The Glenn Beck Program - Best of the Program with Helen Pluckrose | 10/11/18

Episode Date: October 11, 2018

Ep #200- The Daily Best of GB Podcast: 10/11/18  - 'Oh How Far We've Fallen'? - Study: 'How Americans Are Feeling'? - Russian Meddling in Star Wars (w/ Stephen Kent) - 'Academic In Exile' (w/ Helen Pluckrose)  - Stock Market Crash(ing) (w/ Stephen Moore) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Blaze Radio Network On Demand Hey, welcome to the podcast. It's Thursday, which on Friday's podcast we have something very, very exciting that we're going to share with you. Also, don't forget,

we're coming to town. Yeah, right? Remember, if you're my age, when the circus came to town, you would go out and you'd watch the parade with all the animals. Well, this is like the elephant coming to town without the parade.

Yeah, it's going to be great, too. You're going to be able to throw a peanut at Glenn. It's going to be a lot of really good fun things that we have. It's going to be a lot of laughs. And we are going to help the radical left, otherwise known as the Democratic Party, with their 2020 campaigns. So you don't want to miss that. Grab your tickets. You can find out all about it at glenbeck.com slash tour. But get your tickets. Yep. Today on the podcast, we had a lot of really interesting stuff, I thought. You know, we talked to Stephen Moore about the stock market. What's going on with that? You know, this is a guy who talks to the Trump administration all the time.

He helped write the tax plan. He understands, I think, the behind-the-scenes stuff going on here. He had a lot of interesting things to say about what happened in the stock market, what is going on, what they don't know is happening. And to continue, we go to continue the trend of Stevens. We went from Stephen Moore also to Stephen Kent, who has an amazing piece of information for you about how the Russians are not, they don't care. about Donald Trump. They didn't care about Hillary Clinton. They care about chaos. And he's bringing a story about how they even were involved in debasing our conversations and getting us at each other's throats with the latest Star Wars movie. Yeah, bizarre. Helen Pluckrose also joined us to continue our trend of Stevens and people named Helen. Yeah, we have a big trend going on. Right. Helen, I'm a big fan of Helen.

She is an academic in hiding, I think is what she called. She has been part of the group of academics that went and tried to get things published in peer-reviewed publications. They didn't think that they could get, they'd be thrilled if they could get one into a peer-reviewed publication. These were crazy, crazy ideas about how, you know, dog parks lead to the rape culture, you know, because dogs are humping each other in dog parks. It's crazy. And we have our first of the election season here full, like, deep dive into the Senate and the polls and what they're showing. Get into that as well on today's podcast.

You're listening to The Best of the Glenback program. It's Thursday, October 11th. Well, you can take this to the bank. Obamacare will eventually get repealed, but it will not be the GOP leading the charge. It is going to be the Democrats. At this point, I don't think the left ever really intended for the Affordable Care Act to actually live up to his name.

That's what we said at the beginning. This is destined to fail in catastrophic, in catastrophic form. Ten years ago, Americans with employer-provided health care had an average deductible of about $300. Oh, how far we have fallen because of Obamacare. The average deductible now is four times what they were

before Obama. A decade ago to today. It's now $1,400 in deductibles. $300 to $1,400. That's a 212% increase. Deductibles are growing at a rate eight times faster than wage growth, 12 times faster than inflation. And these are not my numbers.

They didn't come from the Heritage Foundation or the Cato Institute. This is from the annual report from the Kaiser Family Foundation. And by the way, did I mention their base behind the progressive iron curtain of California? Did I also mention that Kaiser helped spin the left's talking points when the Democrats were trying to pass the Affordable Care Act and tell us that, oh, no, this is going to be fantastic for everybody? Yesterday, President Trump wrote an op-ed in USA Today titled, Democrats, Medicare for All Plan, will demolish promises to seniors.

He goes on to explain how the plan would cost an insane $32.6 trillion during the first 10 years. The president continued by slamming the left's open border policies and calling out their socialist policies. USA Today's tweet pointing out the Trump op-ed read, quote, Democrats want to outlaw private health care plans, taking away freedom to choose plans while letting anyone cross the border. We must win this, end quote. Well, apparently, shockingly, Jim Acosta from CNN took major beef with this. He fired back both at the president and USA Today with a little tweet of his own.

quote, this column may break the record for the number of falsehoods from a president ever published in a newspaper op-ed. Just this tweet alone is false. Outlaw, private health care plans? Letting anyone cross our border? Huh? Fact check. False and false. Come on, USA Today.

