The Glenn Beck Program - Best of the Program | Guests: Jack Carr & James Scott | 10/3/24

Episode Date: October 3, 2024

Trinity Baptist Church senior pastor Winston Parrish joins to share what his church is doing to help the victims in North Carolina whom the government is ignoring. Arizona Supreme Court Justice Clint Bolick joins to set the record straight on a previously reported story claiming Arizona registered almost 100,000 illegal immigrants to vote. Author Jack Carr and James Scott join to discuss their new book, "Targeted: Beirut," which tells the true story of the 1983 Marine barracks bombing that continues to influence U.S. foreign policy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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no amount on minimum, and no free mensuel. You're made for negotiate, and the TD is there for you help. On today's podcast, Pastor Winston Parish gives us an update on the scene

in North Carolina. I'll be seeing things firsthand today. I'm flying out. to Asheville, North Carolina, with a plainful of supplies that the people there need. It is a very frustrating and confusing situation, as you will hear in the podcast today. But I am going there for one reason to deliver supplies, but also to see it for myself and talk to people about some of the things that you're seeing online. Are they true or not?

Also, Clint Bollick sets the record straight on something we got wrong with the Arizona Supreme Court. Did they allow 98,000 illegals to vote? No. And Jack Carr, James Scott, talk about the previously untold story that led to the War on Terror. And don't forget to check out the full show, the whole podcast for more, but this is the best of the Glenn Beck podcast. Let me tell you about Relief Factor. Grace wrote in a while back with about her experience with Relief Factory. She said, I lived for decades in a lot of extreme pain with my lower back and legs. I heard about Relief Factor on your show, so I tried it. I tried the three-week quick start. Within a short time, even people at work were noticing that my pain was gone.

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the number four relief relief factor.com. You're listening to the best of the Glenback program. Mercury 1 and Corey Mills, we have loaded up a large plane here in Dallas, and we're taking off in a couple of hours, and I'll be on the ground three hours later in Asheville. I think we're flying into Greer, which is the closest we can land a, you know, a fixed wing plane. And then we're taking helicopters back and forth to deliver the supplies. And hopefully, you know, Corey Mills has been out there every day.

He's running for office. You know, he's in the middle of a campaign. His campaign is like, Corey, you can't leave the state. I mean, we're in the middle of a campaign. And he's like, you know, how do I face the Lord, you know, on Judgment Day? You know, I could have helped those people, but I had a campaign to run. This guy is an amazing guy. He is the closest thing to an American or Captain America, I think that we have.

But thank you, Corey, for everything that you are doing. He is rescuing people from the helicopters. I mean, it's amazing. Yesterday, my security staff called and said, Glenn, we have to take a couple more protectors, and they're actually starting to look for people who are former special forces that can help protect some of the food and some of the supplies. The National Guard's not on the ground.

Now, Stu, what happens when people know that no one's coming to help. What happens? And how long does it take? Society breaks down, right? Yep. And it usually breaks in. 48 hours and gets worse and worse after that. Yeah, 72 hours.

If you want to be someplace safe and you don't have electricity, you don't have cops, you don't have anything, you better be out of that place by 72 hours or it's the Wild West. That's how this has been described to me as the Wild West. there are well and let me just give you a couple of let me give you a couple of things that I have received from the ground and I want to make this really clear. I have talked to some of these people and I know that the people that I know have talked to people that I know have talked to people on the ground, been on the ground. and I cannot give you the names because at this point, I'm told they don't want to be identified, and I completely understand that.

But I want to give you a couple of things that we are hearing about. There are two reports that I have first, one from Eastern Tennessee and the other one from Asheville, North Carolina. The first one is from Tennessee. FEMA. FEMA, pardon me? Yeah, I know. FEMA is being, people are starting to say that FEMA is taking away food.

It's not FEMA. I even made this mistake this morning. It's not FEMA. The accusation is actually TEMA, the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency, which I think makes this worse. They are telling churches, and we have four sources, and some of them churches, some of them not churches. four sources that do not want to be identified for fear of reprisal from the government, that they are told they cannot take contributions from the outside of the state. Tima is the one, not FEMA.

