The Glenn Beck Program - Best of The Program | Guests: Tom Fitton & Christopher Rufo | 9/15/20

Episode Date: September 15, 2020

Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton calls for President Trump to declare a “transparency emergency” as reports surface of issues with ActBlue donations and other possible cover-ups. City Journal contributing editor Christopher Rufo just exposed how the CDC ignored Trump’s order to end critical race theory trainings. The agency has just complied, but is that enough? Glenn bought FDR’s wheelchair without his wife’s knowledge and has to come clean. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Well, I'd like to call this podcast today the big trouble at home. And my good friend, Pat, to thank for that. Well, I mean, just trying to share happy news with your wife. So, Sue me for that. Trying to share happy news, guilty is charged. Guilty is charged. You need to go to work for the DNC or any media outlet. Yeah, thanks for that help.

I'm in for a day of hell with my wife because what happened on the day's program. And you will probably hear that unfold. Oh, she was all nice about it. But I'm telling you I'm afraid to go home. In front of company, she was nice about it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Thank you. We have a great show for you. We talk about what's happening at the CDC. Big breaking news. We are in a constitutional crisis right now. The CDC decided that they were just going to. going to disobey the executive order from the president and just run not one, but 13 weeks of critical race theory training at the CDC, even though last week the president said,

executive order, full stop on all of that. They said it was a health crisis and they knew better than the president. That's a constitutional crisis. Wow. Who do they work for? They're not elected. Who are they working for? We'll tell you about that. Also, we have Tom Fittonon, from Judicial Watch. He also, it talks a little bit about that in a different sense with a different department. This time the Department of Justice, all this and more on today's podcast. You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program. Welcome to the program.

Hey, Glenn, thank you. We don't do FISA's yet, although who knows. Yeah. Depends on who's in office. Maybe you will. I want to talk to you about several things. First of all, Act Blue. Are you following Act Blue at all?

We have been. Certainly their fundraising for Black Lives Matter Global Foundation has been of interest to us. Act Blue is a conglomerate of organizations. They do the political fundraising for campaigns and candidates, and as you pointed out, that PAC activity. But separately, they raise money through this charitable arm that then gets funneled to another third party. which is running Black Lives Matter as a fiscal sponsor. So if you want to give money to Black Lives Matter, you can't.

You give it to Act Blue that has, I guess, a pinky promise with this Tide Center, which is a far-left group that is acting as a fiscal sponsor for Black Lives Matter. You can't give a donation of Black Lives Matter. That we can't have it be tax deductible. It's an unusual set of circumstances that if a similarly situated, well-known conservative group was involved in, that be called for investigators. Oh, my gosh. And there should be investigations on either side that would do something as slimy as this.

Act Blue, I think the latest document that I saw shows that about 7% of what goes into Act Blue actually goes to Black Lives Matter. So where's the rest of it going? Where's the rest of it going? I don't know. You know, I've never seen anything like this. I've been involved in nonprofit work for 20 plus years, and the idea of a fiscal sponsorship. That's something the left has been doing, though, when you think about it. Remember Acorn?

Yeah. They kind of operated the same way. They had all these allegedly independent groups that were run by one central organization. In this case, it's the Tide Center, which is the incubator for the far left and their organizations. Yeah. I did a lot of work on the Tides Foundation and called many, many names. Nobody did anything about it. And now look at the juggernaut that they are.

Any comment on, you know, $200 million plus being gathered from donations from homeless people or people that don't have a job? It's an awful lot of money, isn't it, Tom? It is a lot of money. And, again, the area of political funding. They report what they report. And unless someone's willing to get behind the numbers and get behind the self-reporting, this is going to go on not only with Act Blue, but everyone else. And Act Blue suggests that the reason that they have all these unemployed people is because they're homemakers or they're wealthy and they don't need to report anything other than being unemployed or self-employed. But, you know, it highlights the fact that a lot of money slashes around our political system.

And despite all these laws for transparency, which I really don't put much faith in anyway, both on principle and impractical issues, practically speaking, it's hard to track where all the money's coming from. And so all is concerned about foreign funding, you know, there are a lot of easy ways for foreign nationals to participate, our election system without getting caught in an improper way. All right. Let me change the subject.

