The Glenn Beck Program - Best of The Program | Guests: Ken Cuccinelli & Michael Anton | 9/1/20

Episode Date: September 1, 2020

Do Democrats think their voters are stupid? Joe Biden and the Democrats are finally condemning the violent riots, but only to blame Trump. Former Trump national security official Michael Anton discusses his new book, “The Stakes: America at the Point of No Return,” and what may come next if the country goes under. Acting DHS Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli gives the latest on the Portland and Kenosha riot shootings, Kyle Rittenhouse, and the Democrats’ narrative that the Right is inflaming violence. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, podcast is. Welcome to the program today. Great, great show. We kind of covered a lot of things today, but we had to start with Joe Biden and his speech in, where was it, Pittsburgh or Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, I think, where he now suddenly is against all the protests and the rioting. But don't worry. He knows he's going to fix it because he knows what we'll fix it. And that is getting rid of Donald Trump, getting rid of the real problem, Donald Trump. We also had Michael Anton on talking about his book, The Stakes, talking about things that nobody likes to think about, secession, civil war, the things that could happen because of this next election. It is a really powerful 15 or 20 minutes that I think you really need to hear. Also, Ken Guggenelli was on with us and, you know, more on the Democrats and the media saying how, They are the peacemakers and Donald Trump is fanning the flames of war. How do you get that from the actions and the words from the left? Just a quick reminder all on today's podcast. You're listening to the best of the Glenback program.

I have some good news for you. I think that that battle is going to be uphill for them, but they can swing it up to, was it? Is it 10 or 15 points? I just read it again this morning. it's an enormous amount that they can swing it. Tech can swing the election. So we're going to be on that tomorrow,

but it is going to be, I think, a bigger blowout than what the polls are showing. I could be wrong. I want to be really clear. I usually am wrong when it comes to politics. But let's just wait and see. The Democrats, they think they're in trouble, so much so that they think

that they can get away with something because apparently their voters are so stupid that they don't remember that for months they've heard nothing but crickets from the left when it comes to condemning the riots and the violence. And I mean, it's been a slow burn horror movie gradually smoldering amongst the desperate Democratic Party that had zero message, zero unity, and facing a serious inner party civil war. So what did they do? They just blew. Hang on, I think I got a spark. And they've been trying to get a race or class riot started for a very long time.

Now what happens when it looks like it's backfiring on them? They're trying to reverse course and not saying, you know what, we made a mistake. No, no, no. They are acting as if none of that happened. Here's clip one from yesterday Joe Biden in Philadelphia. You know, this is a tragic fact of the matter about his perilous hour, that how he's dealing with this perilous hour in our nation. And now we have to stand against violence in every form it takes.

Violence we've seen again and again and again of unwarranted police shooting. Excessive force. Seven bullets of the back of Jacob Blake, knee on the neck of George Floyd, Killing up Breonna Taylor in her own apartment. Violence of extremists and opportunist. Right-wing militias. White supremacists. Vigilantes.

You know, who infiltrate protests, carrying weapons of war, hoping to wreak havoc and to derail any hope and support for progress. That is quite a statement coming from Joe Biden. First of all, the American people were not against the stopping of any, of those guys. There was not a problem with any of those shootings far as the American public. We were all on the same side. We wanted them to stop. We didn't think that George Floyd should have had a neck or knee on his neck. We all agreed. But no, no. The Democrats wanted to make sure there were protests and not peaceful protests. They did nothing in city after city to stop riots

and looting. I'm sorry, that's a different story. And we've all seen that story. We've also seen Maxine Waters stand in front of a crowd and actually tell people to track down and harass cabinet members. We saw Eric Holder say, when they go low, we kick them. We've heard Hillary Clinton say, we just can't be civil anymore. And when the rioting that they so desperately hoped would happen actually happened we watched nancy Pelosi say you know people will do what people do congressman nadler told the violence was a myth iana presley went on national tv and said there needs to be unrest in the street so did nancy pelosi let's not forget why aren't people rioting but it wasn't just the democrats in dc their propaganda arm the mainstream media was quick to back the

