Charlie Kirk and Glenn Beck dissect the "bipartisan cartel" and the rise of atheism as a form of statism, linking it to historical atrocities like the Holocaust. They contrast government prohibition with harm reduction models while debating trade policy with President Trump. Highlighting artifacts like the Declaration of Independence's capitalized "Christian," Kirk argues against narratives of founder racism, asserting that true liberty requires individual failure rather than forced conformity. Ultimately, the conversation frames the defense of free speech and religious liberty as the greatest mission statement on Earth. [Automatically generated summary]
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You know, I think one of the biggest lies today is the rap that is given to, you know, 15 to 30-year-olds.
They're all called lazy, self-centered, participation trophy generation.
Gosh, we're all going to be destroyed when they finally take over.
But I don't think that's true.
I mean, I think there are those dirtbags, but that's not the majority, at least the ones I've met.
And today's guest gives me real hope that I'm right on this.
Hope From a Teenage Voice00:05:31
He saw a problem and he didn't wait around for someone else to fix it.
Instead, he inspired high school and college students across the nation to be the voice of freedom.
He's a guy who, when he was a kid, watched my show on television.
And by the time he's in high school and then in college, he wants to change the world.
He's somebody who President Trump has called a great warrior and is no stranger to leftist criticism.
He's been called every name in the book for daring to support free speech on college campuses while questioning affirmative action and white privilege.
He is the founder of an organization that was nowhere, didn't even exist just a few years ago.
It's Turning Point USA.
It is the largest, most impressive, and fastest growth youth movement in the country.
Chapters at over 1,500 schools in America.
It's also worldwide now.
Recently, I was invited to speak at their fifth annual Student Action Summit, and what I saw amazed me.
Over 5,000 students attending on their own dime from all across the country and fired up about the truth of America.
But before I took the stage, my guest and I had an opportunity to sit down and we shared what we've gotten wrong, what our country must get right, and the amazing things that happen when people work together and do it.
On this episode of the Glenn Beck Podcast, Backstage with Charlie Kirk.
So Glenn, so great to be sitting down here.
And it's an honor to be able to speak with you.
Yeah, likewise.
Thank you so much.
I grew up listening to you and watching your show with the platform.
Thank you very much.
It was more instructive than you could have ever imagined.
Wow.
That is meaningful.
And you've been right about everything that you predicted.
Not everything.
Wrong about Donald Trump.
Well, I was talking back in 2012 or 2013.
But it's really refreshing to hear people yellow say, no, I was wrong about something.
I've been wrong about stuff.
I endorsed Cruz and I was behind him.
I think Trump surprised all of us.
Yeah, you know what?
I haven't really even talked about this on the air.
I think I maybe have obliquely referenced it recently.
But it must have been about six months ago, the president called me, and we haven't spoken since before the election.
Wow.
And we always had a friendly relationship, you know, and if I was traveling, I would stay at Mar-a-Lago and he'd be someplace else.
But we haven't spoken to each other since the election.
And he called me up.
And I'll never forget my Scottish assistant who was part of the Royal Marines.
He comes in while we're shooting a show and he's off stage and he's like, the president wants to talk to you.
And I said, cut, stop for a second.
What?
And he said, the president is on the phone.
And I said, the president of what?
Some university or Olivia.
Yeah, he's the president of Costco.
Why are you interrupting?
And he said, of your country.
And I said, oh, crap.
And I didn't even know what to do.
And I strangely said, can you ask him if I can call him back?
I'm in the middle of shooting a show.
What a stupid thing to say.
And so he said, okay, we finished up the show.
I called him back about 30 minutes later.
And we talked for about a half an hour.
Wow.
And it was a really, I wish more people knew him and could hear him like that.
Because he started in and he said, you know, I want to thank you for, you know, saying some nice things about me.
And he thought I was taking this a different direction.
And I said, well, I don't know if you know this, but during, you know, the last election and he cut me off and he said, oh, no, I'm very aware of that.
And I said, no, no, no, not that.
I'm clear you were aware of that.
I said, what I said was, I want to be wrong.
I don't think I am, but I want to be wrong.