There is a story that I read, well documented, well source, and I am not seeing it anywhere, that the actual whistleblower during the impeachment was Vindman himself. Lieutenant Colonel Vindman was the guy who was on the phone call, was disturbed, as in his own words, because it was going against a policy that he agreed with and had worked hard on and wanted to see pursued. And he went and talked to Schiff, if I understand this right, he couldn't be the whistleblower because he was on the phone call. So they needed another guy. And he went and told someone about it and said, blow the whistle. Go to Schiff.

Go to these people and blow the whistle. Do I have that right? I think it's close enough. It became pretty clear during the impeachment hearing themselves when he was questioned on it, that Vindman had talked to the alleged whistleblower that Schiff colluded with and properly, in my view. You know, and my concern has always been that just because someone else has a national security clearance, it doesn't mean you can tell them anything, anything you want, just because, if it's classified, they have to have a need to know.

And if he was improperly sharing the contents of that classified call, A, with his brother, or B, with his buddy over at the CIA, evidently, that was the actual whistleblower, who had worked previously in the White House, both under Obama and Trump, that would have been inappropriate. And I've always, I've always been, I've been highlighting the need that Vindman should be criminally investigated, the whistleblower should be criminally investigated, and to the very, shift was involved in the sharing and properly classified information in his staff, that criminal investigation should extend into the house. So here's my frustration. A lot of this stuff, Tom, we've had for months now. We've known a lot of really damning stuff. And it doesn't seem to be

going anywhere. And if it is, it's going to happen during the election. And then what happens after that? Yeah, the Justice Department has been asleep at the switch. on virtually every major corruption issue here. And Durham was appointed, for instance, in April of last year, and it's now, what, 17, 18 months later? I could use my fingers to count. We've had one plea agreement that was kind of half-baked. It was handed to him on a silver platter by the IG late last year.

Nothing else. No report. Maybe someone's being targeted. Maybe Struck gets indicted. I don't know. But in many ways, it's too late. If he does it now politically, it's going to cause a maelstrom, which is unnecessary. And then, B, as you point out, after the election, depending on who wins,

either was or dies. So what happens? I mean, we have a horribly corrupt system that I wouldn't want a Democrat or a Republican to have to go through. I don't care who it is, but it is we have seen now a deep state. We're seeing it with the CDC. The CDC yesterday, we found out, is going forward with their critical race theory education, even though the president has signed a directive that no one in the administration, no one in our government is supposed to be holding those things. They just thumb their nose up. I mean, we have a constitutional crisis because there's no one that is answerable.

answering for any of these things. Who's in charge? That's right. I've been highlighting the crisis. It's called the problem we have is we don't even have self-government anymore. You know, is it consent of the government when we elect Congress and they don't do anything and just write checks and then keep their eyes closed the rest of the time. No. The agencies don't think they're accountable to either the president or the American people. And depending on who's the president, the president doesn't act like he's accountable. We saw that with President Obama. And in terms of the CDC, and these other agencies, there's this casual sedition that goes on.

It's really quite dramatic. And it's happening virtually every day. I'm sure the president's frustrated by it. But if I were him in terms of like the Obama gate and all the corruption, I would just go declare a transparency emergency. Tell the agencies, release everything you have. Stop with the stonewalling. For instance, we just got the documents about the wiped.

phones by Mueller's team, 2731, however you count it. I don't know if you've been able to wipe your own phones, but I've never figured out how that could be done. No, I don't know how to do that. Yeah, DOJ's had the document for a year. A year. We actually first asked for the information back in December or the at the end of 2018. We sued a year ago. So let's say the clock began when, then. Let's be generous. They sat on it for a year. They are still hiding struck page documents. They are still hiding text messages.

We just sued for Fauci emails. I don't know. It's not necessarily because Fauci did anything wrong. We wanted to know CDC communications with WHO and China in the early days of the virus to see what the lies were that we were being told. They're telling us they can't get to them until only at a rate of 500 pages a month, which means 8,000 pages will be reviewed. and that means we won't be getting them until, do the math.

2022? What's happening? What's happening to us? It's a contempt for the rule of law. It's a contempt for the rule of law within the agencies, and the president's appointees don't give a rat's tale about this transparency. They don't, and it's resulting in, as you point out, a rule of law crisis. So what is going to happen?

We can't continue as a nation. We have no trust in anything. We see people getting away with it. I see reports. FBI is looking into the funding of Black Lives Matter and Tifa and these protests. Guys, it's not that hard. It's not that hard. And it feels like we're looking and looking and looking and then nothing happens.

