Best of the Program | Guests: Alan Dershowitz & Rep. Chip Roy | 6/4/2
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What happens when the wealthy and the elite are funding the active destruction of our country? Will we actually get the truth out or will the media continue to play partisanship games? That's the first thing we tackle on today's podcast. Also, Alan Dershowitz on freedom of speech and something frightening he thinks is coming through the Supreme Court in the coming days, weeks, months, years.

a curb on freedom of speech. And I think he's right, unfortunately. Also, Chip Roy gives us the straight skinny on the big, beautiful bill. What's in it? What's coming? Is it going to pass? And what does it mean? All of this and so much more on today's podcast.

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You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program. Okay. So let me tell you, this is what happens when powerful people write checks and the rest of us stay silent.

Earlier this week a report came out quietly of course that that Lorene Powell jobs Eric Schmidt and the tides foundation has given millions of dollars to a man who openly praised the assassination of two Israeli diplomats in Washington DC He called that shooting morally righteous not tragic not wrong not even controversial morally righteous

Now, the people giving this man money are not nobodies. They're not on the fringe. It's not some anarchist with a megaphone in a parking lot in Oregon. This is Camus Franklin. He's the head of a nonprofit called Community Movement Builders. And the work is being funded by some of the richest people in Silicon Valley and the Democratic donor class. Now, I just want you to remember that.

When I give you the name Jobs, what do you think of? Steve Jobs, what did he do? Silicon Valley, tech. When I talk to you about Eric Schmidt, what does he do? AI. So these people are now the former CEO of Google, plus the Arabella Network, we know that, the Tides Foundation, all Soros-backed organizations. When they...

When they put their money, nearly $2 million in one year went to this guy's group, a group that calls Israeli existence the result of a war crime, who has labeled police as killer pigs and praises black separatists convicted of murdering cops. When they send their money to that guy and we say nothing about

We have a real problem because what else are they doing to our tech? What else are they writing into the algorithms? Who else is involved? These are just big names that are openly doing it and they don't seem to have a problem. What about all the other people in Silicon Valley?

And now that group, that ideology is being funded with institutional backing and tax deductible status. These are people that are now writing the curriculum for your kids, influencing the elections, hosting panels on AI and equity and justice at all of the universities. Now,

I hate this. I really do. I hate this. And I'm not going to where you think I'm going on this. But if this were a conservative or Republican, a donor group that funded a group that said something half as inflammatory as this, even vaguely racist or violent, what would the media do? They would nuke their reputations from orbit. They would cancel the companies. They would demand congressional hearings. And you know what? That is about the level of where it should be.

If you were talking about killing cops, praising people, shooting others in the street because they're Jewish and saying it's morally, what did he say? Morally justified, morally righteous. If you could say morally righteous, you know, I think we should, we should question you, your, your business, everything else. And I don't mean as a government, I mean, as people. Okay.

but what happens if the same poison comes from the approved side nothing silence sometimes applause sometimes more donations franklin's group defended the killing of israeli civilians now they praised the killing of israeli civilians in the same breath they praised qasem solomani

the Iranian general responsible for the deaths of countless US troops. They called him simply a resistor, a man who strengthened Hezbollah. If you don't know what Hezbollah is, you're a moron. You're dangerous. You are dangerous. How did we get here? How is this suddenly acceptable in our society? More importantly, how is it that some of the most important and powerful figures in tech and media

are funding it. You know, it's really hard to hide behind the word justice when you cheer for murder, but they don't see it as murder. They see it as morally justified. That guy was running an insurance company, and that insurance company was probably denying people some claims, so we can gun him down in the streets.

You can't talk about justice if you're cheering that on. You can't talk about unity when you're bankrolling separatists. You can't scream fascism and then fund a man who wants racial enclaves, state control of speech, or the abolition of the nuclear family. Don't talk to me about totalitarian. You don't even know what it means. That's not progress. That's not equity. It's not even politics.

This is the intentional destabilization of a country using the language of compassion to smuggle in extremism. That's kind of the theme of today's show. Extremism. How did we get here? Why are we tolerating what's happening in our own streets? The question is not why is this happening? The question really is at this point, why are we letting it happen?