And I'm going to judge him.
I'm having to judge him on what I think he's going to do.
Wow.
Now, once he's the president, I get to judge him for what he is doing.
And I said, so there was never any doubt, in my mind at least, that if you did the things that you said you were going to do, I'd be a supporter.
I just didn't think you'd do them.
And, you know, we talked about Israel.
We talked about trade.
And I said, I strongly disagree.
I bet we spent 15 minutes just on trade.
And he did not shy away.
He didn't tell me what I wanted to hear.
We had a real, frank, honest conversation, which you don't have usually with a politician.
And I think that's what people like about him.
The Coming Divide on the Right00:14:40
Yes.
Is that he really will tell you what he's thinking.
What the problem is sometimes, and yet the blessing is he is just P.T. Barnum.
Well, and I'll tell you, you're a great example that shows the success of his presidency from a conservative worldview, which is there's more people supporting him that are saying, you know what?
I was hoping he'd succeed, and he has, and he has been able to deliver results.
What's interesting is at the time we're recording this, it's just, what, day after the impeachment.
And last night, the president had a rally up in Michigan.
17% of those who attended were Democrats.
That's right.
And I think there's a lot of people who, you know, I heard Ben Shapiro say the other day, it's whether you think the president is a killer or a coroner.
These things, the press and everything else, they've been dead for a long time.
Now he's standing over the body saying they're dead.
And the press now and everybody else is saying, look, he killed the press.
No, he didn't.
They killed themselves a long time ago.
So is he a coroner or is he the killer?
Wow.
Half the country, 40%, are convinced that he's the killer.
The other half recognize this stuff has been rotted for a long, long time.
Yes.
Well, and Glenn, you and I both share the belief that America is exceptional.
And it felt that before Donald Trump, and I would make the argument most Republicans who are running for the presidency would not have done what President Trump has done, especially the international TPP, Iran deal, renegotiating NAFTA.
Those are almost untouchable for both parties.
You can't go there.
But it felt as if there was a management of the decline of America.
And you led the Tea Party movement in 2011.
Those are my words, not yours.
So 2010, 2011, you were a big part of it, and you were a very vocal piece of it.
And President Trump, in a lot of different ways, has led the revitalization and given a lot of Americans hope that they thought that this country could not be turned around.
You know what's really strange?
He has the same thing that Tulsi Gabbard has, and they don't agree on anything.
Basically anything.
You know what I mean?
But Tulsi is a she's so far out of the mainstream, and she is so far left.
But at no time do I believe she hates America.
I believe she loves America.
We just disagree.
Yes.
And what used to bring us together is that we can disagree, but we have a fundamental understanding that this country is a positive force and you can make it.
Well, I have a working theory about this.
This is why Bernie Sanders has a group that really appreciates him and follows him and why even some people on the right will say, oh, I don't like Bernie Sanders, but I think he really believes what he believes.
I think the new era of politics in the bipartisan cartel that has ruined this ruling class essentially Series of destructive policies that have borrowed too much money and eroded our freedoms and liberties and grew the fourth branch of government.
I think the American people would much prefer someone who's authentic, who says why they believe what they believe, like that conversation you had with the president on trade, even if you might fundamentally disagree with terrorists.
I respect it.
You say, I'll deal with that way more than an establishment Republican and a heartbeat.
I made argument after argument, and he tried to dismantle and I'd be like, but wait a minute, Mr. President, this, blah, blah, blah.
And in the end, he said, I'm just going to shoot straight with you.
I love them.
I love trade barriers.
I love the fact that we can get things from people if we just use our muscle a little bit.
I fundamentally disagree, but I hung up the phone going, at least he told me the truth.
Yes.
He was not pandering to me.
Well, and that's clarity over agreement.
Yes.
Which, and the false agreement that the bipartisan coalition that has really, like I said, ruined our country in so many ways, not completely, but I find the American people have this yearning and this interest, especially young people, for authenticity in our candidates, and that's been deteriorating.
So I have a question for you.
In 10 years, do you think America will be more or less socialist?
I ask this question of everybody, by the way.
Can I answer with a caveat?
Of course.
