The Glenn Beck Program - Best of The Program | Guests: Gov. Ron DeSantis & Bryan Slaton | 3/1/23

Episode Date: March 1, 2023

A growing number of Texans are losing all their guns and ammo in a tragic string of alleged boating accidents. Glenn speaks with one of the victims, Texas state Rep. Bryan Slaton, who is formally notifying the Biden administration of the epidemic. Gov. Ron DeSantis joins to discuss his new book, “The Courage to Be Free,” and why his strategy is working so well. Glenn and Stu discuss the success of the new movie, “Jesus Revolution.” Biden’s new FCC nominee is super woke. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today was a fun podcast. You know, but it gets that way, you know, when you have to work three solid hours. Just don't care. People out there don't understand what we go through every day. They don't. You know, you're talking about three. And now, of course, we should, if there's commercials, there's news. Right.

I mean, we're not all three. Probably 70 minutes a day. Yeah, and not hard. I mean, you know, some of those minutes we work hard. We're talking. You try talking 70 minutes every. day. Can't be done. It's different. That's why we're special.

We're special. That's why. That's why, like, when everyone else was restricted on COVID, we were able to go to the theater. We were able to go to the finest restaurants because we're special people. Either that or we live in Texas. Oh, yeah, that's right. That says it. Yeah, we live in Texas. Great show. Ronda Santos is on with us. Really solid interview with him. Also, we tell you about this tragedy. that has happened over several counties here in Texas. And only one guy was brave enough in the Texas legislature to stand up and alert people to this. You don't want to miss it.

In fact, we'll begin there on today's podcast. You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program. We have Brian Slayton on. He is a representative here from the great state of Texas. and he informed everybody, including the federal government, of some accident that happened here in Texas. And I just wanted him to, you know, tell you himself, because it is, I've never heard of anything like this. And it's tragic, very tragic. Brian, welcome.

Hello, Glenn. Thank you for having me and let me tell you and your audience about this. So, you know, as President Biden and the ATS, and others have talked about gun control, you know, gun bans, making certain accessories illegal. As I talked to people in my district and my own personal beliefs, I was pretty troubled by that. And as we were discussing that, more and more people began to tell me that they had just, you know, lost all their firearms, ammunition and accessories and a boating accident. Oh, my gosh.

And so, so I decided to inform them that. there was a series of alleged boating accidents and Hunt Hopkins and Vandex counties and possibly some others might be your county. I'm not murder. Well, I don't know about others in my county, but I know I had a horrible boating accident. I had, man, I had a collection of guns and ammunition and it all went down. And I don't remember what lake I was in or what county I was in. But yeah, and that's not important. The important thing is that you were affected by it. And the next thing is that the federal government, you know, if they decide to do any gun buyback, confiscation, or anything like that, there's no need to do it in these counties because we don't have any for them to keep up with. So that's where we're at.

If this is how they're going to treat the Second Amendment, this is how I will treat their thoughts. Yeah. Now, you, no, did you actually file something with a guard? Or did you just, is this just a reporting from a good citizen there on boating accidents? No, this is House Concurrent Resolution number 54. If this passes the House and Senate, it will be printed on official state parchment paper and sent to the president, the Speaker of the House, and the Vice President, President of the Senate. I love you. I love you.

Well, like I said, I come from the school of thought that, how much. you interpret the Second Amendment shall not be infringed. That's where I come from, and it's pretty simple. And as they're doing this, we have options. We can complain. We can write letters. We can even get upset and angry. But, you know, they have so much, I would say, disrespect towards the Constitution and Bill

of Rights that I feel like they deserve some of this. And who knows with the president's current mental state, he may believe it in this emergency relief money. I mean, it's a win-win. Oh my gosh, wait a minute. Hang on just to say, what do you mean? You may believe it. I mean, I did lose mine in a boating accident. Are you saying there's a chance? Right. These boating accidents didn't happen? I mean, we got a great chance here, Glenn. We really do. Okay. All right. Because I've been so traumatized by that. I haven't been on a boat ever since. Has there been an investigation as to why so many people are taking their firearms onto boats? Police are busy. You know, that is a great question, but no one really goes any further.

