A (3:05)

You know, as I, I go over the news of the day and we talk about the Save America act or we debate what's happening in Iran, We're forcing each other into making trades. We're not thinking about that. When you're choosing one over another and both of them may be true, what are you trading? What are you trading? What value, what principle are you trading away? Because society has taught you that two things cannot be true at once. And that is a huge lie. Two things can be true at once. I am not for war, but I think this limited action may be right. Notice I say maybe. Right. I don't know. I don't know because I can't see the future. I can see what I believe the intent is, but I can't see the future. So it may be a huge mistake. Okay, Glenn, you think it's a huge mistake? Maybe a huge mistake. Well then why would you do it? Well, because I can't see the future. It may not be a huge mistake. It may be the right thing to do because of all of the ramifications of what comes if you don't make that move. But everybody acts so sure. And we're trading so much away. We were just talking about the Iranian girls. I do not understand how the men on the left. Do you not have somebody in your life, a woman, a daughter, a mom, a wife, a sister, that you cannot see what these women are going through over in Iran and you can't see, empathize with them. How can you say you want to stand up against the great oppression here in America on homosexuals, and yet you will not say anything about this regime that throws homosexuals off building tops or executes them in the public square. What have you traded? Let me tell you how, what I'm thinking, why, why I'm thinking this way. Yesterday it was my, my mother in law's 83rd birthday. She lives with us during the winter now, as she was younger than I am now when we first met, and that seems like yesterday. I watch her and I listen to her now and I think, where has the time gone when we first Met. She was a dynamo. She still is, but she was a dynamo. Very successful in what she does, very powerful. And I was young and stupid and full of nothing but wide open highways to dreams and worlds you know, yet to be explored and built. And a long list and seemingly never ending time to do those things. I was 35 years old when we met and I was a young man who already had lived a very harsh and fast life. And I wanted to marry her 26 year old daughter. I told her at the time I wouldn't be for that. I understand your reluctance here, but I promised her I would love and cherish her daughter and I would treat her right. And I hope I have. I tried really hard, but so much time has passed, so much has happened. And now just sitting with her, I feel like I've missed it all. People bitch about their mother in law all the time. It's a joke. But she has brought such wisdom. She has brought prayer, calm, steady, quiet foundation. Almost every day she says to me, I hope that you slow down. I hope that there's going to come a time when you slow down. And at first when she was saying that, I keep thinking I have got to speed up. There's not a lot of time left. But this is the first time I've lived with a parent since I was 18. And maybe it's just that I'm getting to the age where I am starting to get it, but I'm starting to see things wildly differently. We both realize that time is speeding up, that time is shorter than either of us think. But I think only with time, with age, can you understand the value of those things you trade for time. My grandparents, my parents told me when I was younger, they told me things that I just didn't understand. Those are the things they told me when I was younger. I heard, but didn't understand. Maybe you can't understand until you've lived long enough to see the pattern. But older people, older people used to tell me all of the time that they would say, you know, time just goes by so fast. It just goes so fast. Well, you know, when you're young, that really sounds ridiculous. A year feels like forever. When you're 20, 10 years feels like an entire lifetime. But I'm beginning to understand what they meant. Life does not move at a constant speed. It moves really slowly until it doesn't. Jason said something to me. Jason, who does our research for the show and also is the host of our insider broadcast that happens during this show on Torch. He said something this week that he was quoting something we've, you've probably heard, I heard a million times. But it hit me differently this week, and for two reasons. One, with everything that's happening in the world, he said, there are decades where nothing happens, and then weeks where decades happen. And that is very true in the world that Jason and I are living in right now on the radio and podcasting in news. That's what's happening right now to the world. But when it comes to life, it doesn't quite fit what I see in my life. With my wife and kids and my mom celebrating her 83rd birthday. Last night. To celebrate her birthday was really simple. We went to a small gelato shop in a small town called Stuart, Florida, and I watched her pick out the flavors of gelato she wanted. And we sat there and she said, why am I always the last to finish? And my wife said, because you talk a lot. But what she was doing was she was talking about the days that have just slipped by while life happened. And that's when I heard that axiom differently. Perhaps it's better stated in everything that really matters. There are years where nothing seems to change. And then there are these moments when everything has already changed before you even noticed it. When did my children get taller? Oh, I know. When I was busy working. Our parents get older. While we're busy planning, the world is quietly rearranging itself while we're focused on the next thing. And one day you realize that that thing that people told you but never really explained clearly enough. Time is not something you spend. It is something you trade. And no one tells you that every day you're making trades. You're trading your morning for a meeting, dinner for returning phone calls or emails. You trade patience for exhaustion. You tell yourself, how many times have I said this? It's just this season. It'll slow down. You trade a bedtime story for just one more thing. You trade walks to get the laundry done. You trade being really present for just getting through the day. And it feels normal and everybody does it. But here's the part you don't get until you notice things