← Pod Force One
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- [00:00]
Glenn Beck
He is 100% showman, but he's also brilliant. I made a promise. I've never heard a president say anything like this. If you want to be the President of the United States, you want to represent. We don't lay down on the floor, we don't cower.
- [00:24]
Miranda Devine
Glenn Beck, thank you for joining Pod Force One. You're one of America's most influential conservative voices. You're a champion broadcaster, you're a best selling author. You are shaping the political climate for a couple of decades.
- [00:41]
Glenn Beck
You have, my gosh, and you are such a good BS artist. I almost believe almost all of that.
- [00:47]
Miranda Devine
Well, it's true because you only get to qualify to come on Pod Force One if you are a, as the President would say, a consequential person.
- [00:56]
Glenn Beck
Okay, thank you.
- [00:57]
Miranda Devine
And I also, I think one of the most important things about you is that you're a media entrepreneur, a trailblazer. You saw where the media was going before anyone else did, and you leapt out of free to air television or cable television, whatever we call it, and got into digital media. So I want to explore all that. But first, we had dinner a few weeks ago in New York City, which was wonderful. It was the first time I'd met you and your wife and your son, and we just had a great time. And I was struck by and have remembered the conversation I had with you about Donald Trump ever since. And since I just interviewed the President two days ago. Well, you know, a few days ago, by the time we air this, I wanted to just share. So I think you're very insightful about who he is. He's such a complicated and interesting and remarkable man and a one of a kind president that I wanted to kind of tap into your insights into him and share a few ideas I have about what makes him tick and see if we can learn some new things. So just, let's kick off with that. So you mentioned that you interviewed the President, Donald Trump, just after or after the Butler assassination attempt. And you asked him a question that no one else had asked. So take us back there.
- [02:24]
Glenn Beck
So it wasn't, it wasn't actually an interview. I was with him personally. Mar. A lago or someplace. I don't remember where we were and we were just having a normal conversation. And I said, I just, I'm. What was, what were you thinking? You know, I watched you, you were down on the ground and they were all on top of you. And I know what I would have been thinking. How do I get out of here? They said, what, what, what was Going through your mind. And he said, get up. Get up. You're pathetic. You're not. This, this is not you. This isn't. You want to be the President of the United States. You're not afraid of anything. You're not afraid of these people. Get up. And I'm like, he said it just like that. And I'm like, oh, my gosh.
- [03:11]
Miranda Devine
Wow.
- [03:12]
Glenn Beck
And I thought, that is genuinely who he is. He is that. You cannot fake that. And you heard it. I went back and I listened to it. You could hear him. He's like, get up. Get me up. I want to get up. Let me up. Let me up. I got to get my shoes on. Yeah. The whole time that's what it was going through his mind. He is genuinely a fighter. He is genuinely a patriot. I mean, he, it wasn't about him. It was. If you want to be the President of the United States, you want to represent. We don't lay down on the floor, we don't cower. Who does that? Who, who's, who's like that, that, you know, besides him?
- [03:58]
Miranda Devine
Yeah. And I mean, he's given himself over to being president in like, that's a selfless way. And yet that seems so antithetical to the kind of, certainly the image that he has and some of the behavior he exhibits in public, which again, is also at odds to the glimpses that I see of him behind the scenes and more so the descriptions of him and the rapport he has with his family, all of his family, whether it be his kids or his grandkids and, you know, and his father in law and his mother in law when she was alive, and also the people who work for him. I've been on, you know, met the gardener at Mar A Lago or the groundskeeper or whatever, you know, working people who absolutely adore him.
- [04:56]
Glenn Beck
You don't see that though, because he thinks that's weakness.
- [04:59]
Miranda Devine
Right?
- [05:01]
Glenn Beck
He, he, he hides that. Let me tell you a few stories. I'm interviewing him and at the end of the interview, he said, my wife and I. He let me go. He called me into the Oval Office, my wife and I. And his assistant said, the president be white right with you. He asked if he would just leave you alone in here for a minute. And I'm like, okay, so I'm in the Oval Office all by myself, my wife and I. And my wife, firstly, my wife knows me so well. First thing she said was, don't touch anything. I'm like, I'm going to touch all of it, you know, The Declaration of Independence is here. All this great stuff is here. And. And so we were there for about five or six minutes and. And then he comes in and he said, so. He is just so smart. He said, you know, nobody, Nobody. I don't let anybody alone in this office. I want to let you alone in it because you touched everything, didn't you? Yes, I did. He said, I knew you would, and I knew you wouldn't do it if I were in here, so I wanted you to be left alone.
- [06:11]
Miranda Devine
Really? How lovely.
- [06:13]
Glenn Beck
Really. And then after the interview, he said, have you ever seen the Lincoln Bedroom? I'm like, no. And he said, you want to see it? Of course I want to see it. Somebody said that his assistant was standing there and she. Right before he asked, she leaned up and she said, Mr. President, the National Security Council is waiting for you. And he said, great, I'll be right there. Have you ever seen the Lincoln Bedroom? And I'm like, no. And he said, you want to see it? I'm like, yeah. And then I look at her and she's looking at me like, die. And I said, but you really, you should do the national security thing. He's like, they can wait. Let's go. So we get up and we walk, but he doesn't take me the fast way. We go downstairs to go upstairs. He goes downstairs in the basement and he's showing me all of these things about the White House. We're walking past the room, I can't remember, it's the library downstairs. And he said, he stops and he goes, oh, like a kid. Oh, you're gonna love this. Come here, come here, come here. And he kind of runs into the library with me and he's like, look at this. The guy is an art fanatic. And he shows me the picture of Jackie O. In art. And he's like, isn't that stunning? And I'm looking at him and I'm thinking, he is like a 10 year. He's like, me, you know what I mean? 10 year old around this stuff. And I said, I have to ask you, do you ever. I mean, I know you're Donald Trump and you're the President, but do you ever? And he cuts me off and he goes, every day. And I said, what was I going to ask? And he said, do you ever think, I can't believe I get to live here? And he said, every day I think that. How lucky I am. We go up, he shows me some stuff in the Oval Office. He tells me, some things are in the Lincoln Bedroom. He tells me some stuff that I have to sign a non disclosure on. And it's all the stuff. I'm walking out of the Lincoln Bedroom, and there at the bottom of the stairs, there's that credenza. And there's two non disclosures and one for me, one for my wife. And he's standing up at the top of the stairs, and I back up and I look at him. I said, why? Why? He said, nobody needs to know that. And I said, everyone needs to know that. That's exactly what everyone needs to know. And he's like, everyone needs to know what?
- [08:41]
Miranda Devine
What? The secret that he told you that you had to sign.
- [08:43]
Glenn Beck
It wasn't a secret. It was just him. It was something that he. I can't go into it, but it's him. It's the real honest to God, good guy him. And I looked at because I'd asked him before, I said, why don't you tell people this stuff? And he's like, it's weak. It shows weakness. And I said, it doesn't. It shows humanity.
- [09:05]
Miranda Devine
Yeah.
- [09:07]
Glenn Beck
So we were walking down. He. He. I'm signed those things. And he starts coming down. He tells me why he placed the art that he placed in every room of the White House. And he's like, this president is here because he reminds me of X, Y and Z. The. This president is here, you know, the only president painting that he will not hang in the White House. This should strike anybody. Exactly right. Because of war. Anybody thinks he's a warmonger. He won't hang his painting because he feels he was a warmonger. Good for you for knowing that. And he's. He. So he does it. So when he's walking to the Oval, he's reminded of all the things that he wants to be. He said to me, we were upstairs and he had often to a side not in a prominent place. He had Eisenhower. And I said, you need to put him in a more prominent place. And he said, why? And I said, military industrial complex, the educational industrial complex. All of that. Everything you're dealing with, the deep state. He's the one that said, warning.
- [10:21]
Miranda Devine
Yes.
- [10:22]
Glenn Beck
The next time I was at the White House, it was right as you came down the stairs. That was the first face he saw.
- [10:28]
Miranda Devine
Is that right? That's so interesting.
- [10:30]
Glenn Beck
That crazy.
- [10:30]
Miranda Devine
I have a little PS on that, which is. And I'm not sure when you went, if. If Nixon was there at the top of the stairs from coming from the residence. As you're walking down, there's a well, there was a big picture of Nixon on the left. And so he was showing us through, and as we were walking down, he said. He sort of shuddered when he looked at the picture of Nixon. And I said, why? And he said, because he made the mistake of not. Can't remember his exact words, but not duchessing the members of Congress. You know, he wouldn't entertain them, he wouldn't invite them over. He said, I have these people over morning, noon and night. They come over for a cup. They ring me up, I answer, they come over, they say, oh, can we come over, sir? At nine o' clock at night, Melania says, what are you doing? He says, I always remember when Nixon needed them, they turned their back on him.
- [11:27]
Glenn Beck
So did you know that's at. You're coming down and you come in the first corner of the stairs to the residence. It's right there from the residence.
- [11:35]
Miranda Devine
So you're standing, you're still at the residence. You're heading downstairs towards the landing. And right ahead of you over the stairs is a wall, and there are a bunch of paintings on them. I can't remember, maybe Eisenhower's on the right, but certainly Nixon, quite a big picture is on the left. And it's as if he's left him there or put him there to remind you if he said that. I like to remind myself for him.
- [11:58]
Glenn Beck
If he told you that story. He told me he arranged all of the paintings. So when he goes from residence to the Oval, no matter what path he takes, he's remembering the lessons of every president. It's incredible. That guy is. Is. He has a mind unlike anybody I've ever met. We went to the West Wing and he told me. Or not the West Wing, the. The ballroom, the East Wing. And he told me before it was ever announced, he's like, they're gonna go crazy. I'm gonna build a ballroom. And I said, really? And he started talking to me about the history of that ballroom. And then we got into, like, a little history off. I was like, that window is where Frederick Douglass crawled through to get in with Abraham Lincoln.
- [12:49]
Miranda Devine
Wow.