Tima is the one taking the food away from people. And they're saying, we know where this needs to go. You can't take the food from outside. You've got to take it from us. and it's horrible and it's it's policy apparently. So they are taking the resources. Tima is under the state and pressure needs to be put on the Tennessee elected officials to get these guys under control.

We put a call into the governor's office to let him know what's occurring under him. State officials need to hear from the people to get the state bureaucrats out of the way. Now, I have this, I have spoken to people who have spoken to the people. But we have Blaze, I'm bringing some reporters with us today. Blaze is already on the ground. I've been there for a while, but we're bringing more resources in. We're going to track these things down and absolutely verify. I would normally wait before I would say something like this on the air.

but people are dying because they do not have the resources. There are people still in the hills that are completely cut off. And without the National Guard, it's private helicopters. It's people like you. It is because of you that we have two helicopters, giant rescue helicopters operating in daylight hours as much as they possibly can. And that's because of you. We need more helicopters, and we will supply those as more donations come in.

If you would like to be a part of the solution and not the problem, this is such a bad thing and a good thing at the same time. Our government is betraying us. But on the good side, we're seeing people rise up and do amazing, amazing, things. Now, one lady was serving food to children at the local school. She said Tima came in. It just took all the food. Several folks that were interviewed made statements of disappointment in Tima, but they want to remain anonymous. Now, on the North Carolina side, there's some really good things that are going on. There's this one pastor, in fact, we're going to bring them on here. 150 homes are just gone. They're missing.

They need money for all of the special requests. They're providing prescriptions. I know I don't have an update yet on Jace Medical, but I think Jace Medical is going to be supplying medicine that we're flying in as well. I mean, if you don't have insulin, you have no way to refrigerate insulin. What are you doing? What are you doing? I mean, people are dying because of this.

They also need special equipment, et cetera, et cetera. we have so much going on i have to get to chris martinson uh here in just a second what he has published is shocking and horrifying um but i want to bring on winston parish he is the senior pastor at trinity baptist church uh pastor i can't thank you enough for holding your community together uh i know you are tired i've i've talked to people who have talked to you uh and they say, you know, five minutes on the phone with the pastor, you get about 10 seconds because everybody's asking for something and you're really kind of have a command center there. So thank you for that.

May God bless you for that. Yes, sir, Glenn. Thank you for having me on. And I appreciate your prayers more than all. God's giving us strength. He's giving us wisdom and discernment that's above ourself or above our ability. And we're just honored to be serving. So tell me the situation.

First, let's start with some good news. Tell me what you're seeing from the people. Glenn, I'm seeing the people come together in a way maybe that I've never seen in this area before. There's just a camaraderie and a sense of community that really has never been this visible. It's quite incredible to see how people are caring for one another, loving one another. and that's the good side. There's been some violence. There's been some looting.

But I would say the good outweighs the bad on that end, and we're thankful for the 500 extra law enforcement officers that have poured into our community to keep the safe. So on that end, there is some good news. We are hearing from people that were presumed dead or missing that they were finding out there at a shelter or that they made it out before the floodwater hit their home. and so there are some bright spots.

I think the greatest news is that God is still in control. There is chaos, there's pandemonium, there's heartbreak. But God has an abdicated the throne. He's in control this morning, and that's where our peace is. Have you seen the federal government anywhere yet? I personally have not seen anyone from FEMA. I did have our Congressman Chuck Edwards. I was thankful to see him here yesterday in Asheville, and he was here on campus with us,

with our team for over an hour, maybe even more, and was listening directly to those needs. And I was thankful for his office. I've already heard a couple times from his office this morning, and they're helping us with specific needs. And I'm thankful for that. Other than him and our local government, that's done an incredible job with what they have, that's the only government official I've heard from at this point. Winston, I have to tell you, I am just so disappointed in our country. I love the people because I'm not disappointed in the people,

but our government, this is absolutely shameful for what is happening. You guys are cut off from the world. I'm hoping that I'll be able to see you today. What can we bring you? What do you need? Glenn, we are blessed right now with there are churches all over the southeast that have come together to help Trinity Baptist Church here in Asheville get the supplies out to the fire departments, the communities that need it. At this point, the request that are coming back, our church campus has turned into an operation center. The National Guard is here.

