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The Glenn Beck Program
Best of the Program | Guests: Peter Schweizer & Dave 'Heavy D' Sparks | 10/15/25
00:44:42
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- [00:00]
Glenn Beck
Today, big guest, Peter Schweitzer. He is one of the best researchers on money laundering and everything else in the federal government. He is, he has pissed off everybody on every side. So you know, he's doing a good job. He joins the show today to discuss the alleged foreign influences behind Mamdani's campaign and they are very, very disturbing. Also, Diesel Brothers star Dave Sparks joins us.
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He was thrown into solitary confinement over.
- [00:25]
Glenn Beck
Violating the Clean Air Act. It is absolutely out of control. And Chris Martinson joins to discuss AI and the coming energy shortage, something we have to pay attention to. All this and so much more on today's podcast.
- [00:39]
Dave 'Heavy D' Sparks
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- [00:50]
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- [02:25]
Glenn Beck
This isn't a podcast.
- [02:27]
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This is a movement. And you're part of it. A big part of it. So if you believe in what we're doing, you want more people to wake.
- [02:33]
Glenn Beck
Up, help us push this podcast to.
- [02:35]
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The top rate, review, share together, we'll make a difference. And thanks for standing with us. Now let's get to work.
- [02:49]
Peter Schweitzer
You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck Program.
- [02:55]
Glenn Beck
Peter, always great to have you on.
- [02:57]
Peter Schweitzer
Great to be with you, Glenn. Thanks for having me.
- [02:59]
Glenn Beck
Okay, so, Mamdani, this is not a stunning update, except it is kind of stunning because now you have verified it. Tell me what you found on the funding for Mamdani.
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Peter Schweitzer
Yeah, well, so here's the interesting thing people forget. New York is, of course, an international city, but the world is watching. The Hezbollah publication Al Khandiq had an article on Mandani talking about the fact that this guy could win mayor of New York. And if he wins mayor of New York, that could prop him to the national stage, including, he could become secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Why a terrorist organization would mention homeland Security is interesting. But their point is correct, Glenn, that the world is watching. So you have the royal family of Qatar, the Al Thani family, which not only has bankrolled the Mamdanis to the tune of millions of dollars on film projects that his mother has done, they're out on social around the world pushing for Madani's campaign. And Madani actually in September. Think about this, Glenn. He's running for mayor of New York. He goes on Qatari tv. He goes on TV in Qatar to talk about the fact that the United States is funding genocide in Israel, et cetera. The bottom line is that he and his family are joined to the hip with the Qatari royal family. And what you need to understand about the Qatari royal family is this is the same family that in the 1990s protected Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. He was the Mastermind behind the 911 terrorist attacks. He was involved in the 1993 World Trade center bombing. He fled the United States. He went to Qatar, where the same royal family gave him a no show job working for the government and protected him. And when Louis Freeh and the FBI came looking for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and said, we want this guy. The Al Thani family, which of course is funding Mamdani back in the 1990s. They helped him escape the net of the FBI. And Louis Free later said in the early 2000s, had they gotten him, they could have prevented 9 11.
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Glenn Beck
Okay, can I push back on This a bit. You say the Mamdani family is tied to the hip, but isn't the Trump family also tied to the hip?
- [05:30]
Peter Schweitzer
Well, yeah. I do not like what is going on with the Qataris at all. What I would say, one important distinction, you know, when we're doing things like the air base in Idaho, which I think is a terrible idea. The Mamdanis, unlike the Trumps and unlike the US Federal government, completely, completely mimics what the Qatari foreign policy line is, which is anti Israel, pro Hamas. They line up completely on the policy positions. In fact, the Mamdani father has said that terrorism is really a Western invention. It has nothing to do with Islam. He wrote a famous book on that in the 2000s. Another thing he said, Glenn, and by the way, his son has not pushed back on this at all. That situations like what happened in Sudan with the massacre at Darfur where 400,000 Christians were slaughtered by Islamists, that's not genocide. That was a civil war. There was damage on both sides. The point is, is that the madamis have been apologists in exactly the same way that the Qatari royal family has. And that's what I think makes it so concerning. But I mean, I could talk about Iran. The International Quran News Agency, which is an Iranian news agency, has also run glowing profiles among Donnie and has said his campaign is Islamic in not only its messaging, but also in its goals and in its ends. You have Imam Wahaj, who you have talked about before. This is an imam who has three adult children who are in jail for life for their involvement in the terrorist attacks. Imam Wahaj has funded the super pac, which funded and is funding Mamdani's gubernatorial campaign. And Imam Wahaj back in 2021 gave an where he predicted that there would be a rising figure who would become mayor of New York backed by Islamic voters. So this is a global mayoral race. And people in New York and people around the country better be aware the stakes are higher than just what happens.