- [12:49]
Glenn Beck
So we were going back and forth and the stuff that he knew was amazing. And he. He took me to the window and he said, right out there, I'm gonna build a beautiful ballroom, blah, blah, blah. And he said. I said to one of the guys at the White House, he said, I want to build a ballroom. This place. It's obscene that we have this going on and people are coming from all over and they're in the grass and the ladies heels are true, right? And he said, we have to have a ballroom. And he said, I'll raise the money to pay for it because that's will be the big problem is, oh, he's building a big ballroom and he's going to use tax dollars. He says, I'll pay for it or have people pay for it. And he, he said, but I called a guy in and I said, you know, I want to build a ballroom. What do I have to do? And he said, well, you have to talk to the White House architect. So he calls in the White House architect. And he said, glenn, this is the greatest thing that's ever been said to me. I said to him, what kind of a pain in the ass is this going to be? And he said, well, sir, all of the permits have to be signed by the president, and you're the president, so as soon as you sign him, you can start. And he was like, that's the greatest thing I've ever been told.
- [14:00]
Miranda Devine
What a dream for a developer and a builder.
- [14:03]
Glenn Beck
And you're from New York, so you've seen him. I mean, I have to tell you, I would have sworn that guy had mob connections only because of the speed. He can build buildings in New York unlike anyone else. He can get them moving, get them built, and he's done. For him to be a builder in New York with the unions and everything else, and clean as a whistle should tell people volumes about who he is. He doesn't do business that way.
- [14:36]
Miranda Devine
You're so right. And, you know, he's an absolute pain in the neck to the contractors, you know, even the guys that are doing the memorial pool. I'm told he's constantly calling them and getting them. They're all working at 4 in the morning, but they're doing it in record time.
- [14:55]
Glenn Beck
Yeah. And he, but he. The. The deal is. And I talked to, I think it was Don Jr. Who said, you know, we were working in construction where we were 13, 14 years old, and he said, our dad insisted that we start at the very bottom. And he said, we learn everything. And he said that that's the secret of my dad. And I think that's the secret between the first term and the second term. He, he didn't know what he was dealing with in the first term. And him losing in 20 gave him a chance to have breathing room and go, okay, all right, let me look at the, Let me look at the ground game again. Now that I've seen what, how they play the game. Let me look at this again. And he came in well informed and ready to go. I mean, he told me we were on the road for his reelection, and we're standing backstage and one of us is going to be introduced. I'm sure it was me. And, you know, and he's standing there waiting. And so he just leans over as we're both standing there, and he goes, you want to look like a prophet? Now, this is maybe six or eight months before. Want to look like a prophet? And I said, sure. And he said, next year, after I'm elected, you just start talking about Panama. Trust me, everyone's going to be talking about Panama. I go back to my staff and I'm like, what the hell's happening in Panama? We couldn't figure it out. What happens? Panama. This guy has had this plan, everything he's doing, he is not shooting from the hip. This is a well thought out, coordinated plan to completely change from the system set up in 1945, 46, to a brand new system. And it's all hemispheric, it's all Western Hemisphere.
- [16:48]
Miranda Devine
You know, I think here's a man who has got this blueprint in his mind of how the world should be ordered. And I think he's had that since he was a small boy. He's remarkable. And it's from the smallest detail, you know, the way the Oval Office looks with the gold mouldings, to the grandest strategy, which is, like you say, Panama, Venezuela, Iran, China, Greenland, Russia, NATO, Russia, all of it. And. And, you know, like, for instance, he inherits the Ukraine war. And is he just going to do what Biden, what the establishment always does, just throw good money after bad into a war of attrition where thousands of men are killed, being killed constantly? Or does he just throw the whole chessboard apart, tear it apart, and then. And start a new game on his terms? And that's kind of what he's doing, isn't it? I mean, is that overthinking it?
- [17:57]
Glenn Beck
No, no, I think everyone underthinks him. I think his. His foes look at him and they go, he's a clown, he's a moron, he's. Whatever. The guy is part comedian. He is 100% showman, but he's also brilliant. And he doesn't let you see the soft side or the brilliant side. But anyone who has spent any time around him, and you see him interact with AIDS and everything else, I came back, he. Remember when he went to Jerusalem and they were. He had to speak at the Knesset, and they got the hostages back and he did the big thing in the morning with the hostages. Then he spoke at the Canesses, and then he flew to Egypt, and he was meeting with all the world leaders in Egypt. He put that whole thing together and
- [18:49]
Miranda Devine
they were all bowing and scraping to him. It was unbelievable.
- [18:52]
Glenn Beck
All of. Yeah, all of them. Someday I'm going to write a book about the stuff that I was told I would never be able to say, because that thing is fascinating, what happened there. But anyway, so he comes back Now, I'm. He leaves on a Friday. He arrives Saturday in Jerusalem. He does not sleep on the plane. He. He does the whole thing in Jerusalem and then Egypt. He gets back on the plane. He arrives now, I think it's Monday morning, Sunday night, Monday morning, he doesn't sleep. He goes right to work. He meets with the Prime Minister of Argentina. Another prime minister has other staff meetings. I'm there at three o'clock in the afternoon. He goes to the. To the Rose Garden. He gives an hour speech. I go back in. He goes right to the White House. I'm standing in the vestibule, right in front of the Oval Office. J.D. i mean, Marco Rubio is coming out of the Oval from a meeting, and he looks terrible. He just looks like I've been hit with a shovel. And. And I said, how you doing, Marco? And he's like, I'm good. I'm tired. And he said, you have no idea what it's like to travel with this guy. If he doesn't sleep, you don't sleep. He said, I hid under a blanket. And all of a sudden I'm hearing him come down the hall, and I'm like, oh, my God, I'm not going to sleep. And he said, we didn't sleep all the way there or all the way back. And I said, well, I said, I have to tell you, you're doing a great job. And he said, it's not me, it's him. Then J.D. vance walks out. He's calling somebody else in. J.D. vance walks out, and J.D. vance looks like he's been hit by a truck. And so the two of them are sitting there, and I'm like, you look just as good as he does. And he's like, the guy does not sleep.
- [20:42]
Miranda Devine
I mean, he's.
- [20:43]
Glenn Beck
And I said, well, let.
- [20:44]
Miranda Devine
J.D.
- [20:44]
Glenn Beck
i said, let me give you the compliment. I. I know. I said, let me give you the compliment. I just gave him. You're doing a great job. He said exactly the same thing. Marco Rubio did. It's him. He said, he Calls us in every morning and says, what are we going to do to change the world today? Really? That's incredible.
- [21:01]
Miranda Devine
That's incredible.
- [21:02]
Glenn Beck
Where he gets this energy, I don't know. He says it's jeans, like a pair of those.
- [21:09]
Miranda Devine
Well, he does. I mean, look, his health check the other day said that he had cognitive. I think. Well, I don't. Certainly cardiac health, 14 years below what he is his real age. And then obviously, cognitive. He's very proud of. He gets 30 out of 30. And those tests are not, you know, they're not that simple. You have to have, like, a bit of a memory. I asked him, have you got a good memory? He said, yes, I do. And then he said, touch wood. So far, so good. You know, he's not taking it for granted, but he also said Joe Biden gave old age a bad name, which is a good point. Cause he has friends who were 95 years old. I mean, I know people in their 90s who are sharp. So. He's right.
- [21:53]
Glenn Beck
It just depends, you know, he. Do you know who his uncle was?
- [21:57]
Miranda Devine
An MIT guy?
- [21:58]
Glenn Beck
You know this story?
- [21:58]
Miranda Devine
MIT guy?
- [21:59]
Glenn Beck
Yeah. Do you know the history?
- [22:00]
Miranda Devine
No.
- [22:01]
Glenn Beck
So I think this is. I. I said this to him in an interview once. I said, this is so fascinating, and I wonder if you've ever tied this together. I said at the time, you and Elon Musk are friends. Elon Musk Company is Tesla. Tesla, the inventor. He's gone insane. He's. He's at the end of his life. He's creating all of these crazy death machines, okay? Death rays, all this crazy stuff. And. And it's so far advanced, and he's so nuts, nobody knows what to do with it. They don't even know what it is. And so when he dies, the CIA or the OSS had assigned somebody to be his secretary that he thought was just a helper. And not somebody that was on the oss, and that was George H. W Bush's father.
- [22:51]
Miranda Devine
Really?
- [22:52]
Glenn Beck
Yeah.
- [22:52]
Miranda Devine
What a great story.
- [22:54]
Glenn Beck
When he dies, Bush calls up and says, I don't. I can't read any of this stuff. We need a great mind. So the OSS calls. I think it was Columbia, and they get Donald Trump's uncle. And he's the guy who goes over and he looks at all of the plans and says, this is this. This is that. This has to be classified. This can go. I said that to Trump, and he said, wow, not a lot of people know that. And I said, I do. I think it's incredible. I said, you ever think about that with Elon Musk, and he's like, yeah, it is kind of cool.
- [23:28]
Miranda Devine
Wow. So he knew that story.
- [23:30]
Glenn Beck
Oh, yeah, yeah. Is that he's very proud of his uncle.
- [23:33]
Miranda Devine
Oh, he. He would be. And he was mocked. Mocked for that during COVID when he mentioned it, but. So his. His uncle must have been a genius. Look, I. I like. Trump calls himself a genius, so it's hard to say this, but, you know, I think in many ways, he is certainly. He has a brain unlike any other that's able to master all sorts of things at the same time and inexhaustible.
- [24:01]
Glenn Beck
Yeah, he is. I think his secret is he does not get exhausted. I mean, imagine how, you know, when I was working in New York, at the zenith of my career, I had a, you know, a disorder happening in my. In my body, and. And I was only sleeping for three hours a day. And you don't call the doctor when you're sleeping three hours a day. It is great. You are so productive. You know what I mean? And I was massively productive. I had a nighttime staff and a daytime staff. Really? I loved it. Oh, yeah. So why does that happen for 10 years? It's a long story, but at the end, I blew out all my adrenal glands. I wasn't dreaming. I had no REM sleep for, like, 10 years. And at the end of 10 years, I was just. I was just in really bad shape. I mean, I look at. I. I don't know if you can see.
- [24:50]
Miranda Devine
Oh, yeah.
- [24:51]
Glenn Beck
But that's from that time, really. It's that. That's the only thing left from it. It's just that I have this shake in this one hand.
- [24:56]
Miranda Devine
So do you think Donald Trump has something like that?
- [25:00]
Glenn Beck
No, I think it's natural for him. I had a disorder. He. He. He. It was natural for him. So that is a superpower in and of itself. You can accomplish so much. Then the second superpower he has is he's a visionary. He can see it finished. Okay. When you see things finished, especially when you combine it with a third superpower he has. He grew up listening and going to the church of Norman Vincent Peale. So he is. The power of positive thinking. It is done. The reason why, it's not ego. When he says it's the greatest, he is speaking something into existence. Okay. When he's like, nobody thought we could do this. We're doing it. It's not done. You know, when he walks out and he says, we just got Greenland. We got Greenland, and it's all done. And we just had. No, it's not, it's. It's not.