I don't know if I should say it, but it's kind of like if someone tells you that they have explosive diarrhea, you do not follow it up with more questions. You know, so when someone tells you, I've lost all my weapons, but you just kind of stop and you're just like, man, I'm sorry to hear that. Yeah, the tragedy takes over there. It does. I'm still, I mean, I'm experiencing a little PTSD just from this conversation right now. Yeah, I mean, I lost them all, Stu. Oh, no. I don't want to get all weepy over it, but I was thinking about suing somebody.

I just don't know who to sue. You know what I mean? You know, the best way to get over the, you know, morning of losing a gun is to probably just go by another one. That you also lose in another boating accident. Well, that's weird because that's exactly what happened. Oh, no. Yeah. I mean, yeah, again.

Well, why did you bring them on the boat the second time, though? That doesn't make it. Because, I mean, what are the odds? They all go down with a boat. Right. You know what I mean? You figured you were due to be able to not have an accident. way it's going to happen two times.

Lightning doesn't strike twice. A lottery ticket. Don't go buy a lottery ticket. Yeah, I know. Well, I'm not. And if I do win that lottery ticket, though, I'll probably buy more guns. But I will hesitate to get onto a boat with all those guns. That's smart. Yeah, I will hesitate. Unless you get attacked on a boat, then you're going to wish you had your weapons.

So maybe you should bring them. Just to be safe. When you propose this, what are the odds of this thing passing? Well, the Speaker of the Texas House made a Democrat. chairman of the resolutions committee. So we got our work cut out for us. Oh, geez. Why? Why would they do that?

Why would the Republicans in Texas give committee chairs to the Democrats? Why? You know, it's a great question. I think it just shows how much control the Democrats still have over this body. Even after 20 years, I think they have a lot of control of picking who our speaker is. And I, you know, I help lead this charge. And it's still, no matter what we do, it's a problem. It comes back.

And anyway, but that. Well, you do me in favor? Just tell the, just tell the speaker of the house. He should never go boating with me. Because I'll tell it. Okay. Just it could be bad. Could be bad.

All right. Right. Thank you so much. Thanks for bringing attention to this. Yeah. Tragedy. Yeah. Tragedy.

I'm here for you guys. Thank you. I appreciate it. Brian Slate. And Slate in a Texas state representative. This is the best of the Glenbeck program. This weekend I'm going to see Governor Ron DeSantis. He's going to be at our studios.

We're taping a podcast that will air March 13th. And I hope to have my wristband W-WRD. What would run? Ron DeSantis do. Because I, hmm? That's a little disturbing. Yeah.

Well, I mean, we shouldn't elevate our politicians to that particular level. No, I'm not elevating him in that. My bar is pretty darned. Yeah. No, I just want to send them to all 50 governors. Because I think the Florida blueprint,

I don't know why it's not being copied everywhere, especially with the success and track record that he has. He has a new book out. It is called The Courage to be free. And Governor Ron DeSantis is, this now. Hello, Governor. How are you, sir? I'm doing great. Thanks for having me. Good. How's your wife and children? Excellent. Good. Thanks for asking. Good. All right. I want to talk to you a little bit about your book, which is not really kind of angst-driven. It's not personal reflections on, you know, your

childhood and oh my gosh, I had this. This is really just about the blueprint and how you did the things that you did, correct? Yeah, I mean, look, Glenn, I came into office in 2018, having won by 32,000 votes, half a percentage point. And people told me, hey, you're in the typical, the perennial swing state, you barely got in, you don't make waves, trim your sales a little bit, you just had such a collection. And I rejected that advice, and my view was, I may have gotten 50% of the vote, but I earned 100% of the executive power.

I am going to use that to advance an agenda that's in the best interest of the state of Florida. And I talk about how I did in different ways, but the end result was four years later, I won re-election by 1.5 million votes. And we've now turned Florida into really the leading red state in America. And people don't talk about Florida as a swing state. So the lesson, I think, for other governors, other states, you know, boldness is your friend. if you lead and you're doing what the people want you to do, it doesn't matter what the media says about you, it doesn't matter what the left says about you. People see the results and they

respond. It wasn't just Republicans that voted for us in 2022. We had independent Democrats and built a huge coalition. I think that's replicable in these other states. Well, I personally just, I do have to, I have one complaint with you, and that is you've wrapped the home prices in Florida for everybody who's outside trying to buy one. So anyway, the, when you say, you know,

I have institutional power. I have power of, of the CEO, if you will, of the state. But the thing I like about you, and I'd like you to talk about it. I know you talk about it in the book.