play. CNN hilariously said the protests were peaceful while standing in front of a parking lot full of burning cars. They did it again last week. You know what they actually came out and said? They actually now have come out and said, hey, a few blocks is not a whole city. Well, tell that to the people who live in those few blocks. Do you not care about individuals at all? And what neighborhoods are they burning down? The nice ones? The overall grand strategy was to let America burn, hoping that it would make Trump look bad. Well, it backfired and dare I say it, bigly. Polls are now turning the so-called early route that Democrats thought they were seeing a few months ago, now into a virtual tie. Real clear politics just released their new betting odds for who will win,

and it's a toss-up. But I don't think it actually. actually is a toss-up. I think there are millions of Democrats and independents who might have not liked Donald Trump, but they see what's happened to their Democratic Party and they want nothing to do with it. Seems like Americans just don't like blood in the streets. They don't like rioting and violence. They don't like when their livelihoods are destroyed and their elected officials just stand by watching it happen. I'm going to be very interested to see what happens in the next mayoral election in Portland, in Seattle, in Kenosha. So now we have a few Democrats that are willing to come out and publicly state that

the, that rioting is bad, the obvious. But that's not what they actually believe because they're on record saying the exact opposite. The only reason why they're saying it now is because they're now pointing the finger at Trump. I want you to listen to cut cut three I look at this violence and I see lives and communities and the dreams of small businesses being destroyed

and the opportunity for real progress and the issues of race and police reform and justice being put to the test Donald Trump looks at this violence and he sees a political lifeline unbelievable unbelievable

Never mind a Black Lives Matter started under the Obama administration. Do you remember that? Do we have the video of Ferguson? When did that happen? That happened under the Obama administration. Go ahead and play it, please. You need to disperse immediately or you will be subject to arrest. This is not Donald Trump's America, as Joe Biden is saying.

Tear gas has been thrown water bottles. We witness being thrown at police. If you remember, is tear gas just drop right near us? It's going to get very bad here if we don't have masks. If you remember right in Portland, they were rioting under Joe Biden and Barack Obama's America as well. This has been fomented.

This has been really well crafted. It is the Democrats that have put $175 million in the, to Black Lives Matter inks coffers. This is not, you're watching a stage play. And now the playwright sees that at intermission, everybody is walking out. And he's like, wait, way, way, wait. And he's trying to change what the character said in the first half.

Nobody's going to buy that. These are Democratic governors, Democratic mayors, Democratic city councils. These are progressive hellholes that have, These people have been in power for decades. So how is that Trump's fault? I mean, do you really believe Democrats? And I'm talking about the Democrats in power.

Do you really believe your voters are this stupid? I mean, even I don't believe that. And you always say, I think, the worst of the Democrats that are voting. No, I don't. I think they're patriotic Americans, many of them, liberals that I disagree with. but they're not revolutionaries. They don't hate America. They don't go out and burn the flag.

They come with us to Fourth of July. They oo and awe and yes, even some of them occasionally weep during the fireworks, the star-spangled banner. Many of them are very patriotic. You don't think they are. You think they're all revolutionaries and dumb ones at that. because they won't remember what you've been saying? You know, how is this Trump's fault? It's his fault that the same Democratic officials are now rejecting help from federal law enforcement,

refusing the National Guard, telling their cops to stand down? That's Trump's fault? Was, was Ferguson's Trump's fault as well? Was Ferguson, really, in 2014? And if this is the case, why didn't they use that line at any time? during the DNC because the polls hadn't come out yet. Democrats were getting exactly what they wanted. And now Americans are pissed off.

They think you're stupid. I'm sorry. I don't think America is that stupid. A few weeks ago, Senator Ted Cruz repeatedly gave the good senator from Hawaii multiple opportunities to call out the rioters. She actually got up and walked out of the room. She wouldn't declare the rioters as a problem. It's the same song and dance that Democrats like Pelosi, Nadler, refusing to call out the violence. It was their strategy. They wanted

the main street of U.S. to burn down and they coordinated their collective silence. Let's remember the vice president want to be Kamala Harris was on the late show with Stephen Colbert. Here's what she said about the riots. Oh, we don't have, sorry, we don't have it. Two months ago, she said, quote, this is a movement. I'm telling you, everyone beware. Protesters are not going to stop before election day in November,

and they're not going to stop after election day. They should not. They should not. And we should not. This is the best of the Glenn Beck program. Michael Anton, he was a former national security official in the Trump administration, senior fellow at the Claremont Institute, and he has a new book out called The Stakes, America, at the point of no return, which is exactly where we are. Michael, welcome to the program. How are you?