Now, I know I shouldn't expect journalists these days to do a lot. any kind of actual journalism? I mean, that's so old-timey. Remember when they actually didn't lie to us? It's kind of funny. Actually, it's really sad that it's painfully obvious that journalists like Acosta haven't even read the left's proposal on Medicare for all.

It's HR 676. It has 123 Democratic co-sponsors. That's more than, than half of the House Democrats. And it reads, and I quote, it shall be unlawful for a private health insurer to sell health insurance coverage that duplicates the benefits provided under this act.

End quote. CNN. How is the president lying? You see, you didn't point out that the president was lying when the president said, You're going to be able to keep your doctor. You're going to be able to get a refund. In fact, you're going to save all kinds of money.

You wouldn't do the math on that. It was simple math. But it required you to tell the truth about the bill. Now, now you are denying that the Democrats want to stop all private health care. It's in their bill. How low can you guys go? How much water can you carry before it snaps your back? How much can you ignore?

The replacement for Obamacare is coming. And it is so radical that the left-leaning media can't even see it anymore. The Affordable Care Act was a setup. We told you it was. if the left takes full control in 2020, you will finally see America, the new America that we have been progressing toward the entire time.

Let me, let me, let me, let me give you some good news. May I give you some good news? You sure can. There is a new study out. They spoke to 8,000 people. Uh, they also did 31 hour interviews, six focus groups. And it was, uh, conducted between, December 2017 and September 2018 and

September 2018 and here's what they here's what they were looking for want to find out about how Americans feel about white privilege sexual harassment you know all of the PC stuff the Me Too witch hunt they say there are seven distinct clusters now in America

progressive activists traditional liberals, passive liberals, politically disengaged, moderates, traditional conservatives, and devoted conservatives. Now, according to the report, 25% of Americans are traditional or devoted conservatives. 25%. Whoa, wow, that's really low. Well, only 8% of Americans are progressive activists. Excuse me? Their views are even more out of the mainstream and are less typical.

Two-thirds of Americans do not belong in either extreme progressivism as progressive activists or as traditional devoted conservatives. The vast majority is now considered something called the exhausted majority. The members of this two-thirds of our society share a sense of fatigue with our polarized national conversation, a willingness to be flexible in their political viewpoints and have a lack of voice in the national conversation. Most members of the exhausted majority dislike political correctness. among the general population, 80% believe that political correctness is a problem in our country. Even young people are uncomfortable with it. 74% ages 24 to 29 and 79% under the age of 24% think this is a problem.

The woke are in the extreme. extreme minority in this country. Youth. Not supporting political correctness. And they're not supporting the race thing either. Whites are ever so slightly less than average to believe political correctness is a problem in the country. Whites. 79% share this sentiment.

Instead, Asians, 82%. Hispanics, 87%. Native Americans, 88%. One of the focus group members, an American Indian, said, it seems like every day you wake up and something's changed. Do I say Jew or Jewish? Is it a black guy or an African American? You're on your toes because you never know what to say.

political correctness in this country is becoming frightening. Hmm. That was a Native American. You know, as those whites, which are the least offended, as those whites are standing up to protect the helpless Native American. I think that's the thing that gets me the most. Are the people who are not, it's almost like, how did you get into this guy?

conversation. How are you a part of this conversation? You're not, you're not the one that is the red skin. How are you standing up and telling Native Americans how they're supposed to feel when they don't feel that way in poll after poll after poll? One part of the standard narrative of the data partially affirmed is that African Americans are most likely to support political correctness, but the difference between them and other groups is much smaller than generally supposed. Three quarters of African Americans oppose political correctness. Three quarters.

This means there are only four percentage points less likely than whites and only five percentage points less likely than the average to believe that political correctness is a real problem in America. while 83% of respondents who make less than $50,000 dislike political correctness, 70% of those who make more than 100,000 are skeptical. You want to know why Trump won? You want to know why Cory Booker and all of this nonsense is not going to win? You know, yesterday, we had a call from a listener.