If we continue the spending and if we continue the erosion of who we are and the truth, we will be much more socialist.
If we have this real collapse, an actual depression, people who right now say, I am absolutely against socialism, they will want it to be able to weather that storm.
And I'm afraid that we're on that track.
However, I've been really heartened.
I mean, Charlie, I don't think you know the impact.
You say, oh, Claire, you made an impact on my life.
Do you realize the impact you're having on the country?
I know.
I mean, your organization didn't exist five years ago.
It didn't exist.
Tonight, I'm talking to 5,000 people, and in this place that paid to come across the country, I was on a plane with all kinds of 18 to 24-year-olds yesterday.
And I realized the people you have.
You remember when I did the thing in Washington, D.C. and Restoring Honor?
I do.
And right on the Washington Monument.
And I said, that day, somewhere in this crowd, there is maybe he's seven, maybe he's 15.
I saw that speech.
Yeah, somewhere in this crowd is the next George Washington that will feel it right now.
And I am so overwhelmed with the people that I have met from your organization and the people who are coming.
You're raising the next generation.
You are you and your organization really responsible for what I think will be the next great generation, but also some real sucky ones are going to come out of this group too, you know?
There's always a big government progressive left or right in every.
I want to talk to you about that because that's a great point.
And I think you're starting to see the coming divide on the right.
And I have some sympathy with some of the arguments and it's definitely 100% sympathy with the observations of where the right comes from this.
But there's a new right movement where they're okay with using government to trust bust or using government to solve societal cultural problems, banning things, growing government.
This idea of banning porn that's been kicked around.
So that's part of it.
Right.
So let's talk about it.
I did a whole podcast on that.
I don't know if you've commented on that publicly or not, but this is the coming divide, though, Glenn.
I know.
I don't like something.
This is horrible.
This is evil.
It's immoral.
It's a sin.
You are no different than what you're fighting against.
Talk about that.
This is the divide, Glenn.
Right.
By the way, some of the students tonight are going to be looking for that clarity because they're being told, which way do I want to go on this?
This is the divide that started with the progressive era.
Woodrow Wilson.
Senator Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.
Those two believed that the government and a group of experts could decide for everyone else.
Philosopher Kings.
Right.
That's insanity, and that is the exact opposite of what our founders believed.
What our founders believed was, look, you are going to some people, and I know this because I come from a suicidal family.
I've had two people, my mother and my brother, commit suicide.
So I know it.
Some people's bottom is death.
And there is nothing you can do about it.
When people say, oh, that guy was an alcoholic, that star was an alcoholic and depressive.
We should have seen this coming.
Most likely the people in their life did see it coming and they tried to do things.
But until the individual decides to change, nothing will change.
They'll just hide it deeper and deeper and deeper.
And you will cause more strife by trying to force them to sober up, get better, be happy.
You know what I mean?
And you can't control other people's morality.
You can teach why it's destructive, but you become the fascist when you decide this is immoral and thus I'm going to make sure nobody does it.
There's an argument to be made.
The efficacy of banning it also is questionable.
Black markets pop up.
Look at this drug war.
Sure.
Yeah.
Look at the drug war and look at it's not Spain, it's the island.
Portugal.
Are you familiar with that?
They legalized all drugs, basically.
They had the highest addiction rate, I believe, in the world on heroin.
They were losing their entire country.
They are pouring money.
What they decided to do was legalize all of it and then take half of the money they were spending and work on drug programs like AA programs.
Just fund things that work to get people off that.
They've completely healed their country.
I mean, there always be drug problems, but they've healed their country.
We keep going down the same path.
Bad, slap the hand.
Bad, slap the hand.
It doesn't work.
And that's growing on the right, Glenn.
I know it is.
And it's almost, I don't want to, I don't remember.
The progressives started in the Republican side.
Yes.
And you're seeing it, especially with the issue of tech, tech tyranny, Facebook, Google.
And there's calls on the right now to either trust bust them, where we heard that before, and a lot of it is by bad history, by the way, that the trust-busting was almost glamorized from the early 1900s.
And you educated me on this quite well, about really the reality of trust busting.