- [25:59]
Miranda Devine
He's manifesting speaking it.
- [26:01]
Glenn Beck
He's manifesting it.
- [26:02]
Miranda Devine
Right?
- [26:03]
Glenn Beck
That's his third Super. You combine those three things and you have a very effective human being in any category.
- [26:13]
Miranda Devine
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- [27:45]
Glenn Beck
Please check out my new interview series. We'll do it live. Each Thursday, I sit down with the most influential people in America. We're a no spin chat, no script. Anything could happen. You can find. We'll do it live on BillOriley.com YouTube or wherever you download your podcast.
- [28:12]
Miranda Devine
I wonder if the traits that make him so obnoxious to some people, to like, polite people or establishment people. I wonder if those traits are built in like they're part of the architecture of whatever alchemy is there. You have to take the rough with the good.
- [28:35]
Glenn Beck
Yeah. I think part of it is he has one of the best sense of humor I've ever seen and such incredible timing.
- [28:41]
Miranda Devine
It's New York. It's New York. Yes, sort of.
- [28:44]
Glenn Beck
It is.
- [28:44]
Miranda Devine
What is that humor? It's very New York.
- [28:48]
Glenn Beck
Yeah. It's very caustic and very sharp and, and, and, and quick. The other thing is, if you read the Art of the Deal, everything is a deal with him. You know, I'm sure you heard the story about when he was having dinner with President Xi at Mar a Lago. It was the night. I think it was the night we killed. What's his name, the General.
- [29:14]
Miranda Devine
Soleman.
- [29:15]
Glenn Beck
Yes, Soleimani. I think that was the night it happened. They were having dinner at Mar a Lago. You know this story?
- [29:20]
Miranda Devine
I've heard it. Go on.
- [29:21]
Glenn Beck
Yeah.
- [29:22]
Miranda Devine
Yeah.
- [29:22]
Glenn Beck
And so he. He's having dinner and he says to President Xi, excuse me just a minute. I'll be right back. I got something to do. He leaves, he goes up into the skiff. He watches them kill Solemani. He comes back and he's like, sorry, just had to kill General Solomon Soleimani. Where were we? And Z looked at him and he said, his eyes opened up, like, what. What did you just say? And he said, I said it, and I did it intentionally to let him know the United States can walk and chew gum at the same time. I'm doing powerful stuff with you, but I'm also killing a guy on the other side of the planet. And it. I don't. I'm not even breaking, you know, a breath.
- [30:02]
Miranda Devine
It's nothing.
- [30:03]
Glenn Beck
I'm totally fine. Yeah, it's nothing. He's so. He's strategic in everything he does.
- [30:09]
Miranda Devine
Yes, I agree. And I think the complaints that are coming in thick and fast from, you know, Republicans and people who call themselves Trump supporters about Iran, I think underestimate his plan, that he has a plan. And I asked him about this in the interview. I said, you know, we're hearing from people know, our readers, our audience, that he's. They're confused and they're anxious because he keeps on swapping and changing. Is it a ceasefire? Is it kinetic? Is it. What is it blockade? Is it Hormuz? And he said, they're confused. Good. Because if they're confused, Iran's confused.
- [30:50]
Glenn Beck
I, I, Because I really watched him and I, you know, we found the. And I'm sure you've seen it, found the old video of him in the 80s saying, you know, if Iran was doing this, this is what I do. And it's exactly what he's doing now. This is a well thought out plan by him for a very long time. And what people don't understand is when he's getting nasty, you crazy bastards. I'm kind of. He's speaking crazy bastard talk to crazy bastards. He is. He wants them to know, oh, I can out crazy you any day of the week.
- [31:25]
Miranda Devine
Weak.
- [31:25]
Glenn Beck
You think you're crazy. You think you're Scaring me. I'm crazier than you, and that is strategic. And everybody here is like, I don't want the United States to look like that. Okay, well, you know what? You're negotiating with crazy bastards that want you dead. If that's what brings them to the table, I'm fine with that. It's. It's the same thing. I don't. I just. I don't understand how the media and everybody else just can't. You've watched him now for all these years. It's a pattern. I'm gonna. The little rocket boy. I'm gonna blow him up. He didn't blow him up. He went to him and they became buddies. I like this guy. He's great. Okay? That's what he does. This is his negotiation tactics. When he is dealing. When he is dealing with somebody. You know, when he sold the Plaza Hotel, I don't know if you know this story. He sold the Plaza Hotel, and he goes in for negotiations. And they had been planning. He wants to get rid of the Plaza Hotel. And they've been planning these negotiations with this Japanese firm. They come in, they're all sitting at the table. He's running a few minutes late. They start. He walks in and he's like, hey, you know, where are we on this? And he said, my guy started to talk, and he said. I just looked at them, and he said, you know what? And he said, I cut my guys off. You know what? I tell you what, Let me tell you about something else I'm doing. And he sells them on the west side highway project. You know, that project with all those buildings in the underground, you know, everything. And he sells them on that, and they take a break, and his team looks at him, says, Mr. Trump, can you just. I mean, what's happening here? We have to get the Plaza. And he's like. I could see it in their eyes. They weren't interested. I want to sell them something. And he sold them that instead of the Plaza Hotel. He can read people. He knows how to negotiate. He gets it done.
- [33:25]
Miranda Devine
That's so interesting, because another thing he mentioned was I asked him about Marco Rubio versus J.D. vance, because he likes to have this little parlor trick where he asks guests at his table, who, even in front of J.D. vance and Marco Rubio, who do you like better? Aren't they an unstoppable ticket? Who's better? And they're friends, and he knows their friends, so they're not really bothered by it. Although I think it's a little bit Awkward. But he said the other day to me that he likes to study them and the way they relate to each other. And I found that interesting. So I said to him, that's interesting that you study them. He sort of tried to move on. And I said, do you do that everyone in your cabinet? Do you study their interpersonal relations? He goes, yes, I do. I do it to everybody. And I said, why?
- [34:17]
Glenn Beck
He's done it to you? I can guarantee he's done it to me probably.
- [34:20]
Miranda Devine
And he says, because human beings are so interesting, I find it interesting. His social IQ is or EQ is off the charts. He's got this ability to sum up up somebody's weakness or strengths or whatever character what, what he needs to use to work them to his will.
- [34:45]
Glenn Beck
Can I tell you one more story? Do you know the Tiffany story?
- [34:48]
Miranda Devine
No. Oh, no, I don't.
- [34:50]
Glenn Beck
So, okay, so he's, he buys the land for Trump Tower. You know, in New York you don't just buy the land, you buy up. He doesn't have the air rights for anything over three stories, okay? Tiffany's owns it. Tiffany's is across the street and down the block and they own the air rights. They do not want a big building there. He buys it anyway. And everybody's like, they're not going to sell you their rights. They've never wanted a big building. He's like, they'll sell me the air rights. Trust me, they'll sell me there. He goes to his architect and he says, I want you to build two things. I want you to drop two things. I want you to drop the most beautiful thing nobody could believe how beautiful it. I want you to large, you know, story and I want you to draw that up. Then I want you to draw the most horrible, ugliest three story building you could possibly imagine. I want it to be the most hideous thing you could ever imagine. So the architect says, okay, he goes to the meeting and he rolls out Trump Tower. And he says, want that? And they said, well, you know what? You need the air rights and we own them. And we're not selling them. They're not for sale. And he said, I thought you might say that. I already own the property. So let me tell you, you don't sell me the air rights, I'm going to build this. And he rolls out the plans for that building and they look at them and they look at him. They said, you won't build that. And he said, you don't think. So he walks out, he goes, by the time he gets back to his office. They're on the phone saying, come back. We'll sell the air rights.
- [36:21]
Miranda Devine
Really?
- [36:22]
Glenn Beck
That.
- [36:22]
Miranda Devine
That's brilliant.
- [36:23]
Glenn Beck
So he sizes everybody up and he knows where their pressure points are, which
- [36:28]
Miranda Devine
is probably why he made a fair amount of enemies in the property development game in New York. I mean, apart from he. He was cheap with his bills, But. But I think, you know, he. He beat people in deals. He screwed them, and people don't like that.
- [36:43]
Glenn Beck
He. He would look at that, I think, as winning. I win.
- [36:47]
Miranda Devine
Yes. Yeah.
- [36:48]
Glenn Beck
I win.
- [36:49]
Miranda Devine
I win. And you reminded me of. I asked him one time, how do you come up with those nicknames? Remember Low Energy Jeb and Little Rubio? And he said, so the low Energy Jeb one was interesting because I don't know if you've heard this story, but he said he was in New York. So he's just a candidate. He's not a politician yet. And he's in New York and he's doing this very tough negotiation with a Chinese gangster. And he said he thinks I've screwed him. And I said, did you? And he goes, yeah, I did. So. And he's a big mafia type Chinese guy. And they're in, having breakfast in the boardroom at Trump Tower. And he said, the guy is just yelling at him and there's eggs spitting out at him and all this. And he's looking at this guy, and it's really tough negotiation. Then he's got to get on a plane and go to one of the debates, too. I don't know where it. Texas or somewhere. And he says, and then, you know, so a few hours later, he's up on stage and he's looking at all these stiffs, you know, and he's thinking, I have just been there grappling with probably the toughest mofo in the world, and you guys, you milquetoasts. And he just looked at Jeb and he was like, it just came to a Low Energy Jeb. And it absolutely. I think that killed him straight away. Joe Bush.
- [38:14]
Glenn Beck
I think so, too.
- [38:15]
Miranda Devine
Yeah.
- [38:16]
Glenn Beck
I think the names, the name calling that he did would kill. Kill him one by one. He said to me, I'm walking out of the White House at one point and my producer's with me. And she said, don't worry, he's going to write or he's going to say good things about you tomorrow. And he said, I know he will. Otherwise, tomorrow he looks right at me with a big smile. Otherwise, tomorrow he's failing. He's a mess. He's a has been. And we just both laughed because that's exactly what he would have done, of course.
- [38:44]
Miranda Devine
So tell me about your relationship with him. Because, I mean, who could forget? I think it was about 10 years ago you did the famous video of, you know, putting smothering your face with Cheetos to be Orange man bad. So what was your trajectory from thinking he was a joke to. I mean, you share that with many people.
