August 26, 2026 • 43 mins
Who is Glenn Beck? To find the answer, we’re going to hear from the man himself - about his rise on the public stage, the moment everything changed for him at Fox News, and his monumental contribution to American media.
We could easily do a ten-part series on Beck’s storied career. But instead, we’re going to focus on what may ultimately prove to be his most enduring legacy - one that almost no one has highlighted…until now.
Trail Blaze (Part Two) airs Thursday August 27th, 2026 at 3pm PST.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
This is Red Pilled America.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
You guys, we're working really hard here behind the scenes
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Speaker 1 (00:23):
And be sure to share, like, and subscribe to this
podcast wherever you're listening to it. We need your guys' support.
Tell a friend, About the show, this is how people
hear about it, is through word of mouth. And now,
on with the show. This series was originally broadcast on
November 5th, 2021. It was early 2011, and Glenn Beck
(00:47):
was on top.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Of the world.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
He was in the midst of a meteoric rise in media,
the likes of which Americans had never seen before. and
had one of the highest rated shows on Fox News.
But behind the scenes, trouble was brewing between him and
the head of the cable news network, Roger Ailes.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
He needed his thumb on me. He had to have
a way to have a thumb on me. And he
had nothing.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
That is, until a story crossed the American airwaves.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
And my security detail came in and handed me a
phone with that story on it in the middle of
the play. And I said, Everything's about to change.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
I'm Patrick Karelchi.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
And I'm Adriana Cortez.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
And this is Red Pilled America, a storytelling show.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
This is not another talk show covering the day's news.
We're all about telling stories.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Stories Hollywood doesn't want you to hear.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Stories the media mocks. Stories about everyday Americans that the
globalists ignore.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
You can think of Red Pilled America as audio documentaries,
and we promise only one thing. The truth. Welcome to
Red Pilled America. Who is Glenn Beck? The answer really
(02:18):
depends on whom you ask.
Speaker 4 (02:20):
You might be the original Willy Wonka of politics.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Is Beck the only loudmouth on TV saying irresponsible things?
Speaker 5 (02:26):
You've always been an entertainer and performer.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
This guy is bad for the movement. I, for one,
am on the Glenn Beck bandwagon, and I advise.
Speaker 4 (02:37):
You to join it as well.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
No matter where you land on the political spectrum, it's
hard to deny that Glenn Beck is one of the
most consequential figures to have ever entered media. Aside from
having one of the highest rated radio shows in the country,
he's authored over a dozen number one New York Times
bestsellers and has been inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame.
He's dominated cable news, radio, the internet, book publishing, and
(03:01):
even live events.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
Something beyond imagination is happening. America today begins to turn
back to God.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Glenn Beck has shown the kind of versatility seen only
in a few media figures in history. But with someone
so defined by both his friends and foes alike, it's
often hard to get to the core reason behind the
person's success. But we're going to try. So who is
Glenn Beck? To find the answer, we're going to hear
from the man himself, about his rise on the public stage,
(03:39):
the moment everything changed for him at Fox News, and
his monumental contribution to American media. We could do a
10-part series on his storied career, but we're going to
try to boil it down to what could end up
being his most enduring legacy, one that almost no one
has highlighted until now.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Most of us.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Don't know what we want to do in life until
well into our adulthood. But that wasn't the case for
Glenn Beck.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
I was, uh, I think seven. And, uh, I was
sitting inside of our living room and I was watching
TV the way we used to watch TV, so close
that we could get eye cancer.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Glenn was living in Washington state at the time.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
Which was always cloudy and always rainy. And it was
like one of the nice days, you know, there's like
359 rainy days. This was one of the nice days
in Seattle. And my mom came in from down the
stairs and she saw me sitting in front of the
television and she said, Turn that off and go outside
and play.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Glenn did what just about every normal seven-year-old boy would do.
He turned off the TV, but mouthed off in the process.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
And I mutter on my breath, you did this when
you were a kid. She said, what? And I said,
you watched TV when you were a kid. And she
said something incredible. She said, we didn't have TV. And
I'm like, Wilma Flintstone had television. How old are you, lady?
(05:14):
And she told me this story about my grandfather and
how he had this old silver tone radio with a
green eye in the center. And she said, Grandpa would
turn off all the lights and we would listen to
Lights Out. Lights Out, everybody.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Lights Out was a spooky old time radio show of
the 1930s and 40s.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
This is Arch.
Speaker 5 (05:40):
Opeler bringing you another in our series of stories of
the unusual.
Speaker 6 (05:45):
And once again, we caution you, these lights out stories
are definitely not for the timid soul.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
And she told me about the stories that she heard
and they were all in her imagination. And she'd listened
to Fibber McGee and Molly and the closet that was
always overstuffed.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Where's the dictionary?
Speaker 6 (06:04):
It's probably in the closet with the rest of your stuff.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Give me your key and I'll get.
Speaker 7 (06:07):
It for you.
Speaker 5 (06:08):
Oh, no, you don't.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
You lay off the stuff in that closet. I got
all my stuff arranged in there just the way I
want it.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Then you'd wait for that closet to open up and
you'd hear all the stuff fall out.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Say, maybe we better see if the closet is locked.
Speaker 5 (06:21):
Let me take a look. Oh, it's locked, all right.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
You don't think I'd leave all my personal defects laying
around for any prowler.
Speaker 6 (06:26):
To get his hands on?
Speaker 5 (06:27):
McGee, it isn't locked. I..
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Oh, help, Mickey.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
I'm very delighted. Get this junk off of me.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Glenn was intrigued by his mother's stories of early radio theater.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
And so on my birthday that year, she got me
the golden years of radio. And that is when I
knew exactly what I wanted to do.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Glenn fell in love with the craft of radio storytelling.
He was fascinated by the way the mind would create
elaborate images from the spoken word.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
I listened to Orson Welles and The Shadow. and his
War of the Worlds, and I just was amazed at
the power of the spoken word and how if it's
coupled with your mind and your mouth and the way
you use the mic, the way you use your pauses
(07:34):
and inflection, that that coupled with the listener, you are
more powerful than any CGI or any Hollywood movie studio.