It is the one part of capitalism that I can't come up with a comfortable answer on.
How do you control it when people become so wealthy and so powerful that they can control?
So do we take their money away?
Do we take their control away?
Do we bust them up so they don't have that much?
This country was really built by the railroads.
You know, people say, oh, look at the Vanderbilts and what they had just because they built the railroad.
The average American has about twice the benefits and lifestyle that the Vanderbilts had back then.
We have a much better life on average and just below average.
And they were the top of that.
And they were the top.
No one was even close.
Just ask Anderson Cooper.
No one was even close.
I've actually, I've gone into the private residence of the Breakers.
There's two floors.
Anderson introduced me to the family.
I don't know if you know this.
The Vanderbilts still live in the Breakers.
No, I didn't know that.
Top two floors.
Wow.
Yeah, it's phenomenal.
The attic is nothing but Louis Vuitton steamer trunks that just say Vanderbilt silver, Vanderbilt China.
Okay.
The things that they did was crazy, but they helped us grow.
The problem was, is they decided themselves that they could control things.
Henry Ford was an awful, he was a socialist.
He was an awful guy.
He believed, I mean, he supported the socialists, the national socialists in Germany.
He believed himself.
I'm going to tell my workers what to do.
If you wanted to buy a Ford, you had to come see him and he would go over your financial records to see if you were even qualified to own.
So these people want to control things.
And so how do you square that to a free market skeptic?
I can't square it other than it works itself out.
We are going through what we went through in the late 1800s.
You think it's a gilded era almost that we might be going through.
I think it's the big, huge houses that are built.
The ostentatious lifestyles.
Yes, that's going to be the breakers of this century.
Yes.
And it will bust itself up eventually.
Well, the counter argument, people will say, but no, it took a Teddy Roosevelt to break it up.
No.
That's what someone on the far left or the new right would say.
Here's what Teddy Roosevelt did: he broke up the corruption in politics in New York.
You want to fix this?
You have to make the government so small that there's no one really to bribe.
Okay?
You clean the corruption up.
It's impossible to lobby a government so small that doesn't exist, right?
Why, you know, it was Woodrow Wilson that really started this lobbying campaign, and they did it in World War I.
And so some people that, and mind you, Glenn, this is a growing intellectual community.
And I respect a lot, I agree with them 100% on a lot of their observations, not always with the conclusions.
Liberty, Angels, and Individual Responsibility00:09:10
They'll say, but that's not achievable.
We're not going to get back to constitutional government.
Why?
They say the fourth branch of government is untouchable, not enough representatives.
What is achievable, though, is broad consensus of trying to use the instruments of power towards a moral good.
And it's not an insignificant amount of people, Glenn, that believe this.
I know.
We cannot become a group of people that don't understand the tyranny of the majority or the tyranny of the minority.
And both of which are just as bad.
Yes.
Okay.
And we are a nation of individuals.
You must allow me to fail and you must allow me to succeed.
You can't, it's something that, if I may speak in religious terms, I'm a Christian.
All right, so, you know, the war in heaven when a third of the angels are lost, okay?
And Satan's up there, and he's like, I'm going to bring all of them back.
I'm going to bring all these people back to you, God.
But you got to give me the credit.
And how was, what was his plan?
To take away choice.
To take away their choice.
They'll do what I say they should do, and then they'll be clean of all sin and so they can come back.
Wow.
That wasn't the plan that God chose.
God said, no, he'll sacrifice himself.
They must be free to fail.
Wow.
Okay.
This is the same argument that has been going on, if you're a spiritual person, since the beginning of time.
And I've always wondered, up until the last 10 years or so, how do you stand in front of a group of angels who know who God is and a third of them are convinced, yeah, God's the bad guy.
How do you do that?
You do that by saying, you know what he wants?
You know what he wants?
He wants these people to go down there and suffer and hurt and be in pain and stumble and fall.
And some of them won't even make it back.
What kind of dad would do that?
What kind of God would do that?
That's how you get a third of the angels to fall away.
That's what capitalism stops.
They say, capitalists, true capitalists say, you know what?
There are going to be places and people whose heart is so big they want to help.