And I was not my best self, and I jumped down his throat. And I should have said, what is making you feel this way? I know what's making him feel this way. Portland is making him feel this way. The guy who yesterday, we found out, is building a 200, or built a 200-pound bomb and was going to detonate it on the National Mall on Election Day. that's what's making him feel this way. The news reports where they are saying,

mobs, no, this is just petitioning your government, is making you feel this way. Getting up every morning and saying, okay, do I say Jew or Jewish today? Which do I say? Can I say transgendered? Or what exactly do I say? When they are trampling RuPaul

for not being politically correct on transgender issues, you got problems. That is why Cory Booker and Heidi Heidcamp and all of the others are not going to win. It is why they are wildly out of step. It is why you're winning. It's why Kavanaugh is a Supreme Court justice today. And I want to just keep hammering this home every day. The left is not going crazy because,

they're winning. The left, did you see what Attorney General, what's his name? Eric Holder. Eric Holder said yesterday. We had the audio, I think of that. Can we play the audio if we have that? Listen to what Eric Holder is now saying. It is time for us as Democrats to be as tough

as they are, to be as dedicated as they are, to be as committed as they are. Michelle always says, Michelle Obama, I love her, you know. She and my wife like really tight, which always scares me in Barack. But Michelle says that, you know, when they go low, we go up. No, no. When they go low, we kick them.

Stop. This is what happens to a country that has lost its underpinnings of the Judeo-Christian world. When they go low, we kick them. Yesterday, Hillary Clinton was all in the news for saying, What? We can't live in a country like this. We can't live. We cannot.

The time for civility is passed, basically. After we win elections, then we can be civil. We can't be civil with these people. What was the other quote that he went on to say yesterday because it involved these people where he said, I wanted to see if I can find, shoot, I don't have it. The Eric Holder thing? Yeah, the Eric Holder. said these people.

He said use rage to vote to be rid of these people. Yeah, use rage to be rid of these people. Well, let me flip this around. What do you mean by these people, Mr. Holder?

Because these people we've learned is, of course, racist. We know what you... That's a dog whistle. That's an Eric Holder dog whistle. And everybody knows what they're saying. Look, I understand why we're angry, because I'm angry. I'm angry every day.

I look at the news and I'm like, they're going to get people killed. They're going to get people killed. And when people, as I said in 2009, at some point, they're going to drag people out of their chairs in their studios and beat them to death in the streets. when these people who are dismissing and encouraging these people to be violent, when that is happening, a lot of people are going to say, well, they deserve it. No, no, we cannot become what they are. We have to hold on to what we've always been. But boy, it is tough.

But I will tell you, if we lose our minds, we'll lose. Because as I showed you in that poll, 80% of people are on our side. Now, that doesn't mean politically. That means they're tired of this. They're tired of the political correctness. They're tired of being told what to think, what to say, what to do, who to reject, what to post, what not to post. they're tired of it, 80%. Keep your cool and you win.

This is the best of the Glenn Beck program. We're going to take you to a story. I thought was a joke. I thought was a joke. Where have the Russians gone? How deeply are they into our consciousness? What will they actually? do. Is it all about politics?

Stephen Kent, friend of the program, and quite honestly, a I mean, probably the biggest Star Wars geek on the planet. Welcome to the program. Stephen, how are you? Doing well, Glenn. Good morning. Tell me this is a joke.

It's not a joke. There is a study out from Morton Bay at the University of Southern California that looks at the role that that online bots, particularly the Russian persuasion, might have played in the discourse on social media surrounding The Last Jedi.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. So you just kind of ran by surrounding The Last Jedi, the movie. The Last Jedi, nice and low-hanging target being a Star Wars movie. What do people care about more than politics? I would say that it's probably the light side versus the dark side and the internal struggle in a galaxy far, far away. You know, you've mentioned, Glenn, like they prey on these very emotional and personal issues on social media.

It's not just about politics and Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. It can be about kneeling, the national anthem. It can be about something that a celebrity item said, and then it's amplified and sort of turned up to 11 so that people get really heated about it. Star Wars is in that category, too, and there might be some evidence to show that this is actually happening every day. Give me the evidence. This is incredible. Yeah. So it's circumstantial in many ways, but that's by nature of what we're dealing with here.

When you're talking about foreign influence and particularly malicious activity coming from Russian bots or trolls or sock puppet accounts, you are talking about a moving target, people who are deleting their accounts, changing their information, making new accounts, staying active so that they can't actually be tracked to a given location. And if Morton Bay, the researcher at USC, could prove definitively that these are Russian agents, then he should be working at the CIA. But he's not. He's just a researcher at USC. And what you look at is you look at the characteristics of social media accounts online. Kind of what I just mentioned is what behaviors do they engage in? Do they speak in all caps?

