The Glenn Beck Program - Best of The Program | Guests: Jason Whitlock & Josh Rogin | 4/21/21

Episode Date: April 21, 2021

Glenn revisits a story of unexplainable forgiveness after an Amish community was shaken by a murderer and asks how this differed from America’s reaction to Derek Chauvin’s convictions. Journalist Jason Whitlock joins to review the final Chauvin trial verdict and discuss what could happen next. “Chaos Under Heaven” author Josh Rogin joins to ask the taboo but reasonable questions about COVID-19’s origin and discuss China’s rise to a new degree of power. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the podcast. Today we get into the Derek Chobin trial and we spent most of our time on that, going into some real perspective and what's a take from it where we can go in the future. And was this the right thing? Was this our justice system working or was this justice system under pressure? We get into that today. We also have a really great interview with Josh Rogan. He comes on to talk about his new book about China. And what was the origin of COVID-19? Was it really? just this innocent thing, as we've known? Was it a mistake? What happened there? And was there a cover-up? He says there was, and we'll get into that as well today. Make sure to subscribe to blazedtv.com slash Glenn. Promo code is Glenn.

Save $10 on your subscription to Blaze TV. Glenn has a new special tonight. How Biden's spending spree could end our currency as we know it. It's a big one. You don't want to miss that. It's right after a brand new. Stu Does America. And you can get all the podcasts, by the way, right on this podcast app.

Just click on subscribe. and of course on Stu Does America as well. Subscribe there. It's all free. Check it out. Here's the podcast. One of the greatest memories on a day of tragedy. For me, has to be October 2, 2006.

I don't know if you remember what happened on that day. But a guy named Charlie Roberts walked into a wall. walked into a one-room Amish schoolhouse. It was a beautiful Monday morning, unseasonably warm. He was 32 years old. He was a dad, father of three young children. He walked into the schoolhouse and ordered the boys and the adults to leave, then tied up 11 little girls between the ages of 6 and 13,

and then shot them. he killed five of them, injured the others, and then he killed himself. It was it was when evil came to town. I mean, there's nothing more peaceful than the Amish.

And if you've never had a chance to be in an Amish community, or go to an Amish community, next time you're in Pennsylvania, which might be, you know, never, you should go to Amish country. It is beautiful and the people are amazing. They're amazing. And here comes this monster into this school.

And he shoots these innocent little girls. And it was one of the most shocking scenes I had ever seen. And it was a horrible, horrible day. Everybody was talking about the little girls. The news was focused on the little girls. what was really what made that day so memorable to me was when the Amish were still gathered in a barn waiting to find out whose child was alive and whose child was dead

still waiting to find out if their daughters survived there was a knock on on Terry Roberts doors Terry Roberts is the mom of the killer and it was an Amish man named Henry and he knocked on the door they had already talked inside the house we are going to have to move far far far away

we're now parents of a mass murderer and how can this community I mean we can never face this community Then came the knock on the door from Henry. And Henry said, we don't see you as our enemy. We lost our daughters today. But you lost a son. Now, can you imagine what that felt like as a parent?

On the day of Charlie, the killer's funeral, 30 Amish men and women, some parents of the victims, came to the cemetery and formed a wall to block out the media cameras. These were parents whose daughters had died at the hand of the guy they were burying, and they did the work of blocking the media. And then one by one they went over and expressed their deep sorrow for the mother's loss. That's probably all you know about this story. But I have to tell you,

when you actually put into practice what you believe miracles happen four weeks after the shooting the Roberts were invited to meet with all of the families in a local fire hall

now can you imagine your son killed these parents' children one mother looked across the fire hall and held the gaze. Both women looked at each other, the mom of the killer,

who was grieving the loss of her son, and grieving all of the ones that he had killed, and the mother of one of the daughters that had been killed. This mother looked over with tears in her eyes and said, We're all grieving. We're all trying to make sense of the senseless. there's a there's a word in black cursive

and it's on a it hangs above a big double pane window in Terry Roberts' sunroom the sunroom itself was built by the Amish and as they gave that to her they gave her a sign that just says forgiven now imagine how hard it's been

but as time went on the Amish went on they it wasn't empty words they embraced her as a member of the community. She was in the hospital with stage 4 breast cancer. One of the girls that her son tried to kill cleaned her home before she returned from the hospital.

Around Christmas time, the Amish came to her house to sing Christmas carols. These people know how to live. These people, I mean, me personally, I think they, do they, do they have electricity? I think that that's the other group that doesn't have electricity, right? The Amish just have horse and buggies, but I think they can, I don't know. I don't want to live like them. But you know what? I don't want to live like this either.