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Chris Martinson
In New York City.
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Glenn Beck
Tell me about the ccp.
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Peter Schweitzer
So the ccp, it's interesting. They have been running very positive stories on Mamdani. I just posted on Twitter X yesterday a story from the center for Marxism in China, which is of course a government run entity, saying that the Mamdani campaign is a bright spot in a very dark situation in the United States from their perspective. But then you also have the interesting role of a guy named Roy Singham. I talked about him. In fact, you and I talked about him back in 2024.
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Chris Martinson
Yeah.
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Peter Schweitzer
When my Book Blood Money came out. So Roy Singham runs something called the People's Forum in New York. It is very radical left wing. Roy Singham, of course, American billionaire, lives in Beijing now, very close to the ccp, attends CCP events. Singham's People Forum has been very supportive of Mohamdani's campaign. And you also have Roy Singham's niece runs an organization called Jews for Mamdani. Now she's actually not Jewish. You see what's going on here. You see what's going on here. But the point is, Glenn, that the CCP shares the same interest that these other foreign actors have in seeing Mamdani win because they see this as a foothold that they can establish in the United States. And I would say to, and I have friends who basically have adopted the position clan, you know, let New York fall, let Mondomini get elected. It's going to be terrible. People see how bad socialism is. I'm telling you, if Hamadani wins, they are going to work the machineries of government so that they retain office, meaning this radical left, Islamist left wing movement retain power in New York going forward.
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Glenn Beck
You also expose that most of the donations that he is getting are from out like 78% of his. His money is coming from outside of New York. I mean, the number one state contributing to his campaign is California.
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Peter Schweitzer
Yes, that's right. And that includes political action committees that are tied to care, which of course you have reported on over the years, their ties to Hamas, their involvement in various Islamic causes. And you also have news reports that have just been coming out that so far there are at least 13. The number is going to be much higher. But $13,000 that was identified so far of illegal foreign donations coming into the Mamdani campaign. And the challenge here is, Glenn, we've seen this happen in the past with other candidates. They wait until the last month because the reporting for donations will come out after the election. So that number is going to be much higher. And based on what you see the Alfani family doing on social media around the world, you know, boosting his campaign, I expect that number to be massively higher before it's all said and done.
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Glenn Beck
So Peter, have you talked to the, have you talked to Cash Patel or anybody, the FBI about this yet?
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Peter Schweitzer
So we had one of our vice presidents for research, Seamus Bruner, was at the roundtable last week in the White House with the President and we, you know, showed our Follow the Money a report. It was a three and a half minute presentation. The president very Publicly then said to us, would you please share this information with the Attorney General and with the director of the FBI? And that information exchange is taking place and there is communication. And Glenn, as always, the information we have is all public record, meaning we dig and we find this is not speculation. These are not anonymous sources. So, yes, that information is being shared with US law enforcement, something we've done since the founding of GAI, going back to 2011.
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Glenn Beck
So I, I got a call from the FBI over the weekend, and I had three FBI agents show up at my house this weekend.
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Peter Schweitzer
And, and this was friendly, right?
- [12:09]
Glenn Beck
It was, yeah. I said that. I said I would be a little more concerned if it was the last administration. But you guys are friendly, right? And they say, yes. Mr. We just have some questions about a special I did where we just tied, you know, open sources, easy open sources together. And they, they wanted to know more about it. And I started talking to them. You know, I said, it kind of works like the Tides Foundation. You guys are going to have a hard time finding things because they, they're very good at money laundering, etc, etc. And I said, but you're going to have an easier time because you can go into banking records, you know, if you get the, you know, the warrants, et cetera, et cetera. And, and I was, I was surprised at how far behind they were. And I talked to Kash Patel yesterday, I was at the White House. And, and he said, glenn, we can pretty much tell you everybody who went to a Latin mass in the last five years, but nobody's done any of this work. No, the administrations of the past, since Barack Obama, they have sworn off all investigations of this stuff. So we are starting from the very beginning. Yeah, they really need help. I mean.