Why are we, the citizen, the journalist, the lawmaker, still quiet about all of this? Why is the White House silent when a top Democratic donor gives money to a group that calls Hamas' attack solidarity? Why is the Department of Justice looking the other way when the tax-exempt organizations support racial separatism and endorse convicted cop killers as role models? Should they play a role? And here's the biggest question.

question, really, of all. What happens to a civilization who forgets to say, no, no, no, it's not righteous to murder civilians. No, it's not justice to fund hate with billionaire checks. No, it's not brave to remain silent when cancer is growing. What happens to that civilization? Because this is not a partisan issue. And I know, you know, this is the worst part of my job, I think, is I am very opinionated, obviously, if you've listened to me. And I get

I get hammered from all sides. You know, I was with Sean Hannity yesterday and we were talking to a group and he said, you know, I'm glad to be here with Glenn Beck who, you know, in 2016 gave me hell for supporting Donald Trump. And I'm like, yeah, I did. And I was wrong. And I admitted it. But I'm not a partisan guy. I don't care what the label is.

I look for what is right and wrong. And when somebody like Donald Trump did not have the record, I wasn't willing to trust. And maybe that's a flaw in me, but I wasn't willing to trust. I'm sorry. I am a little like doubting Thomas. I need to put my finger there. I need to see it. But when I saw it, I'm there. Okay. I'm hated by everybody. I have not had a president in my lifetime that liked me because generally I don't like the presidents.

I don't like either party. And yet everything I say is always couched as I'm just a shill for the Republicans or whatever. You know what? I'm not even a shill. You know what I am a fan of? You know what I am a supporter of? The rule of law and the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. And I actually mean that. I can quote those documents. Most people in politics who say that, they've never read the damn thing. It's not a partisan issue. This is all about right and wrong.

It's not left or right. And the longer we pretend otherwise, the faster we're going to descend into something we will not recognize and may not survive. We've got to wake up before we lose our ability and our right to speak. So let me ask you some questions because that's the other thing about today's show is I just want to ask critical thinking questions.

Why are the ultra wealthy elites and tech billionaires funding organizations that openly support political violence and endorse the killing of diplomats? Shouldn't that be the number one question out of every press person's mouth? If you run in to Eric Schmidt, if you run into Mrs. Jobs, the Tides Foundation, why do you support political violence and endorse the killing of diplomats on our streets? Eric Schmidt, why?

Lorene Powell Jobs, Tides Foundation. What do you believe you're achieving by bankrolling community movement builders? What is it that you love about them? Are you aware of their rhetoric or are you just turning a blind eye because the ends justify the means? That's really an important question. Will somebody ask it or answer it?

What accountability exists for the philanthropies that fund groups promoting violence or separatism? Is there any accountability? Because I knew there would be with me. Why does the community movement builders call murder of diplomats morally righteous? And how does that square with broader liberal or humanitarian values? If your goals are liberation and justice,

Why do you glorify terrorist leaders and groups that have committed atrocities? What does it mean for a US-based nonprofit to call for "liberated zones" under separate racial governance? Is this inclusion or is it segregation under just a different name? If an ideology calls for collective racial control of resources and defines police as "killer pigs," is that promoting civic unity or justice?

And again, why are the Silicon Valley people pouring millions of dollars in to promote that? Why are groups this extreme receiving significant Democratic donor support, especially when their rhetoric goes beyond protest into open support for political violence and separatism?

How far from the traditional democratic platform are these ideas? I mean, the party, you don't seem to be distancing yourself from it. In fact, you seem to quietly embrace this and it's getting louder. Your quiet is starting to get a little loud. What are the dark money networks like Arabella play in shaping the grassroots movement with potentially extreme ideologies? Is anybody looking into that?

Are politicians like Kamala Harris or Raphael Warnock aware of the full nature of the groups being funded through PACs and networks aligned with them? Why is there so little media scrutiny of these connections compared to the other political funding controversies? Why is anti-Semitism tolerated or overlooked when it comes from far left or minority focused groups? I just don't know. Why does mainstream media, the outlets, including those owned by donors like The Atlantic,

failed to report critically on any of these stories? Is the public being misled by selective coverage or the avoidance of topics that might expose contradictions in elite or party narratives? I just, is any of this coordinated? Why are so many elite donors, media owners, NGOs echoing the same talking points and funding overlapping causes?