And we as a society are going to promote the general welfare, meaning we're going to show, we're going to point those people out and say, good job, good job.
Hey, you want help?
Go to them.
And then there's something that is so big that only the government can take care of.
We'll consider that.
But everyone has to be able to fall.
Everyone has to be able to bleed.
Everyone has to be able to succeed because it's about the individual, not the group.
And so well said.
Skeptics will say, but that's doomed to fail because of the law of hierarchies.
So that you'll have so many people in the competence hierarchy that will get so good and will only multiply their wealth and multiply it.
And over time, the mob will be created no matter what.
What is it?
It's a more pessimistic way to look at it.
And I'm just saying I believe it.
What is our mission statement?
As a country?
Yeah.
That's how I would articulate it.
Yeah.
Boy, I would go back to the American Trinity, which is liberty in God we trust, e pluribus unum, which means out of many, one, and also to be able to live free and make choices you see fit as long as they don't hurt somebody else.
So may I take that?
And that was on the right, right?
On the floor, on the floor, may I take what you just go ahead and rip it apart.
No, no, no.
It's right.
Let me restate it a little more eloquently.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights.
And among these rights, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
And governments are instituted among men to protect those rights.
Okay?
That is the greatest mission statement of all time.
Thank you, John Locke.
And everyone says, Yeah, well, we never achieved it.
Yeah, we haven't.
We haven't.
Do you realize that aspirational statement?
Those founders that wrote that said, I believe man can do this.
That's like John F. Kennedy.
My father was born in 1926.
And we talked about the moon launch.
And I said, What was that like?
And he said, Son, you have no idea.
When I was growing up, we didn't think we could go to the moon.
Nobody even talked about it.
We didn't even think about it.
We didn't even have electricity.
The moon was just there, and we were here.
And there's no way we're ever going to go to the moon.
John F. Kennedy says, We're going to go to the moon, we're going to put men on it, and we're going to return them home by the end of this decade.
Everybody thought that's insane.
We did it.
We did it.
Okay.
This is the biggest idea any man has ever had.
Any group of people.
Wow.
What we do is we just say, we suck.
Instead of saying, wait a minute, we failed, but have you seen the progress over here?
Have you seen this person, this group?
Have you seen what these people have done?
And promote the general welfare and domestic tranquility by saying, look at how we're advancing as man.
Yes.
Instead, we keep saying, man sucks.
He'll always suck.
And he's got to have a big government being big brother to hold him in place.
I'm telling you, that is an evil plan.
And so you come from the place and the opinion that man is broken by nature, original sin.
Every man.
And every man has to start over.
And I hate to oversimplify it, but I think a lot of the American left, because they don't come from a biblical worldview, and they look at things, I believe, in more platonic terms and less Aristotelian terms, they believe that it's the structures and the systems, not the man, that is broken.
So they'll make the argument: no, man's actually good, but it's the capitalistic patriarchy and that man is nothing more than cattle and a group of supermen can rise up and be the ranchers of those cattle to protect the cattle.
I reject both of those.
Yes.
Okay.
Every man is put here with everything he needs.
Every man has it in him.
I love Winston Churchill.
Probably the greatest man in the 20th century.
Right.
Unless you're an Indian from India, then that man is a monster.
A monster.
Kill them all.
Shoot them.
Put them down.
They are not capable of self-rule.
Crush the rebellion.
If you only know him there, he's a monster.
If you only know him in Europe, he's a miracle.
So, Charlie, which one is he?
Somewhere in between.
Yeah.
He's both.
He's both.
Is he the guy he was in 1935?
When he got kicked out of the Navy or the British Navy or whatever.
Is he the guy in 1935 or is he the guy in 1945?
Or is he the guy at death?
What matters is: was he better earlier or better towards death?
He admitted his mistakes by the time he was old.
He said, I was lost.
I didn't think it through.
I had a different view of things.
He was progressing as a human.
And that is the individual responsibility for all of us.
And unless you go through the crucible, unless you are put into the refiner's fire of life, if you are not allowed to succeed, well, then you're not going to be able to fail.
