Glenn Beck Drops in from His Dallas Studio
CLAY: This is phenomenal… I had not been to The Blaze studios here in Dallas before, and it is absolutely fantastic what they have built out here and what Glenn has been able to create. There’s so many cool things. Buck, you haven’t been down to Dallas in like four years. But I walked in, and Glenn’s got it looks like the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man from the Ghostbusters. You got the ruby red slippers it looks like from Wizard of Oz. I mean, I was just blown away looking around at this stuff.
BUCK: Do you still have the polar bear, Glenn?
BECK: Still have the polar bear, yeah, bought it ’cause I thought it would piss Al Gore off. It’s still in my office.
CLAY: What’s your favorite thing that you have in terms of memorabilia? If you could say, “I could only keep one or two things,” what would those things be?
BECK: Okay. The scope of it is the largest collection of American documents outside of the Library of Congress and the National Archives.
CLAY: I mean, that’s amazing.
BECK: Yeah, it’s an incredible thing. So, I say this as… I mean, if there really was a fire, I don’t know what I would grab, but I always joke because it is my favorite, my wife made me take it to the museum. She’s like, “Get this out of the house.” It is a rat from the 1940s from World War II, a real rat with a bomb up its butt. And the story is fantastic. The French come in, they’re — I mean, sorry, the Germans come in, they take over France.
Churchill says we gotta bomb the factories ’cause we cannot have them turning out tanks and planes and everything else. And he said, “We’ll kill too many people.” So, he goes to this guy who did special operations for him, really genius who put a team together, and he said, “What do we do?” He said, “I have an idea. Let me go talk to my team.” So he said, “Let’s take a rat, let’s get a bunch of rats, we’ll put explosives in it, up its butt and then we’ll fly them out to the resistance.
“And we’ll have the resistance put ’em in their pockets and when they go into the factory they can go down where they’re shoveling coal into the engines and just drop a few rats, and they’ll be shoveled in and blow it up.” K? It’s a cool story. Problem is, the box of a hundred rats, only a hundred made, the box, the winds shifts, and it goes right into the Nazi camp.
CLAY: Oh, wow.
BECK: So, they open up this box, and they’re like, “What the…? What are they?” It actually worked not for the factories but it actually took… I don’t remember how many of the Nazis — a lot of them — going and checking every dead rat around every important building, K, because they thought —
CLAY: They didn’t know how many there might actually be that had gotten through.
BECK: Right. So they were checking all these dead rats when there wasn’t any. But here’s the best part of the story. This is the only one known to be in existence, and the guy Churchill went to was Ian Fleming.
CLAY: Oh, wow. James Bond.
BECK: And Ian Fleming, the guy who put the bomb in the butt is the guy he modeled Q after.
CLAY: So how did you buy that? That’s unbelievable.
BUCK: I have a Glenn memorabilia story that Glenn will fill in the actual details of but I just… Glenn, I don’t know if you have any recollection of this at all. This was early on when Glenn gave me my start in media, and I always tell people, The Blaze then, it was just the coolest thing in the world going right then.
BECK: It was great. So fun.
BUCK: This is 2011, Glenn. So, wow, 11 years ago now. I remember my mom was a big Glenn Beck show fan. Early on, I got to bring my mom by. We had this pretty cool studio in New York, nothing compared… You’re in Willie Wonka’s chocolate factory down there in Dallas.
CLAY: Yeah. This is pretty cool.
BUCK: You’re swimming around in the rivers of chocolate. It’s a whole other thing. But we had a pretty cool studio in New York and my mom came in she’s like, “Can I meet Glenn?” Glenn is always super nice to everybody but particularly moms of employees.
CLAY: That’s good.
BUCK: So, my mom comes in. Glenn, do you remember this?
BECK: I don’t.
BUCK: You just happened to — and I still make jokes on the radio and to friends to this day. You just happen to have the original arrest warrant from the Salem witch trials of the early seventeenth century, and you pulled this out and showed this to my mom. But you pulled it out like you were showing her a photo of a wedding you were at last weekend.
BECK: It is so funny.
CLAY: Has there ever been an auction where you wanted something but didn’t get it?
BECK: Tried to buy Mussolini’s sword that was given to him by the Blackshirts that he said was the reason he became a fascist, and it was engraved on the hilt. I can’t remember, but it said something like, “Government is not government unless it’s government of force,” something like that. And I don’t remember what we were willing to bid up, but —
BUCK: Can I just ask. I’m sorry. I don’t want to… Glenn, do you still have the original Salem witch trial arrest warrant? Is that…?
BECK: Oh, yeah, yeah. We got lots. (laughs) We have lots more now.