I think I'd rather be Amish. I was looking for that yesterday. I can't find it. These families have found a way to come together. Yesterday, you had people saying, this isn't justice. Well, it may or may not be, and not the way you mean it. I don't know. I wasn't in the jury room.

I mean, there's a lot of evidence that they had to go through, and the jury, I mean, in Minnesota, you have to be 100%. All jurors need to agree. In just a few hours, they all agreed on all three. Really? Because I would think there might be a struggle a little bit. Now, again, I wasn't in the courtroom. I don't know the jury instructions. I don't know Minnesota law.

But really? I pray that these people were not trying to send a message to the rest of the world, not trying to send a message to the community, not trying to send a message to anybody who might harm them if they did otherwise. but actually we're looking at the facts of the individual case. And I wasn't there. I don't know. All I know is I didn't hear anybody talk about the family of Chauvin yesterday.

Did you hear anybody talk about his family? There's two people involved here. There is the victim and the perpetrator. Both of them have families. Both of them now have lost their son, their daughter, their husband, their father. Both families have had tremendous loss. And I can guarantee you in Minneapolis, if you are the family of Chauvin, you are thinking today, I should move far, far away from here. You are thinking, how am I going to stay close, close enough to be able to visit him?

in prison because close enough to visit him in prison is not far enough away from the people who would do me harm. Call me racist. You know, justice was done yesterday. We all saw the video and we all saw something that horrified all of us. Now, I personally don't think that, you know, rises to the level of murder, but they define it differently in Minneapolis and in Minnesota. it's a different standard than the one you and I are used to. So again, I don't know. I'm glad he is paying a price, but is this price right? But was justice done?

See, people are looking for social justice, and social justice is not real. collective justice is not real because you're asking for something to happen that is impossible to happen when men are involved miracles mistakes and murder will happen because men are flawed people must pay for their sins and they will and that's up to God. We need to make sure people pay for their crimes and

all we're doing right now is playing musical chairs. I personally think America was on the mend. I thought America was struggling to be a more perfect nation and that takes time. And I think that the progress

that we had made from 1950 or 1960 to the year 2000 was astounding. Astounding. Was it right? No. Did we made real progress?

Yeah. Racism still exist? Yeah. Bad cops? Yeah. Bad priests. Yeah. Bad, uh, you know,

bad artists. Bad TV people. Bad whatever. Yes. Because it's a collection of people. Miracles. madness, mistakes, and murder all happen when you have a group of people. I want to hear from you today, 888-727-B-E-C-K, but I urge you to ask yourself this, because I haven't

heard this from anyone. I haven't heard this from any. I watched TV last night. I haven't heard it from anyone. Everyone has an agenda. We have an amazing opportunity to research. set to take this even if you agree or don't agree with the verdict. It's the system. And I'm going to talk a little later about how the system has failed. And the system has failed because it failed

to protect people who were to be the jurors. It failed to protect the possible innocent because information was held back. Can we just? Can we look at this story today as just a story, because this is all it's supposed to be, a story about two men. George Floyd, not a perfect man, but didn't deserve to die. Chauvin, not a perfect man, but not convicted of racism. nowhere in the trial did they say and he was racist here, here and here. Oh, he has a long pattern of racism here.

That's what this story has become, but that's not what this story is about. I would ask that you would ask yourself, how am I going to serve my nation best? What is the thing that I can do today that will serve my nation best? And the best thing you can do is serve your God. And the best way to serve God is to serve your fellow man.

Is anyone thinking of all families? I pray for all of them. You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program. Jason Whitlock. Let me go to you. I'm sorry to make you hold. But I wanted you to hear at least one voice of people. Because I am seeing in the phone calls that are stacked up,

and I'm hearing from phone calls. People are sad today. They're afraid of where we're headed. Give me your perspective on the verdict yesterday. Well, I'm going to first take you back off your comment. I think people are justifiably confused. Like, what are we doing here? What direction are we headed in America?

We've always been expanding freedom, expanding fair, and now we're pivoting opposite direction. And it's a byproduct of technology. In terms of big tech and the way we communicate now is not substantive. Because again, Glenn, when you think about those, you know, we grew up in homes with one phone in the home, no call waiting, one, two TVs in the home, but now there's just, and so I think like communication has been cheapened, and it's been dumbed down to a point where it's just much easier to lead people the wrong direction, and social media promotes an anecdote. Well, we haven't.