And if you're only allowed to fail because the entire system is failing, you won't know the sweet.
You won't grow.
So you have to be able to grow.
Winston Churchill is no different than our country, than you, than me.
Penn's Bigot Misconception00:08:26
We all have a dark side and we all have a light side.
And it's a battle in between.
It's a battle our whole lives.
The idea is for you to understand that there is forgiveness for you.
So thus, you should provide forgiveness for others and you should provide understanding and grace to others because you know when you do something wrong and nobody will ever forgive you.
It just spirals into darkness.
Yes.
And I find one of the root causes of this, where also progressivism is able to catch hold, is the fastest growing religion in America, which is atheism.
And the rise of atheism, not just agnosticism and not just being deferential, but the committed, I am an atheist and I want to tell the world about it.
I call them evangelical atheists because they evangelize more than evangelical Christians do.
And you've talked about this at length.
There's a direct connection to that to statism.
When you are able to get people not to believe in a higher power, not believe that natural rights actually come from a creator.
Well, why not government?
Government then becomes God.
You know, for most of my life, I thought Nietzsche was sticking his fist up and going, yeah, God is dead.
He didn't say that.
God is dead, paraphrasing.
Now what?
Because man needs a God.
So what are you going to replace him with?
And he was warning, you're replacing him with science.
And God help you with the direction that you're going right now.
And look what happened.
Eugenics into the Holocaust.
All right.
So man has to have a God.
The left, their God is the planet, global warming, socialism.
And if you don't genuflect when you are told to genuflect, if you don't say the rosary the right way, you are a part of the problem and you must be run out of town because you're a heretic.
Yes.
Okay.
It's the same thing.
It's just their God is different than the invisible guy in the sky.
There is a difference, if I may say, between atheists.
I know atheists that are not a part of the problem because they're also strong libertarians.
And so they don't want to force it on somebody else.
And my friend Pendillette, he said to me one time, we were just chatting and he said, you're Christian.
I'm like, yeah, you know that.
He said, well, I know.
I didn't know if you knew that.
And I said, what are you talking about?
He said, you know, you never asked me what I know about Jesus and to be baptized.
And I said, well, I figure you're smart enough to know and I shouldn't.
He said, but Doesn't that isn't that part of your creed to be able to do it?
And he said, I actually kind of feel bad that you didn't think enough of me.
And I said, I, no, I was actually trying to respect you and not, you know, do that.
And he said, yeah, but it's in your creed to do that.
So I know people that like Penn, who has changed.
When I first met Penn, I asked him, I said, I just finished a show with him.
This is like 2006.
And I said, hey, next time you're in town, let's get together, have lunch.
And he looked at me.
This is off air.
And he said, are you, are you kidding?
And I said, no, why?
And he said, it'd be like me having lunch with a disease.
You're a Christian.
And I said, whoa, yes.
And he said, I would never have a religious person in my house.
It'd be like inviting the plague into my house.
And I said, Penn, boy, I've thought a lot of things about you in my life, but not that you were a bigot.
And he told me later, he got into the elevator and he just kicked himself, but he was angry about 9-11.
And he had grouped all religious people into one ball.
Wow.
And through our friendship, you know, of me just being there and, you know, always being his friend, he changed.
And he is, he is not preaching the hate and division.
In fact, he's preaching to his atheist friends.
I saw him on stage at the atheist convention saying, don't be what we've always said the worst Christians are to us.
Don't try to run them out of the square.
Just live with one another and respect one another.
I'm afraid that is, that's the minority of atheists, though.
A vast majority of atheists.
And Dennis Prager has the best question about it.
He spoke at the atheist convention last.
They've invited him.
And he asked the question, do you hope you're wrong?
And it's a great question to ask Penn, because if you don't hope you're wrong, then you want to be right more than what is good.
Think about it.
We want to be right more than ever having an afterlife, mercy, forgiveness, believing there's ubiquitous creator behind everything that we know to be true.
I don't think Penn would say he hopes he's wrong.
So he hopes there's nothing.
He wants that there's be nothing more than a clump of cells and bacteria.
Yeah, he thinks that we live a good, decent life now.
Enjoy every second.