Thanks for being on. I just want to mention also my day job, my primary affiliation is that I'm a lecturer at Hillsdale College at our campus in Washington, D.C. Oh, really, a really good institution to be associated with. A fine institution indeed. Okay, so you are, of course, with this book, you're going to be called crazy conspiracy theory. You're overreacting. It's all of these things. Trust me, I've been called this for a very long time. And I can't punch a hole in what you're saying is coming because I don't think people really realize the end of America as we know it is here.

and it's just waiting for November 3rd to see which way we're going to go. Yeah, I'd love to be wrong. I've never more wanted to be wrong. You know, you don't want to put six months of your life into something as grueling as writing a book and then say that you hope your entire thesis is wrong. But, you know, what patriotic, decent American wants to be right about the end of your country, as you know it? I certainly don't, but I had to write the book honestly and call it as I saw it.

And it's pretty obvious to me, first of all, from having grown up in California and lived in New York, I've seen what happens once voting patterns, demographics, et cetera, tip a place permanently blue so that there's no effective opposition and what Democrats and liberals do. And it's very bad. Second of all, all you have to do is listen to what they say and watch what they try to do at the national level to get a picture of what they will do when they have, when and if they gain blue dominance coast to coast and essentially turn the USA into a giant California, New York. it's not hard to figure out what they're going to do. All you've got to do is look at what they've already done,

look at what they're doing now, and look at what they say they want to do. So, again, if I'm crazy alarmist and it's all, you know, it's all not happening, I'd like to hear a convincing refutation of why they won't do what they're already doing and say they want to do. Okay, so describe America, you know, a year from now, should the Democrats win? Well, look, think about some of the completely radical. things on their agenda that they that they ran on. Taring down existing sections of the wall,

right? Not only are they against President Trump's wall, which is still not complete, not because the president doesn't want to build the wall, but because he faces so much internal opposition from the federal government, they want to tear down sections that immediately exist. Joe Biden has said he will amnesty every illegal immigrant in the country. And he uses the fake number, 11 million, which we've been hearing for something like 20 years now. How is it that with porous borders and about a million and a half new entries a year or whatever it is, it's gone down under the Trump administration, the 11 million figures remain static for a couple of decades. That seems unlikely, doesn't it? Well, Yale University put out a study last year, I think it's actually in late 2018, saying we think the number is more like 22 million, right? We don't know how many illegal immigrants are in the country, but Joe Biden will amnesty them all.

And then they will be eligible for family reunification visas for relatives abroad, which is a dumb part of the immigration law that President Trump would like to get rid of, but hasn't been, in so-called chain migration, but hasn't been able to do because it's impossible to get any piece of good legislation through Congress. So just in Joe Biden's first term alone, we could see the additional importation of tens of millions of new people, all fast-track to citizenship, so that they can tip purple states blue, for the Democratic Party. Remember the first Democratic debate when they were asked, the 10 candidates were asked, how many of you would extend Medicaid to illegal aliens? Of course, they never would use the phrase illegal alien. They use whatever euphemism they used undocumented immigrants or something. All 10 hands went up. So we're going to bankrupt these federal programs designed, however, imperfectly designed to help American citizens by giving it, by giving care away, completely free to people who broke the law to come into the country in the first place. I mean, this is just these are just the beginnings of the radicalism of their agenda that I'm convinced they will implement if they get in and take power.

