The Glenn Beck Program - Best of the Program with Malcolm Young - 10/4/18

Episode Date: October 4, 2018

Ep #195- The Daily Best of GB Podcast: 10/4/18  -Going after Kavanaugh to fuel the outrage (caller)  -How quickly people believe the accuser (caller)  -Giving up on social media (caller)  -Has Trump been able to prove his point about the press by being quiet? -Guest, David Barton on his new book, "The Precarious Moment: Six Urgent Steps That Will Save You, Your Family And Our Country" -Guest, Malcolm Gladwell, host of "Revisionist History Podcast" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Blaze Radio Network On Demand. Hey, welcome to it. It's the Thursday broadcast. Just a note, you do not want to miss tomorrow's radio program because, as you know, Stu, I'm a scientist. Of course. I'm a doctor.

I have my doctor. Do you have your doctor? I do not. Yeah, I do. So I'm a doctor. So I am, I'm going to take something that we talk about in today's podcast and examine, the truth of what was said. Barack Obama had some interesting things to say about when he was growing up that if the

press were consistent would say he's not qualified to be president of the United States. But it's not about truth with the Kavanaugh thing, as we all know. But on tomorrow, tomorrow's broadcast, we're going to take this revelation a little further, taking it to the beakers or to the brigures, otherwise known as Stu. I don't feel comfortable with your direction. You're going to like it. Or not, or not. Anyway, so today we're going to talk a little bit about Kavanaugh.

We also have somebody who has done so much on memory. He's done a whole season of his revisionist history podcast on memory, disconnected from the Kavanaugh thing, but we talked to Malcolm Gladwell about can we trust our own memory? Should we just take somebody's memory and take their word for it? And he gives you a completely airtight answer on that with real evidence and scientific study behind it. But also, like, you're going to hear this and be like, wow. Yeah, that's incredible.

So really going to affect you beyond the Kavanaugh thing. It's pretty stunning. Also, David Barton joins us. He has a new book out called This Bricarious Moment. And we're talking about millennials. Millennials get a really bad name. and it's served and that's why we're going to. I don't think it.

I mean, it kind of is, but it's really not because no one is teaching them anything. He's going to talk to us a little bit about millennials and what's really happening with millennials. And of course, Pat joins us for the podcast. You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program. It's Thursday, October 4th. Let's go to Brian in Colorado. Hello, Brian. How are you?

Good. How are you doing? Very good. Yeah, so quick question, just kind of going off of your book, now with the whole Kavanaugh been going on, all the attention seems to have turned away from Trump because there's no outrage there. All the outrage is with Kavanaugh. I'm just kind of wondering how you see the interplay between that. Because Kavanaugh is an easier target because Donald Trump has not responded in the fashion that they probably expected him to respond. And the reason why, I would imagine, is because, you know, he doesn't have a, you know, a good record on speaking about, you know, moral issues. And so somebody has said, hush up and he has. That has, that has given him real power because all that Trump is, uh, is involved on this is, is he going to keep standing? And because he has a spine, yeah. he's standing and that's what the president needs to do at this point and it is also allowed for the very first time it's given a spine to the republicans so they had to go after cavana what else are they going to do he's the he's the target but cavanaugh also has remained cool um until it was really appropriate had he come out and made crazy you know angry statements prior to

No. But his timing of being angry is not a sign that he has a reckless temperament. It was appropriate for the time. If you are a thinking human being and you are looking at things for, you're looking at the fact level, you completely connected with Kavanaugh's opening statement where he said, this is ridiculous. you have destroyed me, you've destroyed my family. He made a statement that was full of facts refuting the things that she had said. It was totally appropriate. What's the result? The result is I think Kavanaugh is going to win the nomination. If he doesn't, it will be because a Republican or maybe a couple of Republicans lose their spine

because there are no facts on this, so they lose their spine. If they do it, they will be the losers in this. Does that help you, Brian? Is that what you were thinking? Yeah, that doesn't make sense. It's just kind of finding the weak target as opposed to a strong one,

because that's what they do is they exploit the week. Yeah, so I appreciate that. Do you want to, I'm going to send you a book for getting on the air, if you get on the air, we're going to start sending you books. Did you want the book or the audio? Yeah, the book, please. I would love it.

Okay, and Brian, B-R-Y-A-N. B-R-I-A-N. Okay, glad I asked. Thanks, Brian. Appreciate it. It's in the mail. Let me go to... Liar, it's still sitting right in front of him, Brian.

Don't believe it. It's not in the mail yet. What a liar. Let me go to Phyllis. Hello, Phyllis. Good morning, Glenn. How are you? I'm very good.