- [39:07]
Glenn Beck
I really liked him. We knew each other before, and I really liked him. And. And I had nothing but good things to say about him. And then I misread him because I. He called me about my father and I was. I was in the throes of mourning the death of my father. He calls me about his father, my father, and he says all these things and he's so personal. And I, because I had worked at Fox and I had been around so many smarmy people that, you know, are always angling for stuff, it really bothered me. And I thought, this guy is about to announce he's going to be president. He hadn't yet. I think he's going to run for president. This guy is trying to get me into his camp and he'll do anything, okay. And I didn't believe that he was a conservative at all. He's a New Yorker, okay? No way he's going to do any of these things. And, and I also thought at the time, there's going to be so many investigations on him and we're going to find all the bodies down in the basement of Trump tout. You know what I mean? Because he builds building so fast. How do you do that without corruption in New York? I don't know, but he does it. So I saw. I thought the guy is corrupt. The guy will say and do anything using, you know, in my case, using my father. And honestly, I have apologized to him once already about misjudging him on that. And I still. This haunts me probably at least once a month. I will think I was so. It was so wrong to misjudge. I can't read his heart. How did that happen? I was just. It was such a bad move.
- [40:59]
Miranda Devine
It's the story of his life, though. I think that has happened to him.
- [41:05]
Glenn Beck
I know hardly anyone, which makes him who he is. Unloyalty, even more rash, you know? Well, I don't think we have the relationship that we had before and I don't think we ever will because I misjudged him so gravely. And then I spent a lot because I really thought there's no way. There's no way this guy's going to do anything. We. This guy is a complete fraud. He is a closet liberal. And. And so. And I said. Right before the election, I said, I hope I'm wrong, and if I am, I'll be man enough to admit it, but I got to tell you, I'm not wrong about this guy. And then he got into office, and he started doing things. And then the key for me was he made. He moved the embassy to Jerusalem, which was one of the things that he said on the campaign trail. And I said, ronald Reagan said that. And Ronald Reagan didn't do it. No president is ever going to do that. The State Department will say, sit down, and he'll sit down. And he did it. And I went on the air that day, and I said, I have to apologize to you. And to the president, I said that he'd never do this, this, and this. And he's just done them over the last six months. And I may not like his style, I may not like a lot of things, but I was wrong, and he is not the man that I thought he was. And I'm on the set about three hours later, I'm cutting my TV show, and my assistant, who is. He was Scottish at the time he comes in, and he's kind of awkwardly behind the camera, and I'm like, stop. Stop what? What do you need? And he's like, I'm sorry, the president is on the phone for you. And I said, the president of what? And he said, your country. And I said, what? What? And he. And I said. And I was so, you know, blown over, and I'm like. I said something stupid. Ask him if I can call him back. Tell him I'm in the middle of shooting, and. Because I had to finish this show. And he's like, all right. So he goes in, he tells him. He says, yeah, tough, Glenn. Call me anytime. So I call him back. I get off the set, I call him back, and. And he said, I knew I'd get you. I knew I'd prove you wrong. And I said, well, Mr. President, let me start first by apologizing. I am sorry. I know I was brutal. And I said, I don't know. I actually, I said this. Mr. President, first, let me say this. I don't know if you know. And he said, oh, believe me, I know everything you said about me. And I said, no, no, no, I'm sorry for that. I imagine you do. I. What I wanted to say is, I don't know if you Know, I said before the election, if you did what I said you would never do, I would apologize. And he said, I didn't know that, but thank you. And he. Then he said to me, so what are the big issues with you? And I said, I don't believe in tariffs. And he said, why? And we had a 30 minute conversation on tariffs where he listened to me. He wasn't arguing with me. He would ask me questions and he listened to me and he got down to the very end and he said something that I'll never forget because no president. This made me like him even more because no president would ever say this. Glenn, you make some good points. Not points that I have not heard before, but you make some good points. But I got to tell you, in the end, I just like tariffs. I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it. And I thought, who says that? Who says that to a guy that you just got onto your side, you listen to? And they go, but I'm gonna do it anyway. I don't care what you say. And I had such respect. Instead of going, you know, you make some good. Let me think about that. Hang up the phone and never think about it. He didn't. He just told me the truth.
- [45:12]
Miranda Devine
That's the funny thing about him is that, you know, the Washington Post says he's a big liar and, you know, had the Pinocchio meter going full bore with him. Everyone calls him a liar, he exaggerates, he uses hyperbole. But I think he's almost incapable of lying. Like, he's not very good at obfuscating when you know that he knows something. I've done interviews with him where I've known that he knows something. And I ask him the question, which I shouldn't really, but I ask him the question, and he knows that I know. And he's very uncomfortable because he doesn't want to lie. So he's got these ways of sort of avoiding the question and so on. But unlike any politician I've ever known who will look you in the eye and plausibly tell you something, it's the complete reverse of the truth. He just doesn't seem to be able to do it. It's almost like reverse Tourette's or something.
- [46:10]
Glenn Beck
I think when it comes to business, it's not lying, it's the game. But when I left Fox, Roger said to me, Roger Ailes, president of Fox, said to me, you know what your problem is? And I said, no. And he said, you won't play the game. And I looked at him, I said, roger, because some of us don't believe it's a game. This is our country. It's not a game. And he really didn't understand that. When, when it's with Trump, he looks at a lot of things. Negotiation as a game, he looks at his business as a game. I'm going to win. When it's his country, it's not a game. And I think that's the difference. I think he could look at you in the eye, look you in the eye in business and go, no, I, I gotta tell you, there's no lead paint in this building.
- [46:58]
Miranda Devine
Oh, right, I see.
- [46:59]
Glenn Beck
You know what I mean? I think he could. But when, but when it's the country, he cares so deeply. He said to me, right after the. He lost in 20, 20, maybe a year later, we're talking, and he was a. He was a different man. And I said, how you doing? And he said, you know what I can't live with? Know what I can't live with? I can't live. Look at what they've done. He said, glenn, I almost had this thing f fixed. He said, we were well on the way. Look at where we were with the economy and look what they have done. And that. And that wasn't what bothered him. What bothered him was, I quote, I made a promise. I've never heard a president say anything like this. I made a promise to all of those people that are out working every single day. And I had it. We were on the path, we were getting it, and they've destroyed it. And I don't know if we'll ever be able to get it back to that. I've let them down. My mistakes let them down.
- [48:07]
Miranda Devine
Wow.
- [48:08]
Glenn Beck
You don't hear that Donald Trump anywhere. And that's who he is.
- [48:13]
Miranda Devine
Every major story has a version the news gives you and then a version that's actually true. If you're a critical thinker, if you're somebody who's not tribal, if you're somebody who just wants the facts so you can make your own decisions, Keeping It Real with Jillian Michaels is the show for you. Subscribe now, wherever you get your podcasts.
- [48:34]
Glenn Beck
Hey, this is Mike Slater. I have a podcast called Politics by Faith. I would love for you to listen. We take the news of the day and we run it through the Bible. What does the Bible have to say about this? Because there's nothing new under the sun. You read the headlines. Everything's all crazy. We're world's coming to an end. It's all in the Bible. And after every episode, hopefully you leave with a proper perspective and a biblical peace. Please join us wherever you listen to podcasts and we also have a YouTube page as well. YouTube.com politicsbyfaith.
- [49:06]
Miranda Devine
So where is he now? Because a lot of his followers are anxious and confused about what's going on in Iran. It's certainly set people back. His. He had a plan for this year, for the 250 that was going to be incredible with the FIFA World cup and the Olympics and 4th of July and the economy singing and gas prices down, inflation, all of that, and the war has abbreviated, interrupted it all. So where do you think his head is at?
- [49:37]
Glenn Beck
I couldn't speculate. You'd have a better chance at that. I haven't been with him. I was supposed to be with him, I think next week or the week after, so I, I couldn't speculate. I have wondered that. Because I, I think I know what he's doing. I think I can see the strategy. And I've just been with a couple of prime ministers and a former prime minister over in Europe recently and they, they are reading the game the same way I am on his grand strategy.
- [50:15]
Miranda Devine
As in China, the Western Hemisphere, NATO,
- [50:19]
Glenn Beck
Western Hemisphere, all of that. Venezuela energy and oil energy. And they know and it's not going well for them either. And they're not happy about it either. And so I think he's. I think he's very alone, but I don't think he's not the kind of
- [50:36]
Miranda Devine
guy
- [50:39]
Glenn Beck
who gets down about it. He just, he don't. He won't allow that kind of. That's the Norman Vincent Peel in him. He won't let that. He'll just keep going. We're very close. We're very, very close. And it's not a lie. It's what allows him to get up every morning and go back at it. If you're like, we're losing, why get up in the morning and go and do that? We're losing. He'll say, we're very close, guys, we're very close. And he'll keep working it until he finds the way to get very close. That's my guess. I don't know.
- [51:13]
Miranda Devine
He seemed very resolute, very focused, much more kind of professional and brisk than in previous times. Like, it's like he's gone to a next level up, just sharper. So it's like he's enjoying it.
- [51:34]
Glenn Beck
He said to me. Oh, he is. He said to me at one point, and I am, you know, I'm a self educated man, but somewhat of a historian and I have a large collection of history in a museum that we're building. But, and I know the presidents pretty well. And I mean, my favorite president is, is Washington and, and, and then, and Lincoln. And he said to me at one point, and I thought, oh my gosh, this guy just doesn't end. He's like, I'm going to be great. I want to be, I'm going to be remembered as one of the greatest presidents. I mean, up there with Lincoln in Washington. And I thought, who? This, in my head I'm like, who says that? Donald Trump? Who says that? But Donald Trump. But I think he will if his strategy works. And that's the big if, if this strategy works, he will go down as a refounder, as important as a Washington or a, or a Lincoln. We are at this end of this epic, you know, tale of America and it's either going to now fizzle out and decline, continue the. Or it's going to be reset.
- [52:50]
Miranda Devine
Yes.
- [52:50]
Glenn Beck
You know what I mean?
- [52:51]
Miranda Devine
Yeah.
- [52:51]
Glenn Beck
And, and he has the only plan of reset to reset America back into an industrial giant, back into the leader of the world, back into the driver's seat. Nobody else is suggesting it. Everybody else is managing decline. If he can pull it off, he will be Washington or Lincoln.