So I'm with you on those things, Michael, but I am. more concerned. That's a hard thing to say. But I am more concerned that the silencing of voices, the silencing of our churches, the silencing of conservatives. I mean, it is not unusual now to hear people on CNN or whatever saying, you know, conservatives really need to be reeducated. You know, they are, they are.

they are in a very frightening Stalinist kind of path right now. And for the most part, so far they're doing it through, they've outsourced the silencing of voices, censorship, and so on, to private companies, to the social media companies and others. You guys do this, and the government doesn't necessarily need to do it.

I shudder to think what they will do when they also have complete state power. Look, I think their preference is, yes, we absolutely want a lockdown on what can be said, but we'd prefer not to have to use the government to do it because that can get messy, and there might be court challenges, we might lose, it might be unpopular, but so far there's been very little pushback on tech censorship and complete tech control of speech and thought in this country. And the Dems like it that way because they know that they can count on the tech companies to do exactly what they want them to do. but all of that, all of that will get worse. There should be, right now, there should be significant governmental pushback on these tech monopolies,

and there is any. We know for an absolute fact that the tech companies are overwhelmingly democratic in the voting patterns of their employees and in the donations of their executives. And so when you have a Democratic administration in the White House again, I think you'll see these two institutions work hand in glove to an even greater extent than they have so far, and that will be disastrous for freedom of speech and freedom of thought. And you mentioned churches. I'm the one thing, another thing that worries me very, very much is the way these lockdowns have taken place. You know, we have a legislative branch for a reason.

And if there's a need to change policy because of an emergency, right, we should be working through legislative institutions, whether that's the Congress, whether it's a state legislature, whether it's a city council. But all over the country, we've seen mayors and governors just say, as if they have the power, you can't go outside anymore. Now that's rule by fiat. I mean, that really is, they call President Trump a fascist and all these kinds of names. Oh, no.

What is this extra legislative, extra judicial power where an executive without color of law, and in any respect just says, I've gave an order, you now must follow it. I don't know, but that's not the kind of government America is supposed to be, and it's not the kind that I want to live in. So they are making rules up for themselves where you can't,

you can't go to church, but you can go out and protest. You know, you can go out and riot, but you can't peacefully protest if you're on the wrong side in some states. Yeah, it seems like the more, I hate to use such terminology, but I don't, I can't think of any other. It seems kind of like the more destructive a thing is the more they're willing to tolerate or even encourage it, and the more peaceful and constructive it is, the more they hate it. So they'll shut down all kinds of businesses, but make sure the pot dispensaries stay open and liquor stores stay open. Now, why is that?

I sense a kind of sinister agenda from what I call in the book, The Ruling Class, that they want as much sort of soul-destroying garbage in the culture as possible because it keeps the population from getting too restive and from noticing their bad governance and maybe fighting back. I mean, that was part of the deal with the Weimar Republic. Yeah. And so, you know, I mean, why are we legalizing marijuana all over the country? and why are Republicans, you know, Republicans lawmakers when they get, go, leave Congress, including, including a former Speaker of the House, becoming lobbyists for marijuana, which is a substance, whatever you think of it, I mean, it's not conducive to having a constructive life or to, you know, ultimately to the social order. I think it's because they think, you know, well, the more people are just on the couch stoned, then, you know, the less trouble they're going to give us.

You talk in the book about a couple of things that I would like you to expand on. Caesarism? Yeah. Explain. Caesarism is a form of, so it's obviously named after the first Caesar, Julius Caesar, who took over the last remnant of the Roman Republic in about 50 years before the birth of Christ and turned it into a one-man rule state. It's a particular form of one-man rule.

Another way of terming one-man absolute rule is, you know, you can call an absolute monarchy, or you can call it a tyranny, right? But it's a particular form that becomes, in a sense, if not justified, maybe necessitated, when the constitutional order is broken and can't go on. And so you ask me about this. This is in a chapter of the book, Chapter 7, in which I speculate. I basically don't take sides. I don't make recommendations.

But I say, if the present ruling arrangement is a thing that can't go on forever, as I think that's possible, then it'll have to stop. it'll have to break. Well, what will follow it? And Caesarism is one of those things that could follow it. If present trends continue, especially without President Trump and his closest allies fighting them, I think the country, as we've known, it could break, and then something has to follow. And that Caesarism could be one of those things. And Caesarism could emerge from either side.