BUCK: That’s amazing.
BECK: But, yeah, that was from… It was a warrant for the arrest — I love this — of Anna Trasco (ph), and she was declared a witch because she was unmarried and pregnant and only witches can do that.
CLAY: Yeah, that’s amazing.
BECK: Ha!
BUCK: You can imagine, though, this was not even part of like a tour that was set up, Clay. I’m like, “Hey, mom, here’s my boss.” He’s like, “Here’s this incredibly rare artifact of the Salem Witch Trials from about 400 years ago,” and I was like, “Yeah, this is what happens when you’re with Glenn at The Blaze.”
CLAY: What do you want to do with all of this that you put together, at some point?
BECK: So we’re building… We stopped. We started raising the money through private — very, very wealthy people, and we decided to just do classes right now ’cause it’s so important to teach this stuff. But we eventually want to build a museum in a very Willie Wonka sort of way and a learning center, because you could come… We teach people now. We have classes right across the brickyard here, and we teach people from the original sources.
I mean, our classes on the first 200 years of America are phenomenal, ’cause we can… I mean, we can show you where history has it right and wrong. We’re now the largest collection of Pilgrim and Jamestown artifacts and papers, and they say, “You know, 1619, that’s when slaves came.” No it isn’t, 1500. We have the documents. We have people arguing about slavery in 1500, you know, like 1560, something like that, in Florida. Excuse me! It was the Spaniards. They brought slaves in before all the white people got there.
CLAY: Yeah.
BUCK: Remarkable.
CLAY: This is amazing.
BUCK: Remarkable. Glenn, for the folks out there… I mean, you’re doing all these cool projects and continuing to expand out. What is your…? You know, last time we had you on we talked about The Great Reset, which is important, and you got a new book out on that now. But I’m kind of optimistic about this year. I won’t even say I’m optimistic about the future of America, although I’d like to think I am. But I’m optimistic that this year there’s gonna be a lot of correction of what has been wrong. How do you feel about this year we’re going into?
BECK: I feel that people are going to wake up, but I feel pain, bad pain is coming. I mean, I don’t know if you guys saw the release that came out this week from a FOIA request. But in 2008 through 2010, I kept asking the question, “No, really. How much are we bailing these banks out, and is any money going to foreign banks?” Well, we found out they put a moratorium on the FOIA request. Usually, the Fed gets two years before they have to tell you what I’ve done, okay?
This time, a group of economists FOIA’d it 2012 and said, “Great, give us the information.” The Fed took it all the way to the Supreme Court, and they got an extra 10 years. So it just was FOIA’d again and now has been released. They didn’t… They told us, the American people, that they gave the banks $5 trillion. We know that.
No, no. We now have the documentation from the Fed. They bailed banks out to $30 trillion — and it includes the bank of Japan, Germany, the British Bank, all over the world. You add that on top of what we won’t know for at least a couple of years, if ever, what they’ve been doing lately. They said in April right at the beginning of the pandemic they were lending these banks a trillion dollars a week. I mean, people are asking, “Oh, what’s causing inflation?” “We don’t know. It’s only transitory.” No, no, no. You can’t just do the 30 trillion globally without having real impact. The pain is going to become apparent soon to a lot of people, and it will wake them up. That will be good.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
CLAY: We are in The Blaze studios with Glenn Beck, a guy that a lot of you listen to as well. Appreciate him allowing me to use this show. He also got Buck his start in the business, we were just talking about during the commercial break. And, Buck, you are headed down to Miami. It is so cold in Miami… Glenn, did you see this?
BECK: No.
CLAY: Their iguanas falling out of the trees. You know, iguanas freeze and it’s gonna be in the thirties in Miami and the iguanas are fine. They freeze, and then when the sun comes back up it wakes them up. But if they’re in a tree, they just fall.
BECK: That’s crazy.
CLAY: It’s iguana popsicles. You could get hit by a falling iguana that has frozen itself.
BUCK: Glenn, that’s not the way any of us want to go, you know what I mean?
BECK: No. No.
CLAY: (laughing)
BECK: I lived in Phoenix for a while, and I had all these — I can’t remember — royal palms I think they were, and they hadn’t been trimmed for a long time. And I’m out in the backyard, and a native is there and they’re like, “Hey, you might want to walk away from the palm tree,” and I’m like, “Why?” They’re like, “‘Cause scorpions like to live there and they fall down on you.”
CLAY: Oh, my God.
BECK: I’m like, “Okay.” (laughing) I don’t think I went in the backyard after that.
CLAY: (laughing)
BUCK: I got all excited. I was in Florida recently, and I saw a manatee float by me.