The reason for my call is I wanted to tell you, a couple of things. I appreciate you taking my call, and I've learned a lot from you over all these years. So I thank you for that. You're welcome. I was a victim of sexual child abuse. My father was a pedophile, and I suffered for many, many years until I put an end to it. And unfortunately, Glenn, no one believed me. No one.

So, you know, I just kind of felt I have to deal with this. I have to get over it. It's not easy to do that, but I knew that blaming my, you know, what happened was not going to get me anywhere in life. So I understand in a way why no one, you know, talked up in those days, you know, 20, 30 years ago. It was not, it was, it was not, we weren't, we didn't think people were like that and we didn't want to look at it if it was. It's horrible. We've made good progress on that. Yes, we have. However, we've swung from one end all the way to the other with no middle ground.

So what I'm upset about is that everyone believes this doctor, okay, just on her testimony, which wasn't even, you know, significant. And they just believe it because of the health they went through. And to me, I don't understand why they don't listen to the fact. And this is one of the things that's so disturbing about this. Obviously, the Me Too concept is really important. And really important. It really could make a real difference.

And instead, what it's turning into is here's a tool for Democrats to use to destroy people's lives, which is an awful outcome or what a great outcome would be out of this, in my opinion, is that going forward people like Phyllis would be believed, would at least be taken seriously. Yeah, not believed. taken seriously. Well, believed if they have the evidence, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But taken seriously and would not fear coming out, because if you had evidence and you had a real story to tell, it would be believed. Correct. And that's, that's, that is the outcome that I think rational Americans are looking for. They want this to end. They think this is horrible. But they don't want to go the other way. This is to become a vener. indebta, you know, Phyllis, as you said, you knew that the anger wasn't going to get you anywhere in life, so you had to deal with it. If you deal with the situation, you have a chance to grow. It is much better if the person who has done it to you has, you know, reaped its

consequences or has, you know, admitted it at least or something. It's hard when people don't apologize or don't admit it, and they just get away with it is. really, really hard. But that's sometimes what happens. But by moving on with your life, you're not trying to convict every man. And that's what's happening right now. There are these women who have suffered this and have not healed. And so they want everybody to be believed because no one would believe theirs.

And so they don't, they don't, you know, they don't know if it's true or not, but nobody believed me and this woman's going to be railroaded. Well, no, your situation is not their situation. And we have to base it on facts. Phyllis, thanks for your call. AJ in Oregon. Hello, AJ. You're on the Glenn Beck program. Hi, Glenn. Hi, Sue. I'm a recovering addict of outreach. Okay. So what I want to be told and talk about is I've been listening to the audio book. It's great. and I kind of, my wife and I kind of had like pivot points. And it really hit me when I was listening yesterday is the social media outrage is what's driving this country more than anything. Like you say in the book, you know, Tommy 36, Becky, whatever.

Right. And it's got to the point where we just, our life is so much happier by not engaging with politics online. Yeah. And part of that social media mob. It got to the point where my wife and I just were like looking at each other. Oh, my gosh, I can't handle this. And I even took on more volunteer opportunities and helped with youth basketball, different things like that. And I feel so fulfilled now.

Did you give up social media or did you just cut down on it? I cut down on the outrage, the absolute engaging with some family members that were, progressive, where you could, you couldn't even talk to it. It was like being your kid against a brick wall. It was so frustrating. I mean, we don't even, when we go to family dinners, we don't even talk about politics. And we're all, you know, a lot of us are constitutional conservatives, but we don't even talk about it because it's so bad right now. It's, it's what's it, this book is perfect. It's perfectly titled. It's perfect for, I think everybody should be reading it. Thanks a lot, AJ. I appreciate it. I'm going to send you a copy of the book. Do you want the book since you were listening to it? Yes, autographed to you. Absolutely. I would like a hard copy and God bless you guys. You got it. Thank you very much. It is, you know, the next step is once you have calmly done this and you have backed up, the next step is to re-engage with your relatives, but on bigger principles. Don't talk to them about Kavanaugh because they'll immediately.

go to the talking points. Don't talk to them about that. Talk to them about the bigger issues. Everything that we need, our unum is the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. E pluribus unum. I've spent a lot of time thinking, okay, so what brings us together? What is the uniting thing? What can we all agree on? Well, not all of us, but a grand majority of us should be able to agree on all men are created equal, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and the 10 amendments to the Constitution. Okay, let's start there.

That's what brought people here. And that's what's being lost in the conversation. We're arguing over parties and personalities. That's not what Kavanaugh is really about. It's not about did he do it or did he not do it. Is she lying? Is she telling the truth? It is about, are you innocent until proven guilty? Do we presume innocence? Do we look for facts? Is there a system in society outside of the legal standards? Where did the legal standards come from? The legal standards came from a group of people, our founders, and prior to that, here in America, they came here and said, you know what, I can just be taken off the streets. I can be destroyed if someone.