What words do they use? And then is their account there the next week when you look them up again? These are sort of things that you look for when you're talking about. foreign influence online. And it might be Russians, it might be the Chinese, it might be Iranians, or it might be some Floridian with a bone to pick with the rest of the country. So what did they plant? What did they plant into our society? Well, in this case, what they planted, there was evidence that there were 16 accounts that could specifically be Russian linked, 105 that sort of had a question mark as to where they could be

originating from, that are jumping online when the last Jedi comes out. and people are starting to debate about the movie. And then they start throwing in the tweets about the Feminozzi, Admiral Holdo. And then they start throwing in tweets about how masculinity is under assault because Poe Damarin wasn't able to lead the ship. And then they start throwing in tweets about SJW droids and the fact that there was a droid in the high... I remember those. Yeah.

But the important thing, Glenn, is that that comes from real people, too. and you can't really distinguish what comes first, like the chicken of the egg. Did the Russian bot or troll online plant the thought in a conservative or activist or Star Wars fan online and then they sort of echo it? Or did it go the other way around? Because it is reasonable to look at Star Wars and see some sort of like progressive fingers in the pot. But there's also this discourse online that happens where you sort of amplify other opinions that you see. You see someone upset about the feminazis now taking over Star Wars, Kathleen Kennedy, or the Asian girl in the new Star Wars movie. And if you get amplified about that and feel like,

oh, well, someone else is angry about that too. I can now feel a little bit more angry. Then the discourse just rapidly gets more radical. And it's pretty reasonable to think that there are foreign actors who engage in this malicious activity. Stephen, it's interesting, I think, and this is part of the crime against journalism that's happened, making every effort of what Russia has tried to do in America about Donald Trump. You know, it's like, look at the scope of this. The fact that they are trying to go in there and stir people up over not just politics, but culture and in Star Wars and all of these kind of separate things, Kaepernick, all of this stuff. And not just separating us, do. I think also pushing us into a place. I hear this all the time. I know I am like this.

When did everything become political? They're pushing everything, all pop culture, everything into politics. Yeah, there's a great book out right now called Addicted to Outrage by Glenn Beck. Towards the end of part one, at least in the audio book, it's chapter 19. They're talking a lot about the role that foreign actors and particularly Russians might play and trying to sow discord. And what we do know about Russians that we're able to do in the 2016 election. We don't know if they actually were able to impact the results and how people voted, but we are able to determine that they get their fingers into the way that we talk. And what's most important, I think, about American politics and culture is not that we are able to agree on everything political, but that we're actually able to go to a movie theater and

sit next to our neighbors in the dark and smile at a start. Wars movie. But then when you go in and you've sort of been reading these things online and you've had people tell you that now it's like liberal propaganda and that it's not the Star Wars you grew up with, then you can't even do that. And think about what that does to a culture, not in the course of one year, but in the course of 10 years. We will have nothing in common if we allow people to manipulate us like this and get us hooked on outrage on a constant basis about anything, whether it's politics or media. Stephen, thank you for writing about this.

This is in the Washington Examiner. Thank you for writing about this. Is it because it was Star Wars that this popped up on your radar? Or why is it that no one else is catching this, Stephen? Well, I would say that there was a pretty good deal of writing done about this. And for me, I did catch this because I've got Google Alert set up for Star Wars. Wars and I care a lot about it. But, you know, I live in Star Wars Twitter as well as conservative and libertarian Twitter. These are kind of different ecosystems. And the dialogue in Star Wars Twitter

is toxic. It was so mean when these movies came out, particularly around Solo and The Last Jedi really sort of agitated right-wing Twitter. And Solo really agitated left-wing Twitter. everybody was arguing about these different things. And just using language that you just don't see or you didn't see a couple of years ago in Star Wars. And then you turn on your favorite conservative podcast, right? And I have a couple. And they're sort of been echoing those sentiments. And then their actual fans are going out and engaging in Star Wars discourse.

But it's not really clear, like, who is genuine and who is not? And who's coming to it as a really interested fan? and who's coming to it as a political activist who just really wants to make people angry. And that's what we have to remember when we get online, is there is no guarantee that the person, even if they have a real name and a photo associated with their account, is a genuine human being who wants you to leave this conversation happy. I don't know if you've ever won an argument on Twitter. I have not.

It's the equivalent of a foreign city. You need to be getting off the airplane in this new city and just assume that you're not safe anywhere you go and you should just talk to people that you know and that you trust. Stephen, thank you very much. Always good to talk to you. Yeah, Glenn, real pleasure. May the Force be with you both. Steven Kent.

He's got a great sense of humor. He's really a smart guy. You listen to his podcast. Follow him at Twitter. What's his Twitter handle? It's got to be like, Yoda kicks ass. I think it is. Yodda smells.