There's no limits on that.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
For years, when he got home from school, he'd try
to imitate the radio greats by practicing his voice intonations
into a handheld cassette recorder. He wanted a career in
the lost art of radio theater. The problem was that
no one was really doing it at the time. There were, however,
plenty of opportunities to enter the radio industry as a DJ.
(08:06):
So at the ripe old age of 12, Glenn decided
to go that route.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
I won a contest, be on the air for an hour.
You can imagine how bad the radio station was where
they were giving away an hour to people.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
When he arrived to collect his prize, he took his
first radio gig very seriously.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
And I'll never forget, I had everything lined up and
I knew the records I was going to play and
the disc jockey that was normally on, he would just
produce it. And most people were like, yeah, man, I
just want you to play, you know, Pink Floyd. And
I came in at 12 and I had researched the
charts and I knew what it was. And I want
(08:46):
that song to segue at this point. And I'm going
to talk over this. And halfway through at one point,
I said, OK, OK, it's coming up. Get ready to
segue right here. And he did it. And he turned around.
And it's the only time he looked at me the
whole time. And he turned around. He went, relax, kid.
It's an hour. But I took that tape and went
(09:10):
to an even worse station. And they hired me, strangely.
And then I went to a college station and I
was working there. And then I went to a Christian
station and I was just like, I'd like more, please.
And they actually had me working on Saturdays, but I
had to do the noon news.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Glenn was just a kid, but was given the task
of reading the Russian names of a news flash from
the Soviet Union.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
And I'm 12 years old. I have no idea what's
going on in the world. I'm sounding names out on
the air and I mean, it didn't last long, but
I did it.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Glenn had caught the radio bug, but just a few
years later, tragedy struck. Glenn's mother took her own life.
He was only 15 at the time. The event must
have triggered something within the young man, something that instilled
within him the idea that our time on this earth
(10:13):
is limited, because after that tragic news, Glenn wasted no
time in pursuing his radio career. After his mother's death,
Glenn moved in with his father and enrolled in a
drama class at a Bellingham, Washington public high school. The
class included recreating scripted storytelling shows for a local radio station,
just like the old-time radio theater his mom turned him
(10:34):
on to. She may have been gone, but the impact
she made would help guide his life in more ways
than one. Before he was even able to drive, Glenn
landed a job at a newly launched FM station in Seattle.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
At 16, I was working for some really, really good people.
And they taught me some really critical, crucial things. And
then I went into Top 40 Radio. And I was
an okay DJ. But it was never me. It was
always very, very rehearsed. Because I'm not a cool kid.
You know what I mean? And I was more into
(11:10):
the art of it than the actual stuff that people
wanted to talk about.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Like many of the early greats trying to make it
in radio, Glenn floated around from city to city, wherever
the job openings would take him. He lived in Provo, Utah, Washington, D.C.,
Corpus Christi, Texas, and Louisville, Kentucky. Then in 1987, he
landed in Phoenix, Arizona, where he partnered with Tim Hattrick,
co-hosting a morning zoo-type program, where zany antics are mixed
(11:37):
with top 40 music and news of the day.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
New Y95 Morning Zookeepers, Glenn Beck and Tim Hattrick.
Speaker 7 (11:49):
We told our bosses right up front, we don't need
gimmicks to sell the new Y95.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Glenn resigned from that show in 1989, then bounced around
some more. He went to Houston, then to a Top
40 radio station in Baltimore. In 1992, he picked up
another DJing gig in New Haven, Connecticut. His career was
still jugging along, but in the process, dating back to
his mother's untimely death, Glenn developed a marijuana and alcohol addiction.
(12:16):
By the mid-90s, Glenn and his wife divorced, limiting his
time with his two daughters, the oldest with cerebral palsy.
He was financially and emotionally decimated. He struggled with episodes
of being blackout drunk, once while watching his daughters. He
reached his bottom.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
When you find your bottom, you know, and it's a
scary thing. My mother's bottom was death. My bottom, fortunately,
was not.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
And he was about to do something... that most thought
would end his career.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
I remember I was feeling sorry for myself. It was
a Christmas Eve. My kids, you know, were with their mom.
My family had fallen apart. I was living in this,
I call it the United Nations. It was this apartment
complex that nobody spoke English, except for a couple of
loser divorce guys. They were like, hey, brother, you know,
(13:08):
my life sucks. I know, mine does too. And the
whole place smelled like soup. And I was down on
this green shag carpet and I was just wallowing in
my own, oh, woe is me. And I knew I
was at a point to where I was either going
to follow my mom's footsteps or I was going to
(13:30):
get up. And I prayed, if you help me and
if I can, all I want is my credibility back.
I don't want anything else. Just the ability to look
at my children and tell them, I mean this, and
they'll believe me. And I will do whatever it takes
to get it back, and I will never violate it again.
I was on the radio, oh, this was probably 96
(13:54):
or 97. And the guy who is still my producer today,
he was an intern for me. And we were talking about,
we were doing like a morning zoo. I was just
a sad alcoholic clown. And we were talking about something.
I think it was during the Monica Lewinsky time period.
(14:16):
And I had a very squeaky clean image, but I
was not that guy. I was the most foul-mouthed guy
you could possibly imagine. Drunk all the time, but people
didn't know it because I was a functioning alcoholic. And
somebody said, to me, oh, you know, you're just Mr.
Goody Two Shoes. What do you know? And I said,
(14:38):
you have no idea who I am. In fact, you
shouldn't probably judge anybody because you got this one way wrong.
You think I'm a good guy? Let me tell you
who I am. And on the air, the whole room
just stopped. And I went on for probably 10 minutes
and just vomited the things that I was afraid of,
(15:01):
the things that I had hid my whole life. And
I turned off the mic and I looked at Stu
and I said, well, write this day down on your diary.