What happens to a republic, a democratic society when billionaires, tech moguls and activist groups openly fund radical ideological movements that seek to dismantle all of the existing legal and social structures? What happens to that society? I think these are questions that maybe we should spend some time answering. I think these are some questions that maybe somebody as a journalist

should be asking people of power, people in Silicon Valley, people who are billionaires that are donating to these very radical groups. Or are we just going to play politics again? Yeah, let's just play politics today again, media. You're so good at it. Let's just do that. Let me tell you about Patriot Mobile. When the world feels upside down, you start to notice the little things. The cashier who still says, God bless you. The school that starts with a pledge. The neighbor who flies the flag without shame.

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Well, here's why you care. You'll find out that Patriot Mobile is the only Christian conservative mobile company in America. They support pro-life ministries, first responders, veterans, faith-based nonprofits. And suddenly, it's not just a cell phone company. And you might say, well, that's nice, but I don't want to get involved. You're already involved, but you're involved in the opposite things. Every time you pay your bill, especially with Verizon, you're helping more abortions happen because they help fund Planned Parenthood.

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Welcome, Alan Dershowitz. How are you, sir? I'm doing great. How are you? I'm good. So did I get this right? You're talking about now that the Supreme Court might start leaning towards security over free speech in the coming years.

Yeah, look, I pride myself on never. It does. I pride myself on never making predictions based on what I want to happen. That's what Lawrence Tribe does. That's what others on the left do. And that's why they're always wrong. I make predictions based on my analysis of trends. This is not a trend I approve of.

But it's a trend I see coming. I see coming in the area of defamation. I see it coming in the area of incitement. I think that the Brandenburg decision was written during a time of relative calm. And we weren't seeing the kinds of incitements to violence that we saw that probably led to the

burning of Jews in Boulder, Colorado, and the shooting of these two innocent people in Washington, D.C., and other kinds of things. Look, I have a lot of... Hang on just a second. You just said, and I find this amazing that you said this,

You just said it happened in a time of relative calm. It was 1969 that this case came down to the Supreme Court, if I'm not mistaken, which is not really a calm year. But can you explain what the Brandenburg case is?

Sure. What it was. Vandenberg was a Nazi who was making horrible, horrible speeches, but he wasn't inciting anybody directly. And the Nazis in those days had no influence, no power. They weren't getting people to do things. The people who were creating problems then were during the Vietnam War, people from the left. I represented a lot of them and I represented people who.

disrupted the Democratic Convention in 1968, the Chicago 7 and other people like that. And I saw with my own eyes that some of these people who started as disruptors and violent confrontationists and people pushing and shoving and breaking property and stuff like that ultimately became murderers like Kathy Boudin, who ended up

being responsible for the killing of two policemen or the weathermen who planted bombs and killed people and then their leaders became prominent spokesmen of the left professors in various places so

I saw that and what I'm seeing now is a different kind of quantity. And what we're seeing is with the, you know, "globalize the Intifada" and "Palestine will be free from the river to the sea," those are calls for violence. And under the current Brandenburg case, they're protected speech. I think they should still be protected speech.

But my view, my prediction is that when the next case comes up to the Supreme Court, this Supreme Court, I think they may take a more security oriented point of view and say, wait a minute, the incitement doesn't have to be.

so direct it could be a little bit more indirect and let the jury decide that issue. So I'm concerned about that. You know, in my book, The Preventive State, I have a whole chapter on free speech and how free speech can sometimes cause violence. But that it's not proper to deny free speech in order to prevent violence. We have to think of better ways of preventing violence.

And in the preventive state, I come up, I think with better ways than constraining free speech. Cause I, I, I really, I'm with you on this. This really disturbs me when I read this article from you yesterday, the story from you yesterday, I, I needed to talk to you cause I'm like, this is, this is horrible. This is, this goes beyond, um, cancel culture. This is now the government being able to come in and say, nope. Yeah. Right. That's really bad.