I lost it. Here we go. It's at Stephen underscore Kent 89. Yeah. This is the best of the Glenn Beck program. Hi, it's Glenn. If you're a subscriber to the podcast, can you do a favor and rate us on iTunes? If you're not a subscriber, become one today and listen on your own time.

You can subscribe on iTunes. Thanks. Glenn. I am thrilled to have and introduce you to Helen Pluckrose. She is the editor-in-chief of Arrow Magazine. She has written an article that I want to go through with her. But I also want to point out that if you follow the news a couple of weeks ago, I think it was, of these three scientists that came out and tried to publish papers that were complete nonsense of the dog,

I think it was the rape culture in dog parks on dogs. And one of the, you know, responses before they published it was they, did they get permission from the dogs? They were, they were afraid that maybe they were violated a little bit. I mean, it's crazy what happened. They published one article that was, they just took a chapter of mine confh. And I think changed it. What did they change it to, Stu, do you remember? White people are feminine.

I don't remember, Helen will remember. It's pretty remarkable. We'll hopefully chat with her about that just a little bit. but Helen Pluckrose joins the program now. Hello, Helen. How are you? Hello, I'm very well. Thank you for inviting me. You bet. Now, you're in London now? I am.

Okay. First of all, thanks for coming on the program. I want to talk to you about your essay, how French intellectuals ruined the West, postmodernism, and its impact explained. I read the article, and let's just say, my audience is very smart. I am not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

So pretend you're talking to somebody that doesn't really know much about this because you are talking to that person. And I'm trying to understand it, but postmodernism itself just doesn't make sense at all to me. And so I want to make sure that I have it right and the audience understands it because I think it is the disease that is, it's the cancer for the Western world, is it not? Well, I think it's certainly a problem that's coming up in how we understand knowledge and how we on the left are looking at ethics, and I think that's a rise on the other side

of socialism and a kind of reversion to some utopian past, which never existed. But, yes, it is a significant... We decide what is true and how we evaluate rights and people standing in society. Right. And so this is the source of, you know, gender fluidity and really intersectionality and all of this stuff that we're hearing that most people wake up every day and they're like, okay, what new term do I have to learn today? What can I say? What can I not say? This is the source of that.

Would you agree with that? Signed by its founder as. contemporary politics applied to postmodern theory. Okay. So let's start at the beginning of post-modernism. Is it related at all to the Dadaist movement that grew out of the First World War where they were trying to make a point of nothing really has any meaning? And then that kind of just went awry.

Is any of the roots in that movement at all? Counter-enlightenment philosophy, it comes out of absurdist art. It's a kind of coming together of an artistic philosophical movement, and the artistic side of it is actually really fun. We don't have to worry at all about post-modernism in art. It's applied to society, and we're starting to understand society as completely constructed in systems of power, and knowledge is a construct of this power,

that it comes from language, that language is dangerous because it constructs the problem that we're seeing now. Now, you say that it doesn't have a, that it's not anything worrisome in art, but I would consider literature art as well. And this is,

this is now how we are being taught that we have to read literature, that we read it through the lens of oppression, white, male, European oppression. Even if the author is saying, no, no, that's not what the story is about. That's not, the author is not even the last word on this. It is the postmodernist that can take and read that text any way they want, correct?

I mean, I think there, there's a slight confusion because that approach to literature is part of the cultural philosophical problem. But, for example, would be a very different thing. It would be something that had no clear plot that didn't have an ending. There's one which doesn't add up. So that is a style. That is almost completely separate from the moralistic thing. All right.

So you're saying as an artist, you could create something that has no meaning, but it is only when it's used as a critique that it starts to get into trouble? Yes, yes, exactly. Very fun. and TV, suppose apparently of postmodern, but they're not political, so they're not the same problem. Great. Okay. So tell me how it, where it grew and how it grabbed us by the throat or our university systems. Well, the original postmodernist, they were just a small group of very, very prolific writers in the late 60s, including Jean-Francois, Jacques Derrida, Bojard, and particularly Michelle Foucault.

And they came together and all seemingly at the same time with the same message that they were disillusioned with the modern period, they were disillusioned with Marxism, religion and institutions, and they were big fallen apart. This were crumbling. And I tried to try to understand, are the things that we thought were true, actually true?