May I just interject here on, you know, you're talking about how it's been cheapen. I didn't know anybody that ever wrote a letter to the editor because you have to sit down, think about it, write it, put it in an envelope, get a stamp, get the address, send it in. I mean, it took forever by the time that thing was out. Now, everybody's writing a letter to the editor, and it's all of equal value, and only the ones that are the hotheads are the ones that make it to the top. I mean, what are we expecting to happen? And again, really be passionate and probably really informed on the topic. And they got a tweet that says, I hate you. And so, action to the verdict was I thought that was guilty of manslaughter.

I don't think he had an intent to kill. I do think he was a bit drunk on his power and a bit distracted by the crowd harassing him. and that combination turned lethal for George Floyd. However, having said that, I'm just amazed working together. I'm just amazed a seven-year-old girl. Donald's window. No one cares. There's no motion.

Seven-year-old. And again, I have... Because this isn't about anything real, Jason. This isn't about actual justice. This isn't about anything. This is about political power, capital, and in some cases, actual dollars. Oh, no, money to be made championing suspects who are killed by white cops. There's lots of money.

It makes up a hashtag, and now she has four homes scattered across America and has a deal with Warner Brothers making a hashtag and pretending like. she cares about George Floyd, there's a lot of money being made. It's a, look, Al Sharpton, messaging is, look at, I've made it,

I'm flying on private jets of criminal a seven-year-old girl. She had no shot at life. She's experienced nothing. She's done no harm to anyone, and she's slaughtered, and no one cares. It's mind-blowing to me,

and I get why people are like, American values are being changed overnight in social media. But again, if you go look at how America or sex marriage, amplified voices, teams need to be amplified. And again, I said it last time I was on your show, empathy for the LGBT community and not demonize their sin and not demonized our own. Yeah. Excuse us.

I get it. And so there needed to be. a correction of among us believers and Christians we needed to correct our behavior as a relation to that like I said there's reasons why I haven't gotten married and and so everything is not for everybody so Jason I appreciate I've got a network break I have to hit but thank you for the the reason and the logic that you're using today I really appreciate it Thank you, Glenn.

You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program. Josh Rogan is an author, and he has had access to the top U.S. officials from the White House and in our foreign policy machine. And he has written a new book called Chaos Under Heaven. And it talks about our relationship with China and what happened under Trump. and with the Wuhan virus. Welcome to the program, Josh. How are you? Great to be with you, Glenn.

Thank you. So thank you for at least asking honest questions and letting the chips fall where they may. I don't know why we can't talk about where the virus came from. I don't think that it was a man-made virus that was intentionally released. I think there's a good chance that it did come from the, Wuhan Institute, and it accidentally was released, but I don't know if we have any proof of that. Tell me about what you have found. Well, that's exactly right, Glenn.

As it turns out, the origin of the coronavirus is not a political question. It doesn't matter if you're on the left or the right. It doesn't matter if you like Trump or if you don't like Trump. It doesn't matter if you're Democrat or Republican. It is simply a scientific and forensic question. probably the most important question that we have to answer in order to solve the crisis that we're in and prevent the next pandemic. Yet, for over a year, we've been told that just to even utter, just to even mention the possible, still yet unproven, but certainly possible theory that the outbreak began due to human error in one of these Wuhan labs, just to mention that was considered quite impolite and quite out of bounds in Washington society. in the media for a number of reasons.

So before we get into the reasons, let me ask you, but we knew something was wrong. I mean, talk about the Wuhan cables. Yes. So what I reported at the time and then again in this book was that for years, there have been concerns amongst U.S. diplomats and others about these Wuhan labs, the Wuhan Institute of Irology, the largest repository of back coronavirus, in the world where U.S. and Chinese scientists were working together to create viruses, not create,

but to use science to develop viruses into versions that were more virulent, that could infect humans more easily and therefore were more dangerous and more transmissible. And then when the outbreak happened right next to these, a lot of people inside the U.S. government who wanted to look at these labs and who saw these reports from years ago about concerns about these labs, But they were unable to do so because of the political environment and because of the things that were going on inside the U.S. government and in the U.S. China relationship, including that the Chinese government was blackmailing the U.S. government into not asking any questions and also blackmailing a lot of other countries and also lying about the origin of the virus and covering up the sciences and jailing the scientists and jailing the journalist. So there was a very extensive and well-funded campaign led by the Chinese Communist Party and also the friends of this lab, the American. and friends of this lab, whose careers were tied in with the lab, who had a clear conflict of interest, who were telling all the journalists, you better not talk about the lab. And by the way,

we don't think the lab did it. And because we're the best friends of the lab, we're the best people to tell you that they didn't do it. So there was a perfect storm of horrendousness that combined to push us towards this idea that we couldn't look at these labs. And then, you know, here we are a year later. And of course, now we have Robert Redfield, who is the CDC director, Dr. Tadros, the head of WHO and many other people, including many many, scientists say, hey, listen, we got to look at these labs. It doesn't matter what political side of the spectrum you're on. So now we have to look at these labs.