Yeah, look, there are so many preventive mechanisms we use that have effects on free speech, even deportation. Deportation obviously denies the deported person the right to speak freely in this country. Now, of course, under the Constitution, a citizen has the most free speech rights, a green card holder second most, visa holders almost no free speech rights. They can be deported if they say things that are contrary to the interests of the United States. They're just guests in the country.

and so uh... uh... you know i think uh... we're gonna see a lot lots of movement in this area because we're gonna see a lot more violence let me tell you what happened to me uh... that the the day before uh... the killings in the district columbia's one christian boy and jewish woman who were killed uh... working for the embassy the day after that i was getting an honorary degree at a college in in florida

And the security people from the college came up to me and said, we're terrified that there might be a copycat attempt to kill you because you're a prominent spokesman for pro-Israel points of view. And so they created a whole security thing around me where they created an escape plan. They had policemen with machine guns and with bulletproof glass to protect me. And I,

I have redoubled my security, and I think we're going to see more copycat crimes. I think that Hamas wants to see violence in the United States. That's their goal, to get more people to kill Jews, Christians, and others in the United States. And I think they're probably going to succeed unless there are some preventive steps that are taken. Now, the preventive steps should not include diminutions of legitimate free speech under the Constitution. Right.

I tell you, I see what the government is doing and how AI in Silicon Valley is playing a big role with the Pentagon and CIA and everything else. And I am really, really concerned if there is another big event like a 9-11, I fear Americans are just going to run to that kind of stuff. And then we're in a trap that I don't think we get out of.

Yeah, but that's what history shows. And in my book, The Preventive State, I show that there's a common phenomenon. We underreact and we don't prevent. We didn't prevent Pearl Harbor. We didn't prevent 9-11. Israel didn't prevent October 7th. Then what happened? After we failed to prevent Pearl Harbor, we put 110,000 innocent Japanese Americans

in camps in order to prevent them from doing it again they never would have done again we overreacted after nine eleven we create the patriot act which gave the government too much power uh... to prevent a recurrence of that and you know reasonably disagree about israel but a lot of people think that israel uh... for failure to prevent october seventh which they could have done that the intelligence may have overreacted uh... in in gaza i'm not agreeing with that i'm just telling you

Historically, there's a phenomenon. It starts with under-prediction and ends up with overreaction to the event that was not predicted and prevented. That's one of the theses of my book. So what should we expect and how do we prepare ourselves so we don't go down that road?

Well, first of all, we do a lot more preparation and prevention. We try desperately to use what the resources are available. I'll give you an example. The young man who burned those people in Boulder, Colorado,

he was here illegally. He had overstayed his visa. There's nothing wrong with using artificial intelligence and computer technology to keep track of people who are here illegally. And once he overstayed his visa,

action could have been taken and maybe this crime could have been prevented. So I think there are preventive steps that are consistent with the Constitution with free speech that can be taken to avoid the cataclysmic events. I'm going to give you another horrible example that we're working on right now. Should the United States and Israel bomb Iran's nuclear base?

facilities. We know they're planning to create an atomic bomb, and we know that in the 1930s, if France and England had prevented Germany from building up its army, they would have saved 50 million lives, but we didn't know it then. And so these are the kinds of preventive decisions that

But there's no free lunch. Every preventive decision entails some diminution of liberty. And, you know, Benjamin Franklin was correct when he said those who would deny essential liberties to secure a little bit more security deserve neither. But the question is, can we deny a little bit of non-essential liberty to prevent major cataclysmic events? I'll give you an example. If before 9-11 we had arrested 10 people,

and prevented 9-11 and four of the people arrested were improperly arrested and spent two months in jail improperly. That's probably a trade-off that's worth it. What are non-essential liberties? Well, there's a continuum. Obviously, free speech is the most essential liberty. Privacy is a matter of degree. And, you know, keeping track of people who are here illegally does, in

in some way invade their right of privacy, but in a small way, because they really don't have a right to be there at all. Liberty is a continuum. And we have to make sure that we don't go after fundamental liberties as I think, look, what could be worse than putting 110,000 Japanese Americans in camps and denying them their right to earn a living? We did that for three years in the Supreme Court with liberal justices.

Earl Warren was the governor of California at the time. Hugo Black was on the Supreme Court. They all agreed with that. Only a couple of justices, Justice Jackson, didn't agree with it. But Americans were outraged at Pearl Harbor as they were outraged at 9-11. And when you're outraged, you don't think carefully.