This is the day Glenn Beck ended his career. And
(15:22):
the exact opposite happened.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
And that's because people responded to Glenn's confessional in a
way he never imagined.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
I met so many people. I would go out and
people would say, and they'd always whisper, I can't believe
you said all that.
Speaker 4 (15:33):
I mean, wow.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
I wish I could say things like that because I've
been there. I mean, I'm doing that now or I
was there and nobody knows. And I realized we are
all the same. It's different places, different things, but we're
all the same.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
The moment lit something in Glenn and he began to
open up again and again on the air.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
I said it on the air one day. I'd never
even said it out loud that my mom killed herself.
And my wife of 15 years had no idea.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Over the coming years, Glenn gradually began cleaning up. He
started to attend Alcoholics Anonymous. On the air, he began
exposing all of the skeletons in his closet. And this
newfound philosophy would eventually come in pretty handy. As the
new millennium approached, Glenn was slowly becoming a new man.
He'd fallen in love again with his second wife, Tanya.
(16:28):
He became a Mormon, and he began thinking about leaving
the airwaves altogether. Glenn was tired of the silly morning
zoo radio format. His dad was a baker. Maybe he
could go into his line of work by going to
cooking school.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
I called my dad one day and said, I'm going
to get out of radio. And he said, you've known
since you were eight. What do you mean you're going
to get out of radio? I said, Dad, I've been
in it since I'm 12, and I just hate it.
And he said, because you're not doing what you want
(17:02):
to do. He said, you got to talk about the
things and do the things that interest you. And so
I thought I'd get into talk radio.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
At the time, guys like Rush Limbaugh, Don Imus and
Howard Stern were national celebrities. It was a burgeoning niche
of the business.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
I started doing a talk show. And next thing I knew,
I was on WABC, you know, doing Weekend and then
Clear Channel at the time, iHeartRadio heard me and gave
me a shot to do afternoons in Tampa. And I
went from, I think we were in ninth place when
I started. We rocketed to 15th.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Then the next quarterly ratings arrived.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
I went all the way to 18. And then I thought,
we should turn this around and go the other direction.
And they were about to fire me. And I had
known what I wanted to do. But I had made
so many compromises already in the first eight months because
the program director wanted something and the general manager wanted something.
And a good friend of mine who now works for me,
(18:05):
Dom Theodore, said, dude, you are the best natural talent
that I have heard in talk radio. And what are
you doing? You're listening to all these other people that
if they could do it, they would be doing it.
And I thought, you know, they're going to fire me anyway.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
So Glenn decided to do his own thing, what he'd
later call a fusion of entertainment and enlightenment.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
And six months later, we were number one. The transformation
of the ratings was just incredible.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
He was finally getting to apply some of the craft
that he'd learned while listening to those golden years of
radio recordings, and it was paying off. His mom must
have looked down and felt enormous pride. His success led
Premier Radio Networks, the leading radio syndicator in the country,
to hire Glenn to replace radio personality Dr. Laura in
some of their markets. The job was supposed to start
(19:00):
in January 2002.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
Then September 11th happened, and I went on. As I
came in this morning, I don't know about you, but
it all seemed so surreal.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
America became a different place after September 11th, 2001, and
Glenn Beck's candid style was just what America wanted, full
of passion, a quest for truth, and delivered with the
craft of a master storyteller.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
Stu called me. He said, did you see the news?
As we were on the phone, we both watched in horror.
Speaker 7 (19:42):
As a second plane Hit the World Trade Center. I
said at that time we're under attack. They're going for icons.
(20:12):
They want to take down the World Trade Center.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
He continued recording the Glenn Beck program from Tampa for
two years, and then he moved to the city of
brotherly love to be closer to his kids. And that's
when he got a call that would eventually change the
course of media. More of Red Pilled America after the break.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
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the difference. Welcome back to Red Pilled America. So Glenn
Beck's fusion of entertainment and enlightenment was conquering talk radio.
By 2005, the Glenn Beck program was becoming one of
the most successful shows in America. And that's right about
when his phone rang.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
And I'm in Philadelphia and CNN calls and they call
my agent and they said, you know, they were out
in the wilderness, out in the middle of the country somewhere.
And they heard people talking about this Glenn Beck and
so they listened to this thing called talk radio. And
so they called and my agent called me and he said, hey,
CNN wants to meet with you. And I said, no.
(22:30):
And he said, well, just think about it. And he
called me back a couple of days later. And I said, no,
I thought about it. No, definitely don't want to do
cable news. And he said, would you just go take
the meeting as rehearsal? Just take it for me and
just pretend you're interested. And I said, all right. So
(22:51):
I went up and I remember sitting in this big
executive boardroom, you know, at the time Warner Center and
they're acting all impressive and they're in jeans and a t-shirt.
And I'm like, hey, so what do you want to
talk about? And they're like, Well, we'd like to offer
you a position here and, you know, you could have
your own show. And they went on and on. And
(23:13):
I said, no. And they said, why not? And I
looked at his name was Ken Giles. And I said,
have you watched cable news? And he said, well, what
do you mean by that? And I said, it's awful.
I don't want to do that. And he said, well,
what would you do? Why don't you design a show?
(23:33):
And so I went back to Philadelphia and we designed
a show that I thought they'd never do. And they
kind of did.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
In 2006, Glenn hit CNN's headline news airwaves in a
way that would be forbidden just a few years later.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
If you watch this program, you know that I am
passionately opposed to the Islamic extremist agenda. The one that's
sweeping the globe and ends with people with their heads
cut off. Yeah, it's the kind of hate monger I am.
Too many of my critics have twisted that in to
make me seem like I'm anti-Muslim and nothing could be
further from the truth, but whatever. I embrace the celebration
of all faiths as long as you're not trying to
(24:11):
kill the other faiths. They made me a better broadcaster
because they made me work for every single fact. I
couldn't go live. They wouldn't let the show go live.
And sometimes it would take three hours to produce a
42-minute episode because they would say, what about that fact?