And that's the bottom line. And we've wasted a year. We've wasted a crucial time and energy and resources. And the question is only more important than ever because it relates to how do we stop this pandemic from happening again? We can't do that if we don't figure out how it happened in the first place. Okay. So now let's go to why have they, why has it been?

I mean, you're called a conspiracy theorist. You're called all kinds of names. You're shut down. People have been shut down on social media. Some have lost their jobs just for questioning. Why? Why? Who's so powerful that this is all is shut down like that?

You know, there's a couple reasons. One is because of, again, this propaganda campaign that was run by the Chinese Communist Party, but aided and abetted by American scientists. who are the best friends of the lab. I'm talking about Peter Dasick, the EcoHealth Alliance, and all the rest, who told us that it was a conspiracy theory because they didn't want anyone to look at the lab. And then when the WHO did its report,

they hired the same exact scientists, including Peter Desic, to go look at the lab. They went there for three hours, talked to the scientist, didn't see anything, got some data, but not really all the data. And then came back and said, we don't need to look at the lab anymore. And this is a cover-up, okay?

There's no other word for it. It's a cover up to distract us from the urgent need to look at this lab and also look at the other theories. The whole point is that we need to look at all the theories and figure out what's what. And wherever the facts lead, that's where we have to follow. And it's really as simple as that. And then in the media, the reason that they picked up on this was because Donald Trump endorsed the lab theory.

And most of the mainstream media didn't want that to be right. They couldn't bear with the fact that Donald Trump might have been right about something, despite the fact that he also did all these other things they consider it horrible. But even the broken clock is right twice every day. And here we are a year later and Donald Trump is not longer president. So it doesn't matter if he was right. But the media still doesn't want to correct their error if it is an error because they don't want to get dunked on. But getting dunked on is really not what's important.

What's important is protecting our country from this pandemic. I was talking to Condi Rice last week. And she said something that I had not heard anybody say before. she corrected me when I said, rising China, and she said, it's a risen China. It's a risen China. It's not rising anymore. It's going to get more powerful, but it's already at the table, and it's a powerhouse. What does the shift in our president mean to China?

And, I mean, because I am not for trade barriers. I was strongly against trade barriers. However, I was torn on trade barriers with China because China is just, they're out of control, and they are not the friends of freedom and not friends to us. And so I was glad to see that we were taking a hard line on China, and now I feel like we'll just excuse anything again that China is doing. Is that at all accurate? Or is...

Yeah, Glenn, I agree with almost everything that you said. You know, when the Trump administration came in, what they did was they flipped over the chessboard. They ended 40 years of what was largely a policy of engagement first, cooperation first, which meant betting on the idea that as China got more powerful, that it would liberalize economically, and then that would lead it to liberalize politically, and that would then solve the rest of our problems. But it became pretty clear after Xi Jinping took power in 2013. and more and more over the years that that just wasn't happening.

China was going another way. And actually, they were abusing our engagement to advance their interests against ours. And actually, they were interested in changing the world order to make it safe for autocracy and repression and aggression of all kinds. And that we were late to acknowledge that, much less respond to that. Now, the problem with the Trump administration's response, of course, is embedded in the title of my book, Chaos Under Heaven. It was very chaotic. You were there. It was a mess.

It was very dysfunctional. And so it was hard for anybody to really understand what was going on. And the factions fought internally. And Trump changed his mind on the tactics and all the rest. And, you know, we didn't stand up for human rights against the Uighurs and in Hong Kong. And the trade war, you know, I could make an argument that the terrorists were useful. But because the trade war was executed in such a haphazard manner, it undermined its effectiveness. But here we are four years later.

And Trump flipped over the chessboard. and now the Biden administration has a chance to set it back up again. And they could, if they choose, set it up in a way to give us back the advantage. We still have the high ground. We still have the best economy. We still have the right. You know, we still have the position of moral justification that we stand for the things that we believe in, including democracy, freedom, human rights, the rule of law.