We have task force from all over the country that are housed here. My sanctuary now is a massive dorm for over 100 rescuers, National Guard. And we're taking care of them here, trying to keep themselves sufficient. Our water system here in Asheville is in ruins, and the water department's doing their very best to get water back on. So over the last two days, we have been drilling wells here on our church property. We're waiting on the test to come back so that we can start drinking that water. So we're working on getting as much resource here as we can.

The big thing right now that I've heard from nine different fire departments this morning, they need things like freezers, they need things like refrigerators, they need new boots. These guys have had wet feet and these gals have had wet feet for a week now. and so some of their boots are ruined, some of their boots are gone. It's full of river mud and muck, and so I have an order for dozens and dozens of station duty boots. I have a tractor-trailer load of ice that's coming today. They're very specific needs throughout Western North Carolina that we're trying to meet today. And we're here to support emergency services.

We're here to support local fire departments. There is no red tape here. There's no bureaucracy here. This is just a local church trying to do its best to level its community. And the need is great. I have about nine pages worth of printed requests from these departments. So I'm doing everything that I can, and we'll keep doing what we can as long as the resources available. Winston, I have, there are millions of people listening.

Is there anything on your list that you need help with that we can take? care of for you? If we can find freezers, boots, if we can find a supplier maybe that would like to help us with good waterproof station duty boots, that is a need in multiple, multiple places. And then a lot of the other requests that are coming in, we're taking care of ourselves here at the church. Okay. And we're just, we're trying to do our very best.

There's other needs, obviously, that some of them are firemen's homes and things that are weeks down the road. I just talked to a fire chief a few minutes ago. There's still a community here in Buncton County where folks are unreachable because of how much mud and how much debris is blocking the roads. The roads really don't exist anymore. So one operation today is getting some of these people who are cut off, getting them food, getting them water. There's a church there that's handling all of that. We're supplying them with any need that they have. And then obviously we're just going to buy as many refrigerators, freezers and boots, some of these other items like beds and cots and mattresses. We're doing

all the weekend with what we have. Thank you. Thank you. Truly blessing the community and giving us a chance to be blessed as well by helping you. So thank you very much. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you for your stand for Israel as well. I know that's a separate issue than what we're talking about today, but I do still greatly believe that if we'll bless Israel, God will bless us. And I appreciate your stand with the nation of Israel, sir. Thank you. Winston, I hope to see you today. God bless you. We'll see you. God bless you. Yeah. All right. Here's what I would like to do. I am leaving my plane in Dallas takes off in about two and a half hours, I think, two hours. I don't even know what station ready boots are.

But if somebody does and they can get them to the Mercury Studios, or if you can get them to us, let us know I'm landing in Greer, North Carolina with a fixed plane. if you can get them there, I can put them on the helicopters and get them to these fire stations today. If somebody wants to, I mean, Mercury One will buy all of this stuff. So if you don't have connections for freezers or whatever, just call Mercury One and make a donation at Mercury1.org. It's on the front page, Mercury1.org. And we'll buy the freezers if we have to. if you have a connection, you're like, I can get freezers really cheap and they're all really good and everything.

Please notify Mercury 1. But we are, our job is to help people like Winston Parrish. He's on the ground. He's getting it done. Let's help him help his community. Mercury1.org. Make no mistake. the left is on attack when it comes to the issue of abortion.

They're not just interested in protecting the right to murder babies. It's more insidious than that. They're doing their best to take away even the right to protest the evil things they're standing up for. I am proud to partner with the country's largest pro-life organization, maybe the largest in the world. They're leading the charge to put an end to abortion every day. They sponsor free ultrasounds for women as well as providing help for them for up to two years after the baby is born. They don't just advocate for the baby's life and then forget about them once they're born.

That's what they left says we do, but it's not. When a mom sees her unborn child on that monitor, she hears the heartbeat. She's twice as likely to consider choosing life for her baby. But many of them then say, but I don't have any support mechanism. Well, you do now. Preborn. Please donate by dialing pound 250. Say the keyword baby.