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Peter Schweitzer
Well, they, they do. And Glenn, the special you did was excellent. And you do the same things we do. It's public information. In other words, don't take my word for it. You can replicate what we found and you can use as a government authority, subpoena power. This is the same thing that happened, remember, with, with the Hunter Biden situation. We learned a lot more once you had congressional committees issuing subpoenas. In this particular case, I would arg stakes may even be higher because what you're seeing is the organized funding of radical groups who are not out protesting and carrying signs, and they are engaged in violent, provocative acts. They are targeting U.S. law enforcement. And this is the very definition of RICO. Right. The RICO statutes were designed to get organized crime figures. You'd have the street guys who were beastly beating people up. And those people would get arrested, but they could never get to the money people that were organizing it and paying these guys to beat people up. So RICO came along and said, you know what, we are going to now be able to charge people with organizing criminal violent activity. So this is a classic definition of rico. And it's a question now of federal law enforcement and prosecutors that DOJ doing what. Exactly what you said, which is pulling financial records. And if you've got entities and individuals, which I believe you do, you've demonstrated it. We've demonstrated it. That are knowingly funding groups that are engaging in violent conduct on American streets. That to me is the very definition of rico. And the reason that was, it was designed in the first place.
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So I agree with you on that.
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Glenn Beck
But let me come back, let me take a one minute break. I want to come back with you, Peter, Peter Schweiser and ask you, are you going to be able to track the funding to the street activity? Do you believe that connection is there? Because I think they're winding up a lot of very sick and unhealthy people and street people, et cetera, et cetera. You don't necessarily have to pay, you know, and somebody can come, you know, buy with 100 bucks. Are you, do you think we're going to find the actual funding of the street movement? Because you know, everybody in the press is saying, oh well, there's no, there's no organization here. Well, who's paying for the union printed signs and everything else that they have the best of the Glenn Beck program.
- [15:58]
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- [17:17]
Glenn Beck
This is the best of the Glenn Beck program.
- [17:19]
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And don't forget, rate us on itunes.
- [17:23]
Glenn Beck
The Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment were very offended that one of the trucks they made had 36 times more pollutants in the air than if they would have just left it alone. And so they got together with Biden's federal government and they took him to court and they were fined like a million and a half dollars. Million point two, I think. And the Diesel brothers been fighting going. What do you, what, what are you talking about? But they've been fighting it back and forth and I lost track. Heavy D. Dave Sparks was on with us. He did a podcast with me about a year or we talked about it and, you know, they still had to, you know, finish this all up. Well, he's just been arrested a couple of weeks ago. He was arrested and put into solitary confinement for three days. Why that's necessary for polluting the air is beyond me, but he is here to tell us the whole story. Dave, welcome to the program. How are you?
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Dave 'Heavy D' Sparks
Good morning, Glenn. Good to hear from you.
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Glenn Beck
Yeah, it's good to have you on. We've been praying for you, thinking about you. This is ridiculous.
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Dave 'Heavy D' Sparks
Well, thank you. I appreciate that. I'm actually doing significantly better now that I'm not locked up like an animal.
- [18:37]
Glenn Beck
You were in solitary confinement for three days.
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What was the reason?
- [18:41]
Dave 'Heavy D' Sparks
Well, I got put in jail. And when a high profile person gets put in jail, they give you basically protective custody. So the jailhouse was actually very courteous to me. They, I feel like they, they did their best with the bad situation, but unfortunately, a guy like me, if I get thrown in general population, it causes problems for everybody at the jail. It starts, it just starts a potential riot in there because people get excited, people try to maybe extort me, people try to, you know, start a meet and greet. There's just all sorts of different things that can go wrong. So they said, look, your option is that go start a riot or go get locked in a cell where you're allowed out for one hour for every 48 hours. And, you know, that was unfortunately the route that we had to go. But, man, it was the most dehumanizing experience of my life.
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Glenn Beck
So why were you arrested?