(24:35):
Where do you get that fact? And we'd have to
bring it in. And so by the end, we were
so buttoned up because they would never let anything slide.
But there was still some decency there. Anderson Cooper and
I were friends, and we all got along.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Glenn was using CNN's platform to discuss topics that would
eventually become off-limits on the network. He spoke out in
defense of the left's favorite punching bag, Sarah Palin. And
he produced documentaries that countered the left's gospel.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
I did a special on CNN, not headline, but on CNN,
on global warming. And it was the other side. And
they would never allow that to happen now. They would
never allow that. I did something on Muslim extremism, the
difference between Islam and Islamicists, and showed video of what
(25:28):
was happening in the Middle East, what they were saying
in their own language about Jews and everything else.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Remarkably, CNN was letting him do his thing. But Glenn
did see some glimpses of what the network would later become.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
I remember Christiane Anampour was the head of the Middle
East desk. And somewhere I have on tape, I recorded
these conference calls because it was so unbelievably anti-Israel. I
was astounded. The elevator rides were the longest rides of
(26:04):
my life. I mean, everybody would be happy and laughing
and then, ding, the door would open and I'd be
standing there and everybody would just stop. And then we'd
ride for five floors or whatever. And I would get off,
and then you'd hear people talk again as they were
going up.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
After a year into his two-year contract, Glenn began looking for.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
A way out. You know, I wanted to do something,
maybe HBO or something. I was more interested in the
entertainment than all the rest. And Roger Ailes, about a
year before my contract was up, he called me, and
(26:43):
we started having dinner. And You know, what people didn't
know about Roger Ailes is he was genius when it
comes to entertainment. Truly genius. I mean, he decided he
wanted to do a play. So he went out and
went to all of these readings, you know, in apartments
in New York. And he saw one called Hot El Baltimore.
(27:07):
And he bought it. And then he decided he was
going to produce it on Broadway. He had no experience. None.
He won a Tony for it. He was brilliant. And
he also knew how to play to my ego. And
he said to me, you know, you're Jack Parr.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
The host of the Famous Tonight show before Johnny Carson.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
And I said, wow, thank you. And he said, no,
you're just, you're the best storyteller on TV. And he said,
you can hold them. And so he offered me a job.
And I said no to him several times. I think
they had offered me a job for like four different times.
And I said, no. And so he calls me into
the conference room at Fox, and I'm there in Rupert
(27:47):
Murdoch's lunchroom. And he says, so what is it about
our number one status and the money that I know
is way over what you're being paid now that just
doesn't seem to interest you? And I said, I know
your business, but you don't know mine. And he said,
what do you mean? I said, look, a partnership is
only good when we both win. And for me, a
(28:10):
win is not about money. I have things that I
would want to say and do, and I'm going to
do it my way. And I also have this radio thing,
and I'm getting into this new thing called the internet,
and you don't have any interest in that. And I
don't have any interest in doing television for the rest
of my life. He listened to me, and he said, okay,
(28:31):
I understand. You can do those things. And I said,
let me go home and talk to my wife.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
His wife gave her blessing. Glenn's new Fox News show
kicked off on January 19, 2009, the day before Barack
Obama's inauguration. And on his debut episode, he welcomed a
new friend, a rising star within the conservative movement.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
Governor Sarah Palin is joining us now from Alaska.
Speaker 8 (28:54):
Glenn, thank you so much for letting.
Speaker 5 (28:56):
Me be here.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
Glenn's Fox News show became a phenomenon almost overnight. He
was doing something that no one had done before.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
You get what you pay for. You might have heard
that saying applied to a bargain, but I'm going to
show you how this idea works when it comes to
economic advice from the government or economists. I'm going to
start with Ben Bernanke. Back in March 2007, he said, quote,
the problem in the subprime market seems to be likely contained.
Speaker 8 (29:33):
Oops.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Unlike every cable news program before and after, His show
wasn't about soundbites and quick gotcha moments. He was spending
entire episodes on it. one topic, using an old-fashioned chalkboard
and the tried-and-true technique of storytelling to explain complex issues.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
I told you that we were going to talk about
these things. We're going to talk about Obama. The left, internationalists, graft,
acorn-style organizations, revolution, and hidden agenda. O-L-I-G-A-R-H. One letter is missing.
(30:12):
When I was at CNN, they told me not to
have the camera on me or to be doing more
than a 30-second monologue. By the time I left, we
were up to seven minutes. Fox told me no more
than 12 minutes. And by the end, I was at
42 and a half minutes. And nobody had really ever
(30:34):
done that before.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
And he used his time effectively. Glenn was one of
the few on cable to fully indict the Obama regime's
radical socialist intentions.
Speaker 3 (30:44):
But the problem is there are more radicals surrounding this president.
You must remain focused. You're fighting for the Constitution. Gang,
we're not even at the beginning of round one. As
I told you, this fight is not going to be
fought with guns. This fight is going to be fought
with the truth.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
When the Tea Party began to take root, he worked
with Sarah Palin to help grow the burgeoning movement.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
When I knew we wanted to honor our military, I
didn't want to have a military person. I wanted to
have a dad or.
Speaker 4 (31:18):
A mom.
Speaker 3 (31:19):
And that's why... I picked up the phone and I
called a mom. And she's speaking to you today as
a mother of someone in the military. Ladies and gentlemen,
Sarah Palin.
Speaker 7 (31:37):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Are you not so proud to be an American?
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Glenn's appearances on Fox News were not just a boring
discussion of the day's news stories. He was actually saying
uncomfortable truths on a big corporate media platform that often
punishes that action.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
This president, I think, has exposed himself as a guy
over and over and over again who has a deep-seated
hatred for white people or the white culture. I don't
know what it is. This guy is, I believe, a racist.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
But it was his exposing of a radical within the
Obama White House that made him enemy number one of
the Marxist left in the media.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
Today, we're going to start highlighting one of our czars.