That's pound 250, keyword baby. or go to preborn.com slash Beck. That's preborn.com slash back. Sponsored by Preborn. Now, back to the podcast. You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program. My man, Jack Carr. Hello, Jack.

How are you? Great to hear your voice. And thank you so much for Salt Lake. It was great seeing you down there. Oh, it was great to see. Where do you live? Do you live in that area? In Park City.

So just about 35, 40 minutes up the road. Wow. Wow. Okay. Well, we have to get together sometime. I loved meeting your family. They're just great. Thank you.

So let's say how to your co-author here, James Scott. Hi, James. Hey, Glenn. How are you? Thanks so much for having us on this morning. Oh, you bet. You bet. So I got your book about Beirut, targeted Beirut.

Thank you for telling this story. This is a story that most people don't know. I mean, this is, I've been talking about this for years. This is where Osama bin Laden, went, wait a minute, I can move the giant, correct? Exactly. And a host of other countries, proxy groups, terrorist organizations around the world, because it was really an operation that would set the rules for the next 40-plus years, set the paradigm, set the model that the United States has been interacting with Iran,

with its proxies with ever since. And to a lesser extent, Israel. I'd say they have been shifting those rules over the past couple of months. months, but the United States is still playing by those rules that were established by Iran in 1983 with the bombing of the Marine headquarters and barracks bombing on October 23, 1983 that killed 241 U.S. servicemen. So when I pitched Simon & Schuster on this idea, when I thought I had built up enough political capital to be able to talk to them about the nonfiction series, unfortunately, there are a lot of terrorist events to choose from.

And my idea was trying to capture the strategic, the operational, and the tactical lessons learned while also humanizing these different events. And I kept coming back to Beirut, 1983, because it was such a pivotal point in our relationship with the Middle East. And we've been really playing by those rules and by that model ever since. Okay, so James, maybe you can tell us what exactly happened that moved the world's terrorists? Yeah, so what you've got to remember is like 1983 in Lebanon. I mean, it was just absolute chaos.

I mean, you had a civil war going on between the Christians, the Sunnis, the Shias. You had the PLO was in the process of leaving. The Israelis had been at war against the PLO. And of course, in this chaos, Iran saw an opportunity. And in 1982, they sent in about 800 Iranian revolutionary guardsmen into this remote sort of lawless region in the corner of Lebanon up near Syria, basically to start building a terrorism infrastructure.

And they capitalized on the discontent of the downtrodden Shias and started training them. And so they built a couple homegrown terror groups during that time period. And those groups would eventually merge and become Hezbollah. And of course, Hezbollah was behind the attack on the Marines on that Sunday morning in October. And an earlier attack, 188 days earlier, against the United States embassy there that killed 63 people, including 17 Americans. So this is really the birth of Hezbollah, which of course is a key Iranian proxy, in which during that one year, 1983, they killed and injured hundreds of Americans. So it wasn't just that they killed hundreds of Americans, and it's strange because you would think, when you think of Ronald Reagan, you think of, you know, this guy doesn't screw around. He's going to take care of it.

But what did he do? Yeah, that's the whole thing that taught Iran that terrorism works. More specifically, terrorism works through its proxies because there was never a U.S. retaliation. There was never a U.S. response. There was a lot of tough talk out of the administration in the direct aftermath of the event. But then we leave very quietly in early 1984. And, of course, Iran took that lesson, which allowed them to then set the rules. Why did Reagan do that?

Why didn't we react the way a... superpower would. Yeah, I'll jump on that one. Yeah, I mean, what happened is there was an internal dynamic that was playing out inside the White House. And you had, on one side of it, you had the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Defense Department and Casper Weinberger, who really never wanted to be in Lebanon to begin with. They saw Lebanon as a sideshow from the larger Cold War struggle against the Soviet Union.

And they also feared that Lebanon would open up America to the exact kind of attacks and entanglement that happened there. And they didn't want to see U.S. forces siphoned off into this smaller conflict. And so they were very much advocating, we got to get out. They never wanted to be there all along. They were pushing for us to get out, et cetera. The opposite side of that was Secretary of State George Schultz and National Security Advisor Bud McFarland, who really saw an opportunity for nation building here and to sort

of prop up a stable, peaceful ally on Israel's northern border. And so this internal clash between these two parties sort of led to. to the stalemate and basically the paralysis of the decision-making process in Washington. In the end, the reason we didn't retaliate, it came down to Weinberger. He's the one who literally killed the operation. There was an operation that had been planned by the National Security Council. Everything was a go. We were going to do it with the French.