- [53:09]
Miranda Devine
I'm so glad that you are there. I mean, there are so few people who can grasp this and I'm glad you're there to be able to chronicle it and understand it and put it into the proper historical terms. The only other person I can think of really is Victor Davis Hansen, also Newt Gingrich, I think. But all of you have that deep understanding of history and therefore you can place Donald Trump in there and you understand how he is. You know, he is moving time and space.
- [53:42]
Glenn Beck
The secret will be not what we say now. The secret will be what will be said in 50 years. Once you get past, like in my museum when we do things, I don't, I don't go back past 1970. I mean, I don't go forward from 1970. I try to keep things because otherwise you get too emotional. You're emotionally attached because you remember it. Yeah, you remember it. You might remember it in a different way. And, and so you can't really judge things until you get the emotional detachment from it. You know, we're. People are going to look at this time differently because we're looking at it and we're feeling, good heavens, this might be the end of the Republic. This might Be the end of the western world that is creates all kinds of emotions in us. And so, and then we're fighting for either, you know, the left or the right. And we're in each other's faces and everything. And so you're surrounded by enemies and good guys and villains and that all has to die out before you can actually go back. And not, not to judge them, but to go back and look at the actual evidence of the day. What did they actually say? What did they actually do? And a fair historian will get it right and then they'll be able to say, because then you'll know. Yes, that worked. No, no it didn't.
- [55:07]
Miranda Devine
So tell me about you and how you got this great love of history. You say you're a self educated person. What makes you tick? From you grew up in Washington state, your parents owned a bakery. Tell us about your childhood.
- [55:27]
Glenn Beck
So I'm the first back in I don't know how many generations. We used to say five. But I just did some family research and we found a Beck in 1540 in, in, in Germany. That was the baker meister. Oh, everyone in my family has been a baker. Every boy in my family has been a baker for generations.
- [55:54]
Miranda Devine
So it's the German. I'm the baker beck.
- [55:57]
Glenn Beck
Yeah, yeah, it is. And so, and so I'm the first one to not go there. And, and I just had this, I just had this love of audio storytelling. I, I grew up, my family, we were trying to save our, our little town. The mall was built, this is early 70s, and the mall started coming in in our little downtown where my dad had the bakery and you know, they're all individual shops and it was just really, you know, kind of idyllic. The mall kills it. And so now they're trying to figure out how do we, how do we survive as this little downtown. And because it was Mount Vernon, Washington in the early 17 or 1970s, coming up to the bicentennial, my parents were like, let's make it into a cute little colonial town. And the Skagit river is right there. You build like a little Mount Vernon, you know, and we'll make it a tourist destination. And so, you know, that's what they were fighting for. Just to fight, you know, for their town. And I never really recognized until somebody said it to me years later. You realize you're repeating your parents life. Your parents became these outcasts because they were like trying to fight for the town. And half the town got onto it and the other half thought it was a stupid idea and and now you're fighting for your country, the same passion. And half the country is with me, and half the country despises me. And it's. It's. So I. I think that played a role. But. But I didn't like history when I was growing up because it was just about memorizing dates and. And names. It wasn't about the story. And when I. I started learning about the story through original documents. And a guy could say, you know, David Barton's a friend of mine. He's like, you can argue with me all you want, but here it is in his own handwriting. So argue with this. And you can't. You know, I've got the. I've got the first draft in Jefferson's handwriting of the Declaration of Independence and engraving from 1826 done by his son. Yeah. And it is. You want to know. You want to know everything you need. You want to know how to answer. Hey, Thomas Jefferson. How could he write, all men are created equal and then not, and then not include slaves? How's that possible? Okay. And there's lots of answers for that. It's complicated time. Same thing. I'm against abortion. If I were president, why wouldn't I pass? You know, why wouldn't I do everything I can, including up to war to stop abortion, if I believe it so much? So there's all that. But what's more important is what's actually in the first draft of the Declaration of Independence in Jefferson's handwriting. And his handwriting even changes. Jamie, it's up on the fireplace. I'm going to give a talk here in a little while. There's two books. Can you just see if you can get it for me two long. Ask Tanya. She might be able to find. It's right on the mantle or the thing on the fireplace.
- [59:09]
Miranda Devine
And is that line there. All men are created equal in the first draft.
- [59:13]
Glenn Beck
So it's all there in the first. But on the third page, the second page is the usurpations, where it says, you know, the king did this, and the king did this, and the king did this. And they're all one or two lines. The last usurpation takes half a page, and it says, and I'm badly paraphrasing here, out of my memory. And the king has waged cruel war against human nature herself by captivating and carrying slaves from another hemisphere, men to be bought and sold. This is the action of the Christian king of Great Britain. Men is capitalized and underlined. He says, you are violating. And these are men you don't say slaves are men. If you believe that they're slaves. He's declaring them men. And he capitalizes in an. Underlines it. So you remember on the first place, I say all men are created equal.
- [60:18]
Miranda Devine
Wow.
- [60:19]
Glenn Beck
Then he goes into all of the things that we have done to try to stop slavery and all the things that the king has done. The reason why this isn't in the final draft is because the. They knew if we don't. If we're not in sync, 100% of us on every single word, we are going to. He's going to kill us. He'll find his way and he'll kill us all. Yeah. Here it is. This is an amazing thing. Okay.
- [60:45]
Miranda Devine
Oh, wow.
- [60:45]
Glenn Beck
So that's in his. That's in his own handwriting. And you'll see where things are crossed out. You'll see over here, it'll say. It'll say Jay Adams or B. Franklin.
- [60:54]
Miranda Devine
Wow.
- [60:55]
Glenn Beck
They came in and said, we got to change that word.
- [60:57]
Miranda Devine
That is incredible. Where did you get that?
- [61:02]
Glenn Beck
Years and years ago at auction. But let me show you where he talks about this here. This is the work of the Christian king. Everything else is incursive. He prints Christian out. And then. Can you see men, capital M, E, N. Where men are to be bought and sold. It's. When you look at the original document, you get past all of the crap that somebody said. I think they thought this 200 years ago. When you're looking at their handwriting, you're looking at what they say. And all the men that were around
- [61:40]
Miranda Devine
them say you're looking into their mind.
- [61:42]
Glenn Beck
That's when you get to the real story.
- [61:43]
Miranda Devine
Yes. What you're looking into their minds. How they thought. Their debate.
- [61:47]
Glenn Beck
Correct.
- [61:48]
Miranda Devine
That's. That's.
- [61:49]
Glenn Beck
And you see yourself.
- [61:50]
Miranda Devine
Yeah.
- [61:51]
Glenn Beck
Yeah. It's amazing.
- [61:54]
Miranda Devine
Hi, everyone. Miranda Devine here. If you want unapologetic conservative coverage from outside the Beltway, check out the Tony Kinnett cast from the Daily Signal. Every weeknight at 7pm Eastern, Tony brings a common sense Hoosier perspective to the biggest stories of the day with reporting, analysis, and interviews that actually explain what Washington's decisions mean for your life. In his signature snarky style, if Podforce One gets you the conversation straight from the people in power, Tony breaks down exactly what it means for you and the rest of the country. You can watch the Tony Kinnett cast live on the Daily Signals YouTube channel or listen on your favorite podcast app. Just search the Tony Kinnit cast and subscribe your childhood tell. It was just a normal small Town childhood. Were you good at English?
- [62:52]
Glenn Beck
Small town childhood, not good at anything. Knew what I wanted to do when I was eight. I'm seven. Radio. My mother. I was watching TV one day. It was in Seattle. It was the summer, and it was a sunny day in Seattle, which there's like five of them. And I'm watching tv and my mother said, turn off the tv. Go outside and play. And I got up and I turn off the tv, and, you know, I'm seven, and I'm like. And my mother said, excuse me? And I said, nothing. And she said, no, what did you just say? And I said, when you were a kid, you would watch tv. And she said the thing that amazed me, she said, no, I didn't, because we didn't have tv. And I'm like, wilma Flintstone had a tv. How old are you? And she said, it wasn't invented yet. And we sat on the stairs, on the porch, and she told me about how. What radio was like. And she told me about Jack Armstrong, the All American Boy. And she talked about, you know, fibber McGee's closet and Orson Welles, Lights out and the Shadow. And for my birthday, she got me the golden years of radio record albums. And I wore the grooves out of that. And I listened to these master storytellers that I was amazed, because spoken word and radio, spoken word, and I've done all of the mediums. The most effective is radio and spoken word. Because it's the only one where I think it. If I can describe it, you hear it, then you're thinking it, and you're adding more to the story than even I can. It's the only thing that we partner on. Okay? Everything else, you just sit and you watch. With spoken word, I'm partnering with you. And so together we can create something much more powerful and vivid than Hollywood ever could. And I wanted to do that. And, you know, nobody. Nobody does that anymore. And so I started when I was. You know, next year will be my 50th year in broadcast.
- [65:08]
Miranda Devine
Wow.
- [65:09]
Glenn Beck
And. And I've been doing it since I was 13 years old.
- [65:13]
Miranda Devine
And where did you go? Just to the local radio station.
- [65:17]
Glenn Beck
So I went to a radio station. They were having a contest. This is when I was maybe 12. Um, and they were having a contest. Be on the radio for an hour. Oh, really? And I think I was the only. I know. And I think I was the only one that you know, and I'll never forget. And I come up, you know, and I. You have to pick the songs that you're going to play. So I picked this. I listen to the station and I know what their format is, and so I pick the songs and, and I, I'm in this deal and I'm like, you know, we're 15 minutes in. The guy, the disc jockey that's running everything, he doesn't even look at me. You know, there's a microphone in front of me, and he's just queuing up the records. And I said, listen, when they say this, I want you to hit the next song. And. And then I'm going to say this over the next song. And then you can turn me. And he looks at me. The only time he looked at me the whole time, he turned around and went, it's an hour, kid. Relax. And I took that tape and I went to even a worse station than that one that was so desperate for anybody. And I went in for a job application with my mom, and my mom was in the lobby because she had to drive me there. And they gave me the job and I worked weekends. And then I just.
- [66:28]
Miranda Devine
On air when you were what, 14 or something?
- [66:30]
Glenn Beck
13. My voice hadn't changed. Nothing. I mean, it was bad.
- [66:35]
Miranda Devine
And were you good at just gas bagging?