It's easier to imagine Caesarism coming from the blue side or the Democratic side just because they have all of the commanding heights. It's powerful institutions in America now, except one, the White House, which they're determined to get back this fall. It's harder to imagine a path for a Caesarism of the other side to happen, but not impossible. And I give all of the reasons and sort of speculate about how this one might happen or that one might happen, just because I think no one's thinking about these things. And I point the finger in particular at conservatives. You know, I'm not going to name names necessarily, but there's a strain of conservative thought, which is so in love with the idea of American exceptionalism

that it thinks that nothing can ever get bad enough for America for America to fundamentally change for the worst. So human possibilities that have been around since there has been mankind, you know, the fall of republics, tyrannies, civil wars, things like that, we don't even have to think about them in America because they can't happen here anymore. And I think that's foolish. And somebody needed to begin the conversation about,

well, what happens if it does get bad enough? And so I stuck my neck out and did that. So Michael Anton, he's the author of The Stakes. And I want to talk to you about, because I think we're closer to these things, Michael, than most people do. I could see a breakdown on the election. It's already going to happen with the Democrats saying mail-in votes. It'll be days before we know. That will be a shock to the system.

and it will, you know, probably will end that night with Trump being ahead. Then these ballots will trickle in and trickle in and trickle in and trickle in and it will appear as a stealing. Even if he, even if Trump continues to hold, they are going to say, look how many people are being disenfranchised. They're throwing all these ballots out because the typical number of ballots on mail-in that are thrown out is about 20%. and they'll make this into some new scandal. I could see either side standing up and saying, that's not my president. It's not my,

and secession, serious talk of secession where states say, I'm not abiding by use because you're out of control. I worried about this too. I, you know, I do go into some of these election issues in the book. I couldn't,

you know, they're so vast and complicated. Yeah, I know. Right. An entire book about, how, you know, to do modern election fraud, especially with the way these changes are taking place. So I'm foreseeing exactly the same possibility that you foresee. I mean, the best, you know, we probably won't have what we had in 2016, where by about two or three o'clock in the morning,

if you were still awake, you knew who the president was going to be, right? It was over. And, you know, days may be optimistic. It could be weeks or months. So I have a section in that famous chapter, well, famous, it's not famous yet, but it might be. chapter seven in which I say states could succeed and this could happen from the blue left or the red right depending. I don't necessarily even know that there's two ways to talk about secession, right? One is actually pulling it off, right? Because the other is just giving it a try.

So what happens if a state just passes a state legislature passes a resolution and says, we've seceded from the United States of America? Well, it's not really accomplished until the issue. is settled in both sides agree. Yeah, yeah, we're separate countries now. Are the feds going necessarily accept that? And if they decide that they don't want to accept it, what are they going to do about it? And will what they try to do about it be effective? These are all questions that I think we've barely begun thinking about, much less thinking through. I admit that... Better hurry. I don't resolve any of them in the book, because I don't know the answers, but I think I have,

I think I have raised all of the questions that we need to be talking about. And if I haven't, I urge people to read what I wrote and, you know, write it up somewhere and say, well, Anson forgot this, and he didn't think about this and he didn't think about that, because we need to get on this right away. So I tell you, Michael, I thank you for doing this from the point of view from the conservative right, because I do believe the left has already wargamed this years ago. Well, yeah, I don't know. You say they were game. They wargamed it pretty recently.

I'm assuming you saw the leak that they deliberately planted in, I can't remember if it was Politico or the New York Times about a month ago, where they got together and they had a war game scenario that included secession, and then they deliberately put that out into the press for reasons, you know, we can only speculate about, but they don't leak something to the press unless you think you're going to benefit from the leak. So they must think that they benefit from the leak somehow. And in one of those scenarios in which President Trump wins, this is a member, these are Democratic and anti-truthers. Trump players playing this game. Trump wins convincingly in the Electoral College, but loses the popular vote, just like 2016. And the Biden campaign refuses to concede and tries to urge states that Trump won to send Biden electors. And from there, the dispute gets to a point where, remember, if the election gets kicked into the House, it's not the full House that votes.

it's the state delegations, each state has a vote. So even though the Democrats control the House, they don't control it. Right. Each state delegation in that sense. So under this scenario, certain states, I think they had California and some others seceded because they didn't want to live under President Trump. Now, call me crazy, and many people will, but hard time imagining Red America saying, oh, no, California, please don't go.