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Dave 'Heavy D' Sparks
I was arrested on contempt of court charges. Now, the unique thing about contempt of court charges is they are very broad, and there's no bail. So you can get thrown in jail for contempt of court for kind of anything, and you can't get out. So even though, you know, as soon as I got arrested, I called my attorney, said, all right, let's get this figured out. Get me out of here. And he said, dave, there's no bail. You're stuck in there until either the judge orders a release or until the attorneys, the UPHE attorneys stipulate to your release. So I thought, oh, that should be easy. These are reasonable. You know, I'm not a criminal. I didn't do anything wrong. I didn't break any laws. These will let me out of jail. Well, I was wrong. They chose to keep me in jail essentially as a way to try to extort more money out of me. And at this point, Glenn, I've just had it with this case. I'm done getting pushed around and bullied around for nine years. So I finally just said, you know what? I'm just not going to play their games anymore. I'll sit through jail. I will go to court in my hearing, you know, in a few days, and I'll tell the judge my story and explain why I'm not in contempt. Because essentially, the contempt charges were brought against us as the uphe ATT attorneys lied to the judge, saying that we had failed to produce thousands of documents over the years. So my attorney had a stroke of genius at my hearing on last Thursday and showed up with basically a PowerPoint with like 40 something slides that said, you, Honor, look at all the stuff that we've. That we've provided. These are all the things that you threw Mr. Sparks in jail for not providing. Halfway through the hearing, the judge stopped. He looked around, he looked at the attorneys for the UPG and he said, please tell me there's not a man sitting in shackles and chains in my courtroom right now because you couldn't communicate correctly. Stopped the hearing, called the recess, took the attorneys back in his chambers, apologized to my attorney, and then came back out and basically said, I can't believe this ever happened. Mr. Sparks, I'm at a loss for words. I'm now finally seeing what's happening here, and you're, you know, you're going to be free immediately. And he said, uphe, I don't ever want to see you in my courtroom again with these guys. So it was a, it was a very vindicating moment. But Glenn, the craziest part is this was all about attorneys fees. This was not about the federal penalty. We had no problem paying the federal penalty. Under the Clean Air act. There's a stipulation that says if a private action group brings action against you on a clean air violation, even if they only win 1% of their claim, they can bill you 100% percent of the attorney's fees. So attorney's fees were just this blank check. It was not ever going blank check that I said no to.
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Glenn Beck
And so they weren't coming out because you paid the federal government fees.
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Dave 'Heavy D' Sparks
We've paid a huge chunk of it, yes. We've been working with the treasury because it's unique. You know, it's a Utah Physicians for Healthy Environment. So you would think, all right, this money should go to the state of Utah. And for nine years I have said, I'll fix this, I'll plant trees, I'll fix low income family cars. Let's get the air clean here in Utah. You guys have a, you guys have a cause. This is my home. You know, we made a mistake back in the early days of our business. Let's do some good here. And they said no. They said, we want that money to go to the federal government, basically the treasury to get subsumed in the giant federal budget. And then more importantly, we want our attorney fees and we want every single penny of them. And we're not going to tell you how much they are because you've cost us so much time and money fighting this that it's just a secret number that maybe one day we'll tell you, but we're not going to tell you really, because this is a giant press campaign and we don't want this to end. And so we're not going to. Glenn, we've tried settling with this case for, for seven years. I've offered, I've made offers month after month after month. I've made full price offers. I've made over full price offers. They haven't taken them. And why is that? Because they don't want to settle. They want the press, they want the publicity and they want to continue to just milk this never ending cow of free, you know, just media that they've been getting by suing the Diesel brothers. But they finally took it one step too far by taking someone's freedom. And I gotta tell you, people are upset. I'm talking millions and millions and millions of people are very upset.
- [23:18]
Glenn Beck
We were very upset. My wife and I read about it. We were like, what the hell is happening? So is this. Judge, do you think this is a turning point in your case where other judges are going to start to see what's actually happening here?
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Dave 'Heavy D' Sparks
This is not only the turning point in our case, but this is also a turning point in this law in general. The Clean Air act is written very broadly, and there's a lot of room for interpretation not in favor of whoever the offenders are. Remember, the Clean Air Act's not a law. It's an act that was written and therefore has all sorts of different, sorts of, like, enforcement actions that are. That are possible. But there's a guy up in Wyoming right now who just got out of prison. He was there for nine months on a life sentence for doing similar stuff as us. This has happened all across the country. So finally, Congress, senators, lawmakers. Yeah, yeah.