Somebody just says, hey, I'm, I'm the king or I'm a, I'm a lord or I'm a duke. And this person did that. They're believed and I'm not, no matter what the evidence is. That's not right. I don't want that. Those are the big principles. And those are the things that we need to slowly start to reengage our loved ones with because that's where you find unity.

The best of the Glenn Beck program. I mean, they are so desperate to get this guy. off the Supreme Court, that they will do anything. Ronan Farrow is lighting his career on fire right now to try to stop this. Here is the best thing Donald Trump has done during this whole thing. He has allowed the press without mucking it up. Generally speaking, he's been pretty good. Yes.

Without tweeting stuff and becoming the story himself, he has allowed the press to prove everything that he says about the press is true. That is the way to fight. This is the way, and it's outlined in addicted to outrage. It doesn't mean surrender. It means change the way you're fighting and don't surrender unless the facts change. You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program. Like listening to this podcast?

If you're not a subscriber, Become one now on iTunes. But while you're there, do us a favor and rate the show. David Barton is here, and David is a friend of mine who was for Donald Trump because he kept saying in my ear, Glenn, he is going to be really good on judges. And I kept saying, David, you're an idiot. He's not going to do any of that. And you were exactly right. And I was wrong.

Welcome to the program, David. How are you? Good to be with the program. So your guess on Kavanaugh. It's going to go down. I think it'll happen. I think the ones that are sitting on the fence will go the right direction. The one that makes me the most nervous is Flake because he's retiring. Everybody else is going to face the voters and be accountable. But Flake has been his own guy since he was in the house. Yeah. So he's the biggest issue, biggest problem. But that would make you 50, 50, and then Pence goes for it.

What did you think about Ben Sasse's comments yesterday? You know, Sass. It's like he's like Mike Lee, but he's a lot more. vocal than Mike is. He's a lot like an adult in this thing that every once in a while gets you a reality check. Yeah. He goes off and has these great speeches every once in while like he's teaching a bunch of kindergarten kids. Yeah, yeah. Well, he is. He is. He is. He is, he is. And I love him. I mean, I did not see that in him before he got there. And he's, he's been an independent guy that's been an independent thinker. I really like him. He is positioned for, I think, 2024. He's positioning self in a really, in a good place as being a reasoned,

likable, a calm individual. A thinking individual. Yeah. He's, you know, he's, he's very reasonable

in the way he goes, he goes to stuff. He teaches. He's great. So David is, David has written a new book with another friend of mine, James Garlo,

this precarious moment, six urgent steps that will save you, your family and our country. And David, it's great book and everybody should, everybody should read it. Again, it's a book that is talking about the steps

that you, take right now. And what I love about this, David, is let's just start on the millennial step. I have seen this work. You know, it's kind of, my book is, I put it into action myself in my own life and I've seen it work. You've done the same thing and you've seen this work with millennials. Talk about the millennials a bit. Millennials right now are one of the reasons we have a precarious or a dangerous moment because we have 242 years of being an American nation under the Declaration, 231 under the Constitution. No nations ever survive that long.

And so we just kind of think we'll always be here. And yet at the same time, you have 5,500 years of recorded history, and there's never been a socialist nation that's increased freedom or increased prosperity. And yet right now, 75% of students in college support socialism above all forms of government. we cannot survive if that becomes the belief when they become leaders. And the same way, four out of five millennials believe there is no absolute moral truth. Man, if we can't agree that things like rape and murder are wrong, you've got no chance for having a nation in the future. You got 53% of millennials who believe that free speech should be limited.

19% who believe that violence is the right response to free speech you don't like. You can't survive as a nation. So that's why we call it a precarious moment. But when you look at millennials, they are really. really easy to change relationally. They are hungry. If you create a relation, a one-on-one relationship, they really don't care about your age.

They don't care about how you look. They care about whether you're sincere. And if you are sincere and say, and what we have found works so well is just asking questions because they really have had a load dumped on them by their professors and by the culture, and they've not thought it through. And when you start asking them questions and not trying to win.

That's right. not trying to win. Just think about it. I just, I just, that's an interesting thing. Let me ask you a question. How does whatever fill in the blank? They start to engage and and they, I find that they actually, they actually begin to move toward you faster and not not just blindly accepting things, but because you're engaging them and asking them to think as long as you're not trying to win. That's right.