This is the Glenn Beck program, Can you. Cuccinelli is with us. He's the acting DHS deputy secretary, former attorney general of Virginia. He is a federalist, meaning he believes the state rights are the most important and is not looking for any kind of national police work. But he is now working in Portland and all over the country where these riots are happening. and as soon as the governor asked for the help from the federal government, they're sending it in. Welcome again to the program. Ken, how are you? Good to be with you, Glenn. I'm doing well. Thank you.

I wanted to talk to you about Portland and this shooting. I think this was an execution that happened in Portland. And by a really, really bad guy, apparently. Can you tell us what we know about this? the alleged shooter? And it's a messy situation. The investigation has just begun. And one of the tough things about this sort of a situation, especially for us Americans,

is, you know, we're so antsy and impatient. We want everything done yesterday. Right. But to do an investigation correctly does take some time. But the initial person of interest is clearly someone with a track record. And generally, way to put it. And, you know, when you invite and, frankly, encourage violence for months at a time, what you get is violence. And you also, and frankly, in some respects, thought it would, you invite in other people who are just fed up who are so frail the law that they want to go do it themselves.

And historically, we've called the vigilantes. But America policed itself for, you know, the first hundred years of its existence, right? there were no police. There was you and me in our neighborhoods. And that attitude, that cultural element has never left us completely. And when people like the mayor of Portland intentionally decline to adequately police their own communities, you invite more violence in. Violence begets violence.

It doesn't burn itself out. And we've seen that all over the country, the obvious comparison being Kenosha, where a somewhat reluctant, Governor Evers did bring in National Guard, you know, small amounts at first, but when he finally put enough people after some more violence happened, the president had urged him to do so. Peace broke out and has remained in Kenosha. This is the peace through strength concept that Ronald Reagan made famous in international relations simply applied to domestic tranquility.

And that's the goal. It's the goal of the president. It's the goal of many people, but apparently not the mayor of Portland or the governor of Oregon to achieve peace. So let's talk about Wisconsin here for a second. If you watch that video, and I'm not saying this kid should have gone down there, but that is what people do. I mean, you know, it's crazy that the left is. We were just talking about it, right? So people show up because they don't see the government doing their job, and it offends them.

And so they show up to help out their fellow Americans. Right. And isn't this. to do those kinds of things. Isn't this just what happened in Charlottesville? I mean, the Nazis were there, and the left decided to show up to stop it, and that caused the problem. And those, of course, were the good guys, according to the media.

Now, somebody shows up and says, hey, you know, we got to at least protect these businesses, et cetera. He's a bad guy. But that said, I wouldn't have had my son there, and I would be really upset if my kids went to that. Right, right, right. However, the video looks like it was self-defense, especially with all of the other videos showing this guy really trying to jump him several times. And the left is acting like none of that matters.

And they're saying, look, first-degree murder. Ken, how are they charging this kid with first-degree murder? So quickly that you knew they were just slapping on a charge. and remember the standard to charge is much lower than to convict. I would be astonished if that charge weren't dramatically reduced, possibly ultimately dropped, but dramatically reduced before they go forward with it. Because in the absence of other information that we haven't seen, and one of the things about having all this public video, it can be a little chaotic,

but it does give everybody at least some window into what happened. And, you know, you clearly, as you've said, Glenn, see this kid and his lawyer is a, you know, broadcast, they're going to defend on self-defense. And you have a right to defend yourself. The real question, I think, that the whole thing will come down to is the amount of force used. Was it appropriate under the circumstances? and I think that's what the whole thing will turn on. And if a jury finds that it was a legitimate use of force,

meaning the using a gun was appropriate under the circumstances, then he will not end up being convicted of anything under those circumstances. So let's go back to Portland. The press is making this guy who lost his life, as, you know, a guy who is inciting violence. Ken, doesn't it look like an execution? Is there a defense for somebody, you know, saying, you know, hey, I don't agree with you.