- [24:14]
Glenn Beck
Life sentence for what? Putting a street pipe out of the engine?
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Dave 'Heavy D' Sparks
Yep, Yep, that's exactly right. It's gotten out of control. And these, these environmental attorneys and their groups know that they can exploit it. But, Glenn, the scary part is this is not the first time they've done this. Do a quick Google search of the UP and their lawsuits, and just what pops up online is going to show you 20 plus cases that they've done this over the past decade. And it's. Every single one of them has been settled privately. Their attorney's fees just got, you know, quietly absorbed into the abyss. And I've talked to multiple people that have been sued by them all the way from big Fortune 500 companies down to little mom and pop shops. And every single story is the same. They say, uphe ruined my life. And uphe thought they had, you know, their. Their greatest tale of all time by suing us. Because it's a big media campaign, like I said. And I just don't think they were prepared for me to be as stubborn as I am, because I am. Just, just. I didn't even realize that I was standing up for something all this time. I just knew that I was standing up for myself. And I wasn't okay with what was happening, but it turned out to be a much bigger picture. I was standing up for something that has been a problem for so many years, for so many people. And, Glenn, if I didn't, this was going to continue to be a problem. Like, let's say you're driving down the freeway, your check engine light comes on, there's an attorney in your rearview mirror. He can go to the court and say, this person driving in front of me, I can't necessarily prove it, but I know that their car wasn't fully compliant. I'm injured, I need a million dollars tomorrow. And the judge will say, got it. There's no defense. There's no defense. The clean air defect leaves no room for any sort of interpretation of how severe the damages were. So if this doesn't get changed, it's just going to continue to be this, this racket. It's all it is, it's a racket and they've been getting away with it for far too long.
- [26:03]
Glenn Beck
So who, who is behind the Physicians for Healthy Environments Environment? Who are these?
- [26:07]
Dave 'Heavy D' Sparks
Guy named Dr. Dr. Brian Monk out of Bountiful, Utah. He is the ringleader and essentially he's got a handful of other physicians. I don't know if they're practicing physicians or retired or what, but essentially they're activists and they're full time environmentalists and they go around the state of Utah looking for anything that is putting anything into the air and they sue it and they sue it into oblivion. And they have this very powerful, broadly written act that allows them to just do endless discovery, do endless paperwork until they basically exhaust resources, exhaust people, and then bully them into submission and essentially get their blank check of attorneys fees. The judge, when he saw it, it was the most pivotal moment probably of my life because the whole courtroom felt it. It was like this palpable moment where I walked in in chains and cuffs and literally ankle, ankle and wrist restraints and my hands to my belly button in a convict jump jumpsuit. That is crazy treated, just, you know, killed somebody. And the judge started the hearing by basically telling me that I was single handedly dismantling the constitution by not complying with the court process and how terrible it was that I was doing it. And then he realized halfway through that he'd been lied to. And now he's thinking, how many other cases have I, have I been lied to about this? How many, how many times have these people brought false claims against other people? This, this is Awaken the Dragon that nobody even knew was asleep.
- [27:32]
Glenn Beck
We know the head of the epa, right? Isn't Lee Zeldin.
- [27:35]
Dave 'Heavy D' Sparks
Lee Zeldin is good people.
- [27:36]
Glenn Beck
Yeah, he's really good people. Have you talked to him about this?
- [27:39]
Dave 'Heavy D' Sparks
So he's getting involved on since, like I said, there's multiple cases like mine. Some are criminal with the epa. Well, the funniest part about all this, when this all happened back in 2016 the UPHE filed their case and they took it to the EPA and said, hey, look what these guys are doing. We had a call at the EPA and they said, this is like small potatoes. You guys are. You guys are nothing near like something that we need to pursue. You guys aren't doing nearly enough our time.
- [28:05]
Glenn Beck
Biden's EPA did that?
- [28:07]
Dave 'Heavy D' Sparks
Yep.
- [28:08]
Glenn Beck
Wow.