And in the end, it's Weinberger personally who kills that. And I think his rationale for that, he kept arguing at the time, we needed more concrete proof exactly who did it, you know, the kind of legal standards you have at the U.S. court. that's often not there in terrorism. But I think really the reality is he didn't want us to go up that escalation ladder any further. It was better to cut our losses and get out rather than risk, you know, a retaliation that leads to another bombing that leads to another attack somewhere in the world on U.S. forces. So I know this is pretty impossible to, you know, to come up with the right answer.

But what do you think would have happened if we wouldn't have listened to? Weimberg. Well, it's quite possible. Things could have escalated into a, for regional war, or, or it could have sent the message that the price of attacking U.S. forces is so high that it is not worth it. For you Iran, for your proxies, or for other terrorist organizations around the world, especially if we kept them on their heels with some of the things that Israel has been doing lately with the Pager attack, with the handheld communication device attack, with special operations

missions, targeting key leaders, and targeting mid-level fighters, if we had done that and not allowed things to escalate, but kept them on their heels, it would have sent a much different message. And what would have happened then compared to now? I mean, now we attack Iran or, you know, we go after, you know, the proxies with Iran hard like that. And now it's probably a much different story than it would have been in the 80s. It's a little different now because of the nuclear question, of course. So that's a, that's a factor in there as well. But that's that, that is probably the biggest one. They've been allowed to, uh, to continue developing that nuclear capability up to a point where, uh, where they're on, on the cusp, um, but they've been on the cusp for a long time.

Yeah. Can you, can you explain that, Jack? Because I have to tell you, I've been covering Iran for 25 years and I always hear. They're just weeks away. They're just weeks away. 20 years, they've been weeks away. Right. I mean. That's what makes it very hard to trust when intelligence agencies or an administration official says that. So you don't know how you're being manipulated or if you're being manipulated. But at the same time, you think, well, if they were saying this 20 years ago, well, even though they were saying it's weeks away, now Iran has had 20 years of being able to do this and develop it. So there's that side of it as well.

So I don't have a good answer on that one. But I'm very aware that these devices we carry around in our pockets and administration officials telling us things are certainly. acts of manipulation in many cases. I would think that if Iran has a bomb, I mean, I believe them when they say Israel will burn in the fiery furnaces of the Islamic Fury. I believe them. You know, that's the nut jobs at the top, the real religious nut jobs,

if they actually have control enough, they will burn it in the Islamic Fury. They will use a new. because they think they'll hasten the return of the promised one. Is that your guys' read on this or not? Oh, sure. You might want to believe that neighbor that says he's eventually going to kill you. Yeah. Because he eventually might.

But we talked a little bit about the lessons that Iran learned. And in writing this book and from my time in the military, at the end of time, I've always struggled with why we fail to learn lessons from the past, and apply those lessons going forward as wisdom or the current problem sets as wisdom. So there's parallels there as well. We put these Marines in Brayrout, 1982, 1983 time frame. We put them in a tactically disadvantageous, untenable position. And we did that same thing to U.S. service members in Afghanistan, August 2021,

when it was unnecessary when we had Boggart, a tactically advantageous position. And yet people in air-conditioned offices, thousands of miles away from the battlefield, still put our U.S. servicemen and women in the case of Abbegate in these tactically disadvantageous positions. In Beirut, same thing at Abigate. have an explosion, bomb goes off, kills U.S. service members in the case of Abbe Gait, kills innocent Afghan civilians as well. But an interesting thing happens in the aftermath of both events is that people blown off their feet across the compound or airfield or hear the

explosion. They run to the sound of that explosion. They run to the sound of the guns to try to save as many of their fellow brothers in arms and the case of Abbe Gave, brothers and sisters in arms as they possibly can while holding security because they didn't know in both cases if they were going to be follow-on attack. So that same U.S. service member, who, was out there in Beirut, 1983, is the same one that was Abbe Gate. It's the same ones who's out there right now, standing posts around the world. So let me ask both of you, because James, you're a historian, you're a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and you've really done your homework on this.