have passed. Trades don't cost you right away. They compound, and they show up later when your children move out or your child doesn't reach for your hand as much. When you can't remember the last time you were really excited, when your life is really loud but somehow empty, You don't notice it week to week. You notice it once years have passed. I saw this Instagram post last night. It said you notice it when the photos on your phone carry more memories than your body does. I don't remember anybody sitting me down and saying, be careful what you trade away because the quiet trades are the permanent ones and I don't know if I would have gotten it. So let me just say this today. Be aware of what you're trading. Hold their hand a second longer, Put your phone down mid scroll. Say no to something that doesn't matter and say yes to something that does. Just today. Because life isn't made in the big moments. And that's what I have lived my whole life thinking it's made of. All the tiny ones you didn't realize were important until they were gone and you've traded it away for money, ambition, comfort, convenience, peace of mind. And some of those trades just are not worth it. Some of them you only realize were real mistakes years later. Be careful what you trade away. Be careful what you trade your time for. Because time doesn't give refunds. Thanks for teaching me that, mom. Even though I don't think you knew you were teaching me that. We love you. I really love having you down the hall. And thanks for the years of worry, the prayers and your wisdom. Relief factor. You know, the human body is an incredible machine. It is capable of remarkable things. Healing, adapting, recovering. But like any machine, when something starts building up in the system that shouldn't be there, things stop running the way they should. And one of those things is inflate in inflammation. Inflammation is part of your body's natural response to stresses and injury and it lingers. And when it doesn't settle down the way it's supposed to, it starts showing up as everyday aches and pains and also illness. This is where Relief factor comes in. Relief factor is designed to support your body's response to inflammation by using a combination of natural ingredients that work with your body, not against it. Over a million people have tried Relief Factor. Two thirds of them have gone on to take more. Because when the system starts running smoothly, you notice the difference. You'll notice it. In fact, take it from me, I've done it in personal experience. My wife made me try the three week quick start. As before, I was advertising and I didn't advertise for him because I didn't know if it worked. My wife said, you're taking this. I'm tired of hearing you belly ache all the time about the pain. Just try it. You've tried everything else. Try this. I didn't think it would work. It did. Relief factor 800 for relief 800 the number four, relief or relief factor dot com. Now back to the podcast. This is the best of the Glenn Beck program. I want to connect a few stories that on the surface look completely unrelated, but they're actually not. They're all telling you the same thing about how power is working in America right now. So let me start in Washington. The Senate now is preparing to vote on the SAVE Act. This is a complete sham. Now, this is just a bill that says you have to prove you're a citizen to vote in American elections. Think about that for just a second. Just this basic idea. If you're voting in the United States, you should be an American citizen. That's it. But the Senate leadership is already warning that it might need 60 votes to pass. Well, yeah, if you don't do your job, it will. And that's where the game begins. Because technically they are right practically. They're hiding behind the rules. The Senate has called for something or has something called the filibuster. And originally, if you wanted to block a bill, all you had to do is stand on the floor and talk hour after hour, day after day. You know, your voice giving up, your legs shaking. Mr. Stewart, Mr. Smith goes to Washington, okay? That's the whole point of that movie. But today you don't have to do that anymore because it's hard. You just threaten a filibuster and then walk away. And you need a 60 person vote to bring it back to the floor. No speeches, no fight, no accountability. Okay? No courage. Just a zombie filibuster. Republican senators know something most Americans don't. They could force the issue. They could keep the Senate in continuous session for day after day after day. And if Democrats want to block voter citizenship requirements, then let them stand there for 24 hours a day explaining why. Make them hold the floor, make them say it out loud. But that would require something rare in Washington. Effort, conviction, courage, a belief in our system. So instead, the bill just will quietly die and the public will never see the fight. Okay, why does this matter? Well, let me tie the next story to this, because at the exact same time this is happening, the Justice Department is saying something else that could stop the country, should stop the country cold. Assistant Attorney General Harmony Dhillon says investigators now are finding tens of thousands of non citizens on voter rolls and hundreds of thousands of dead people still registered. Now, maybe most of these people will never vote, but not one of them should. You know, when it comes to our, our air travel, we don't say, relax, most planes land safely. Did you have you Ever heard anyone actually suggest that Boeing should just come out and say, you know, we've had thousands and thousands of flights and it was only one door that blew out in the middle of the flight. It was only one plane that crashed. Okay, maybe three, but we've had hundreds of thousands of flights. No zero tolerance, because the system only works if the public trusts it. Not only is the Boeing example ridiculous to think that we would accept because of the loss of life, but even Boeing knows they have to fix that. They have one more plane go down. If they don't restore the confidence in the system of Boeing and their airplanes. No one will buy or fly a Boeing airplane. It's the same thing. Trust right now is the rarest currency in America. You have to have trust in the system. Look what else dropped. FBI director now says the bureau ran four secret counterintelligence operations from 2016 to 2025 that monitored over a thousand Trump associates, journalists, lawmakers and advisors. Excuse me. What? This makes Nixon look like child's play. Some of these probes are now under civil rights review. The same institutions that tell you trust the system are quietly admitting the system has been used to spy on political movements. Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, investigators just uncovered something almost unbelievable. And we are in the sea of unbelievable and incomprehensible. Nearly half of the hospices in LA county show fraud warning signs. Companies were billing Medicare, your tax dollars that are supposed to go to the people who actually need it. They were billing with zero patients. Multiple hospices registered at the same buildings. This is in LA now. Patients discovering that they were fraudulently enrolled in hospice care and they didn't even know it. So somebody was using their name to get money to provide care that they never got and no one did. And every patient was billed to the taxpayer for $29,000. That's not a glitch. That's an industry. And when government money flows without any accountability, predators follow it like sharks follow blood. Do you understand why they had to get rid of Elon Musk now and Doge? Do you see? Do you see? Now? Let me zoom out, because something even bigger is happening. While our institutions are fighting over Senate procedure to trust the system of voting and Medicare fraud to trust that your tax dollars are going where they said. The world is moving and the world is moving fast. The United states just sank 16 Iranian mine mine layers in the Persian Gulf. 16. And Iran is threatening to mine the Strait of Hormuz. That's. That is a 20. No, I'm sorry, is it 20? I think it's a 20 mile stretch, okay, where one fifth of the all of the world's oil passes every single day. And what Iran is saying is, you want this war? Good, enjoy $200 a barrel oil. But here's what they didn't expect. Their submarines, the one they call black holes because supposedly they're invisible. Yeah, they have giant black holes through them now. And inside Iran itself, something really extraordinary is happening. The Arab tribal leaders in the country's oil region. This is the place that produces about 60% of Iran's crude. Just issued a statement calling for a free Iran and the end of the Islamic Republic. That is massive. That's like the oil workers in Soviet Russia demanding the fall of the Kremlin. It tells you the regime is weaker than anyone realized. But revolutions rarely happen cleanly. Sometimes the regime collapses, sometimes it thrashes around for years. And all the while, when that is unfolding overseas, back here at home, we're arguing whether you should have to prove you're a citizen to vote. What? See, that's the disconnect here. The world is playing geopolitical chess for the whole game. And Washington is arguing whether the players are even allowed to sit at the board. There's another lesson buried in today's headlines. Look at the media coverage of Iran. Look at the media coverage of the Iranian, the girls soccer team, which I'll get into here in a minute. One major newspaper, I just say the New York Times led with photos of people mourning the Ayatollah. But buried deep in the story are the lines that show Iranians are saying they actually hope the bombing continues if it means the regime falls. Wait, what? When is the last time you heard a people in a nation say, please, America, continue to bomb because you can't stop until the job is done? Why does the New York times show the 10% instead of the 90%? Because the story they want to tell you is always the same. America bad, enemies misunderstood. So step back. Here is what the headlines today actually reveal. The institutions that are supposed to protect, trust, elections, law enforcement, government spending. The media are all under strain at the same time. They're not broken beyond repair, but they are deeply strained. Jonathan Martin made a point about me today in Politico. He said, how can one spend decades in and around American politics and not understand the basic macro politics of midterm elections? He's talking about why I'm for the SAVE act, and he says it's going to hurt the Republicans in the midterms. I don't. I don't Know your proof on that one. But I don't care about the midterms, Jonathan. That's your job at Politico. Politico? You should be about the midterm elections. My job is to care about the principles of the Republic, you know, only caring about the next election, which is very important, don't get me wrong, is what got us here in the first place. A strained system that wobbles more and more each passing day. And when the systems are strained like this, there are only a few things that matter. Principles, transparency, and courage. Transparency means letting Americans actually see the fight, whether it's a Senate filibuster or an FBI investigation. Courage means you have to be willing to stand there and defend your position in the light and let the chips fall where they may. Because if you're not willing to stand up and explain what you believe, you know, maybe you shouldn't be blocking the vote in the first place. And that's the real story. Not just what happened, but what it reveals about where our country is today. A moment where the truth is fighting to surface and the people running the system are deciding whether or not they're going to help it surface or. Or keep it sinking. The truth is surfacing, whether they like it or not. I don't know how it all works out, but the truth will always set you free. This is the best of the Glenn Beck program. All right, welcome to the program. We're talking to Chad Wolf. He is the American First Policy Institute Homeland Security immigration chair. He's also the former DHS acting secretary. And I wanted to get him on because the Democrats still are not, you know, are not allowing DHS to be funded. And that is the craziest thing I've ever heard. I mean, at this time, what, are you trying to get us all killed? Chad Wolf is here with us now. Chad, the headlines today in some cities are you got to get to the airport super, super early because you might be in line for several hours because people are not showing up for work. I mean, I don't know if I would either. But not showing up for work, it's overwhelming the system. That I don't think should be the headline. I think the headline is what's being missed at the airports because of this shutdown. How safe are we, Chad?