I know. And that is, that's a little terrifying. Just looking at what's coming around the world and then seeing the growth of AI and what can be done. It's a little frightening that we

We'll jump immediately to, yes, we need a super-duper Patriot Act. Yeah, no, I think that's right. We need a super-duper Patriot Act that denies free speech. That's the first thing, because people hate free speech. You know, the vast majority of Americans, even though they claim to support the First Amendment,

believe in free speech for me but not for thee. I used to, when I taught my class on the First Amendment, I would ask students, "How many people believe free speech for everybody?" And everybody would raise their hand. And then I would say, "What about pornography?" Well, some hands went down. "What about," and then I would do a lot, "What about anti-Semitism?" Some hands would go down. "What about bigotry against Catholics?" Some hands would go down. By the end of the class, there were no hands up. Everybody had an exception.

You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck podcast. Hear more of this interview and others with the full show podcast available wherever you get podcasts.

Last month, the big beautiful bill cleared the house by a single vote. The senators now have been meeting for weeks behind closed doors. They returned to Washington late Monday. They revised the package. Donald Trump just tweeted out, passing the one big beautiful bill is a historic opportunity to turn our country around. They need to work as fast as they can to get this bill to my desk before the 4th of July.

Um, then you have Elon Musk saying the massive outrageous pork filled congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Uh, shame on those who voted for it. You know, you did wrong. You know, it Mike Johnson then says, well, that was disappointing with all due respect.

uh elon musk is my friend and he's terribly wrong about the one big beautiful bill my gosh my head hurts from all of this now the white house is sending an additional nine billion dollars in cuts which is nice but uh you know we were hoping for like you know one trillion dollars in cuts and everybody's arguing over nine billion dollars in in uh cuts how is this thing gonna even

pass what is happening here uh we have chip roy who is who voted for the last one reluctantly uh and i don't know where he stands now chip roy welcome to the program how are you chip glenn how you doing brother i'm good i'm good uh must not be fun being you right now

Well, you know, here's the thing. When you have a reputation for trying to do the right thing, people do, I think, want to come to you to try to figure out, all right, like, what's the score here? What's the real deal? I'm proud that I think people see me as someone who tries to be honest and kind of, you know, work through this to achieve what you and I, I think, and all your listeners want to achieve. We have an obligation to get this done.

but we have to get it done right. You said thank you for saying that I voted for it reluctantly because I did reluctantly vote for it. My messaging at the time was reluctant. We have to weigh a lot of things right now. We have a president who was given a mandate, a president that you and I support what he's doing, taking on the establishment, taking on this town, rooting out all this DEI and woke garbage, pushing the barriers, securing the border, all the things that we know are happening.

And we need to do certain things in this bill. We do need tax relief. We do need to extend the tax cuts. We need economic growth by putting more money in the hands and the pockets of Americans. Those are all important things, but we've got to cut spending. And the swamp creatures in Congress aren't good at that. People like me have been beating our head against the wall trying to demonstrate, hey, here's what we need to do. Here's how we need to cut. So now we've got to balance this thing.

The reason I was reluctant is because it does do some really good things that we bled and fought for for two months, Glenn. I mean, the week before last, we were like three straight days going down and negotiating with the White House, negotiating with folks. And what we got was good. Was it great? No, it was good. We got the Inflation Reduction Act Green News scam. We got a full repeal of basically all future projects. But no, we don't want to deal with the $400 billion of existing projects.

We got historic Medicaid reductions, reductions in the increases, yes, but a trillion dollars worth. That's never been done, Glenn, literally. But is that good enough for the moment? Maybe not. I think we needed to do better on FMAP and provider taxes and all of the things about the vulnerable versus the able-bodied. We got Medicaid work requirements moved up from 29 to 26. We fought like hell to make the bill something that I think

We could be proud of certain elements. But Elon's not wrong, okay? Elon's not wrong that for the moment, we need to do better. We need more spending restraint. We need to meet this moment with the actual deficit reduction that is necessary. If we get economic growth from the taxes, if we get economic growth from the regulatory policy, if we get economic growth because the president is strong and leading, then we can get out of this mess. But it is that plus spending restraint.

Last point. I do think it is worth noting that I'm not sure that Elon is really excited about the extent to which we are killing the subsidies across the board. All future subsidies for EVs, for solar panels, for the wind crap, all future subsidies we are mostly killing. There's a few lingering projects, but we tightened it down. The left is losing their damn mind, Glenn.