Nobody does that. That's right. In college, they're being told what to think, join in, chant this, and if you have any other thoughts. So when you challenge them, they actually like that. It's the first time anyone has done it. They really do respond to thinking well. And once it gets going, they are killer.

Yeah, they're really, I'm sorry, that's an old school. Killer, yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. Trigger warning. That's right. I can't say that. Trigger warning. Station's edit that out.

that's right but they really are and they're the most of all groups in polling for the hundred years of being in the polling they're the most relational group in american history what does that mean they they respond more to relationships for example they're the only group in polling that wants to spend more time with their boss everybody else wants to spend time with employees or get away from the boss or whatever they want time they want to be mentored i mean they they have a desire to spend one-on-one time with people who can influence them and help them and them. Now, that's not necessarily their motivation, but what is interesting is they respond really, really well to that. And so when you create a relationship that is a genuine, as you said,

not trying to win, just a genuine relationship, you can make so much progress in turning them in a different direction. And we've seen it ourselves. Things are not as bad as you think they are. They are bad. This is a bad, this is a pivot point for our country. And if we fall down on our job, it will change and it will go away and I think it will become very bad. However, it's not the battle that you think it is. You've been convinced by media and social media that everybody is thinking this way. They're not. David has a David Barton is with us.

He has a book out called This Precurious Moment. He's written it with James Garlo, who's just a great, great guy and good thinker. And they have the stats in the book and they have different things. we're concentrating just for a second on millennials because I know David has seen it and I've seen it because we're doing it with Mercury 1. And when you present the facts to millennials, if you're not trying to win, they say, wait a minute, what? David, talk about a few of the millennials that we have had in for our two-week training course. And they have actually come a little hostile.

That's right. Yeah. We have a number that have become as skeptics and they're here to disprove us and show that we're all wrong. And it's all right. You know, we don't run from that situation. We just embrace them and say, let's have a conversation. As long as you'll engage in the conversation.

That's right. And so we start asking them questions and, you know, they have their opinions, but we just ask them questions and it's kind of like they sit back and I don't know. And so once you ask the questions that lead them to the information, it's amazing to see that they then take those questions and go back to those that taught them and change them. We literally, we have a girl that came in that learned all sorts of stuff.

She went back to her professor, started asking her professor questions. He got all befuddled because he didn't know the answers. He now has asked her to meet with him once a week and teach him what she learned in all these classes. It's amazing. It's amazing. And he said, she wrote a report,

and he said, you are either a, liar and you're going to get an F or this is the best paper. See me in my office. That's right. And he said, okay, I want to talk to you about your sources. And she had him nailed down. And he had never, here's a professor that didn't know this stuff. An economics professor. And he found out that founding father John Witherspoon had the greatest impact of any person in American history on American economics. And he didn't know that. And she showed him that and then showed him the documentation and he said, okay, I want more because I clearly deny. But that's the thing of asking questions with the relationships. And we take these guys that come in hostile or otherwise. And just

because of relationships, and as we tell them, we have a lot of fun with them. I mean, quite frankly, we tell them that sarcasm is our love language. If we don't make fun of you, it's because we don't like you. So, you know, we kid and joke and I have a great, great time. But they come out transformed and they are some of the most mature individuals. And these guys are all, it's in their mind to become leaders. And I tell you, they are so, so good. It is just amazing. We were in a meeting in February.

I don't think I've announced this formally. May I, David? Go for it. We are going to do Black History Month, a museum here at our studios in February. If you don't think that's a little controversial, but we have worked on this and we're working on it with the Lincoln Museum. And it's going to be a little mind-blowing and really, really eye-opening to a lot of people on both sides.

And it's black history, but, you know, not all the black history that everybody knows. Let's tell the black history that really nobody knows. And that's going to be here at our studios in the month of February. And yesterday, we decided that because they're going to, we're going to have docents, we're going to have people that are going to tell the. individual stories about these people in here on stage 19 as you come through and they're all going to be I said yesterday let's get some of the kids that we've met they're even 15 years old that just will learn it and really know it it's really

quite exciting to see millennials what happens when they're unleashed and told the truth David's new book David Barton and James Garlo's new book this precarious moment, the six urgent steps that will save you, your family, and your country, um, uh, grab a copy of it. It is really, really good. Um, and I agree with the steps and all the way through it. You are, you are making the case using facts. This is, this is a book that you can take and read and learn all kinds of facts about

the country that you didn't know. For instance, let's talk about immigration, David. Immigration. A fact we didn't know. is until 1875, 1876, the federal government had no part in immigration. Immigration belongs solely to the states. When you came to America, you didn't move into the United States, you moved into Texas or Maryland or Virginia or wherever, and it was the states that controlled immigration.