B (30:12)

Yeah, well, thanks for having me on. I agree with you. I think there's two issues at play here. One is requiring DHS workers, and in this case, you know, airport officers and screeners to do have to go to have to go to work. Do their job but not get paid to do it. And then the second piece that you rightfully point out is the security aspect of that. And so this hits hardest probably in our airports, but there are other parts of DHS that are impacted as well because a lot of these, these screeners at airports are living paycheck to paycheck. And after they miss one or two paychecks, you know, what we're starting to see, and you indicated long lines at airports, is they start to call out, they start to call out sick because they have to go drive an Uber. They've got to pick up another part time job.

A (31:02)

Right.

B (31:02)

Pay the rent, the mortgage or put food on the table. And so that becomes a problem, that becomes a problem for the traveling public and it becomes an inconvenience. But the security aspect of it is even if they show up for work, I would want them totally focused and committed on their job at hand. What I don't want are screeners at the airport going through the motions, but really their mind is, how do I support my family? How do I support my family?

A (31:30)

And, and pissed off. I know, you know, if I'm pissed off at a company, I don't do my best work. And I don't think that these people, you know, intentionally would let something go through or anything like that. I mean, they're still Americans and they're human beings, but it is, it's just part of being human. You know, it is wrong to ask them to step up to the plate and come in for a long period of time because there doesn't seem to be any indication that this is going to end soon. Democrats just don't seem to care about it.

B (31:59)

Yeah, no, and I think what's the frustrating thing is this is entirely preventable. It's, you know, particularly at a time when we have conflicts with Iran and, you know, very, very dangerous world in which we live in. The fact that we would not fund the Department of Homeland Security that is hand in glove with the Department of War, making sure that we're keeping the homeland and everyday Americans safe is just bizarre. It's bizarre to me that the Democrats can continue to hold out on this position. And it's a little, you know, I don't know, I haven't seen any polling or anything, but I suspect that the American people do not support this.