Here's czar number one. The first stop is Van Jones.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
More of Red Pilled America after the break.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Do you want to hear Red Pilled America stories ad-free?
then become a backstage subscriber. Just log on to redpilledamerica.com
and click join in the top menu. Join today and
help us save America one story at a time.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
Welcome back to Red Pilled America. So the day Glenn
Beck's Fox News show launched in 2009, he became a
media sensation almost overnight. He was doing something that no
one was doing on cable news. He was using storytelling
to deliver his message. sometimes spending an entire show on
a single topic. Uncomfortable truths became his calling card, but
(33:12):
it was his exposing of a radical within the Obama
White House that made him enemy number one of the
Marxist left and the media.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
There are nearly three dozen of these czars. They don't
answer to anybody. They are special advisors to the president.
They are advising our president. Who are they? What do
they believe? What are they advising the president to do? Today,
we're going to start highlighting one of our czars. Here's
czar number one. The first stop is Van Jones. He
(33:43):
is a self-admitted communist. He is a self-admitted radical who
he has said in his own words, and we have
shown you the tape, he wants to fundamentally change America.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
Glenn wasn't wildly pontificating about Obama's green czar, Van Jones.
He was using the radical's own words to expose his intentions. Well,
Van Jones didn't like the attention, and behind the scenes,
He began using his activist organization, Color of Change, to
attack Glenn Beck by targeting his advertisers.
Speaker 4 (34:14):
Most of the storm was about Jones' founding in 2005
of the group Color of Change, which has thus far
stripped 57 advertisers from the Glenn Beck show.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
But Glenn didn't back down.
Speaker 6 (34:24):
We're so delighted to be able to recruit him into
the White House. We've been watching him really for, he's
not that old, but for as long as he's been
active out in Oakland and all of the ways that
he has, the creative ideas that he has. And so
now we have captured that.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
So they've been following Van Jones' career since Oakland.
Speaker 8 (34:40):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (34:41):
That doesn't fit with the he's changed since Oakland and
no longer a communist thing. Because when he was in Oakland,
according to their timeline, he was a communist.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
Glenn's methodical exposés on Van Jones would eventually lead to
his resignation.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
Van Jones, the president's green-job czar, at about 12.12 a.m.
Speaker 7 (35:02):
He resigns.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
At least that's when we're notified of his resignation.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
The resignation sent shockwaves through the mainstream media. How was
this newcomer able to take out one of Obama's favorite advisors? Well,
it was kind of easy. Glenn Beck was willing to
seek the truth in an environment that largely avoided it.
But Glenn wasn't done with the White House. He caught
word of a story your humble hosts were working on,
and in the wake of Van Jones' resignation, he introduced
(35:28):
it to the world.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
I'm going to show you the beginning of something that
should scare the living daylights out of you. It is
propaganda in America. The National Endowment of the Arts is
now holding conference calls. There is a propaganda arm now
engaging artists and the art community using your tax dollars
in propaganda. The people involved in a conference call, including
(35:53):
the White House, knew that this was on the fence,
if not outright illegal. They knew for sure that this
would outrage you if it would ever get out. Well,
it did because of the gentleman who is on with us,
Pat Coriel.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
And again, unbelievably illegal.
Speaker 5 (36:08):
The Obama administration's use of federal tax dollars and the
administration's efforts to fund artists chosen to promote the president's
policies through the National Endowment for the Arts has forced
the resignation of a top NEA official.
Speaker 3 (36:22):
By the way, the left blogs are calling this, Glenn
Beck has another scalp. I want you to know, I
personally find that offensive. I think that's demeaning to Native Americans.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
In many ways, Glenn was becoming bigger than Fox News.
On every platform he entered, he commanded an audience. And
it wasn't only because he was entertaining or enlightening. He'd
become effective, extraordinarily effective. And it was just too much
for corporate media to take.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
It was foolish of me to think that people would
be honest in that industry. And I really thought if
I showed people what the truth was, that somebody in
the newsroom would go, I hate this guy. But, you know,
I mean, is that true? That didn't work. The American
people did, but that didn't work on the newsrooms. And
(37:14):
I think that's where everybody started to pivot to, I
don't care what the truth is. This is my truth.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
Corporate media could not handle the uncomfortable truths on its airwaves.
So began its war on Glenn Beck. The modern day
cancel culture was born.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
Aren't you concerned about the language that Glenn Beck is using?
This crime is losing it before our eyes. He's bad
for the conservative movement.
Speaker 6 (37:46):
He's bad for the Republican Party.
Speaker 3 (37:48):
He's bad for Fox News.
Speaker 6 (37:49):
I think he's advancing a kooky brand of conspiracy theory.
Speaker 8 (37:53):
You know, we asked Twitter questions and said, what would
you ask Glenn Beck? Some people couldn't believe that we
were even giving you a platform because they feel that
you are bad for America.
Speaker 3 (38:05):
Beck and the.
Speaker 4 (38:06):
Tea Party movement are reviving ideas that circulated on the
extremist right half a century ago. Find everything you can
on Glenn Beck, Stu Bajer, his radio producer, and Roger Ailes,
and to promise that we on this program tonight would
announce a dedicated email address to send tips on them.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
But it wasn't just the far-left corporate media that was
targeting Glenn. He began to feel some heat from within
his own network.
Speaker 3 (38:29):
I remember one time when I was at Fox and
Roger Ailes called me in. And working at Fox, they
were at times a predator as well towards me. So
I had gotten a word that somebody was looking into
my background. And I had already gone through this with
(38:49):
the left. So I knew it was Fox. And it
was after I had really caught on there. and I
wouldn't play the Fox game, and nobody could become bigger
than Fox, and they needed you to be dependent on them.
And so I was told, somebody's going through your garbage,
and this group is investigating you, and I knew who
(39:13):
had hired them. So I get a call a few
weeks later, and I go into Roger Ailes' office, and
he's sitting behind his desk, and usually he would get up,
and he'd say, hello, young man, how are you? And
this time he sat behind the desk and he didn't
he didn't get up. And I sat down and I said,
what's on your mind, Roger? He said, you know, there's
(39:35):
a lot of people that would like to see you destroyed.