Jack, I'm sure you've done your homework on this as well. But the combination of the two makes the book a really good thriller kind of read that's really heavy on fact. But let me ask both of you, speaking of lessons to be learned, what are the lessons that you think we need to learn here quickly? I feel we are a hairs trigger away from World War III, and I think there's just people that want it to happen. What should we be doing right now that maybe we're not as it comes to learning from history,

James. Yeah, no, I mean, Jack and I've actually had this discussion a lot in the last week because, I mean, there's always been sort of this acceptable level of violence that has been allowed in the Middle East, you know. I mean, this sort of tip for tat that goes on between Israel and its neighbors and its proxies. And the U.S. even allows attacks on us. I mean, because at the end of the day, you know, we're the ones who have to protect, you know, the straits of her moves and make sure that the global economy doesn't go off the rails and things like that. So this acceptable level of violence has been the backdrop ever since 1983. And of course, October 7th was a total game changer. I mean, that was just a masterful operation by the terrorists, you know, using, you know,

gliders to get over walls, tunnels and things like that. And, of course, the body count on that was so extraordinary that Israel has really, you know, gone in and cleaned house in Gaza. And it has escalated now to the point where it's becoming this, you know, they've wiped out much of Hamas' infrastructure there. You know, they've done the exact same thing with these just brilliant attacks recently against Hezbollah. now Iran is feeling the pressure from its proxies, hey, you know, we're the ones taking it on the chin here.

You need to rise up. Now they're sending in missiles against Israel. So, I mean, this sort of acceptable level of violence is suddenly no longer what we're playing with here. I mean, it's on this total escalation ladder. And the fear is, you know, where does it go at that point? I mean, does it explode into a larger regional war? And quite frankly, in a lot of ways, we're kind of off the map at this point. So, I mean, every day is kind of a new addition to what's going on. I mean, I wake up and look at the news every morning thinking, all right, where are we today? You know, so I think it's, we're a bit off the map here. You're streaming the best of Glenn Beck.

To hear more of this interview and others, download the full show podcasts wherever you get podcasts. Welcome to the Glenn Beck program. You know, our job is getting harder and harder. I just gave permission to hire another researcher. this morning, because we are just overwhelmed in stories that we don't know what the truth is. You should see my email, my private messages, and even my text messages from friends that I trust that are like, Glenn, I don't know if this is true. I don't know either.

I don't know either. And I know you're in that situation. and we are going to go off the cliff if we can't verify some things. That's one reason I'm going to Asheville, North Carolina, today. I need to know. Is this stuff happening? Are there bodies, you know, in chimney rock that are still there? You know, what is happening on the ground?

And we're bringing, you know, a plane full of supplies for them through Mercury 1. But we have to, this is what I said. in the meeting today. We have got to come, and even if we don't talk about them, we have to find out, are these things true? So you know if they're true or not. And we'll do our best, but it takes so much time. We have so much going on. I think it was like a week ago or so. Do you remember the story that Arizona added 98,000 illegals? I remember that being, yeah. Okay. And I think we talked about it, right? Yeah, I think we did at the time, you know, and tried to give perspective.

But, I mean, people don't understand. I mean, there's so much stuff for people to sort through right now. If I remember the story right, it was hard to decipher. And it's why I think why we didn't follow up on it at all because we were like, I don't know what's right in this story. Let's lock it down. Well, good news. The head guy of the Arizona Supreme Court wrote to us, he's Justice Bollick.

He joined the court in 2016. He previously co-founded the Institute for Justice and served as litigation director for the Goldwater Institute, so he's one of us. He litigated constitutional cases from coast to coast, including the U.S. Supreme Court. He is not the Supreme Court. He's a Supreme Court justice, but he's not the chief justice now in Arizona.

But he says that story is wrong. he'd be the guy that knows. Clint, welcome to the program. Oh, thank you so much for having me, Glenn. And thanks for making the correction. My boss, the Chief Justice, would have drawn and quartered me. You know, this story was everywhere, and I don't remember what we said. We might have said that, yep, that's crazy.