- [28:09]
Dave 'Heavy D' Sparks
But they basically just said, no, sorry, you're too small. There's not enough going on. But up you may proceed that you have the law, go for it. But. So this is not criminal. This was not. There was never a criminal charge filed. This was a civil paperwork dispute that landed me in jail for three days in maximum security. Make that make sense.
- [28:31]
Glenn Beck
Unbelievable.
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Dave 'Heavy D' Sparks
Well out of control, but it's changing.
- [28:36]
Glenn Beck
Yeah, I'm glad, and I'm really glad that. I mean, I'm glad. I hate to say it this way, but I'm glad they picked on you because you're not going to sit down, you know, and I think, I think.
- [28:45]
Dave 'Heavy D' Sparks
A lot of people feel the same way because you're right, I'm not going to sit down. I'm too, I'm too dumb to sit down.
- [28:52]
Glenn Beck
Dave, thanks so much for talking to us. All my best. Anything we can do, you just reach out anytime. Okay?
- [28:57]
Dave 'Heavy D' Sparks
I appreciate it.
- [28:58]
Glenn Beck
Good to hear from you. You have a. Dave Heavy D. Sparks from the Diesel Brothers. I mean, all this stuff, this, this is the problem. Our government makes laws, the Congress makes laws, but then because of these agencies, they just enact whatever they want and they can get completely out of control. And it's not just at the, the government level.
- [29:21]
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I'm telling you, there's a real problem in Utah.
- [29:24]
Glenn Beck
I mean, Utah is changing and it is becoming a, I think a out of control, dangerous, dangerous place. And you know, I can't believe I'm saying it, but that, that is the truth. And a lot of the people from California are moving in and they're like, we really like this family atmosphere here. We just have to make it more like California, which is killing it all. But anyway, great to hear from Dave Spark. This is the best of the Glenn Beck program.
- [29:54]
Chris Martinson
Good to be back with you again.
- [29:56]
Glenn Beck
Yeah, it's always great to have you on. I am really concerned about the progress of these, these server farms for a couple of reasons. One, compute is so expensive right now and it's just getting, it's, you know, we're Getting maybe, maybe 3 to 5% of the compute time. These data centers are all being run for the, you know, for the advancement of AI right now and we're just getting a fraction of it. If you go to chat GPT or, or any of these things and we don't have the server farms that we need. China is building them like crazy. China is building energy like crazy and we are way behind. How bad is this situation and how do we correct it?
- [30:46]
Chris Martinson
Well, you know, from out here in the cheap seats, it's very bad. I say the cheap seats because I hope, Glenn, that somebody behind the scenes is doing this in a more thoughtful way than seems to be happening. We are building these data centers and slapping them in and hooking them up to our power grid. So nationally since 2022, electricity costs have gone up 35% over just three years. 35%. But if you happen to be unfortunate enough to live near these data centers, you might have seen your electricity costs go up by nearly 300%. Buffalo, it's 197%. Baltimore, it's 125%. Columbus, 110%.
- [31:24]
Ad Read Announcer
Wait, wait, wait.
- [31:25]
Glenn Beck
And is all of this due to the server farms?
- [31:28]
Chris Martinson
Yes, if you live, it's all by proximity. If you happen to be lucky enough to live more than 50 miles away from a significant data center, your electricity bills have not gone up all that much. So it's just, it's just supply and demand. We're slapping in demand and nobody knows and is able to articulate where's the supply going to come from.
- [31:47]
Glenn Beck
Well, I talked to the president about this, oh six months or so ago and he said, Glenn, I'm, I've, I've instructed the, you know, the EPA and, and the Department of Energy to slash all of the red tape. He said we're, we, I'm encouraging to use these small nuclear power plants. They're really, really safe. They're much smaller, easier to build. And he said I'm, I'm making these server farms utilities. They're, they're going to be responsible for generating their own energy. But I'm not seeing any ground being broken on this or anything happening there, are you?
- [32:28]
Chris Martinson
No. And I would be a huge fan. I'm a giant fan. I put out many people thesis supporting this idea of the small modular nukes. Let's get them huge hand. However those have. If you want to talk about what is the most red tapey of all possible, I know government entities, it's the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. So we'll see what can be done. I think there's only so much you can do by executive order. The rest is sort of bureaucrates and we'll see. Yes, but even if we got that going right now, that's going to be years away before those are meaningfully installed. What do we do between here and there? And so on that front, the only option we have because we're not putting in coal. Nobody wants coal?