And then we still have allies and partners who professed to believe in those things. So we don't know yet if they're going to pull this off, if they're going to take this new approach that the Trump administration admittedly messed up at times, but handed them and make it more international and more effective. They could do that if they chose. We just don't know yet. What are the signs that show us one way or the other? Have you seen anything yet?

Well, absolutely. So for right now, we have a lot of continuity. And we saw, you know, we still have the tariffs that, you know, I'm not a tariff's guy either, but, hey, listen, that's leverage. You don't want to just give them away. you want to use them to get the things that you want. The Biden administration confirmed that there's a genocide going on in Xinjiang against the Uighurs. Guess what?

There is a genocide going on against Xinjiang against the Uighurs. And now they have to actually do something about it. So the indications are that they're, oh, by the way, they also haven't said that we can't talk about the lab accident theory. The Biden administration confirmed that there was some shady stuff going on in the lab that they didn't admit to. In other words, they want to get to the bottom of it. They're not invested in the idea that we can't talk about the lab accident theory because they weren't there at the time. So who is it? No, no, please finish.

The indications are that they are open to a more assertive, more aggressive policy towards China because that's what the American people want. That's what the polls show that Democrats and Republicans want because the Chinese Communist Party's aggression now affects us in our own lives, in our schools, in our markets, in our sports, in Hollywood. Hollywood, in Silicon Valley, everywhere. So now that all Americans are woken up to this, especially if you're sitting in your basement, scared of getting the coronavirus, you know that what happens in Beijing no longer stays in Beijing, and you want your leaders to do something about it.

And that's what the American people are calling for, and that's what the Biden team is starting to respond to, but it's not enough yet. So what was it that the Americans were doing that in this lab that many Americans didn't want other Americans? to know about. Were they doing something nasty or was it just who looked bad? This is a crucial question and this is a great question because according to Robert Redfield, again, not a completely unproblematic person, but not someone who's bailing out

the Trump team for the sake of it. According to him, the virus likely came from what's called gain of function research. That's what they were doing there. It's where you collect all these viruses from the wild and then you run them through mice that have lungs that are adapted to act like human lungs. And you do that a few thousand times and you see what happens. And that's, it's the next pandemic. And wouldn't it be ironic if the program to predict the next pandemic actually caused the pandemic sparked it quite accidentally, of course. And the problem with that is that these Americans were doing this in Wuhan because this research had been largely banned by the Obama administration in the United States. So they moved it to China where there was

less oversight. And now here we are. We're trying to get back into these labs. It's basically impossible because the Chinese government won't allow it. But what we can do is we can examine these American labs. And that means the NIH, and that means the NIAID, which is run by Anthony Fauci and the EcoHealth Alliance. And this is what you see. This is what you see in Congress. More and more lawmakers standing up to say, okay, well, listen, if we can't get into these Wuhan labs, we want to know what all the American labs were doing in conjunction with them.

And we want to know where the procedures followed. And if not, why not? and who's going to be held accountable for that. Then we've got to take a look at all of this gain of function research, because, and this is going to blow your mind, the current plan to respond to the pandemic is to increase this research sixfold by spending another $1.2 billion to collect $500,000 new viruses from the wild and bring them to labs all over the world.

It's called the Global Virus Project. And do you want to do this every year? Do you want to have this problem every single year? So my simple proposal, again, not a pro-Trump guy, I'm not an anti-Trump guy, I'm not a Republican, I'm not a Democrat, I'm just a reporter who would like to not have a pandemic every year. And my idea is, let's figure it out before we six-fold increase this risky research, let's figure out if that's what caused the pandemic. It would be helpful. I don't think so. No, and I think if we're going to do this research anyway, we should do it in the United States, shipping it off to China.

and having them do it in China where their standards are a lot lower than ours is insanity. Not just. Josh, not just lower. The allegation by the Trump administration, which was confirmed by the Biden administration, by the way, again, not pro-Trump conspiracy theories, Jake Sullivan, all the rest, was that they took this research and then they had their own game going on with their military in a way that we didn't know about. Okay. And that's the real danger here is that we think we're just doing. open science with a bunch of nice Chinese scientists. But these nice Chinese scientists may be very nice people,

but they don't get to make the decisions about what research happens and what they tell us and what goes on these lands. That's run by the party. And the party acts as it acts, which is not in our area. Josh Rogan, author of Chaos Under Heaven. Chaos Under Heaven is the name of the book. Josh Rogan, thank you for being on. Appreciate it.