The postmodernists are those who took a level and is not something in particular. political goal. They were certainly leftist, but they were generally quite aimless. They wanted to sort of pull things apart, show problems with it. It wasn't until the late 80s and early 90s when a lot of feminists and critical race theorists, queer theorists, et cetera, said, well, taking everything apart is all good and well. Yes, we need to deconstruct things. Yes, we have some kind of reality if we're going to address anything. We cannot, for example, address sexism against women unless we agree that women are assert some kind of objective reality, and that was system power.

Okay, so let me go back, and because I think people might be thinking, why are we talking about postmodernism, how does it relate to my life? This, I believe, is critical to, if you don't understand this, or at least have a basic handle on it, you don't know what you're fighting. You don't know what's really happening. You don't know who's behind a lot of this or what the theories are behind it. So let me first say postmodernism, the modern world is the world that was created, that chased out the dark ages. It's the world created by the enlightenment of science and reason and empirical evidence. And even, I mean, when you hear people say, mathematics is racist, this is because they're trying to deconstruct anything that holds

the modern world together. Is that correct? Knowledge is. I particularly have a problem with the idea that irrational and unimpirical knowledge is in or non-white people. So yeah, that is how it works. Okay. I'm going to take you, before we we move forward, I want to take you back one more step. I'm going to take a break and then we come back. I'd like you to help me on this because it's my understanding that Derrador and Foucault came over to the United States, that this was really kind of shaped in frustration from the 1968 Paris riots and in frustration

that they're not going to be able to take this whole thing down unless, They take it all down. They've got to take all the systems down. They're not going to win through culture. And that it was actually much more strategic in its planting of a virus, if you will. And I'd love to hear your take on that if that's true or not when we come back. Despite all the evidence that racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, are at an all-time low in Western societies.

Leftist academics and social justice activists display fatalistic pessimism. This is coming from the postmodernist take. Now, Helen, I've tried to find good purposes for this, and the way it is being enacted now, it just seems like a total, I don't know, an embrace of total chaos and destruction. I can understand why a lot of how this has worked, particularly conservatives, there was a good job, but the community, etc. That's what we're seeing now, much more than these earlier, very obscure ideas. They came at the time following the king of second wave liberal feminism of gay pride.

They came and they hit because we have taken up recently for society for everyone. So Helen, you know, you... approach. She's very different to that. So you said a minute ago, and maybe we just have a different definition. I'm a classic liberal, as we would know here in America.

I am a libertarian. I think that anything that makes man more free is good. Anything that builds the individual up and is empowering for the individual, I think,

is a good thing and I support it and I think that many Americans feel this way, you know, with political correctness, you know, I go back to handicable. You know, nobody wanted to say, if that really hurt somebody's feelings, that, you know, nobody wants to do that or very few people want to do that. You know, it does kind of say, well, the next generation is going to just assume, you know, just going to attach the same meanings behind handicapable is handicapped, but, you know, so it's a little worthless over the long period of time. But I don't think anybody, I think generally speaking, people are fair. What this is turned into is, uh, oppression.

It's generally trying to be fair. It's generally trying to be good and, and to do good for their societies. And they actually care about their fellow human beings. majority of us are still postmodern ideas are also trying to do good and trying to be fair. But what we have to look at is how this is working in practice. We are seeing authoritarianism from the act on these ideas which have come out of a lot of less. Well, how bad can this be? This is the best of the Glenn Beck program.

So I don't know if you noticed this, but yesterday, it was a little scary if you had money in the stock market. What is it, the third largest point fall, I think, in history, American history, something like that. But, you know, when you look at it historically, it's kind of unfair because the stock market is up so high. Down again today. Bonds are down. Debt is up. Where is money going? What is happening?

Is this the beginning of something? Or is just a bump in the road? We go to Stephen Moore, economist at the Heritage Foundation. Hello, Stephen. How are you? Hi, glad. No, I've been better. There's been a couple of three or four days. We've fed in the stock market. You're right about that. And so, look, but I remain pretty bullish.

Look, the Dow and it's down now to 25,400. It was up, you know, well over 1,200 points higher than that a week ago. I like to buy these dips. But, you know, you look at the fundamentals of the U.S. economy with the tax cuts, the deregulations, the high employment, I'm still really high on the U.S. economy. I'm still high on the stock market, especially at these low prices right now. So what happened yesterday?