- [66:39]
Glenn Beck
No, I think I was good at creating pictures in people's heads. I could, I could. I. This is a, this is a paintbrush to me. This is this. My mom died when I was 13, and I was a weird kid as it was. We moved, I was kind of alone, blah, blah, blah. I got into radio, which may be even weirder. And for instance, when I was married, my first marriage, I was starting to get sober, and I started really exploring everything. And my wife didn't even know my mother had committed suicide. The first thing I told was this.
- [67:19]
Miranda Devine
Oh.
- [67:20]
Glenn Beck
And I got home and she said, your mother committed suicide. And I'm like, yeah. And she's like, you didn't think you should share that with me? And I was not comfortable around people. I'm much more comfortable with this.
- [67:31]
Miranda Devine
This.
- [67:31]
Glenn Beck
I've said everything in it. And, and, and, and it's an, you know, on the business side, there's an art form to it. Nobody knows how to do it anymore. I, I really want to start a. I don't know, something where I can find the good storytellers, the, the kids that want to learn how to do spoken word storytelling and teach them how. Your tongue is a paintbrush. This is a, is a canvas. And if you know how to move in and out, you know how to work it, you know exactly the inflection and the tone. You can paint beautiful or terrifying pictures and there is nothing like it because you are partnering with the listener.
- [68:20]
Miranda Devine
I love it. And I love that your mother was sort of the one that gave you that love for it and then you carried it on after she died. And what did you know at the time? That she had committed suicide or was that something you found out later?
- [68:35]
Glenn Beck
Yeah, no. I was just at the age. My mother was an alcoholic and addicted to prescription drugs. And my father and mother got a divorce and I didn't understand why. And. And I'm just getting to be old enough and I. That within, I don't know, eight months before she dies. I remember standing in our. Our pantry and I saw the big gallon jug of vodka and. And I noticed how rapidly it was going down and it was just me, my sister, who was two years older and her living in the house, so she was the only one drinking it. And I saw how rapidly they were going down and being replaced and she was a functional alcoholic. And, and so I realized there is a real problem here.
- [69:27]
Miranda Devine
Was she self medicating? She was depressed or something?
- [69:30]
Glenn Beck
Self. Yeah, self medicating. Very depressed. Very. And she had gotten involved with somebody else who was an alcoholic who was also abusing her. And, and, and so one morning I woke up and she hadn't come home. And we found her body in the. In Commencement Bay outside of Tacoma, Washington. And she had. She was out on a boat and she had taken off her ring and her shoes and her sweater and everything and folded them off the side of the boat and. And in that water, you. You die in about, you know, five minutes. It's very, very cold. So you're who die quickly.
- [70:14]
Miranda Devine
So it wasn't just going for a swim.
- [70:16]
Glenn Beck
And she had left us a note that said, I've left several dinners in the freezer, kids, I love you and everything's going to be fine.
- [70:28]
Miranda Devine
Did you feel betrayed?
- [70:30]
Glenn Beck
In some ways I kind of felt, I guess a little, I don't want to say responsible, but like I could have stopped it. I had that typical thing. My. She. This guy she was dating was a really good guy, but he was a drunk and I didn't know that yet. But then he hit her and she came home with a black eye. And I said, what happened? And she gave me an excuse and I said, that's not true. And she said, okay, okay, he didn't mean it. And I said, he is never coming over again. Never. You know, because I took on the man of the house kind of Thing. And, you know, I'm a 13 year old kid and so about a week later he comes knocking at the door, hat in hand, and he asked to speak to me and I don't even open the screen door. And he said, I know what I did was wrong and I would just, I will go away forever. I would just ask that you give me another chance. And she died with him. They both died at the same time.
- [71:45]
Miranda Devine
And did you give him another chance?
- [71:47]
Glenn Beck
I did, I let him into the.
- [71:49]
Miranda Devine
Yeah, that's a lot for a 13 year old. And do you think that your then battle with the bottle was that genetic or was it a response to that trauma?
- [72:03]
Glenn Beck
So I, I don't, I don't know. I mean, you know, people say alcoholism is a disease. Okay, so it's still a choice. I mean, I still have power, I'm still not powerless.
- [72:18]
Miranda Devine
I'm glad you said that because I am so sick of this addiction disorder sort of mentality now, which, you know, I have great sympathy and respect and admiration for people who overcome it. And I do think there's a big genetic component. But you're not helping people by turning them into victims.
- [72:39]
Glenn Beck
I don't know if it's genetic in me. I'm sure there are genetic alcoholics. I think I'm predisposed to it. I've talked to my kids and said, don't start drinking, don't take a drink. I don't want you to. You can do whatever you want. But I'm telling you, with my mom and me and my dad who was an alcoholic, it's not a good idea. Don't. Just don't start it. Don't, don't.
- [73:00]
Miranda Devine
I tell my kids.
- [73:00]
Glenn Beck
And so I do believe. Yeah, yeah, I know. You know what my kids say, dad, you were an alcoholic and you smoked a lot of pot. When you're young and you're pretty successful, you're not the guy to give this lecture. I'm like, yeah, but you don't know what it took to get. Yeah, but I, I, I, I 100% appreciate the disease. I 100% appreciate, you know, all of that. But it's still my choice. And it's a really, I mean, I, I almost committed suicide. I mean, if I wasn't such a coward, I would have committed.
- [73:36]
Miranda Devine
Wow. Yeah, it was, when was that?
- [73:39]
Glenn Beck
1984 or 5. I was living in Louisville, Kentucky, and there was a bridge abutment that I swear had my name on it. It, I drove my car by it every day and I would speed up coming towards It. And I'm like, plow into the. Just drive into the bridge apartment. That's all you have to do. Drive into the bridge.
- [73:58]
Miranda Devine
And you're like, 20 something.
- [74:00]
Glenn Beck
Yeah, 24, 25. And deep, deep depression. I mean, that's another thing is familial trait is clinical depression. And. And I would have absolutely done it if I hadn't been a coward. I mean, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I was too afraid. If I was not such a coward, I'd be dead.
- [74:25]
Miranda Devine
But was your life not going well?
- [74:27]
Glenn Beck
No. You know, I think what happens is you don't find joy in anything. Your life can be going well, you know, but you're not finding joy in. In anything. And this was, you know, the beginning of my alcoholism. I hadn't thought my. I thought for a long time, I'm fine, we would say, you know, so your mom died when you. Have you ever dealt with that? Yeah, I dealt with it. I'm fine. I never dealt with it. I never dealt with any of it. Any of it. And. But I just kept stuffing it down and going on, and I was concentrating on my career, concentrating on success, and those were all going well. But every time I would get a promotion or I'd get, you know, accolade or I'd get more money or whatever, it was completely empty. And I'd find no joy, because that's not where you find joy. And. And then that just kicks something off inside of me. And if it wasn't for a good friend of mine, I. I said to him, I said, I'm leaving. I was married. And I said, I'm leaving. And he said, what do you mean you're leaving? And I said, I don't know. I can't be here anymore. And he said, hey, would you do me a favor? Would you come to the hospital with me? And I'm like, why, are you sick? And he's like, no, I think you are. And I said, I'm not sick. And he's like, glenn, I. I've been around people with depression before. You are textbook depression. And I'm like, I'm fine. I'm fine. And he would not let me out of his sight. And he's like, then prove to me you're fine. Just come to the hospital with what a good guy and great guy. Saved my life.
- [76:17]
Miranda Devine
Smart guy.
- [76:18]
Glenn Beck
Saved my life.
- [76:18]
Miranda Devine
And what happened at the hospital?
- [76:22]
Glenn Beck
The doctor looked at me and said, yeah, I think. I think you're. I think you're a candidate for medication. Like, I Don't know right now. And I remember. I don't remember how long it took, but I remember as a hospital, and they prescribed Eleville, which is an old drug, and it would make you very sleepy at first. And I was asleep for a long time, it seems, at least in my memory, and I don't remember how long it took, but I remember walking into my bathroom for the first time where I was fully aware of everything again. And I walked in my bathroom and I looked at my eyes and. And it's like I saw me again and I was like, where have you been? It was amazing. It was really amazing.
- [77:05]
Miranda Devine
What an amazing experience to go through that. And then, I mean, oftentimes I think great talent or, you know, genius or whatever. Obviously it's a cliche, is the flip side of mental illness or depression or whatever. I mean, if you have huge amount of creativity, which you obviously have, that's the sort of dark side of it. If you don't harness it properly, I'll
- [77:32]
Glenn Beck
tell you, I. I feel for people who don't have an outlet for their genius, because I know there's a lot of people who are genius, or at least just very creative. I don't consider myself genius, just very, very creative. And have a talent.
- [77:52]
Miranda Devine
Yeah. For creating.
- [77:53]
Glenn Beck
Yeah, I have a talent. And I. I can see things finished. I can hear things. And like, for instance, I. I can't. I can't write music. I don't. I cannot write music, but I can hear it in my head and I can. I. I can. I know I can hear something finished in my head. And I have to tell you, I spend about six months. I'm. Do. I just wrote my. My daughter's next album. She's a singer, she's doing a Christmas album, and she wanted it to be all swing. And when she said that, I could hear it in my head. I knew the songs, I knew the lyrics, I knew all of it. I would never be able to write it. I went to AI and I described exactly what I wanted, and I knew what I wanted to hear, and I could get it to be that, really. And I have to tell you, in
- [78:44]
Miranda Devine
the melody, describe the melody. Yeah, really.
- [78:48]
Glenn Beck
Describe the melody. You describe the instruments you want exactly. The harmonies, exactly how you want it to build, all of it. And I know how to do that. I just can't write it myself. And I have to tell you, Miranda, I. I'll send you a copy of a couple of the songs just so you can hear them.
- [79:04]
Miranda Devine
What a cool thing.
- [79:05]
Glenn Beck
I sat there, oh, I sat there and I wept.
- [79:08]
Miranda Devine
Yes.
- [79:09]
Glenn Beck
All of the years that this stuff has been inside of me. And now I have this. That I can. Even if it's nothing, I can get it out of me and put it somewhere, you know what I mean?
- [79:23]
Miranda Devine
And hear it and share it.