So there is a little of that that's also at play. So that's a long-winded explanation. A lot to do. We're pushing the Senate. They need to go further. I think we need to fix some stuff. But I can promise you this, Glenn. If this bill backslides, if they walk off of what we got, which I don't even think is necessarily good enough, I can promise you I will oppose it in the House. So we'll see what the Senate does. Your speculation on what they're going to do?

Are they making it worse right now? Is it getting better? I think there are forces at play that are desperately trying to undo the benefits we got with respect to repealing the green new scam subsidies, which, by the way, the

The president of the United States campaigned fully and clearly on terminating the green new scam subsidies. There are forces in the Senate who want to undo that. There are forces in the House who regret voting for those subsidy terminations. I think there are forces in the Senate who are wary of some of our Medicaid reforms.

which were important on work requirements, on eligibility, to tighten down and make sure that we're trying to make sure the able-bodied aren't getting benefits, etc. I don't think it went far enough. So we're going to have to work hard just to hold the line at the House bill, which, Glenn, I would say is...

on the edge of whether it's good enough to merit moving forward and then hope we get three yards in a cloud of dust, I will tell you that if we can repeal the IRA subsidies, get the Medicaid reforms, constrain the spending and get the economic growth from the tax policy, that net, it is moving the ball down the field. That's why I held my nose. But if we were a truly conservative Congress, we would cut more. That's just the truth.

So I read all kinds of things from the banking sector that we're talking about our treasury bills, that we are so dangerously close. You raised the debt ceiling yet again. We are dangerously close to the rest of the world saying, I can't buy their debt anymore. I mean, they're not serious about anything. Do you believe we're that close?

I believe we're on a knife's edge. I think that the bond markets are signaling that. I think this is why Scott Besson has been saying we need to get deficits down as a percentage of GDP so we can signal to the bond markets what needs to be signaled. I think that we have an obligation to get this right right now in order to frankly. Why isn't anybody listening to that?

Why isn't anybody listening to Besant and to the bond market? That's lights out for America if we don't get that right.

Yeah, and let me give you another scary point, right? If we are having to refinance our debts at higher interest rates, which currently we would be projecting, much higher interest rates than the CBO is even projecting, putting aside the CBO, we all recognize that they're flawed. It doesn't matter. You've got to just look at the model that's in front of you. The current model projects refinancing that debt at 3.5%. But what if we have to refinance it at the historic levels of 4%, 4.5%, 5%?

We would have massively more interest expense. Instead of a trillion, it'd be a trillion and a half. Instead of a trillion and a half, it'd be two trillion. We are going to gobble up our entire government expenditure with interest. I mean, Glenn, it is that bad. And here's the problem.

Is Congress finally waking up to what you and I and the Freedom Caucus of Conservatives have been saying now for a decade plus? Yes, they're realizing that we're in a real bad spot. So all that's doing is getting them to come to the table to do the bare minimum, right? The Medicaid reforms, the Inflation Reduction Act subsidies, the food stamp reforms, the other things we just put in this bill, all of which are good, but not as far as I would go. Just be clear for your listeners.

they're finally getting to the table to accept that, and they're getting there too late. So now what I'm saying is we need to be doing more. Let's talk about the rescissions for a second. The president is sending up rescissions, and yes, it's just $9 billion. The reason it's that small amount, and so everybody listening out there, why does this matter? The reconciliation package can pass the Senate with 51 votes.

The normal appropriations process, which we still have to do this year, will require 60 votes in the Senate. Right. So that means it's going to be hard to get through Democrats. So this rescissions process is a way to try to cut some of these ridiculous programs like USAID and other things using a 51 vote threshold.

So that is why we're trying to move it that way. The reason it's just a smaller $9 billion number is it's a test case. Will Congress do its job and do this first down payment, a $9 billion rescission of PBS, NPR, and a bunch of those USAID foreign government funding foreign aid wasteful programs? You have to.

And now we'll see. I'll, of course, vote for that. You know I will. But will the moderates? We'll find out. If they do, we'll get another rescissions package sent up right after that. So this is all part of the process working with Russ Voth, the OMB, the president. Sorry, I don't mean to filibuster, but that's the update.