What spooked it? Well, good question. We're all scratching our head wondering what it was. I mean, Donald Trump seems to think it was the Fed, and there's no question that the Fed interest rate hike and their announcement that they're going to continue to raise interest rates, certainly move people out of stocks into bonds, because when interest rates rise, then bonds are more attractive relatively than

stocks. Usually those effects of Fed changes are short term. So I don't think you're going to see a long-term effect from that. Although I tend to agree with Donald Trump that here we've got this booming economy. We don't see real signs of inflation, although energy prices are rising, but other commodities are pretty stable or actually falling in price. So I don't see a big inflation gain and, I mean, you know, pick up. And what Trump is saying, and I think there's some truth to this, is to the Fed, and Jerome Powell, why are you taking a punchbow away from this party just when it's getting going? And I tend to think that he's right about that.

You know, look, I don't want inflation. But just because the economy is picking up doesn't mean you're going to have more inflation. I don't think that the Fed's job is to squash a stock market rally and a pickup and employment as we've seen in record numbers. Yeah, I would tell you, Stephen, you know I'm an inflation watcher and hyperinflation an inflation watcher. I was really concerned with all the repatriated money that was coming in and the tax breaks, and we haven't seen it. We have to show me the inflation. I mean, look, I would, I agree. I have to admit, you know,

I admit when I'm wrong. I'm a conservative who admits when I'm wrong. I'm not wrong all that often, but I did predict we see higher inflation as a result of, you know, all the money creation by the Fed. And the truth is we haven't seen it. And by the way, one of the reasons for that is we have international trade. We have, you know, we have all sorts of technological change that makes goods and services cheaper over time. And trade and technology are two things that really keep prices down and affordable. And so my only point is I just think the Fed acted preemptively and prematurely in raising rates in a way that wasn't necessary. I am a little concerned, by the way, Glenn, about the increase in the price of oil. It's gone up to $80 a barrel. That's like equivalent of

$4 a gallon. Yeah. Why? Why is it gone up? That's like a tax on the economy. Why is it gone up? You there, Stephen? Are you there?

Yeah. Maybe I lost it. Yeah. I didn't know where you just said. Why is oil going up? That's a good question, too. It looks like because there's been disruptions in the, in the Middle East with respect Iraq.

And so you're seeing a big, you know, a big sell-off as a result. I mean, a big rise in the price because people are really concerned. about the, you know, about the price in the global reduction in supply as a result of that. So bring Texas back online. Bring Texas back online. Well, that's the point. You know, look, I think oil prices are going to fall. I just was out in Midland, Texas, in the middle of the Permian Basin. I've never seen anything like it, Glenn. I mean, everywhere you go, all they're doing is drilling, drilling, drilling, drilling, and, you know, it's anywhere you can stick in the ground, they're drilling for oil and natural gas.

So I don't think we're going to see a continuation, you know, over the next year or so of these higher prices. In fact, I think they're going to dwindle back down again. So, you know, I think that the big problem right now is just fear. You know this. The stock market is driven by fear and greed. That's a tourism for 150 years. And people are afraid right now that – and by the way, there was a lot of profit taking. I did this myself.

When the Dow hit 26,500, I said to my wife, finally, let's take some of these profits. and get out of the market. And I think a lot of people did that. Stephen, let me ask you this. I don't know if this is true or this is an old wives tale, but the last president that I heard really take on the Fed was Ronald Reagan. And we had 19% interest rates, right, shortly after that, until he stopped talking about the Fed.

And the Fed has a lot of control. I mean, and, you know, a lot of people say it's, it's, it's, uh, you know, somehow some kind of violation for the president to question the Fed. And I wrote a column on this last week. I don't know why. The president is the chief executive officer of the country, right? He is the one who is supposed to help manage our economy. If he doesn't think the Fed is doing the right thing, why shouldn't he speak out?

Now, look, I don't want to see a politicization of the Fed. Correct. But I think there's a lot of the – look, one of the lessons we've learned, Glenn, you and I've talked about this over the years, these are not some kind of oracles on high at the Fed. They act as if they're the temple with all of the knowledge and all of the intelligence, but they've made so many mistakes over the years. You mentioned, I remember the 70s, as you do, when we had literally 20% mortgage interest rates.

That was all because of Fed mistakes. You know, I would make the same case that the Fed was the one that built up this bubble that led to the housing crisis in 2007 and age. Why do we keep thinking these people are somehow like Godlike? I don't know. I don't know. Let me ask you about the NAFTA replacement and also the trade war that we have going on with China. I fear that Donald Trump really likes trade wars and we're not that this isn't a negotiation tactic.