I said, I bet. And he said, yeah, lots of people,
people investigating you. I don't know if you know this.
And I said, they'd be investigating me. What would they
hope to be finding? And he said, I don't know.
I don't know. But there's a lot out there on you.
And then he reached down the side of his desk
(39:57):
and he pulled out a stack of files. I, to
this day, am convinced it was like, you know, reports
or something else from something entirely different. And he put
them on his desk and then he almost petted it
(40:19):
like it was a cat. And he ran his hand
across the top of it and he said, a lot
of stuff is out there about you. And I said,
that's fascinating. I said, the great thing is I don't
have anything to hide because I've already said it all.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
This was the gift of Glenn's early on-air confessionals.
Speaker 3 (40:39):
And he said, well, you know, Glenn, it's always a
shame when a man is married to a wonderful woman
like your wife. And now the hair just stood up
on the back of my neck and I was like,
(41:00):
you are not going here. And I sat up on
my chair. I was on the edge of his desk
like I was about to pounce. And I said, yes,
she's a wonderful woman. And he said, it's always a
shame when some man does something to hurt somebody like that.
And I said, and that's exactly why that's never happened before.
(41:25):
And he stared at me and it seemed like it
went on for five minutes, but I'm sure it was
like 30 seconds. And we were in like a third
grade stare down. And he looked at me and he said, yeah,
I just wanted to warn you. Thanks for coming by.
He was bluffing and I knew he needed his thumb
(41:45):
on me. He had to have a way to have
a thumb on me and he had nothing.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
That is, until a story crossed American airwaves.
Speaker 3 (41:55):
I was strangely at a Broadway play, and my security
detail came in and handed me a phone with that
story on it in the middle of the play. And
I said, everything's about to change.
Speaker 1 (42:09):
Next time on Red Pilled America.
Speaker 3 (42:11):
And I was praying the whole time. Lord, this is
in your hands, man, because I'm changed. Dead, either way.
Speaker 2 (42:18):
He must have seen what happened to the radio legend
and knew he never wanted it to happen to him.
Speaker 3 (42:24):
And as I was leaving, I heard him say, get
f * * * ing Palin on the phone. And
that's the day Palin changed.
Speaker 1 (42:33):
So Glenn made the trailblazing decision. It would not only
change media, but would also show everyone how to fight
back against cancel culture.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
For all things Glenn Beck... Visit glennbeck.com. That's glennbeck.com. Red
Pilled America is an iHeartRadio original podcast. It's produced by me,
Adriana Cortez, and Patrick Karelchi for Informed Ventures. Now, our
entire archive of episodes is only available to our backstage subscribers.
To subscribe, visit redpilledamerica.com and click support in the top menu.
(43:06):
Thanks for listening.
This is Red Pilled America.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
You guys, we're working really hard here behind the scenes
to bring you guys the best stories possible. If you
want to listen to Red Pilled America ad-free, then please
become a backstage subscriber. Visit redpilledamerica.com, click join in the
top menu. I think you're going to love it.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
And be sure to share, like, and subscribe to this
podcast wherever you're listening to it. We need your guys' support.
Tell a friend, About the show, this is how people
hear about it, is through word of mouth. And now,
on with the show. This series was originally broadcast on
November 5th, 2021. It was early 2011, and Glenn Beck
(00:47):
was on top.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Of the world.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
He was in the midst of a meteoric rise in media,
the likes of which Americans had never seen before. and
had one of the highest rated shows on Fox News.
But behind the scenes, trouble was brewing between him and
the head of the cable news network, Roger Ailes.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
He needed his thumb on me. He had to have
a way to have a thumb on me. And he
had nothing.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
That is, until a story crossed the American airwaves.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
And my security detail came in and handed me a
phone with that story on it in the middle of
the play. And I said, Everything's about to change.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
I'm Patrick Karelchi.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
And I'm Adriana Cortez.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
And this is Red Pilled America, a storytelling show.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
This is not another talk show covering the day's news.
We're all about telling stories.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Stories Hollywood doesn't want you to hear.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Stories the media mocks. Stories about everyday Americans that the
globalists ignore.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
You can think of Red Pilled America as audio documentaries,
and we promise only one thing. The truth. Welcome to
Red Pilled America. Who is Glenn Beck? The answer really
(02:18):
depends on whom you ask.
Speaker 4 (02:20):
You might be the original Willy Wonka of politics.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Is Beck the only loudmouth on TV saying irresponsible things?
Speaker 5 (02:26):
You've always been an entertainer and performer.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
This guy is bad for the movement. I, for one,
am on the Glenn Beck bandwagon, and I advise.
Speaker 4 (02:37):
You to join it as well.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
No matter where you land on the political spectrum, it's
hard to deny that Glenn Beck is one of the
most consequential figures to have ever entered media. Aside from
having one of the highest rated radio shows in the country,
he's authored over a dozen number one New York Times
bestsellers and has been inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame.
He's dominated cable news, radio, the internet, book publishing, and
(03:01):
even live events.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
Something beyond imagination is happening. America today begins to turn
back to God.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Glenn Beck has shown the kind of versatility seen only
in a few media figures in history. But with someone
so defined by both his friends and foes alike, it's
often hard to get to the core reason behind the
person's success. But we're going to try. So who is
Glenn Beck? To find the answer, we're going to hear
from the man himself, about his rise on the public stage,
(03:39):
the moment everything changed for him at Fox News, and
his monumental contribution to American media. We could do a
10-part series on his storied career, but we're going to
try to boil it down to what could end up
being his most enduring legacy, one that almost no one
has highlighted until now.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Most of us.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Don't know what we want to do in life until
well into our adulthood. But that wasn't the case for
Glenn Beck.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
I was, uh, I think seven. And, uh, I was
sitting inside of our living room and I was watching
TV the way we used to watch TV, so close
that we could get eye cancer.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Glenn was living in Washington state at the time.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
Which was always cloudy and always rainy. And it was
like one of the nice days, you know, there's like
359 rainy days. This was one of the nice days
in Seattle. And my mom came in from down the
stairs and she saw me sitting in front of the
television and she said, Turn that off and go outside
and play.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Glenn did what just about every normal seven-year-old boy would do.