- [33:08]
Peter Schweitzer
Fine.
- [33:08]
Chris Martinson
We're decommissioning coal. It's going to be natural gas plants.
- [33:12]
Peter Schweitzer
Okay.
- [33:13]
Chris Martinson
We happen to be an energy superpower. We make a lot of natural gas. But here's the weird part. The best estimates from the energy agency at the United States Department of Energy says that natural gas is going to be flat output for the next next three to four years. And you mentioned that 5% of all electricity demand going to 10% is astonishing. But it looks like by 2028, it's going to be 12% of all U.S. electricity production.
- [33:41]
Glenn Beck
Tell me what that means to the average person.
- [33:44]
Chris Martinson
Your electricity bills are going to explode and your natural gas bills are going to explode because we just don't have enough. This is the biggest, most obvious supply demand mismatch in history.
- [33:54]
Glenn Beck
Do you believe that we are looking at a California style situation all over the country where we're going to have rolling brownouts?
- [34:04]
Chris Martinson
Well, you know, if it's either the data centers or the people of Cincinnati getting electricity, the data centers have to operate 24,7 uninterrupted. They don't have any options around that. Let me just put this at scale. So we've heard about. They're putting in one gigawatt, two gigawatt data centers. Sam Altman said we need six, five gigawatt data centers. What does that mean? Denver runs on just under a gigawatt.
- [34:28]
Glenn Beck
Oh my God.
- [34:29]
Chris Martinson
We want to put in a one gigawatt data center, which is this little building. What they're really saying is we want to install an entire Denver's worth of electricity consumption and we're going to use it mostly to make videos of cats on skates for now.
- [34:43]
Glenn Beck
Oh my gosh. And a 6 gigawatt. I mean, only China is at this place. How many years will it take us? Let's say the president declared kind of a national emergency that we had to do this. Kind of like what we did in the Great Depression where we built dams and everything else. Is that even possible today? You know, what is the cost of just the copper wire? Do. Would we have the, the, the transformers and the, and the, and the conductivity, the wiring even to be able to go from a power plant and carry that much power all around the country? Is it even possible?
- [35:35]
Chris Martinson
It's a great question. I wish I had good answers for you. But right now there's, there's three things when you have to scale up really big. So time, how much time is going to take the scale of it? It's just the larger the scale, the more planning required and then the cost of it. But the cost has two components, just the dollar cost. But you're mentioning the more important one too, which is do we have the resources there? And resources are copper, but also the skill sets. You know, you just don't go on monster.com and order up, you know, 50,000 utility grade scale operators.
- [36:05]
Dave 'Heavy D' Sparks
Right.
- [36:06]
Chris Martinson
It's, we've let a lot of these programs go into attrition. We don't make our own. Currently Hitachi is going to come back in and try and make some of this. But we don't make our own transformers, for example. So we get those from China and those.
- [36:19]
Glenn Beck
And those are sometimes a year out, are they not?
- [36:23]
Chris Martinson
Two years now? For most of them, yeah. So again, could we scale this up? It's possible. But here's. I worry there's a political dimension and you would know more about this than me.
- [36:34]
Dave 'Heavy D' Sparks
But.
- [36:35]
Chris Martinson
So Trump says it's important.
- [36:36]
Peter Schweitzer
And the first thing that's going to.
- [36:38]
Chris Martinson
Happen is all these activist judges and Democrats are going to say, well, we hate it just because you said so. And they're going to fight it.
- [36:44]
Dave 'Heavy D' Sparks
And they've been very effective at that.
- [36:45]
Chris Martinson
And so a lot of energy turns into NIMBYism. Right? Everybody's sort of in favor of these things until it's in their backyard and then the fights come out. China doesn't care if they have to move 30 villages out of the way of a dam. That's what happens. And next thing you know, they have the electricity they need.
- [37:04]
Glenn Beck
So what is the solution? What should we be pushing for as people?