You're not being a dictator. You're getting these things passed. So you're changing laws. How did you get the, the house and the Senate to work with you? instead of just being a cowboy just blazing a trail and no followers? Well, I point out that, you know, I get into office. I'm the youngest governor in the country, 40 years old.

And, you know, I had military background, but I was a junior officer. It's not like I commanded a lot of sailors. But I've learned from that structure. You know, I was never like a business executive. But I think what I brought to the table was I had an understanding of the pressure points in a constitutional system. It's just things that I had studied, I had written about, Of course, I had been in the legislative branch at the federal level.

So I knew there were certain things I could do myself. I knew there were certain things that I may need legislative concurrence for, but they likely would have to give it based on what I was doing. And then there were things I'd have to get the legislature to really come on my team for. Also, how do you relate to local government? One of the first things I did in Florida when I became governor, changed the election supervisors in South Florida, got rid of the sheriff of Broward County who bungled the parkland.

And then later, I fired a George Soros back, a prosecutor in Tampa. And so you have a sense of kind of where you can go. So there are things you can do to leverage your institutional power that make it easier to be able to work with the legislature. Just for example, we in Florida have a line item veto. President of the United States does not have that. When it's, we're in a legislative session, these guys may have some projects they want in the budget. Well, look, I mean, you know, I have discretion about whether I approve them or veto them. and you're much more likely to get your projects approved if you've been on the team and you're helping us fulfill our agenda.

So that's just one example where you have some ability to shape the battlefield in your favor. Your book is called The Courage to be Free. And I remember when you started walking out on COVID, that had to be terrifying. And everybody had to be around you going, don't do it. You don't know how this is going to work out. But you did it. Where does the courage come from? And how can others learn to have that kind of courage?

Well, in a situation like COVID, I mean, it was mass hysteria. But I said, look, I am the decider. They elected me. They didn't elect some health bureaucrat to run the state of Florida. I've got to make these decisions. And I had to familiarize myself with the data. And it was clear to me pretty early on that, you know what? this Fauciism is not right. It's not working. It's destructive and there's a better path.

And I did not know how it was going to work out for me politically. Glenn, in fact, a lot of my supporters were very concerned. I would get phone calls about, you know, why aren't you imposing mass or why aren't, why are you letting people, you know, go to theme parks or all this other stuff? But I just told myself, look, my job is to protect the jobs of the people that elected me, not to look after my own. And if it doesn't work out for me, so be. it, but I will be able to look in that mirror and say, you know what? When it was hot in the kitchen, you know, I stood in there and I did what was right for the people of Florida. Now, it turned out that people respected that I stood up for them because they didn't have a voice really anywhere

else. And they ended up rewarding me, but certainly in those early weeks and months, you know, I was getting filleted more than any governor in the country. I was very popular going into COVID. I mean, I don't do polls, but everyone said my popularity plummeted. And that's just the way it is. But, you know, when you're in these things, the daily kind of back and forth, there are ups, there are downs. But the question is, where is true north? And are you going to be able to get to true north?

And I just block all that out and do what I thought was right. What is your true north? Well, well, I think in this case, the true north was I could not allow our society in Florida to collapse under the way. to Fauciism. I mean, we have a tourism-based economy. We had so many people who depended on this state being vibrant. I also had a lot of elderly people that we were really concerned about, and we did a lot to target whatever support they needed, such as treatments and the like, to do that. But we had to keep things going. I understood that instinctively, and we had to

navigate very treacherous waters to be able to get that done. Now, beyond that, I mean, what is true north? I mean, when I talk about the courage to be free, what I'm recognizing is, are the threats to our freedom are not just from bad government policy. Yes, at the state level, we are doing good policy. We're protecting your freedom from the government of Florida. And that's important. We're fighting back against Biden. And we're dealing with local governments when they get out of control.