He turned off the TV, but mouthed off in the process.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
And I mutter on my breath, you did this when
you were a kid. She said, what? And I said,
you watched TV when you were a kid. And she
said something incredible. She said, we didn't have TV. And
I'm like, Wilma Flintstone had television. How old are you, lady?
(05:14):
And she told me this story about my grandfather and
how he had this old silver tone radio with a
green eye in the center. And she said, Grandpa would
turn off all the lights and we would listen to
Lights Out. Lights Out, everybody.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Lights Out was a spooky old time radio show of
the 1930s and 40s.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
This is Arch.
Speaker 5 (05:40):
Opeler bringing you another in our series of stories of
the unusual.
Speaker 6 (05:45):
And once again, we caution you, these lights out stories
are definitely not for the timid soul.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
And she told me about the stories that she heard
and they were all in her imagination. And she'd listened
to Fibber McGee and Molly and the closet that was
always overstuffed.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Where's the dictionary?
Speaker 6 (06:04):
It's probably in the closet with the rest of your stuff.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Give me your key and I'll get.
Speaker 7 (06:07):
It for you.
Speaker 5 (06:08):
Oh, no, you don't.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
You lay off the stuff in that closet. I got
all my stuff arranged in there just the way I
want it.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Then you'd wait for that closet to open up and
you'd hear all the stuff fall out.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Say, maybe we better see if the closet is locked.
Speaker 5 (06:21):
Let me take a look. Oh, it's locked, all right.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
You don't think I'd leave all my personal defects laying
around for any prowler.
Speaker 6 (06:26):
To get his hands on?
Speaker 5 (06:27):
McGee, it isn't locked. I..
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Oh, help, Mickey.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
I'm very delighted. Get this junk off of me.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Glenn was intrigued by his mother's stories of early radio theater.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
And so on my birthday that year, she got me
the golden years of radio. And that is when I
knew exactly what I wanted to do.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Glenn fell in love with the craft of radio storytelling.
He was fascinated by the way the mind would create
elaborate images from the spoken word.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
I listened to Orson Welles and The Shadow. and his
War of the Worlds, and I just was amazed at
the power of the spoken word and how if it's
coupled with your mind and your mouth and the way
you use the mic, the way you use your pauses
(07:34):
and inflection, that that coupled with the listener, you are
more powerful than any CGI or any Hollywood movie studio.
There's no limits on that.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
For years, when he got home from school, he'd try
to imitate the radio greats by practicing his voice intonations
into a handheld cassette recorder. He wanted a career in
the lost art of radio theater. The problem was that
no one was really doing it at the time. There were, however,
plenty of opportunities to enter the radio industry as a DJ.
(08:06):
So at the ripe old age of 12, Glenn decided
to go that route.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
I won a contest, be on the air for an hour.
You can imagine how bad the radio station was where
they were giving away an hour to people.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
When he arrived to collect his prize, he took his
first radio gig very seriously.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
And I'll never forget, I had everything lined up and
I knew the records I was going to play and
the disc jockey that was normally on, he would just
produce it. And most people were like, yeah, man, I
just want you to play, you know, Pink Floyd. And
I came in at 12 and I had researched the
charts and I knew what it was. And I want
(08:46):
that song to segue at this point. And I'm going
to talk over this. And halfway through at one point,
I said, OK, OK, it's coming up. Get ready to
segue right here. And he did it. And he turned around.
And it's the only time he looked at me the
whole time. And he turned around. He went, relax, kid.
It's an hour. But I took that tape and went
(09:10):
to an even worse station. And they hired me, strangely.
And then I went to a college station and I
was working there. And then I went to a Christian
station and I was just like, I'd like more, please.
And they actually had me working on Saturdays, but I
had to do the noon news.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Glenn was just a kid, but was given the task
of reading the Russian names of a news flash from
the Soviet Union.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
And I'm 12 years old. I have no idea what's
going on in the world. I'm sounding names out on
the air and I mean, it didn't last long, but
I did it.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Glenn had caught the radio bug, but just a few
years later, tragedy struck. Glenn's mother took her own life.
He was only 15 at the time. The event must
have triggered something within the young man, something that instilled
within him the idea that our time on this earth
(10:13):
is limited, because after that tragic news, Glenn wasted no
time in pursuing his radio career. After his mother's death,
Glenn moved in with his father and enrolled in a
drama class at a Bellingham, Washington public high school. The
class included recreating scripted storytelling shows for a local radio station,
just like the old-time radio theater his mom turned him
(10:34):
on to. She may have been gone, but the impact
she made would help guide his life in more ways
than one. Before he was even able to drive, Glenn
landed a job at a newly launched FM station in Seattle.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
At 16, I was working for some really, really good people.
And they taught me some really critical, crucial things. And
then I went into Top 40 Radio. And I was
an okay DJ. But it was never me. It was
always very, very rehearsed. Because I'm not a cool kid.
You know what I mean? And I was more into
(11:10):
the art of it than the actual stuff that people
wanted to talk about.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Like many of the early greats trying to make it
in radio, Glenn floated around from city to city, wherever
the job openings would take him. He lived in Provo, Utah, Washington, D.C.,
Corpus Christi, Texas, and Louisville, Kentucky. Then in 1987, he
landed in Phoenix, Arizona, where he partnered with Tim Hattrick,
co-hosting a morning zoo-type program, where zany antics are mixed
(11:37):
with top 40 music and news of the day.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
New Y95 Morning Zookeepers, Glenn Beck and Tim Hattrick.