When is, I mean, how do we survive, Tom, if nothing is done? Well, it's a challenge. And I say that judicial watches one way forward. We kind of keep the government. It seems like it's completely out of control, but we bring it back down the earth using the rule of law and the accountability of the Freedom of Information Act. So there's an ability to petition the government under our Constitution

that we have to exercise more forcefully and more regularly. The left is quite adept at getting information out to destroy their political opponents from the government. Here we want to figure out about the corruption of the government, and judicial watch is often alone and pushing for it. Congress has got a reform and restore itself, and certainly the agencies have got to be curtailed and cut back, because the abuses will increase and metastasize the bigger and bigger government gets.

In my view, it's taking a 50,000-foot view. Big government, big secrecy, big corruption, big oppression, they all go hand in hand. And you've got to pull it all back. You've got to curtail the government, ensure transparency, reform and restore the Congress, and have a president and cabinet agency heads who take this seriously. In my view, IGs are like a waste of time

if the cabinet agency heads are doing their jobs. That's what they should be do. The heads of the agencies should be the IGs. Well, I don't know if I trust. I don't know if I trust. I'd like as many eyes checking on these guys as possible. Yeah, I hear you. But the IGs are a creature of the deep state and our experience used to both suppress information and target whistleblowers. That's what they are.

Remember, they weren't put in there by the good guys. They were put in there by the radical left who thought they needed to control the, quote, presidency to keep the bureaucracies free to do what they wanted to do. this is the best of the Glenn Beck program and we really want to thank you for listening. All right. So a new face, at least on the national scale that I am aware of, a guy who has been doing amazing work in the last few months and needs to be known by every freedom-loving person. His name is Christopher Rufo. He is a filmmaker, a writer, a policy researcher. He has directed four films for PBS, including his latest America lost, that's story.

told the story of the three forgotten American cities. He is also the director at the Discovery Institute Center on Wealth, Poverty and Morality and a contributing editor at the City Journal where he covers poverty, homelessness, addiction, crime, and other afflictions. Really smart guy and relentless. And people are starting to go to him now and say, I've got documents. And he is posting them online. and what he posted yesterday should chill all of us to the bones. Christopher, welcome to the program.

How are you? Very well. Good to be with you. So tell me what you dumped yesterday. Yeah, yesterday was a big day because, as many of your listeners know, the president passed this executive order abolishing critical race theory trainings from all federal agencies. But unfortunately, the CDC operating in direct violation of this order. order, announced to their employees that they were moving forward with a very kind of inflammatory critical race theory training that spanned 13 weeks.

I was able to obtain documents from inside the CDC as well as an external PowerPoint that gives more content of the presentation. The content was truly horrific. It's talking about trying to destroy the system of meritocracy, trying to destroy the idea of American exceptionalism, and trying to weaponize the CDC to. to fight white supremacy. But even more horrifically is that this was a direct violation. And actually, Glenn, this is breaking news.

I heard actually two minutes ago, the director of OMB Russ Vaught just announced on Twitter. He retweeted me with a message saying that these things have been canceled, suspended indefinitely. And, you know, I imagine the White House was pretty upset. But this is actually a victory. The CDC has now been kind of beaten back. from its plan of continuing critical race theory training. So the bad thing here is that the response from the CDC was, hey, look, we have to do this because this is a health crisis.

You know, racism in America is a health crisis, and it's getting people killed in the streets. And so they just decided on their own. I will believe that something is actually being done when people start to clean house. I mean, this was, I mean, did you get your, was your source, can you even say, inside the system? Yes, my source was inside the CDC. So I had direct access to the internal emails that were, you know, circulating about this training. So did you talk to? I agree.

I think this is a good first step to cancel this training. But there's really two problems. One is that there has to be some more severe consequences. I know that if you were in a private company and you directly violated the CEO's order on something in a big way like this, you would be out the door within a couple hours. I think the same standard should be held here. But also, I'm just one person with one set of sources. How many other agencies across the federal government are violating the president's order? I've had some unconfirmed reports that I'm working on now that it's happening in multiple agencies, including Customs and Border Patricians.

control. Oh my gosh. And I'm working on this, you know, today and tomorrow to confirm. But my sense is that it's the tip of the iceberg that actually there are probably hundreds of these trainings continuing to happen in direct opposition to a presidential order, which raises the question, what's the point of having a president if he doesn't have control over his own administration? So this is the deep state. This is what is meant by the deep state. Unelected officials, officials that think they know better than the duly elected officials that they are supposed to work for. They believe, ah, presidents come and go, congressman, senators, they come and go. We don't have to do what they say.