The U.S. Supreme Court in 1875, 1876, two decisions said, hey, we think we'll take this over now. And so the first time we have federal immigration is in 1892 when Ellis Island opens. the first federal immigration facility. Everything before that was the states. We have no clue. And then when you look, now the founding fathers were very good because Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution says they can establish a uniform rule of naturalization. So they did. They passed three laws, 1790, 1795 and 1798, said, okay, we can set the rule of naturalization.

Here's what you got to do to come to the United States. And let's go through first what they set forward. the immigrant must have good moral character. Are we doing anything to check on good moral character? Oh, no. Background check. And by the way, Ben Franklin said that when you came, you needed to have a certificate from a religious society attesting to your good moral character from the country from which you left.

The immigrant must not only support the Constitution and our governmental laws, but renounce allegiance to any other nation or loyalty to any other system. Sharia? Sharia. And by the way, we had Muslims in America since 1619. but to be part of the country, you had to agree to the Constitution, not come here to overturn it. The immigrant must believe in the equality of all Americans to renounce and renounce any title of nobility. So would I have to, if I was coming in, would I have to declare that I was not a member of the press?

I'd have to give up that title of nobility. Or a professor. Or a professorship. Yeah, that's right. Okay. There must be residency requirement of five years in the United States before citizenship. Now let me hit that one because I was really shocked about that. In the constitutional convention, seven of the 39 guys who signed the Constitution were immigrants.

They were themselves immigrants. And so Alexander Hamilton was one. He came from West Indies. Pierce Butler was another. And these guys said, and I mean, the debates are great. They said, look, when we got here, if we had voted, we would have voted the way that we were thinking from the West Indies and Ireland and elsewhere. And Pierce Butler said, you should not be allowed to vote until 14 years.

here because you need to learn to think like an American. Oh my gosh would that Texas needs to do that with Californians. Oh, you're right. Texans, Texans, I'm telling you, we're going to lose Texas because of the Californians. They are just going to vote the way they voted. And we are not the same place. That's what we're not the same place. And they think like California. It takes a while. So Alexander Hamilton said five years and that's what they went with was five years. But you could not vote in America until you've been her five years. Otherwise, you would turn this place into wherever you just left. No anchor babies. Citizenship goes from parents to child, not to child, not child to parent. Wow. Security risk can be deported and permanently banned from the United States. The government must protect the borders

during times of war. States will have a definite role in immigration. So that is what they, that's what they're the original immigration law. Okay. I found it fascinating in the, the book that we have argued as if these things were not settled long ago. We have argued common language. How dare you insist as if this was just some idea that a bunch of racists had? Yeah, Ben Franklin is a great example because Ben Franklin talked about how so many Germans were moving into Pennsylvania, and they were. And he said the problem is they're speaking their own language. They're starting to create signs in German. They're starting to create documents in German. You can't have a nation if you don't speak the same language. So Franklin was one of the first

ones out. Then Thomas Jefferson, the same thing. He said, we have immigrants coming in, which is great. And by the way, they were so pro-immigration that in the Declaration of Independence, one of the 27 grievances was we're separating from Great Britain because he's trying to stop immigration. We want immigration. It's just we wanted assimilation with immigration. They were huge pro-immigration. Yes, simulation. I mean, here's Thomas Jefferson. They will bring with them the principles of the government. They leave, imbibed with their own, imbibed in their early youth.

These old principles with their language, they will transmit to their children in proportion to their numbers. They will share with us in legislation. They will infuse it into their old spirit, warp and bias its directions, and render it as heterogeneous, incoherent, and distracted mass. He says, the solution. It is thought-based. to discourage their settling together in large masses, and they should distribute themselves sparsely among the native for quicker assimilation.

This goes right with this. It seems to me necessary. This is Franklin. It seems to me necessary to distribute the Germans more equally. Mix them in with English. Establish English schools where they are now too thickly settled. I am not against the admission of Germans in general, for they have virtues, their industry, frugality, blah, blah, blah, they're great farmers.

He's just saying, we have to get them to be Americans. This is the opposite of what we're doing now. No Dearborn, Michigan's. I mean, we want people assimilating. We don't want them creating a parallel culture where it's almost a no-gozo now for police. Somalians in Minnesota. Exactly. And we've got groups in West Texas, create in their own separate communities.

and that's not it. It's assimilation. You want to become an American. You don't come to America to take over and move it to whatever your country was. You come here to be an American. Now, that's where the professors, the elite groups, really are into, well, America is really bad. You know, we need to be like Europe or whatever. One way to lose it is to not pay attention to what they did.