And just even forcefully, I don't agree with you. But not having a weapon and then somebody just pulling out a gun and is shooting you? Yeah, see, when you've got, we don't have nearly the kind of video coverage that we do of the Kenosha situation that you and I were just talking about. So the facts surrounding what actually happened are much less certain here. But one of the factors, if this is a one-on-one situation, is an armed person and an unarmed person. That's with my captain obvious cape on, right?

But that's a factor here. And it also raises the question of malevolence, to your point, was this premeditated in some way? And that is still, you know, a long way off from being resolved. That one's going to be, in many ways, murkier and more difficult to investigate, I think, than the Kenosha case in part because there's so much video in the Kenosha situation. You know, whenever you have video of violence, you need to understand the context and you need to be able to know what happened before and sometimes after. But at least you have it. It becomes a baseline to analyze the facts. And, you know, I don't have the luxury like people outside of federal government and the state government that's responsible for this of going too far down the

road of potential conclusions. You know, the restraint we have to show in talking about this impairs our ability to address the particular situation. I will say that the indications where you have two groups facing off like this, and some of them randomly, just, you know, okay, rallies are over, we're walking out, and some people may go picking fights with others who don't agree with them. You know, that is all invited by the kind of path this mayor and governor have encouraged. They have merely allowed it. They've encouraged it.

And it's really quite extraordinary that an entire state would allow this to go on like this. And undoubtedly, Glenn, you saw the governor's, quote, plan, unquote, for resolving the violence in Portland, relying on surrounding law enforcement. Sheriff's. And they declined to enter. And one of the most outstandingly written letters that I have seen in a very long time was by one of Washington County sheriff nearby. I think it was Washington County who said, I cannot, I want peace. I'll help analyze social media.

I'll do these other things to help at a distance. But without the political support and without the prosecutions being undertaken and putting, I cannot put my deputies in that kind of danger in that sort of, and the most interesting phrase was. something along the lines of legally questionable situation, meaning you won't protect them. Right. You won't protect them. I have an obligation to my own deputies to not put them in those situations. And I think that sheriff was absolutely right. This mayor and this governor have all the tools they have ever needed to bring peace.

The violence turnitive, and I've said, you know, with the mayor's response to the president's most recent letter, this mayor hates President Trump more than he loves the people of Portland that he's responsible to protect, not just represent, but he's the chief of police too, but to protect. I know you have a meeting you've got to run to. Can I get just a couple of short answers on two questions? One, the media is now claiming this is the right wing inflaming the protests. and the second is that, you know, your boss, Chad Wolf, said, we are targeting and investigating the heads of BLM and TIFA and those who fund them. Comments on both of those things. So on the second one, the federal investigations running across the country

into the violence around the country, not just Portland and Kenosha. And inevitably, those will also involve not just the occurrence of violence, but to the extent funding was required to pull it off where that came from and what networking might be involved in it. So that's unfolding as we speak literally hundreds of investigations involved there. There's nothing too specific to point to. What was your first? The first one is the right wing is inflaming the protest. Right, right, right.

This is just the latest narrative. Look, when we augmented our federal forces in Portland, you heard all the media say, oh, they caused the violence. Well, you know, that was a little ridiculous with five weeks of violence and declarations of riots before we, before we were even seen there. And Mayor Wheeler on July 3rd saying the violence has to stop. This is from, you know, the main opponent there. This is just the latest narrative, Glenn. And not one of them has survived. When we caused the violence failed, they said we made it worse.

It was getting better. We made it worse. Well, we showed the data that showed it was actually getting worse before we got there. It's why we came. Every single narrative of the left, promptly propagated by the subservient mainstream media, has been utterly defeated by that most powerful force in the universe. And truth not only will set you free, but it will also accurately describe what's going on around you. Ken Cucinelli, thank you very much.

Acting DHS Deputy Secretary. You can follow him on Twitter at Homeland Ken.