Just keep it quiet. Just keep moving forward. And they don't follow the directive of the duly elected officials. We do live in a fascistic state if that is true. everything they say they're fighting. Well, we got to fight fascism. We got to fight with these police officers. Everything that you're saying, you're fighting, you're doing if you are part of the administration or the government and you are defying the orders of the president.

And help me out on this, Christopher. I said a while ago that this is akin to when Barack Obama said the just war theory has to be taken out. of the teachings and we have to shut down the classes of the just war theory at West Point. I was wildly against that. Just war theory is what has stopped us from becoming the Nazis. I think it should be reinstated. But if the Pentagon would have said, sorry, Mr. President, we're going to teach it anyway, I would have been on the side of the president.

You can't do that. otherwise you don't have a presidency. You don't have a system of government. You have unelected people doing what they want. And unfortunately, I think that that's exactly what we have. I think that there is a kind of permanent administrative state that operates on its own ideology that really never changes depending on who's in office. And unfortunately, for those of us on the right, their ideology is kind of technocratic in nature, is progressive in nature, is kind of scientific in nature, it very much dovetails nicely with progressive administration. So I think what happens is that we may score these tactical victories like shutting down a training session, shutting down

many training sessions, but the problem of the permanent bureaucracy remains. How do we make politics meaningful if the largest organ of our politics, the federal government, which has, you know, more than a million employees, if the president, who's duly elected under a constitution, system cannot control the bureaucracy. And in the past, they had a spoil system, which had its problems. But one advantage of that is that the bureaucracy was political. The bureaucracy is no longer political. It operates independently of our political forces. And I think that is a true constitutional problem that we'll have to grapple with for the years to come. Well, this is something that the Obama administration and what was it something 2.0, Society 2.0,

with Clinton and Soros that they had developed. This is what they developed. And a system that operates on its own no matter who. That's why the president was targeted with Ukraine. That's why they made that such a big deal. That's a hill to die on. And that's why I keep saying if the president doesn't do something about that. If charges aren't brought up and real people fired because of what happened,

nothing's going to change. If he just says you're stopping these and he doesn't fire the head of the CDC, if he doesn't fire all of the people that were involved in this, this is a cancer and it's going to continue to spread. Yeah, I think that's exactly right. I think that it's important that there be some sort of repercussions because if the only consequence is that the training gets canceled, any other agency around the government will say,

well, you know, we can go forward with it. what's the worst that could happen? We'll get our training canceled. But I think the attitude would be quite different. If all of a sudden you have kind of civil service members losing their jobs immediately, you raise the stakes, you create a disincentive to continue with this, because an executive order is only as good as much as you can enforce it. So I'm hoping that this first step that was just announced by OMB director Vought is only a first step,

and I'll be advocating for some more severe consequences. So will we. And if you're exactly right, if they don't, it's deep trouble. If they do, you will empower the whistleblowers as well. Because whistleblowers are right now sitting there watching and saying, I've got something that everybody should know. But if I blow the whistle and the top people don't get fired, then I'm screwed. I mean, they'll just, they'll just, they'll just, they'll just screw with me.

They'll, they'll go on a hunt to find out who it was. It will empower whistleblowers if they see justice being done. And I, I commend you, Chris. I think what you're doing is just tremendous, just tremendous. Thank you. Thank you so much. You bet. Christopher Rufo, you can find him and follow him on Twitter at Real Chris Rufo, Rufo, Rufo.

on Twitter. This is the best of a Glenn Beck program. You still have an opportunity to be my friend. No, I am being your friend. You are not. I'm telling you right now, this is not, this might go well on air. It's not going to go well for me at home.

I just, I can't believe you haven't shared it with everybody, including Tonya. Up to this point, it's really exciting news. Tonya's on the phone. Tanya, we were just talking about, Netflix. Are you there, honey? Yes, I'm here. Thank you. Okay, are you busy?

We should let you go. No, she's got plenty of time, I'm sure. Okay. Hey, we were just talking about Netflix and I think we should cancel our Netflix. Yeah, we weren't talking about Netflix. What we were talking about was this exciting new purchase at another yet another auction, but it's a really important piece. I think you'll agree. I forgot to tell you yesterday. You forgot? I did. I actually did.