Very important. But there's a lot of power being exercised in an ideological way by corporate America, by big tech, by all these other institutions. And so when you recognize that and you stand up to fight against it, they are not going down without a fight. They come at you. Leadership is not cost-free. So you just have to understand that when you're going in,

that these are not easy fights, that you are going to face blowback, you're going to face smears. But if you stand in there and you don't give an inch and you just keep speaking the truth, people will respond and they will have your back. And that's what happened in the state of Florida. You know, the media could say,

by the time I came up for real life, and the media could say whatever they wanted about me. And our supporters did not believe a word of it. Right. They had my back and they made sure that we want a historic victory. Let me ask you, you know, in politics, people care much less about the individual than they do the giant corporations because it's easier to raise money and you need those guys on board. You have taken all of the sacred cows and gone after them. and you have also just you have the best legislation i wish i wish every state in the union would

pass your legislation on esg it is the best and uh you've taken this on you've taken disney on where do you get your support just from the people or do you have uh institutional support Are there people inside these institutions that are saying, oh, thank God. Yeah, look, I mean, I think that when we're talking about things like ESG, we are also in this legislative session, we're going to eliminate the DEI bureaucracies and all of our state universities. And there's a lot of Democrats, Glenn, they can't say it, but they don't like some of this stuff that's coming down the pipe. They don't want their kid to have to potentially suffer negative consequences based on the color of their skin. And so there is some quiet support. But, you know, what I found in terms of like stand it up to the big interest is at the end of,

because some politicians are like, oh, man, I need to raise money from them. I need this. They're going to come after me all this stuff. At the end of the day, doing the good policy, exercising, the leadership, and deliver the results, that is more important than any campaign of financial support or any of that. You know, sometimes these elected officials, they think like, okay, I get in office and I need to raise money. so I stay in office, you don't need to do that if you're doing a good job. Then when the money comes in against you, it doesn't work because people see the results.

And oh, by the way, even though I came into office standing up against Big Sugar, which is a massively powerful interest in Florida, we fought Disney, we fought the pharmaceuticals, we fought across the board. I still raise more money than any governor candidate in the history of Florida. Part of it, we have a lot of grassroots. Part of it, we had a lot of wealth moving into Florida, who basically said, I need to Sanis to be governor. Because if I just left New York or Illinois, I don't want to see Florida turn into that. So there was a reason why they did it. But then, Glenn, what happened is I flipped

it around. We run the show. We run the agenda. Some of these businesses and stuff, they just want to help me out because, you know, they don't want to be the next Disney. And so I think we've got it going in a good direction. That's the way it should be. Don't be subservient to the Chamber of Commerce. They should be coming to you asking you how they can help you, not the other way around. I'm not saying that you're running for president, but I'm not not saying that either. If someone like you were to run for president, could this be done on a national level? So I think all the ideas that we talk about in the book and the successes we have,

I do think there's a majority of the American people that would support it. I mean, you think about it, Florida has been a microcosm of the country for a long time. You know, we're winning places like Miami-Dade County by Joe. You know, that's going to bode well for other parts of the country. Now, if you talk about at the federal level, there are certain things that may be easier, actually, to do because I think that with the vast administrative state, if you have a determined executive who knows how to use those levers of power, I think you could do a complete upheaval of the deep state. I think there's a lot of things you could do from executive and administratively that will really get our country on a good footing. Now, dealing with the Congress is a little bit different than dealing with a state legislature. I mean, most of the citizens in Florida don't know their legislatures that much.

They know me. So what they want, the Republican voters, like, you better be supporting the governor. You know, as you get into Washington, some of these guys, you know, have their own brands and all that. And I'm not saying it can't be done, but you've got to go into that with the right frame of mind into, okay, you know, how do you corral these guys to be able to land really important legislative? But you've got to do both. You can't just be successful on executive action and ignore the legislative. And if you're successful on legislative, you can't be somebody that's not willing to really go in and upend this entrenched, highly politicized bureaucracy that's developed.

Governor Ron DeSantis, the name of the book it came out yesterday, already, number one, the courage to be free. Authored, and this is very rare, authored by him. Every word authored by him. And we will see you Saturday, sir. I have a lot more to talk to you about. And we'll do that podcast on Saturday. We'll see you then. Okay, Godspeed. Thank you.