- [79:25]
Glenn Beck
And I can hear it and share it. I can hear it, right? And I thought, how many people are there that have visions, dreams, whatever, and are now going to be freed up because of AI? They can now say, create this. Tell this story, create this movie. And it's not like you're typing in, want a song that sounds like, you know, whatever. They know what they want. They know the storyline, they know the sound, the look, everything. The colors, all of it. And now they can do that by themselves, even if nobody watches it. How freeing that is for all of the people who have this art inside of them. And, you know, I don't know if you know this. I'm. I'm a. I'm a fine art painter. In fact, I'm going to the White House because I painted Donald Trump's mother on the ship in 1930, coming over to Ellis Island. He was supposed to be at an Ellis island event I was doing for the 250. And so I told the story of his mother, and I painted this painting. And from memory.
- [80:43]
Miranda Devine
I mean, like, from photographs.
- [80:44]
Glenn Beck
From.
- [80:45]
Miranda Devine
From photographs and imagining.
- [80:46]
Glenn Beck
From a. Yeah, a photograph of her. And then imagining her on the ship.
- [80:51]
Miranda Devine
Yeah.
- [80:51]
Glenn Beck
With a. With the 1930s skyline behind.
- [80:54]
Miranda Devine
Oh, lovely.
- [80:55]
Glenn Beck
And he hasn't seen it yet, but the White House has seen it. And so they are. It's going. It's in security now. I don't know what you have to frame risk of painting for, but. But they said, you have to come and present this to him in the next couple of weeks. He's gonna love it. And she. And she said, we all think he's gonna want to hang it in the Oval. And again, you hang it in the basement. I mean, not the part. Not the fancy part, just the, you know, dark part of the closet basement of the White House. What a dream come true. I. I just think life, if you can see it, you can dream it, you can do it. And there are so many experiences that I would have never thought of painting. I couldn't paint anything 10 years ago. I've always wanted to, but I never had the time to do it. And I finally went, I'm not gonna die saying I didn't have the time. I'll do it. I. I mean, I would paint its throw three Four o' clock in the morning, every day, grinding stuff out.
- [81:58]
Miranda Devine
How did you learn to do it? Because I feel the same way. I know what I could do and I've tried. It looks terrible, but I can see it in my head, the painting I want to do.
- [82:09]
Glenn Beck
Then you're there. You just have to train this and these to connect. And I tell you, I had an artist friend, and she's very, very good. Not a teacher, just an artist. And she would come over to the house and I'd say, hey, could you help me? And she's like, no, I'm not Tate. I'm not teaching you or anybody else. And I said, come on, I just want a little. She came over for, like, two years, and every time she'd come over, I'd be in there grinding something out, and I'd look at her and I'd say, you could make all of this stop. This is madness, what's happening in here. It's awful. And she finally said, after two years, she said, I really thought you'd give up. She said, I thought this was like, I want to play golf. And she said, art, you have to. If you're going to do it, you have to be all in. And she said, I didn't think with your schedule or anything else. And I'm like, I'll meet you at 3 o' clock in the morning. I don't care. And I took lessons from her for about two years. And I mean, painted every day. And if you can see it, that was that. I think that's the key. If you can see it finished here, it's like Donald Trump. He sees his buildings finished. He knows exactly what they need to look like, and so they become that.
- [83:30]
Miranda Devine
And he also has. He is a musical genius. And he was diagnosed when he was young. He said he was a rambunctious boy, and so his parents sent him off for aptitude testing. And it came back, and his father was a bit disappointed and he said, well, got some news for you. You are a musical genius. And his father thought that was useless and his mother made him play the flute, which he was a bit embarrassed about. But he is a musical. Like, you know, all those rallies with the music that he curates. And I don't know if you've ever been with him, and he's got his.
- [84:02]
Glenn Beck
So you'll appreciate this. You listen to his music. He curates all the music, right?
- [84:07]
Miranda Devine
Yeah.
- [84:07]
Glenn Beck
What's the last song he always does?
- [84:09]
Miranda Devine
Is it Y om YMCA or Last One? He always does the America Blah Blah, blah.
- [84:16]
Glenn Beck
Opera. No, no, no.
- [84:17]
Miranda Devine
Oh, it's opera. That's right.
- [84:19]
Glenn Beck
Yeah, yeah. And it's.
- [84:21]
Miranda Devine
Oh, what's also Lamir or something.
- [84:23]
Glenn Beck
No, yeah, no, it's not that one. But it's. You know what it is. So go back and listen to the words in its. The last line is Vincero, I think. And you'll read the words. Because I wondered, I thought, why does he always end with that? Why does he always end. And I love the song. And then I looked up the words in English, it's I win. In the end, I win.
- [84:52]
Miranda Devine
Oh, that's so funny.
- [84:55]
Glenn Beck
He is so deep in. Everything he does is so well thought out.
- [84:59]
Miranda Devine
Yeah, I know. It's brilliant. And that's obviously why he gets on with you and appreciates you, because there is that creative spark that he recognizes in other people.
- [85:10]
Glenn Beck
Maybe he just doesn't want me to put my face in a Cheeto bowl again.
- [85:16]
Miranda Devine
I wanted to just go into your experience at Fox, Roger Ailes. But then how you. I mean, I assume it's that same vision thing where you realize that this kind of television was going to be over when that generation was gone.
- [85:34]
Glenn Beck
I had. I did not know the dark side of Roger Ailes. He didn't want to see me in anything, Lacy. So I didn't. I didn't know about it at all. Never even heard the rumors of it at the time.
- [85:45]
Miranda Devine
He was a genius.
- [85:46]
Glenn Beck
Other rumors, genius. And so when I was over at cnn, he would invite me to dinner from time to time, and we would not talk about politics, we talk about television. And he said to me at one point, he said, you know who you are? And I said, no. And I had been studying television. I know if I'm going to do it, I want to do it my way, but I want to. I want to learn from people who have done it well. And I happened to be just at the beginning of finding out all about this guy. He said, you know who you are? I said, no. And he said, you're Jack Parr. He said, you're the best. Best storyteller I've ever seen on television since Jack Par. Wow. Yeah. And. And. And Roger was genius. He knew the medium, he knew how to work the camera, he knew the right phrasing. And. And he, most importantly, he knew the American people. He had the best gut on him on this is what the American people are thinking. And how did he know that? And. But he. I think he grew. He used to say, I grew up in Ohio in a small town, and I just. I Just know him. I just know the people. But he had a great gut on him. And then he knew how to storytell. And, you know, he was with the Mike Douglas show. He was the producer. He was very young. He started producing a Broadway. His first Broadway show he ever did. The first time he ever tried to do a show, he did Hot L Baltimore. And it won the Tony the first time. Okay. The guy was an absolute genius. And so we had this mutual respect for the art, you know. And I would walk into his office at times and he would sit there and his, his monitors were there. And sometimes he'd be sitting like this so he couldn't see the TV and something. We'd be in a conversation and he just put his head, his hand, his head in his hand like this and he'd just rub his face. And I'd look up at the deal and he'd go, she's doing it, isn't she? And whatever it is that that person that was on was doing poorly. And I said to my. At one point, I said, roger, you're a genius and you know that. I said, but you're also in hell. And he said, what do you mean? And I said, you know exactly how to do it and yet you won't do it. And he said, I can't do it. Look at me. And I wasn't going to say that, but he was not a good looking man. And he's like, I can't look at me. And I said, I'm telling you, the American people, you would have done this 30 years ago. I don't care what you look like. You would have been the biggest thing on television. And Roger and I had this relationship that was different than everybody else. I mean, he could not get his thumb on me. He. Everyone at Fox used to say, oh, I could never leave here. I owe Roger too much. After working there for a couple years, I realized, oh, oh, Roger, too much is dead different than I thought it meant. It means he helped me do something, mainly probably because somebody in PR found dirt on you. And then he. And then, you know, he would make that go away for you. It would. Suddenly somebody in the New York Times would be looking into this and he'd say, can I help make that go away? It was him the whole time. Very nefarious. Very nefarious.
- [89:24]
Miranda Devine
Mafioso.
- [89:25]
Glenn Beck
Um. Oh, yeah, he sat. You know, I had people going through my garbage more than you could imagine. What, sent by Roger, or one time sent by Roger. I knew it was sent by Roger because we had Already had the DNC use this same investigative company to go after me. Same company goes, and I know it's Roger Ailes. And so he calls me in one time, and I know. And I'm just. My wife and I are just laughing because I am an open book. I'll tell you the worst things I've done in life. I. I have no secrets. And so my wife and I just laughed that they're not going to find anything. Go ahead, go through the garbage, have fun and go through our life. Everything I've done, I've admitted. And so about a month goes by, Roger calls me and he said, I want to have a talk with you. It's very serious. I want to have a talk with you. I said, huh? So I sit down and he said, you know, there's a lot of people that like to see you taken out. And I said that there are. And he's like, yep, yep. You know, a lot of people have done a lot of investigation on you. And I said, oh. And I now. Now I know where we're going. And I'm like, oh, I know they have. I know they have. And he actually reaches down and he picks up a stack of file folders about that thick. Okay. You know, all these files, I'm convinced today there was nothing in them or they were just files that he pulled out. He pulls them out, he puts them on his desk, and he pets them almost like a cat in a James Bond.
- [90:57]
Miranda Devine
Oh, that's so funny.
- [90:59]
Glenn Beck
And he goes, you know, a lot of information out there about you. And I said, and he said, you have a great wife now. Oh, my gosh. And I lean up my. I mean, the hair on the back of my head is standing up. And I'm like, yes, I do. And he said, it's always a shame when a man does and he's petting this file like he knows. And he's like, it's always a shame when guy like you has a wife like that and he does something to hurt her. And I sat there and I looked at him and I said, and that, Roger, is exactly why that has never happened. And I looked at him and we were like in the third grade staring down contest. I knew I'm not breaking eyes contact with you because the first person that does, I know you well enough to know you will think if I break eye contact, you win. So I'm not breaking eye contact. And I looked at him for. It had to be 45 seconds. Felt like 2 minutes just staring at him. And then he Broke eye contact and went, yeah, I know that. I know. I just want you to be careful.
- [92:10]
Miranda Devine
What was. Why did he do that? That's so sick.
- [92:16]
Glenn Beck
He needed the power to control you. He needed to have you where I would have done things, you know, if he would have said, hey, Glenn, can you help me out on this? Sure. But he wasn't that guy. He wasn't that guy. He. I. I really think, Miranda, at the end, when we were. When we left, it was really interesting because we both had respect for each other, but we both kind of didn't like each other. You know what I mean? And so when we left, it felt like I left his office where we both had a loaded gun, pointed to each other's head. And we're like, it's really nice to have worked with you, and we are going to be good friends for a very long time because he took out everybody who worked there. Okay. And so we both had this loaded gun. And so he walked out. But I will tell you, the last time before that that we spoke, it was really interesting. He called me in the time when. So remember when it's Gabby Giffords. It was shot.