And one of the things we try to do in the book is we're not into government solutions. We tried to give things that every single individual can do because America gets healthy from the bottom up, not the top down. You say that racial healing is fairly easy. All we have to do is do it. What is the plan for racial healing? You know, there's several things. One is you've got to change some of your knowledge basis.

This is what we find with millennials. They are taught about race from the way their professors see it. And we show them seven things that everyone needs to know about race. And generally they don't. They're historical. Do you remember off the top of your head what those are? Oh, yeah. There's several things.

The first permanent slavery was introduced. in America by a black man Anthony Johnson who sued to own other black men. We show the fact that 43% of free blacks in South Carolina owned black slaves. Wow. One out of, yeah, nearly half. One out of eight Native Americans owned black slaves in major tribes. And that didn't stop with the emancipation proclamation. When did slavery stop? Well, it didn't even stop with the 13th Amendment when we abolish slavery because we only abolish slavery in the United States. But Indian nations that are their own nations. They're not bound by America law. So when did they stop? It was years later. It was probably

a decade later before slavery stopped in Indian nations. So what we do is show slavery is a human problem. It is not a black-white problem despite what your professors say. It is a problem in the way you view humankind. So we go through and show, for example, Tim Scott and James Langford in the U.S. Senate have come up with this thing where you invite other people from other race is to come eat a meal with you on Sunday. Come into your house and, you know, learn and touch. You don't solve racism institutionally. You solve it one person at a time, changing a heart at a time, seeing people different

and not having this black-white polarization that we often try to make today. How worried are you, David, about the level of anger now? Level of anger is a real problem, but what it's derived from is the bigger problem. and that stereotypes and all these things where we really don't know each other. And once you get to know each other and once you do this interrelational stuff, like with millennials and like with folks of other races and other groups, once you start doing individual stuff, that's where it breaks down. And that's where you're able to demonstrate that, you know,

what you thought about me or what you thought about this group is not accurate. We're individuals. We're made in God's image. We have equality. And we can get along great if we'll sit down and talk. It's what you're doing to your book, Glenn. I'm an addicted to outrage. that's exactly it you sit down and have conversations on bigger things so real quick just one last

give me the six things that you say are these are the six urgent steps the so they're actually six urgent areas what we've got to do in immigration what we have to do in our relationship with israel what we have to do with millennials what we have to do with people of faith doing a terrible job right now as people of faith so we go through those six areas and let me let me let's just touch on Israel. Our relationship with Israel is pretty good. It is right now. You're concerned in the book about Christians are starting to become anti-Semitic. They are becoming anti-Semitic. What has changed? This last, well, we don't know the scriptures well anymore. And we have the highest level of biblical literacy of any generation in American history. And so we're seeing

1,600 anti-Israel events a year on college campuses. People don't know much about the Palestinians, but they're told they're oppressed people and Israel's doing it. So we have a real individual turn against Israel, and a lot of denominations are coming out against Israel. Denominations that used to be very pro-Israel now. Really? Yes, absolutely, absolutely. These are the more liberal churches, though?

They're what are called mainstream denominations. So it's kind of like the United Methodist Church, PCUSA, those guys. So they had never been anti-Israel before, but now they are. They're coming out and they're wanting to do the BD, kind of stuff, the boycott, divestiture, and sanctions. So there is a growing anti-Semitic movement among people of faith in America, which is certainly a problem. Now, this administration has a great job on restoring the things. It's just, it's been absolutely amazing. But that doesn't

solve the individual problems we have at college campuses and at churches and people of faith. David Barton and James Garlo, the name of the book is This Precarious Moment, Six Urgent Steps that will save you, your family, and our country. We are at the edge of the cliff. And as the righteous among the nations, the woman that I met in Poland told me, were you there, David? You weren't there, were you?

I don't think on that trip I was with you. And she said, the righteous didn't suddenly become righteous. They just refused to go over the cliff with the rest of humanity. We are at that cliff. learn to stand teach your family to stand i'm thrilled to have malcolm gladwell on with us i'm a big fan of his his is writing also revisionist history is fantastic i think i started listening to the last season on a friday i consumed everyone's like you know hey the kids are throwing up they're sick they're on fire and i'm like shut up i'm listening to malcolm it's unbelievable his latest uh ep his latest uh season

on revisionist history, you don't really know until kind of, you know, towards the end of it that, oh, wow, this is all about memory. And I've learned that everything I thought about memory is probably wrong. I'd like to tell you what it was, but I don't trust my memory anymore. So Malcolm Gladwell is here. Hello, Malcolm. How are you? Hey, Glenn.