Jim, speak about the process a little bit, because it's fascinating to watch this bill try to make its way through all of this. Like for my, at least my estimate so far, or my understanding is there's at least two Congress, congressmen who, who, and one Congresswoman, I suppose, who,

who already have said that their vote was a yes, but now it would be a no because they didn't realize what they were voting for, which would already put you under the amount that you need to get it passed. The salt people in the House are saying, if you get rid of salt, we're done. And the Senate is saying, we're getting rid of salt or at least adjusting it. How does this thing get across the finish line?

Well, I mean, like everything else, you got to figure out how you navigate to get to 18 and to get 51. We've managed to get it to this far. Look, you go to war with army. You got right. We have the Congress that we have. We have the president that we have is trying to get this done and we're trying to work to do it.

I think we're in the zip code, but we're not where we need to be. So let's take the things you just gave some examples. Are there things in the bill that some of us knew about and were warning about that others are now just kind of waking up and seeing? Yes. Right. At the time, I said, for example, there's a car tax in this bill, you fools. I don't I don't support it.

It was a tax to make up for the fact that EVs and hybrids can't, you know, pay their fair share of the gas tax. They needed $40 billion to pay for some Coast Guard and other stuff. So how did they pay for it in the committee? What they did was they added a car tax for EVs and for hybrids. Now, do you think that we conservatives of limited government, you know, views believe we should have a car tax?

I sure as hell don't. How about the AI restrictions? Should we prohibit Florida and should we prohibit Texas from being able to have some sort of regulation on AI? From a federalism standpoint, I'm not sure we should. So there's lots of things in this bill that I knew all this was telling people about it, but man, there's only like 40 fights you can pick. My fight was, you're going to repeal these damned subsidies.

on the Inflation Reduction Act that are killing our grid, undermining our national security, and destroying natural gas and nuclear energy options. My fight was trying to get Medicaid held down. About 20 other fights, for example, the car tax. Scott Perry and I and a couple of others, we at least killed the tax on the internal combustion engines. They weren't going to have a car tax on every car in America, y'all. So, look, we're fighting everything we got coming at us. There are things that need to get fixed. To answer your question,

if they need to adjust salt, I might try to call the bluff of the guys in the SALT Caucus and say, "Really? You're gonna vote this down because you didn't get more subsidies for your great big blue state tax jurisdictions?" Right? But if they wanna try to call our bluff, I can tell you if they repeal back the Inflation Reduction Act stuff, which the president campaigned on,

then that's going to be a real problem. So we will see. It is a fine line, and I'm trying to work with leadership, the White House, to deliver as close to my values as I can and be able to look in the mirror and say that I did enough. And I'm not sure, gentlemen. I'm always trying to shoot straight. We're walking a line. It could easily peel off and I can't support it. It could move in the right direction and I'll support it and say, let's go fight tomorrow for the next thing.

I'm trying to work in good faith with the president and his team to deliver. There's a lot of good things in this bill. Let's remember that. A trillion dollars of real Medicaid reforms. We've never done that before, guys, ever. Right? The Inflation Reduction Act. Planned Parenthood not funded. Trans surgeries repealed for adults and kids to defund that. The left had gone so far. We're peeling a lot of that back. So let's remember the good stuff while we're trying to, you know, highlight some of our concerns.

Chip, you're very reasoned, and I really appreciate talking to you, and I really am so glad that you are representing the great state of Texas. You're a guy that at least I feel I can trust. You say what you mean, and you mean what you say, and that is the number one thing I look for in a representative is somebody who will say the same thing to me to my face as they will behind closed doors, and I really appreciate all your hard work on this. Thanks, Chip.

Hey, I appreciate it, Glenn. And thank you for exposing all this to the American people and being truthful about it. Because this is hard for people like us because you want to be with the team to move the ball down the field. We want to succeed. We want to win. But you also don't want to eat a crap sandwich. So I promise you I will level set

the good and the bad and the ugly, and then you just have to decide what's the best for the country and vote and move forward. So that's where we are. Next time it starts to move forward, you call in and you let us know what's in it. Just make sure you get a hold of me. As soon as you start to see things moving forward, you let us know because I'd appreciate your point of view on that. Thanks. Chip. Chip. Na, na, na, na.