BECK: Oh, yeah.
BUCK: I think they’re so cool, and I told all my friends who live in Florida. They act like a New Yorker who sees a squirrel. “Yeah, manatee. Whatever.” This is the world we live in, Clay. It’s all about what you’re used to.
CLAY: Maybe this will kill some of those massive pythons that have escaped and, you know, have filled up the Everglades. Maybe it’s getting cold enough which is rare. I think it’s gonna be a 10-year cold spell. They haven’t been this cold in a decade. Maybe it actually freezes some of the pythons too.
BECK: Yeah. It’s global warming.
BUCK: I’m actually curious. Glenn, you know, ’cause I’ve had so many friends — you know, my two brothers have moved to Florida. And I have so many friends that have left New York, where I still am, for Florida. When people are asking you and let’s say they have the right politics, so you actually want them maybe to be in your state. The Florida versus Texas paradigm to you, how do you think Texas has adobe the last few years, ’cause when you moved to Texas was kind of a variation for someone in the New York City media to set up a whole operation outside of Dallas. Have you felt like Texas has done pretty well through this?
BECK: What did you call it? ‘Cause I think it was called crazy.
CLAY: Visionary.
BECK: Visionary, yeah. (laughing)
CLAY: There’s visionary and crazy. Kind of like the same thing.
BECK: Yeah. We’re thrilled with Texas. I wish… You know, I think Greg Abbott has done an okay job. I don’t like —
BUCK: I gave him a B. Yeah.
BECK: Yeah, I give him a B. You know, I’d rather have DeSantis. And, you know, they have term limits in Florida. So as soon as he’s done, termed out, you know, move to Texas.
CLAY: Yeah. That would be fascinating.
BECK: But Texas is just booming, just booming. One of the reasons why we even considered moving to Texas was in 2008 to 2010, Texas was responsible for 50% of the job creation, and it’s still like that. It’s just… I can’t believe when I moved here 10 years ago, you know, you always hear these old people, “That used to be a farm. We used to get our eggs underneath the chickens.” It’s like that here. In 10 years, I’m driving by places, I’m like, when did that building happen? When did that whole neighborhood happen?
CLAY: Do you like what you’re seeing? ‘Cause Buck and I talk about this. Covid has made blue bluer and redder. Based on what you’re seeing do you like the people who are relocating to Texas from other states?
BECK: So there’s been a study on that, ’cause I’ve been really concerned about Texas, and they actually — the study shows that the people who are moving here are more red than the people who are born-and-bred Texans.
CLAY: Yeah. Yes.
BECK: I lived here in the early eighties. It’s not the same. Texans were very different in the eighties, and I lived here in the nineties as well.
CLAY: Did you like it more in the eighties?
BECK: I liked it more. I liked it more. I still love it, people are great, but they just had a swagger to ’em, you know, that wasn’t arrogant. They’d always be like, “Where you from?” “I’m from New York.” “Well, that sucks. Where else have you lived?” and you tell ’em and they’d say, “Well, you know, I hear that’s a great place. It’s no Texas, but it’s a great place.” They didn’t hate anybody or it wasn’t a boast. It was just like this is a great place.
BUCK: Glenn, if there was one thing that you were gonna tell everybody — ’cause we’re in pretty much the last minute here — we’re sending out a few million folks right now listening to this whether live on the radio or on the podcast later. What should they do this weekend? What’s Glenn’s advice for this weekend all across America for folks listening to this, whether it’s watch something, read something, do something? What do you tell people?
BECK: It is read the book The Great Reset — and I’m not saying ’cause it’s mine. I wish I could give it to you for free. Read the book and then tell people about it, and have hope. Because if we wake up and we all start to work together and we just… we just reembrace the Bill of Rights, we’re gonna make it. We’re gonna make it.
BUCK: All right. And I want an invite to the chocolate factory, darn it!
CLAY: (laughing)
BECK: Any time.
BUCK: I want to come swim around in the rivers and the candy canes and all the good stuff down there, so…
BECK: We actually have the golden ticket here, so come on down.
BUCK: (laughing)
CLAY: It doesn’t surprise me.
BUCK: This is the thing with Glenn, you try this stuff and he’s like… He probably had the gun that Doc Holliday carried in Tombstone somewhere in there.
BECK: I believe I have the belt that carried the gun.
BUCK: Oh, my gosh.
CLAY: It’s unbelievable.
BUCK: Always got something. Glenn, thank you so much, man.
BECK: You bet.
BUCK: Glenn Beck. Of course, go listen to his stuff. Get The Great Reset, his new book that’s out.