The best of the Glenn Beck program. Welcome to the Glenn Beck program. We're glad you're here. Hey, there's a couple of really exciting things happening in Washington. The FCC, the Federal Communications Commission, which is responsible for setting community standards and enforcing you know, laws that keep me from saying certain things and certain words on a broadcast. This does not cover cable or clearly podcast,

just radio and television programs. We're getting a new nominee there for the FCC. Name is Gigi Sone. And I like her. I like her. I like her a lot. Really? Oh, that's good. That's positive.

You know, during the George Floyd riots, she was on the radio and she was asked, you know, what do we have to do to elevate all of this? And she said, what do we need? What do we need? I'm quoting, we need a truth and reconciliation commission. And I thought to myself, amen, sister. Amen. That's what we need. We need to reconcile with the truth. She said, we need to do what they did in South Africa. You know, I was lucky enough to be in South Africa after apartheid broke. And, you know, it was right when South African President Nelson Mandela was in charge. And it was fascinating to see a city that had been torn asunder trying to come back together again. I think that's what we need.

I think we need to come to a common understanding of what the truth is, right? End quote. Yes. See, that's why I like her, because we're on the same page. we both think we need to reconcile with the truth. She said, you know, we also, you know, look, Mitch McConnell said the way we atone for original sin was by electing Barack Obama. Huh, that guy.

We got to get rid of that guy. See, another reason I like, I mean, I agree with it. Both Barack Obama and Mitch McConnell. She said, I mean, we have to have a real conversation about, you know, about race relations in this country. We haven't had enough. Oh! We haven't had enough.

Finally, Glenn. How long have we been needing to start a national conversation about race? Because we've never discussed it before. We've never discussed it. No one has ever brought it up. No, amen. And every time something happens in this country. Colin Kaepernan.

Well, maybe you could count Colin. He brought it up. But, you know, people just ignored him. No one would talk about his incident. No one would talk about him taking a knee. No one would obsess about it constantly on every television show for me. months and months and months at a time. And what we need in this country is a not a conversation, but a national conversation about race. More time spent talking about it. We need a real

national conversation about race. Why don't we spend more time talking about skin color? I will tell you why. Because she says, but that's not going to happen because we've lost the meaning of truth. We've lost what is true in this country about everything. I mean, the fact that there are still people in significant numbers who won't wear a GD mask, which said that, you know, you're not wearing a mask in a public place. It's just unbelievable. But there's one party, only one party that doesn't care about the truth. And I think that's the first thing that Joe Biden, if he gets elected, He needs to have a truth and reconciliation commission, you know, and have people come and speak and talk about, you know, their experience and what is true and what is not.

So she's going to be overseeing the FCC, which I think is great. Oh, that's true. How many times do we heard people say that? Oh, we need a national conversation about race. I'm so sick of the national conversation. We don't need a conversation. Everybody, I don't care who you voted for, 90%, only about 10%. only about 10% of crackpots on either side.

Okay. Those people are the ones currently in charge. Everybody else doesn't need a conversation. We got it. We got it. Yeah. It's so true. Like Lori Lightfoot lost.

We haven't talked about that. What? Yeah, they did one of those things where you had to be in the top two. She finished in third place. She's out. How could that possibly have happened? Again, we've never had a national conversation about race, right? Right.

So, which is weird because I will ask you right now, what she's blaming the loss on and you will know the answer. Race. Even though we haven't had a national conversation about race, how is that possible? How would you know the answer to that? She's speaking the truth. Oh, that's right. Because she's speaking the truth.

We're liars. So I immediately go, well, she's probably speaking the truth. It's about white people. Yeah. Tubeed her. The Houston Texans, NFL franchise, of course you know all the details of this. But let me bore the audience or let me go through the audience and bore you with the story line here because you'll way up on the Houston Texans.

Texans. So they have a really terrible year. They hire a black coach. What's the discourse in the NFL, ESPN, all these places? Oh, well, of course they give that job to a black coach because it's a terrible team. So they go through, right? Hiring a black coach now bad because they're a terrible team

and you're screwing over the black coach. Now, he goes through a year of coaching. The team sucks. He gets fired. What's the discourse? Of course they fire the black coach because they're racist. Then they hire a black coach. Right, I thought.

And he goes through a year and they suck again. And they fire the coach. And guess what they say? I can't believe they fire a black coach. They're racists. And then once again, they hire a black coach. This is a franchise that has hired three consecutive black coaches in a country where 12% of the population is black. And yet they're racists.