Be good.
So he thinks this is perfect then?
No, he just thinks make the best out of it.
But he should at least hope there's an afterlife.
Meaning, would you believe the Bible if it's true, Pen?
That's what I was asking.
Yes.
I have asked him that.
And I've asked a few of my atheist friends.
If I could prove it to you, which I don't think you can either way, there's good evidence to get people close.
Yeah, but within striking distance.
I agree, but faith is required.
Okay, so if I could prove it to you, would you change your mind?
That's the question to ask.
If they say no, if I said no, if they came to you and said, if we could prove that there is no God, I reject that immediately because you can't prove that.
But if you could, and here's the evidence, Charlie, there is no God.
Would you change your mind?
So we have to answer that the same way.
We'd have to be as open-minded.
Right.
We'd have to.
Knowing that no proof on either side would actually ever do it.
That's correct.
Right.
But, yeah, I am.
I am.
I mean, I look at my faith.
You know, people are like, you actually believe in that stuff?
You know what?
I'm a recovering alcoholic, and even more important, a recovering dirtbag.
I spent a lot of my life being an absolute dirtbag.
And I know what my will got me.
And it got me nowhere except into the center of misery.
And when I went looking for a faith, I went looking for God.
I was looking just for something that would make me a happier person, make me nicer, make people, make me just love people, you know, and to control the worst urges in me.
I don't care if I have to drink chicken blood.
If it works for me, celebration.
Celebration.
You know, if I get to heaven and God is like some big space octopus, and he's like, you never saw this one, Carling.
I'd go, no, never thought that, but I guess, I guess I have to embrace that.
Sure, absolutely.
So I visit campuses a lot and we're so thrilled you'll be able to speak to our students.
And the rise of socialism is real and the destruction of our public education system.
Can't wait.
The Declaration's Unanimous Draft00:08:46
And so can you give a little bit of a preview or as this will record indefinitely in perpetuity, give it to those that can't be there, give me a question.
I can't give it to you.
And our students look up to you and admire you so much, Ben.
So it's really nice.
And if you could remember my name, I would believe it.
I was saying Glenn Beck.
I'm kidding.
I'm kidding.
Relax.
Okay.
Let me just start on a couple things.
First.
This is an 1830 engraving of the original Declaration of Independence, the first draft.
Wow.
Okay.
And if you look at it, here you could take that one.
If you look at it, you will see on the sides on the events.
And in the course of human events.
Yeah.
And on the borders, you'll see things like Franklin or Adams.
That's like a Google Doc where Franklin went in and said, don't like that line.
And so he would write Franklin or Adams.
Do you see that?
Yeah.
Isn't that amazing?
So I want you to notice that look through.
They scratch stuff out here.
I know.
There's a lot different in this draft.
And so this is the first draft.
This is the first passage.
This is the first pass.
Right.
And so it got the king's eyes.
Right.
So before Congress got a hold of it.
Okay.
This is Franklin.
This is Jefferson, then Franklin and Adams going, okay, I kind of like that.
Let's present it to Congress.
They presented it to Congress.
They talked about it.
Now, what does the Declaration of Independence say at the very top?
When in the course of human events.
No, the very top.
Well, I'm going to read this.
Is that okay?
Yeah, go ahead.
A declaration by the representatives of the United States of America in General Congress.
All right.
So something that did not officially exist.
Right.
But what does the official, the one that says, unanimous declaration.
Wow.
Okay.
So they started, and Thomas Jefferson said, you have to, do we all agree that if we aren't completely in lock sync, that the king will find a way to worm himself between us and he'll split us apart one by one and we'll be done.
Wow.
So is everything have to be unanimous yes or no?
They all voted yes.
Jefferson, you go write it.
Okay.
So I want you to notice that the only words that are capitalized in that are United States of America.
Okay.
Look at.
This is incredible, by the way.
Look at.
Thank you.
Look at this stuff all day.
Look at that page.
Do you see anything capitalized or printed?
Christian.
And?
Men.
Hmm.
Now, why, why would you notice that that's nowhere else?
It's underlined too.
Yeah.
It's nowhere else in the document.