- [93:22]
Miranda Devine
Yeah. Yeah, it was.
- [93:23]
Glenn Beck
Okay, so I'm. It's a Saturday.
- [93:27]
Miranda Devine
Mark Kelly's wife, right?
- [93:30]
Glenn Beck
So I am at a Broadway show. It happens. My security comes and hands his phone across the aisle to me, and it has the story on it. And he said, sir, I think you should know. And I looked at that and I read that, and I said, honey, our life at Fox is about to change, and not in a good way. And we leave. And she said, what do you. What do you mean by that? And I said, roger is going to try to get his thumb, and he's going to. He's going to put me in a situation to where he'll threaten to fire me, and that way I will be blamed. If he fires me, I will be blamed. It will be Fox saying, you know, it's his rhetoric that kind of led to this, okay. And he'll put me in a situation to where he'll say, I'm going to. I've got a lot of pressure. I'm going to have to let you go on this. Unless. And if I stay, then I'm his. And I said, I can't play that game. But, you know, and I called all. Everybody I knew that was a great advisor. I called all these people who had been in really tough situations like that because he called me up and he said, I need to see you in my office on Thursday. Three o'. Clock, okay? And he was never like that. And so I know exactly what it is. And so we war gamed and tried to come up, and I had nothing. I had nothing. I was dead. So I walk in and I'm praying all the way over. I'm a religious guy and I'm praying the whole way over, and I'm like, I'm dead, Lord. I am absolutely dead. I've got nothing. Help. Help. Help. I got nothing. I. Honest to God, Miranda. I walk across the threshold into his office. I walk into his office, and his secretary stands up and she's like, oh, he's ready for you. And I'm like, oh, I bet he is. And I walk in and he always stands up and says, young man. And he gives me a handshake, and then we go from there. This time, he doesn't stand up at all. He just looks at me. And I cross the threshold. And immediately I am filled with such empathy for this guy. All of a sudden, I look at him and I see him as this guy who made poor choices his whole life on character, but had so much potential to be. He could have been twice the man he was had he gone with character. But he took shortcuts. And then I saw him at the same time, I saw him as this older man who is now towards the end of his career and questioning, what the hell have I done my whole life? And then I saw him as this fat guy who always wanted to be the guy and never could. And I was heartbroken. And I sit down on the chair and he said, I need to talk to you. And I said, roger, before you even start, let me just say this. And I couldn't believe it was so sincere. I said, let me just say this. Thank you. And he said, what? And I said, I don't know what's coming. I don't really care. Thank you for this opportunity. But more importantly, if it wasn't FOR FOX After 9 11, I don't know if any of us would have the opportunity America has right now. If it wasn't for you with Ronald Reagan, I don't know if we would have had Ronald Reagan. So thank you. And he had tears in his eyes, and he looked at me and he said, you actually mean that? And I wanted to say, strangely, yes, but I said, I do. He looked at me, he wiped his eyes, and he went, come on over the couch. Let's talk. But on the couch, we talked about nothing for 45 minutes. I went and did the show as I'm Walking out, he says to his assistant, get effing Palin on the phone. Palin got the treatment that was meant for me. And that's the time that's, in my opinion, that's the time when you start to see Sarah Palin change a little.
- [97:46]
Miranda Devine
Probably. Your praying, do you think, opened your heart like you, you never know what the prayer will achieve.
- [97:54]
Glenn Beck
No, I, I can tell you that was a God. That was a God thing because I was so. Yeah, I, that week I had prepared to go to battle with a really bad political guy. And the minute I walked in, I saw him as this really vulnerable, sad guy who was just like, I'm gonna. I'm the king. But was really struggling internally with his life decision. And I think that's why we got on. I think, I think he admired that I didn't compromise, but hated it at the same time. But I think he saw me as kind of a younger version of him, just making different life choices, but the one.
- [98:42]
Miranda Devine
Yes, exactly what he could have been. And maybe that was always a reproach to him. And then. So in the end, how did you part ways with Fox and why did you see this new, brave new world of digital entertainment?
- [99:01]
Glenn Beck
I have to go back. My. One of my old partners said, Glenn, you don't even remember this. He said in 1997, you said, We've got to be online. And he said, I think you might have done one of the first podcasts because I put my radio show online every day. There must have been five people watching it. This is 1990.
- [99:21]
Miranda Devine
Yeah. I mean, the Internet only just started around then.
- [99:24]
Glenn Beck
Yeah, yeah, right. And so I, I've always been fascinated by technology. I'm very, very fascinated by AI. I've been reading about AI and Ray Kurzweil and warning about people like Ray Kurzweil since the 90s.
- [99:36]
Miranda Devine
That's right. Double edged sword.
- [99:37]
Glenn Beck
And nobody would, yeah, nobody would listen to me because it was sci fi. And they still are not getting it. They don't understand what AI really is. And it's, they need to quickly. We need to have serious conversations about it. But so I've always been into technology and, and wanted to do things a different way. And you know, at first I turned Fox down because I said, I, I said, I understand your business, Roger, and I can help you with your business. You don't understand mine. And he said, well, tell me about your business. And so I did. And I'm an independent guy. And when I got into Fox, I had been at CNN and I thought wow. That is the pit of despair. That is horrible. And then I got to Fox and I realized, well, I'm around people that think like me. It's still the pit of despair because it's, it's still this game. It's this awful where everybody has to jump through hoops and you have to perform for this person and you gotta, it's just horrible. I hated it. And, and so I saw the Internet coming and, and you know, podcasting had just started and I thought, I think we can build a network and do what network television does online. We had buffering. I mean, this was the time when, you know, you were doing video and it'd be like, hey, let me tell you, the little wheel, okay, this is way early. We were the first people to do this. And, and Roger said to me as I'm leaving. I said, he said, what are you, what, what, what are you doing? And I said, I told you, I'm going to do this thing online. He did not believe me. And he said, you're not really doing that. I said, yes, I am. He said, glenn, the Internet is a fad. And I, that was the first time that I thought, oh my gosh, you are so old, you've lost that touch. Where you saw Tony, you know, you saw Broadway shows, you saw all these things way before. You were like, I get it, I can see it. He did not see the Internet. And, and so I said, I, I, I think Roger, it's going to put networks out of business. Not tomorrow, but it's going to put the networks out of business and it'll be free and independent. And he said, well, good luck with that. He thought I was crazy. And I think in some ways we were, because we had to invent all of it. Nobody was doing it. The only one that was doing live anything was Major League Baseball. And so we went to them to provide the spine, the system to be able to do live network. And it was really hard because unlike it is now, I had to spend craploads of money on the sets and the cameras and the lights because it had to look like Fox or NBC. I had, our goal was to make it look like NBC. I think they're the best looking television news in the business. Not msnb, but NBC. And I said, I want it to look like, like that. I need to convince the American people you can get the quality from the best quality. You can get it over here with the best opinion online. And nobody thought that. And so we, you know, we started doing that. And while it was A schlog for many years. I mean, look what it is now.
- [102:58]
Miranda Devine
And that was. That was Blaze media.
- [103:01]
Glenn Beck
That was Blaze. But I mean, that gave birth to daily. I mean, it gave birth to all of them. I mean, they all came to us and said, how are you doing it?
- [103:10]
Miranda Devine
And then what do you see next? Can you see ahead to. To whatever. And is there another revolution, I guess AI?
- [103:17]
Glenn Beck
Yeah, it's. It's definitely AI there. I see a lot of stuff coming with media. There's a massive change coming, and there's a couple of things. You know, I think one of the things that has made me successful in the past is I'm just authentic. I'm not afraid. I don't. I'm not afraid to fail. And I'm not afraid. If you don't like me, that's fine. I. I'm. I'm not afraid of being broke. I've been broke and I've been rich and I've been broke, and then I've been rich again and then broke. I get it. So I'm not. I don't have any of those fears. I. My only real fear is dishonoring myself because of my alcoholism. I do not want to dishonor myself, and that's the only fear that I have. But. So I'm just very open and. And I think that's allowed me to travel such a long time with my audience and keep renewing, because everybody changes, everybody evolves, but everybody else is doing a. An act or a system. And I've got to do this because this is my audience. No, this is who I am. And if you want to be my audience, great. If you don't want to be in my audience, I don't care. I just have to be who I am. So super authenticity is paramount.
- [104:43]
Miranda Devine
I wish there was more of that, because you're right.
- [104:45]
Glenn Beck
Correct. People are starving. Yeah, starving. And authentic and real handmade AI. But what the other side needs to understand is if you are not using AI to help create things, you must be the master of it, or it will master you quickly. But if you are the master of AI and you can see, oh, I can use it this way. I can do these things. Not to change you or to give you opinions or to give you anything. Just do the things that you can now. Save time. I can do that, but I can have it do it first for me. And now I can take that and use it in what I'm doing. If you are not adapting to AI, you are going to be left in the dust. Left in the dust. And it's going to happen overnight. Authenticity and the use of artificial intelligence. I know they sound diametrically opposed and they are, but if you can see how those two can work hand in hand, you'll change the world.
- [105:57]
Miranda Devine
It's like a turbocharge. And authenticity, just to round off, I think, is what Donald Trump has. He doesn't change. Whatever the circumstances, he knows who he is.
- [106:10]
Glenn Beck
You know, it's weird. I said in 2008 when Obama said, if this guy is elected, you mark my words, the next guy that we get is going to have a gravy stain on his tie. He might be a little chubby, and he's just going to say, you know what? This is what it is. And that's exactly what happened. America is always a pendulum. That's exactly what we got, minus the
- [106:34]
Miranda Devine
gravy stain, because he is a stickler for perfection. I know.
- [106:38]
Glenn Beck
I know.
- [106:38]
Miranda Devine
Well, Glenn Beck, thank you so much. What an interesting conversation. I've loved talking to you and thank you for your time.
- [106:45]
Glenn Beck
Thank you. God bless you.
- [106:48]
Miranda Devine
Thanks for watching podforce One. I'm Miranda Devine. We'll be back next week with another big interview. Let us know what you thought of today's video by leaving a comment below. And please hit like and subscribe.