A (32:38)

No. And as the lines get longer, it's going to get worse. And then people will know who's responsible. Because, I mean, I was just talking to Cheryl Atkinson and she said, you know, she had just seen a report. 10,000 known terrorists have been on our radar that have come into the country, 1500 from Iran. How bad is the possible terror network here in America?

B (33:08)

Well, it's bad, right? We, we talked about four years of the Biden administration. So over the course of four years, you had, you, you had over 11 to 12 million individuals come into the United States. Over 18,000 known or suspected terrorists. Right. The National Counterterrorism center just testified about that. Over 18,000 known or suspected terrorists tried to enter the country during Joe Biden's tenure, and variety of them made it in. And so you combine that with the existing networks of Hamas, Hezbollah, and other proxies that have been here in the United states since the 80s, more or less, and it starts to paint a picture of a real kind of heightened risk and threat environment. Now we have an outstanding law enforcement apparatus, FBI, joint terrorism task forces, and other things that keep the American people safe. But we're asking so much of them because we don't know who really is in the country. Because I said it at the time, and I think we're facing it right now is the four years of the Biden administration. We won't really know the destructive nature of their immigration policies for years and years to come. And I think we are staring down the barrel of that right now big time.

A (34:24)

I have to tell you, I would never talk about this on the air. I would love to be a part of a Red Cell team just on terror, because I have war game this out since 2001. And there are things that I don't understand why terrorists haven't done. Again, I wouldn't say any of it on the air, but I got to tell you, we are very vulnerable. And it doesn't take a lot of people to pull off some really, truly devastating things in our country.

B (34:53)

Again, I would agree with that. I think we have, there's, again, certainly a risk of, you know, either cells or loan individuals doing a variety of different things here in the United States. And we've seen some of that, unfortunately, and we'll, we'll continue to do that. I think the, the threat environment that we're in today is as high as we've probably seen it. And, and you see that with the, the IEDs in New York City and elsewhere. So again, I go back to not funding the department is absolutely crazy that you're going to have the airport workers, you're going to have the men and women of the Coast Guard, also very junior, live paycheck to paycheck in some instances as well. You know, they're hand in glove overseas with, with the Navy down in the Caribbean. And again, you want them totally focused. And they're professionals, they will be focused, but they're human, as you indicated. And they're going to be worried about their family because when they're deployed, you know, that paycheck needs to come in to make sure that their, their wife, their kids, their family are taken care of. And that's going to be on their mind as well.

A (35:58)

Are you, are you more concerned about places like Dearborn and Minneapolis or is it all around the country? I mean, are there particular hotspots that we should be watching and concerned about?

B (36:14)

Yeah, I think my concern is throughout the country. I understand the Dearborn reference, but I think if you are an individual with, you know, bad motives that you're gonna, you're gonna target, you could target iconic landmarks, things that get high visibility, obviously New York City, Los Angeles, your big cities pop up there. But those cities also have the best infrastructure and law enforcement, Right. And they've, those targets have been hardened over the past several decades. So maybe you're perhaps looking to a softer target target, or perhaps you're going to lay in wait, right, because the, the threat environment and law enforcement is on their guard right now. But perhaps you wait until the summer, until the World cup arrives and you decide to do something there at a, at a stadium and a mass gathering of some kind. So you can see all of the implications out there of, of really kind of what the challenge is today here and here in the homeland.

A (37:15)

We are sitting at a time where we are now at war with the biggest terror organization and funder of terrorism in the world, with Iran. And, you know, they have allies of China and Russia. And doesn't DHS also look at all of our cyber protection? I mean, how vulnerable are we with cyber now?