Wow.
He doesn't print anything.
Everything is in cursive.
His handwriting changes at that point.
Okay.
You know what that is?
That's Thomas Jefferson alone at night writing the first draft.
Wow.
And in it, he says, and the worst usurptation, the worst thing he has done is this Christian king.
Handwritten out.
That's all printed.
That's all caps lock, basically.
Right.
And in his time, right?
He's mocking.
This Christian king has taken a group of people who never offended him from another part of the world.
Basically criticizing slavery, maybe?
Yeah.
Because he says bought and sold.
Right.
Right.
Put them on a boat if they survived.
He sold capital letters, men, on the open market.
Really important because blacks weren't men.
How could Thomas Jefferson write?
All men are created.
Oh, he knew.
He knew.
That's why in his own zeal, he capitalized men.
He sells men on the open market.
And now he's taking the people who are trying to free those people.
We have tried over and over and over again, and he blocks us every step of the way.
And now he's telling these people that he'll buy their freedom if they will kill the people who are trying to set him free.
Wow.
Okay.
Jefferson didn't understand slavery.
The founders didn't include this.
Remember, unanimous declaration.
Wow.
Two states out of 13.
Two states said that has to go.
Two out of 13.
So don't tell me we were built by racists that didn't understand.
They understood.
They knew.
And inspired by this document, in 1777, Vermont abolished slavery.
I mean, this document inspired the abolition movement.
It took 30, 40, 50 years.
But the lie of the left is that we're a racist country from our founding.
Correct.
What else you got here?
Let's see.
I'll show you this.
This is really kind of cool.
We only got a couple minutes because then we got to throw in.
So this is handwritten.
This is to Cesar Rodney, one of our founders, written by Thomas Jefferson.
Just read the last couple of lines.
This is incredible.
You might recognize that letter.
I'm not great at reading cursive.
I'm going to confide in you, Glenn.
He says, basically, I see the storm.
The world entire from the calamity threatened.
Yeah, I see storms.
We are the world.
We are the world's last hope, and its loss will be on our heads.
God help you and preserve you.
I think that might be a Latin phrase at the end.
I mean, that's Jefferson, one of his more famous lines.
We're the world's last great hope.
Disney was quickly.
This is the original prospectus for Disneyland.
Wow.
Hand colored by Walt.
Which was actually Disney World.
No, this is Disneyland.
California?
Yeah, this is Disneyland.
This is in 55.
Okay, was that first in 55?
Oh, yeah, yeah.
He never saw the Florida one be built.
Is that right?
No.
He died before.
Died in 66, I think, and that was opened in 72.
And Ebcot was not supposed to be what Ebcot is now.
You know what this is?
Have you ever seen this?
No, but it looks Eastern.
So it looks like, if I had to guess, a picture of either obviously from 1940s, probably World War II, Japanese, you know.
Japanese.
This American.
Okay.
On the back, it says, we have a new bomb.
So we were letting people know before we dropped the bomb.
Only 70 million of these were dropped.
Leaflets.
Leaflets were dropped from the sky over 11 cities.
These are the cities here.
And Hiroshima and Nagasaki are two of the cities.
And on this, it says, get out of the city.
We have more firepower in one bomb than all the bombs we have already dropped in Europe.
Get out.
Food and water will be scarce.
We are not after you.
We are after your emperor.
And his imperial ambitions.
Not after you.
Tell me where that is in history.
We don't even know.
Only Israel would do that with the Palestinian Authority.
And they do.
Correct.
I have Lincoln's bloody collar in here.
the torch from the 36 Olympics, it's going to be a...
But Glenn, we're just like every other country.
No, we're not.
We are an exceptional country.
You know, we may be on that road.
Walt Disney in 1954, in the, I think it was November of 1954, said, I want to build a park, and I'm going to build it in Orange County.
Okay.
And it was a Orange Grove in the in the fall of 54.
In July of 55, it was Disneyland.
It's amazing.
So we are not the nation we used to be.
Now you'd have to get environmental impact statements.
You'd have to march in the streets.
No.
Well, Glenn, it's such an honor to be able to speak with you.