- [37:13]
Chris Martinson
Well, I think we have to have a comprehensive plan that says, look, our energy resources should be used by our people. Right now there are massive LNG plants going in and Trump loves them, but that's okay. But we take our gas molecules out of the Pennsylvania soil and we put them into a plant and we liquefy it and we send it over to Germany. And that's fine, but we should probably be using that right now. I critically say, listen, I know a lot of money went into this, but we need that, those, those gas molecules for ourselves, for our own prosperity. All energy policies have to start with what do we have, how much do we need? And if there's anything left over that's what we sell. And that's not quite how it's arranged right now.
- [37:57]
Glenn Beck
And how do we, I mean, how do we survive? I mean, can we, can we even compete in this race if we don't have the energy?
- [38:13]
Chris Martinson
Well, AI is fundamentally. It's a question of electrical power. Right. And so you mentioned exactly, exactly the right thing. So it was 2010 when China finally started to produce as much electrical power as the United states. That was 2010. That was about 4,000 what they call terawatt hours. Big number, but that was where they crossed over. Today, China produces 10,000 terawatt hours and we're still at about 4,000. So they're producing 150% more electricity than we are. So if we said, wow, AI is fundamentally about power and that whoever has the power wins the race, we won't be able to catch up to China anytime soon. And so the concern is that the decision is going to be made.
- [38:52]
Peter Schweitzer
Gosh, AI is too important.
- [38:53]
Chris Martinson
It's national security. We have to achieve this crazy thing called AGI or whatever it is. We have to put the electricity there. Then the people get shortchanged on that. And then we call those rolling brownouts or periods of electrical instability.
- [39:06]
Glenn Beck
Likelihood of that.
- [39:09]
Peter Schweitzer
At our current pace.
- [39:10]
Chris Martinson
It'S, it's, it's a certainty at this point. Something has to change.
- [39:16]
Glenn Beck
Chris, thank you so much. Please stay in touch. Any updates on this would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. Appreciate it.
- [39:23]
Chris Martinson
Thank you.
- [39:24]
Glenn Beck
Chris Martinson, he is with Peak Prosperity.com. he's the founder and CEO. You can find him. The website is Peak Prosperity.com. this is something that, you know, I was talking to a guy named Max Tegmart. I don't know if you know who he is. He's a, he's an AI ethicist and really, really smart. He wrote Life 3.0 about five years ago. Great book. You should read it. But he talks about all of the issues and what life is going to be like with AI. And we were talking about. The problem is all of these things are being discussed at the highest levels. They're being discussed by, you know, Sam Altman is talking about making Sam God. That's what he calls it. Super AI asi. He calls it Sam God. He's creating a God. And that's, that's his goal. And this guy is not a guy I want creating God, you know, and this, this race to ASI is so incredibly dangerous. But just, just the, just the way that we are moving right now, forget about AGI or asi. Just the demands of regular AI that are coming online. It is going to change our world, it is going to change your job and nobody is talking to you about it. Where have you ever attended anything where they're going deep dive and talking about this at your level, what it means. Have you heard anybody talk about when your energy bill goes up, you're hearing, well, that's because of Biden Energy. Well, is it? Yes, because they refused to build anything. In fact, they were dismantling us. But also it's because Biden and everybody else has not paid attention to what is coming. You cannot run a country on what's happening today. You have to have a 5, 10, 20 year plan. When it comes to technology. You cannot. It's like when Obama pulled out all of those oil rigs in, in the Gulf of America. He pulls all these oil rigs out and nobody was talking about. This is not something that you get back into office and put back in. Those are on 20 year, 50 year leases. So we pull them out and they're, they're, they're taken down to South America and planted someplace else and you're not getting them back. And it takes years to build new ones. That's the kind of problems that we have now. We have, we're doing what's happening in Washington right now. Why is our government closed? And I'm actually glad that they're closed. I want all of this stuff stopped. I'm thrilled that they're closed, but why are they closed? Because they're playing games. They're not talking about the things that actually matter. They're not trying to solve anything. They're really not trying to solve anything. At least the Democrats are. And you know, they get back in that energy policy. You're going to become Venezuela. This energy policy must change dramatically now. And we have to have the conversation about what, what is AI? What does it mean? Is it going to be a tool or is it going to be a master? Where is that line? How much do we have to sacrifice as people to have our phones run cat videos? Those are the things that everybody needs to be talking about right now.