I did. And, you know, it's something that I think is a really important, you know, piece of history. And we wanted an auction yesterday. And when he did, because there was somebody else who was really trying hard to get it. So you know he got it at a basement bargain price. That's the good thing. Pat wasn't there.

He didn't know. He didn't know. And what price do you put on one of a, kind. Well, there is a price, unfortunately, that you can put on it and you paid that price, which is great because now you have the item. Yeah, yeah. So, and I'm sure. Tanya sounds excited, right? There's no doubt excited about that. I can't wait to hear about this one.

Tell her what she's won. Now, this is a really important piece of history because it, I mean, it tells the story of the press and the way the press hit it. Hey, just spill it. Hmm? Spit it out. You are the proud, you are the proud owner of FDR's wheelchair. I'll say it for you, Tony.

Ding ding ding ding ding. Wow. Yeah. So congratulations. Let me just ask you a question. Let me ask you a question. Yeah. Does that.

Will that arrive along with... What? I'm just, you know, just asking. Oh, no, no, there was nothing... Pretty sure there was nothing else. No, there's not, nope, there was nothing else. Best of my recollection, nothing. The best of your recollection.

Pretty sure, there was nothing else. It was just that. So there was nothing else in the auction that caught your eye? No, and it doesn't have to come home. I mean, somebody did ask me, yes. yesterday after I got it. They said, where are you going to put that? And I said, I don't know.

And then somebody else said, you can put it right next to the German Nazi interrogation chair. I said, well, we're fighting again. I mean, it was the same time, you know, two chairs, two nations, you know. So, all right, sweetheart, I love you. I love you too I was just wondering if it would come with maybe a dozen scrumptious cookies Oh wow

Then I might be happy Oh wow Trying to finagle some cookies That make the whole thing better Right? Yeah I have a connection What do you mean maybe?

What do you mean maybe You owe it to me I love you honey I love you too Bye That wasn't as bad as I thought Yeah Unless it's a ruse

Because she knew she was on the air And she also don't know what you paid for it. So that helps a little bit as well, I'm sure. She might be thinking that's a really inexpensive chair. Well, she would be wrong then, wouldn't she? She would. That's probably not a chair you're going to do wheelchair races with up and down the hallway here.

No, I generally don't do wheelchair races anyway. Really? No, you do. Yeah. You do. Really? Yeah. No, this one will not be used for that.

Yeah. Remind me when you're going over to the museum. It is honestly. interesting because he he did have the help of the press and you know no no not the help of the press they were complicit they he could not walk at all right he could not walk you'll see him with the with the you know the leg braces and the and the the the crutches yeah but he had to have his son on one side and somebody else on the other side actually lifting he would just swing his leg so he could walk, but he had no power in his legs at all.

They would build... And how long a time period was that? Forever. Yeah. From the... Yeah. I mean, he was... The whole time.

The whole time. And he, they would build ramps in front of buildings where his car could pull up. If there was a big federal building, you know, with all the stairs, they would build a giant ramp. So his car would drive up to the very top step. And he didn't have to worry about steps. I mean, and no one in the press ever took a picture of it. That is incredible. That's incredible.

You want to talk about fascism. That's fascism. Wow. That's fascism. When nobody in America really knew that. The reason why the desk, the president's desk, the resolute desk, that was built by Queen Elizabeth as a gift to our nation and given. FDR would sit behind that desk. It wasn't in the Oval Office.

think it was in the map room and he would sit behind it, but people would come in for interviews. That's the reason why the little door is on the front. You remember that, you remember John F. Jr., John F. Kennedy Jr. has that picture of him peeking out underneath his dad's desk. That door was put there by FDR to hide the wheelchair from the press. Wow.

So there would be no pictures taken with him in a wheelchair. Wow. Isn't that incredible? It is. It is. It is. It's hard to imagine in this day and age of the press. and how rabid they are, especially with Trump.

But, I mean, any president wouldn't get away with that today. No president. No president. And it was a good thing. It was a good thing. Here the Germans are executing people that are handicapped, saying they're of zero worth and they're being conquered by the guy who was in a wheelchair. In a wheelchair and can't walk.

Yeah. I mean, this is a really, really good thing. It's amazing.