B (37:38)

Yeah, absolutely. They certainly have. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA as it's referred to, has a big role there. Now, it's mainly defensive posture because what they try to do is not only protecting government networks, but it's important to remember that about 85% of our critical infrastructure, such as water, you know, waste treatment plants, water plants and the like are privately owned. And so CISA provides a lot of intelligence and a lot of capabilities to those private sector companies to make sure that their cybersecurity hygiene and measures are up to date. And you've got about two thirds of that agency that are, that are not working because of the shutdown today. So that's really, really concerning as well. So aviation, cyber, obviously the border and others, you know, that DHS does is. It's all being impacted. Now, look, 80, 85% of the employees at DHS are exempt from the shutdown, which means they have to go to work. Even if they're not getting paid, they still have to work. But as we've talked about as this drags on, you know, they could be six weeks without getting a paycheck. And even when the government opens back up, it's not like they get paid the next day. It's going to take two to three weeks for that back pay to come in. So again, you can see how this could draw out for eight weeks. And we're asking these agents and officers, 75,000 law enforcement officers at the Department of Homeland Security, we're asking them to risk their lives every day to protect Americans. And Congress can't even give them the pay, I would say the low pay that we paid them, but they can't even do that. I think it sends absolutely the wrong message on a variety of different fronts.

A (39:27)

We heard last week that one of the last things that happened, you know, as we were bombing Iran at the very beginning was there seemed to be some encrypted message that went out. And they were talking about the possibility that that was an activation of sleep themselves. Do you have any indication that's real?

B (39:46)

Yeah, I saw that public reporting as well. And just what I saw, I can't ascertain on how real that is, on whether that's just some reporting or whether that is truly what the intelligence community has picked up on. But regardless of that, I think as soon, as soon as conflicts, kinetic conflicts start to happen overseas in Iran, the Department of Homeland Security goes shields up.

A (40:14)

Right.

B (40:14)

On a variety of different fronts. So even whether or not this went out or not, they are doing everything that they can during a shutdown, mind you, to protect a variety, you know, all the different, you know, from a maritime perspective or a cyber perspective or a border perspective or how do we screen travelers coming into the country? Obviously, CBP does that on a real world basis. And so they will augment all of their apparatus to look for suspicious activities around proxies tied to the Iranian regime and others. And so as the threat environment picks up, the alertness and what you're looking for across the department as you screen travelers and do other things also ticks up as well.

A (41:10)

Chad, if you were still the, you know, acting DHS secretary, what advice would you give to the American people today?

B (41:20)

Yeah, I would say, look, you know, continue your lives, continuing what you do each and every day, but have some awareness around what you do. It's, you know, if you go out and you want to go out to dinner and you want to eat on a sidewalk, that's fine. Just have a little bit more awareness of your surroundings and where you're at and making sure that you're, you know, continuing to understand kind of the threat environment the United States is. And I wouldn't say you need to disrupt or change your pattern. I think that's what the terrorists want us to do. So don't give them that satisfaction. But be aware of your surroundings and understand kind of the situation that we're in.

A (42:09)

Are we at more risk because of the funding? Coupled with Mullen in transit in transition, Is that, yeah, I compound this problem,

B (42:22)

the transition of a new secretary coming in. I hope it happens very soon because it does help to stabilize the department. But look, there are a lot of professionals at the department, underneath the secretary, at all of the operating components that are doing their job right now. And so I have a lot of faith because I know a lot of them that they're going to do that regardless of what is happening at the secretarial level. Now we need to get Senator Mullen in there and in there quickly to again stabilize and hopefully, because he's coming from Congress, hopefully can break the logjam on DHS funding. But I would say my overall concern is just the overall threat environment that we are now in, tied with the lack of funding for the department.

A (43:09)

Thank you so much, Ted. Appreciate it. Really appreciate it. Thanks for all that you do. God bless.

B (43:13)

Yeah, thanks.

A (43:15)

That's Chad. Chad Wolf, former acting Secretary of dhs. I have to tell you, I'm flying. I have to be in two different cities this week by Friday afternoon. And my first stop is in Phoenix to give a speech here on Thursday. So I'm going to be flying through these airports. And I have to tell you, please, if you're traveling, thank the TSA that are showing up. The stress that they're under right now with their own families. None of these people make a lot of money. The stress that they're under, thinking they got to go to work here, but what are they going to do now that they're not getting paid? Can you imagine that stress mean you are under enough stress as it is? Imagine the stress of, yeah, well, I have to go to work. I can't get a second job because I have to go to work doing this and they're not paying me. Thank them for showing up to work.