I'm doing very well. I, uh, thank you for your podcast. There's just so great. Um, no, thank you. It's very kind of you. I, I wanted to, I've been thinking. about you a lot lately because of the Kavanaugh hearings and everything else. And I don't want to get into the Kavanaugh hearings. What I do want to talk about is our memory and how it can be changed, manipulated, how it's natural for these things to happen.

I mean, you explained the Brian Williams story in such a different way because you didn't condemn him and you didn't. and you didn't exonerate him. You just said, let's look at the facts on memory. Yeah. Can you take us through it? Yeah. So memory is something that in the last generation, psychologists have spent an enormous and neurologist.

I've spent an enormous time, the amount of work and effort trying to understand how it works. And the more we learn about memory, the more we realize how fallible it is. And we more, and when we systematically go back and we test our memories, we find they don't do very well. So there's a famous set of studies that are called Flashbolt Studies where a famous event happens, 9-11, the Challenger explosion.

And you go to a large group of people, the incident happens, and you say, tell me everything you were doing, thinking on the moment when you heard that news. Where were you? Who did you talk to first? How did you feel, you know, what happened that day? And then they go back to the same group of people a year later, five years later, ten years later, and they ask them the same set of questions, and they compare their answers. And lo and behold, what you discover is that not everyone, but many of the people substantially alter their memories of the event without realizing it.

In other words, they are the first time they'll say, when I heard, when I saw the towers fall, I was standing in the streets of Manhattan with my best friend Jim, tears streaming down, my face. And then 10 years later, they'll say, when I first heard the towers fall, I was watching it on television in my dorm room. And I ran out, you know, and then I ran and called my friend Jim, who was in Boston. And they, they're as convinced 10 years later, that's what their memory was, as they, as they were the first time they, they, they, they, they related their memories on the day of the, of 9-11. And so that kind of stuff, my point in doing with Brian William, William's thing was, when you understand how fallible memory is, you are a lot more forgiving of what he did.

He did something, which it turns out a lot of us do all the time, which is we make what's called a time slice error. We confuse the timeline in our minds, and we think we're one place when something happened and we're in another place. We've heard a story been told so many times that we slowly incorporate ourselves into the story without realizing that we're doing it. And my point was that these are not sins of character. These are just facts of human memory.

And we so often want to make someone's faulty memory into a test of their character. And I think that's a mistake. You know, there are people who deliberately lie, absolutely. But a lot of what we think might be deliberate lying is just a manifestation of the frailty of human memory. So I really don't want to get into politics on this, but I do want to ask you this question to see if the way I'm, when I, when I finished with the hearings last week, I felt, okay, I think she believes that. And it may have happened that way. I don't know. And I felt Brett Kavanaugh. I believe he believes that. They both could be telling the absolute truth, correct? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. They both, I don't think either of them are deliberately lying. I think, I mean, the thing about memory is that we may honestly believe that this is what happened, even though it isn't. You know, my best friend, Bruce, I honestly believe I met him on the first day of first

grade. I can picture it in my mind. He honestly believes that we met in the principal's office at the end of first grade, and we didn't even meet that entire year. Right? This is one of the most important events of my life, my best friend. And we are off by eight months, right? And he thinks we met because we had got into a fight. And I think he came up to me and introduced himself, and we were best friends, you know, from the beginning. Like, you know, I am, I'm not lying about it.

It's what I remember. But one of us completely made up that memory from the whole class. In fact, when you were talking about the 9-11 study, there were people who came back 10 years later. They wrote out, you know, within a few days, if I'm not mistaken. Was it a few days or was it a year after 9-11? The original writing, well, the original time, they went to the next day. Okay, so the next day, they asked them to write out exactly where they were. What happened?

Ten years later, some of them said, I don't know why. I even wrote that. This is a lie. This is not what happened. I don't know why I was lying then. And they were convinced somehow or another they made something up that was different than what they knew to be true now. Yeah. People, one of the most important things that memory of researchers will tell you is you cannot confuse confidence with accuracy. In other words, the fact that I am absolutely certain that what happened happened is not a reliable guide to its accuracy. So you can't, like, so I am convinced I met my friend Bruce on the first day. That should, that does not mean it's more likely to be true than if I said, you know, if I,

if I expressed it with more doubt. So I think what it, a lot of what this, the lesson of all this is, is that we just need to approach our memories. and not just our memories, our entire lives, with a lot more humility. You can't, we're not, our brains are not Superman. They don't, they're not, we don't have a video recorder up there taking down everything perfectly. You know, and we need to, when I say I remember something one way, I need to be, I need to check it, I need to talk to others, I need to be open to the possibility I might be wrong. I need to, that's why we have legal systems and investigators and right to compensate for the fact that our memories are not what we would like them to be.