But we just haven't had a national. conversation about race, that would solve all this. I'm glad you're finally getting it. I'm glad you finally are getting. By the way, let me just take a quick moment for this public service announcement. Cut one, please. Have you ever boarded a plane and thought to yourself? I hope the pilot is a transgender refugee. Have you ever gone to the emergency room and said, I hope my medical team is incredibly diverse. Have you ever moved to a new

city and said, I hope the police department hit its equity goals for the year. If your answer to these questions was, no, if you just wanted the most qualified candidates for the job, then you are normal. But we have a lot of very not normal people running America these days. Left-wing politicians believe skin color or gender identity should determine who gets the job. Democrats used to care about the middle class. Now they just care about your race and your gender. And as long as Democrats stay in power, it will just keep getting worse. Stop the bigotry. Stop the insanity.

Paid for by Citizens for sanity. I love the fact that they say stop the bigotry. Yeah. Because that's what it is. It is. That is what we're talking about here. Yes, it is. You know, in a way, we do need a conversation about race.

It just needs to be totally different. You know, we need to. Let me give you a conversation. about race that we do need. This is from a few years ago, actor Morgan Freeman. You may identify him as black. I don't know how he identifies himself, but this is Morgan Freeman on 60 minutes talking about Black History Month you find ridiculous. Why? You're going to relegate my history to our month? Oh, come on. What do you do with yours? Which month is life history, my? Well, come on. Tell me. Well, I'm Jewish. I'm Jewish.

Okay, which month is Jewish History Month? Now there isn't one. Oh, oh, why not? Do you want one? No, no. No, I don't either. I don't want a Black History Month. Black History is American history.

How are we going to get rid of racism? Stop talking about it. I'm going to stop calling you a white man. Yep. And I'm going to ask you to stop calling me a black man. I know you as Mike Wallace. You know me as Morgan Freeman. You understand.

I know this white guy named Mike Wallace. You know what I'm saying? I mean, God, do we need a dose of that? We need that put into the veins of every citizen in this country right now. That attitude is exactly what solves this problem. And we had gone such a long way to solving it until the left decided to rip us out of the jaws of victory

and deliver us to the agony of defeat. Can we go through something real quick? You and I did this earlier this morning before we were on the air. Can we just go through what is the cause of all of the strife of all of these problems? What is the cause? Is it America? Is it American history? Let's just look at the most, where the most turmoil comes from.

Look at the last 10 years. How many absolute crisis have we seen over? And over and over again. It's a national embarrassment, crisis, whatever. Before 2010, it was 2008, the banking crisis. Before then, it was 2001. 9-11. Before that, it was...

Gulf War? Gulf War. The first Gulf War, probably. 1990. And then it was probably before that, the real crisis when we thought we'd be vaporized under Reagan in 82. or 81 or 82. And that was sort of right on the heels

and right in the middle of the inflation debacle and the after after effects of Carter. Correct. Okay. And that came on the heels of Watergate, which came on the heels of

assassinations. Assassination of three major people in a decade. Think of from this time period, then next time period you find like this is in the 1960s. Everything's on fire. Everything is on fire. 1950s it wasn't like that. In 1940s, we were putting the fire out. The 1930s under FDR, everything was on fire. Everything. Okay, let's go before that. Then it was the roaring 20s, had

its scandals, etc. But it wasn't bad. Until who? The progressive. Woodrow Wilson. Everything was on fire. There is a pattern here. When you put progressives in charge, they are so damn crazy. They set the country on fire. Every time. Every time. I mean, I just, I don't want to say.

And they don't seem to learn the lesson. No, I mean, you know, in the 1950s, we had McCarthy. Horrible. Part of it was true. but what the committee of un-American activities did was horrible. Okay. I know not to do that anymore to communists. I don't want to do that.

I don't want to bring out your communists. But they haven't learned that lesson. It happened to them. They haven't learned that lesson. They learned a lesson from it. Yeah. They learned how to apply it to their enemies. Exactly right.

Which is exactly the opposite of what Christ would talk, would teach. He would teach, love thy neighbor. as thyself. Vengeance is mine, says the Lord. These guys, vengeance belongs to them. And the only way to heal is treat you the way you treated me. It's an Antichrist movement.