was outdated because it restrained the government too much. Think about that. He said the same thing actually that Obama used to say. Constitution is a charter of negative liberties tells the government what it can't do. We need a charter of positive liberties telling us what the government must do. Wow. Sounds nice until you realize that that is the failed model of every authoritarian state. Okay. Well, let me stick with Wilson.

1900s, he openly believed government needed more freedom from the Constitution. And that mindset is what changed everything in America. We began listening to the elite class, the experts over common sense and the common man. And you won't believe how this was played. I mean, you've got to listen to that Control Freaks podcast because in it, I tell you a story about how all these experts went into places like GM and said, well, here's how many widgets you should make. This is what every man should do.

And they were making it up, okay? The elite class, the modern scientific class, they gave us the rise of eugenics and everything else. And this is one of parts of history that schools fly past at about 90 miles an hour because it's ugly. But that's the kind of stuff that happened in America that we should be talking about. Not only slavery, but the American elites,

the politicians, the professors, the journalists, the academics that supported the idea that government should improve humanity by controlling who could reproduce and who couldn't. Force sterilizations. How could we don't talk about that? That happened a lot closer to us now than slavery did. In America, thousands of people and mostly poor, mostly disabled, minorities. People the experts decided were undesirable.

Okay, if that sounds bad to you, if you think Donald Trump can do that or wants to do that, to the people he finds undesirable. Well, then you shouldn't give the government more power. And it's not just him because your side did this last time. Okay. Here's the uncomfortable part nobody likes talking about. America's eugenics programs are the inspiration. They were big inspirational parts that made up the Nazi Germany racial policies.

Okay. That's just fact. The Nazi studied. the American programs, our elite educated class, went to meet with a scientist who taught them, to quote the Nazis, to show them what could be done with modern eugenics. Okay, now why does that matter? Why am I telling you this after I'm telling you a story in Washington, D.C.? Because it shows how quickly government power becomes dangerous once people convince themselves

they're building a better society or they're saving society. That's the pattern. every era, and we'll do it too. You get these big terrorist attacks and people will say, yeah, but this time it's different. We've got to do something. Okay, wait a minute, wait a minute. We've got to do something.

That's really bad. That's a very dangerous phrase because that doesn't tell us what we are doing. That tells us we have to do something. Well, maybe not that. Yeah, every era says, this power is only going to be used for good. Ha, ha, ha. until somebody ugly gets all control of the machine.

And it always happens. Okay. Let me take you from Woodrow Wilson to FDR. Sorry, I'm going on this history tangent. But it's important to understand what not to do if something like what was just thwarted actually happens. And it could happen this summer. So how did our government get out of control?

Started with Woodrow Wilson and then came FDR. What also came around the time of FDR? the Depression. It was an emergency. We've got to do something. And so the government exploded in its reach into everyday life. I mean, exploded. The federal government exploded in size. Agencies multiplied. Regulations multiplied. The alphabet soup began. The FEC, the FCC, the NR, the NLRB, the SSA. Why did the CIA happen? Because of the OS. Why did the OSS happen because of WW2? That's why. It was another crisis. Once government systems grow and grow large enough,

they stop behaving like temporary emergency measures. They become permanent institutions with their own interest, and it's human nature. World War II, Japanese Americans, what happened to them? Round up. They were rounded up, put into internment camps, entire families. They lost businesses.

They lost home. They lost land. they were American citizens. What do the government say? Got to do it for security. They're going to kill us all. We're at war. Fear becomes the justification

for expanded state power. Fear. Again, why am I telling you this? Did you hear what I just said was thwarted over the weekend? Flying drones into businesses at the White House,

then funneling because they know the plans of escape, funneling those people into choke points, then shooting those choke points. Okay? Then storming the gates of the... That's what they just stopped over the weekend. What does that?

Does that make you feel comfortable? Or does that make you feel fearful? How many people will hear that and go, I don't know if I want to go to Washington, D.C. this summer. I know I'm going with my whole family this summer. I'm going for the 4th of July. I'm going to be given speeches and everywhere all over. my whole family's coming.

I mean, not going to stop me. I'll be more alert. But when fear happens, the pattern starts. And it repeats over and over and over again. More on this in just a second. Stand by. Also, don't forget, our next Bill of Rights Amendment song and classroom is available right now at torch250.com. That's torch250.com.

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