If it is, you know, great. But do you think, is it, Stephen? Or is this what he really fundamentally believes that tariffs are good? Here's my view. And I've talked to Donald Trump many times about this, you know, and he said this at the Rose Garden. I was at his Rose Garden ceremony last week when he announced the new trade agreement. And he basically said, look, I will, I am using these tariffs as a tool, as a negotiating tactic, to get better trade agreements. Now, I'm a free trade guy.

I think you are too, Glenn. So I used to tell Donald Trump, I don't agree with you on their trade strategy, but I got to say, so far, you know, the kind of apocalyptic view has not happened. Trump is getting some good deals. He got a deal with Mexico. He played Canada like a fiddle here where he basically said, you know, we're just going to go ahead without you with Mexico. And Canada at the 11th hour, literally 11 o'clock on the night before the deal had to be sealed.

Canada came and said, okay, we agree to the deal. He's going to get a good deal, I think, with Europe. And then that leads to Canada, I mean, to China. And this is where I think Trump is going to take a very hard line. and I happen to agree with, I don't know, you and I haven't talked about this one, but I am a hardliner way it comes to China. I'm a free trade guy, but China, we don't have free trade with China. China's cheating. They're stealing.

They're, you know, $300 billion of your intellectual property. They're building up their military. They're like, you know, the old Soviet Union in terms of a lot of the tactics they're using. And so I do think Trump should get tough with China. What do you think? I think so, too. I just want to make sure that we understand the symbiotic relations. of mutually assured economic destruction when it comes to China.

Well, let me challenge you on that one. You know, of course, a trade war would hurt us. But I think the way Trump looks at it, and I think he's right about this. Look, if we can't trade with China, we sneeze. If they can't trade with us, they catch pneumonia. And I think there's a lot of truth to that. I mean, they can't, their economy depends on access to America's $15 trillion consumer market. I mean, damn near everything you buy in Walmart is made in, is made in China.

And so Trump is playing that card and saying, look, we're not going to give you unfettered access to our markets if you're not going to play by the rules. I talk to companies, CEOs all the time, one who basically say it's almost impossible to penetrate the China market. You've got to give up ownership of your company. You have to give up your trade secrets, your fans. I mean, we can't live with that. And Trump is right. I think when he says, look, I didn't start this trade deal, this trade war. They started it 10 years ago.

I would feel better if they also weren't our bank at the same time. I would feel better about it. Stephen, quickly, one quick question for you. And you probably have a real insight on this. We were kind of talked about the steel tariffs and these things going on allies like Canada as a way of negotiating and bringing these countries to the table for what was kind of like a NAFTA 2.0 type of situation. Well, that happened, but the steel tariffs are still on Canada. Do you have any idea why, or is this going to change at any point? Well, this is one of the issues that I find my, you know, as you know, I'm a big fan of Donald Top.

I hope, write the tax plan with my buddy Larry Cutlow. But I just disagree with this policy. I don't see the wisdom in steel and aluminum tariffs or auto terrorists, but especially not steel and aluminum. Because, you know, we have something like 100,000 Americans who are employed in steel and auto. But we've got six million other manufacturers who use steel and aluminum in what they produce. I was over at Anheuser-Busch a couple of weeks ago. They, you know, when they make, you know, Budwisers, they're using a lot of aluminum for those cans. And they say their prices are going up and you just, that's going on around the country.

Our auto producers, our autos are more expensive because of the steel tariffs. So my point to Trump is this isn't even creating factory jobs. We're going to lose factory jobs as a result of this. So I disagree very strongly with the steel aluminum tariffs. I think they do more harm than good. Does he look like he's softening? No? Do you think I don't see it either? It's kind of an evergreen response to that question, isn't it? No, he's not. Yeah, no. And I, at the Rose Garden last week, he said how he was boasting about how all the steel jobs were creating. It's true. We are creating steel jobs, Mr. President, but we're losing auto jobs. We're losing, you know, jobs in other areas that manufacture equipment, trucks and things, you know, those kinds of things that use steel aluminum. So it's a dumb policy. I wish you would reverse it.

By the way, the auto care, same thing. Even the U.S. auto industry doesn't want the auto cares. Because, you know, so many of their supplies come from, you know, countries abroad. You know, it was manufacturing, you know, the steel might have come from, you know, Canada, the assembly might have come from Mexico, the parts might have come from Taiwan. I mean, this is the modern American and global economy at work, and we put ourselves at risk here. But at the end of the day, I think Trump is going to prevail on China. I think I'll make a prediction within six.

months, I think China's going to come hand in hand and make some real concessions to Trump. And if that happens, you're going to see the biggest stock market boom you ever saw.