Everyone outside, let's take it outside of this political nightmare. This Me Too movement, I think, has been very good. On whole, it's been very good. I am concerned about the women need to be believed. I don't care if it's a man or a woman. no, they need to be heard and taken seriously. But we can't just believe what someone says for a myriad of reasons. And I fear it's dangerous, this road that we're going down, because we need more than just your word and your memory.

Because you might believe that's true, but it might not be. Yeah. Well, so it's funny. this is exactly the point that Ronan Farrell, you know, the journalist who has been responsible, more as opposed to anyone else for breaking these Me Too stories, I went to see him give a public interview and he was interviewing the actress who was the source, I forgot her name of course, because my

memory is very faulty. He was the source of many of the Me Too allegation and they were talking to his butt at this very point and he very explicitly said, my job as a journalist is not to believe the women. It is to listen to them and then try and corroborate through careful reporting those aspects of their stories that are, corroborate their stories through careful reporting. And if I can't corroborate them, then I can't write the story, right? My job as a reporter is to compensate for the frailty of human memory. And that is a beautiful way of expressing what the responsibility of media investigators is in these cases.

Is, okay, someone has gone, clearly believed they've gone through something very traumatic. Let's systematically try and figure out, did it happen that way? And if it didn't happen that way, let us not then judge the person and say they're a liar. Right? That's the crucial part. And it's like it is, we can't lose our humanity over this. We have to say, we have to say if we do an investigation and it's not the way that person says, we have to very respectfully say, you have, you like all of us, have a memory that is imperfect. That would be wonderful if we lived in that world.

But Malcolm, I am so concerned that, and you've said it now twice, and it is, it's what, it's what. made me successful in the first place, and I am so glad that I have discovered how dangerous it is. Certitude. We are a population that is certain about everything, and it's good to have a core set of beliefs and principles, but you must be open to hear new information and another information that doesn't give you, what is it, cognitive dissidence is good. It's good. That's a sign that something in you isn't quite right.

Don't shout your way through it. Stop back, step back and go, okay, which one of these two don't fit with the principle, I believe? Do I need to change the principle, or do I need to throw out that information that I'm now acting on? Right? Yeah. But that's scary. People don't want to do that. Yeah. I thought, you know, it's funny, I had a conversation last night with a friend of mine who was a Mormon and who was talking about the tradition among Mormons of keeping journals, which I had not known about.

And she had years and years and years of journals. And she was talking about what that means for when you have a contemporaneous account of your life, your feelings, your actions, your interpretations of what you've done. you can go back and it obviously serves a function far greater than simply checking your memory. Yeah. But it's a way of keeping yourself honest. What I loved about that was that notion of if we live in such a kind of difficult and flawed world, then we have to take responsibility for our own stories. And that, to me, what is what that tradition of keeping a journal is about. It says as a human being, you have a responsibility.

responsibility to yourself and to others to understand the road that you have taken, right? And write it down so that when you, 20 years later, you can look back and you say, I had forgotten. I did this then. You know, maybe I regret it now or maybe I've learned from it. But that, that to me, I just thought that was lovely. I really did. I thought that was as an example of a kind of a practice. and you obviously know much more about this than I do but the idea that that is part of what it means to be a righteous actor in the world is to take your history seriously. Have you heard from Brian Williams since your podcast? No, no. I have, I sure one day I already run into him and I mean he can't be, he can't publicly say that's true. That's great, you know, poor man. I think he was like, part of him, I'm sure, was like, I can't believe he's bringing this up again. Malcolm, thank you so much for being on the program.

I really appreciate it. You bet. Malcolm Gladwell. You'll follow on Twitter at Gladwell. And also, if you have not heard this podcast, it is so relevant for what we're going through right now. It especially listened to, I wish I would have asked him about the German, the spies. Oh, my gosh, that's a great story. Um, but listen to the one.

It's a two part about the German spies. Listen, just even start with the, the Brian Williams. And you will see, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. No, do not believe people on their memory alone. Take them seriously. Season three, episode three and four are the two that you're talking about. It really is. And the Brian Williams thing was incredible because it, I 100% just thought he was just trying

to lie to make himself look better. And when you look at like the way he did it and all the deep. Details around. It will at least make you uneasy about that conclusion. Yeah. He will, you know what? I always say, do something this week that makes you uncomfortable. Listen to this, because it will, especially if you think that Brian Williams, absolutely, he's just a pig.

Listen to this. Because it will challenge you and you, if you're honest with yourself, will go, well, wait a minute. I'm not quite sure. And if you're really honest, you'll go, gee, I wonder how much of that has happened with me. The Blaze Radio Network. On Demand.