And the Supreme Court's out of the country, I don't know what we said. but if we got it wrong, A, I apologize, so let's correct it and correct all of the stories that were out there. What happened? Thank you so much for that. And usually when a court issues controversial decision, they know it. And so for a couple of days after, we did not consider this to be a controversial decision at all. But all of a sudden, we were hearing from people. and I was encountering people who were saying we were letting illegal immigrants vote.

And I looked at the headlines that had come out and just I've got one on the screen in front of me from Newsweek that says Arizona court says nearly 100,000 people with unconfirmed citizenship can vote. And so I can well understand why people got that impression. Yeah. But the headline should have read, Arizona court prevents disenfranchisement of 100,000 people over computer error. And that's exactly what happened. So Arizona is one of the few states that requires proof of citizenship before someone votes. And when the law was passed,

they assumed that people who, had registered by 2005 were legal citizens. So they didn't require you to show proof of citizenship unless you moved to a different county or applied for a duplicate license. And due to a department of motor vehicles glitched, and I know that's hard to believe. Oh, no, it's hard to believe the government would do anything that had glitches in it. So, yes. So in any event, apparently a large number of people who were registered to vote and who had driver's licenses before 1996 and who moved or got duplicate licenses were never asked to prove their citizenship. Now, most of these people have been voting for decades.

And, you know, so there's no indication that any of them are illegal immigrants. But once this problem was discovered, the county recorder of Maricopa County went to court and said, all of these people should be removed and required to prove their citizenship between now and the election. And of course, the same people who made a mistake would have been in charge of making sure that that those papers were shown by the election. And just imagine if we had gone to election day and thousands, possibly over 100,000 people who had been voting for decades were told,

oh, no, we don't know whether you're a citizen or not. And this is not, you know, so in any event, it was a very easy legal issue for us. And it was the only election case, Glenn, that I can remember where the Arizona Republican Party and the ACLU were on the same side. They both said, please don't throw these people off the ballot. And we determined that we had no authority to take that many people off the ballot. You can challenge individual voters if you think that they are not citizens.

And after the election, though, there will be an effort. to verify citizenship, but most of these people would have had no idea what was going on, you know, given that they voted without a problem for decades. And so it just, it was one of those stories that the headlines, one of those cases that the headlines turned into a controversy, but it really wasn't a controversy at all. So with an election coming up, and you guys, are you guys voted on a Supreme Court? So yes, we are subject to retention every six years. And yours truly is one of those justices up for retention this year with a very spirited campaign against me from self-described progressive groups.

Great. Well, I mean, all you had to say, you had me at Goldwater Institute. So I'm for you, I'm for you, Clint. How confident are you that we can have a fair election this time in Arizona? Well, you know, I'm not on the ground. I'm not involved in the day to day. And, you know, one of the things that I've been doing is encouraging people to volunteer as poll workers, you know, and other jobs that take place on election day.

The best place to be on election day if you have concerns about election integrity is on the inside. And I've been very heartened that both political parties, both major political parties have really been encouraging volunteers to do that. And when I hear that sort of thing, me it gives me confidence that, you know, that, at least that step has been taken. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thanks for clearing this up.

I appreciate it. And, you know, if there's anybody who is on the right that has misunderstood this, which I think are probably a lot of people, because it was everywhere. And I apologize. Again, I don't know exactly what we said, but let's just assume. We were one of those who believed the headlines. Apology to our audience and to everybody in Arizona. I'm glad you reached out to us so we could set the record straight.

Thank you. Glenn, I am so glad that you gave me the opportunity. I'm sure it's not every day that the judge contacts you and says, hey, this is not correct. Yeah, no, and I invite any. If we get something wrong, I am not afraid of correcting it and say we were wrong. So I appreciate that you reached out to us because we will correct it. We will correct it.

Thanks, Clint. Well, and I am so grateful for that. If everyone did that, we'd be in a much better place in our society right now. Yeah, yeah, we would. We would. Thanks a lot. I appreciate it. Clint Bollick, he is Arizona Supreme Court Justice.

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