Speaker 7 (11:49):
We told our bosses right up front, we don't need
gimmicks to sell the new Y95.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Glenn resigned from that show in 1989, then bounced around
some more. He went to Houston, then to a Top
40 radio station in Baltimore. In 1992, he picked up
another DJing gig in New Haven, Connecticut. His career was
still jugging along, but in the process, dating back to
his mother's untimely death, Glenn developed a marijuana and alcohol addiction.
(12:16):
By the mid-90s, Glenn and his wife divorced, limiting his
time with his two daughters, the oldest with cerebral palsy.
He was financially and emotionally decimated. He struggled with episodes
of being blackout drunk, once while watching his daughters. He
reached his bottom.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
When you find your bottom, you know, and it's a
scary thing. My mother's bottom was death. My bottom, fortunately,
was not.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
And he was about to do something... that most thought
would end his career.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
I remember I was feeling sorry for myself. It was
a Christmas Eve. My kids, you know, were with their mom.
My family had fallen apart. I was living in this,
I call it the United Nations. It was this apartment
complex that nobody spoke English, except for a couple of
loser divorce guys. They were like, hey, brother, you know,
(13:08):
my life sucks. I know, mine does too. And the
whole place smelled like soup. And I was down on
this green shag carpet and I was just wallowing in
my own, oh, woe is me. And I knew I
was at a point to where I was either going
to follow my mom's footsteps or I was going to
(13:30):
get up. And I prayed, if you help me and
if I can, all I want is my credibility back.
I don't want anything else. Just the ability to look
at my children and tell them, I mean this, and
they'll believe me. And I will do whatever it takes
to get it back, and I will never violate it again.
I was on the radio, oh, this was probably 96
(13:54):
or 97. And the guy who is still my producer today,
he was an intern for me. And we were talking about,
we were doing like a morning zoo. I was just
a sad alcoholic clown. And we were talking about something.
I think it was during the Monica Lewinsky time period.
(14:16):
And I had a very squeaky clean image, but I
was not that guy. I was the most foul-mouthed guy
you could possibly imagine. Drunk all the time, but people
didn't know it because I was a functioning alcoholic. And
somebody said, to me, oh, you know, you're just Mr.
Goody Two Shoes. What do you know? And I said,
(14:38):
you have no idea who I am. In fact, you
shouldn't probably judge anybody because you got this one way wrong.
You think I'm a good guy? Let me tell you
who I am. And on the air, the whole room
just stopped. And I went on for probably 10 minutes
and just vomited the things that I was afraid of,
(15:01):
the things that I had hid my whole life. And
I turned off the mic and I looked at Stu
and I said, well, write this day down on your diary.
This is the day Glenn Beck ended his career. And
(15:22):
the exact opposite happened.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
And that's because people responded to Glenn's confessional in a
way he never imagined.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
I met so many people. I would go out and
people would say, and they'd always whisper, I can't believe
you said all that.
Speaker 4 (15:33):
I mean, wow.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
I wish I could say things like that because I've
been there. I mean, I'm doing that now or I
was there and nobody knows. And I realized we are
all the same. It's different places, different things, but we're
all the same.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
The moment lit something in Glenn and he began to
open up again and again on the air.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
I said it on the air one day. I'd never
even said it out loud that my mom killed herself.
And my wife of 15 years had no idea.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Over the coming years, Glenn gradually began cleaning up. He
started to attend Alcoholics Anonymous. On the air, he began
exposing all of the skeletons in his closet. And this
newfound philosophy would eventually come in pretty handy. As the
new millennium approached, Glenn was slowly becoming a new man.
He'd fallen in love again with his second wife, Tanya.
(16:28):
He became a Mormon, and he began thinking about leaving
the airwaves altogether. Glenn was tired of the silly morning
zoo radio format. His dad was a baker. Maybe he
could go into his line of work by going to
cooking school.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
I called my dad one day and said, I'm going
to get out of radio. And he said, you've known
since you were eight. What do you mean you're going
to get out of radio? I said, Dad, I've been
in it since I'm 12, and I just hate it.
And he said, because you're not doing what you want
(17:02):
to do. He said, you got to talk about the
things and do the things that interest you. And so
I thought I'd get into talk radio.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
At the time, guys like Rush Limbaugh, Don Imus and
Howard Stern were national celebrities. It was a burgeoning niche
of the business.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
I started doing a talk show. And next thing I knew,
I was on WABC, you know, doing Weekend and then
Clear Channel at the time, iHeartRadio heard me and gave
me a shot to do afternoons in Tampa. And I
went from, I think we were in ninth place when
I started. We rocketed to 15th.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Then the next quarterly ratings arrived.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
I went all the way to 18. And then I thought,
we should turn this around and go the other direction.
And they were about to fire me. And I had
known what I wanted to do. But I had made
so many compromises already in the first eight months because
the program director wanted something and the general manager wanted something.
And a good friend of mine who now works for me,
(18:05):
Dom Theodore, said, dude, you are the best natural talent
that I have heard in talk radio. And what are
you doing? You're listening to all these other people that
if they could do it, they would be doing it.
And I thought, you know, they're going to fire me anyway.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
So Glenn decided to do his own thing, what he'd
later call a fusion of entertainment and enlightenment.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
And six months later, we were number one. The transformation
of the ratings was just incredible.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
He was finally getting to apply some of the craft
that he'd learned while listening to those golden years of
radio recordings, and it was paying off. His mom must
have looked down and felt enormous pride. His success led
Premier Radio Networks, the leading radio syndicator in the country,
to hire Glenn to replace radio personality Dr. Laura in
some of their markets. The job was supposed to start
(19:00):
in January 2002.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
Then September 11th happened, and I went on. As I
came in this morning, I don't know about you, but
it all seemed so surreal.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
America became a different place after September 11th, 2001, and
Glenn Beck's candid style was just what America wanted, full
of passion, a quest for truth, and delivered with the
craft of a master storyteller.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
Stu called me. He said, did you see the news?
As we were on the phone, we both watched in horror.
Speaker 7 (19:42):
As a second plane Hit the World Trade Center. I
said at that time we're under attack. They're going for icons.
(20:12):
They want to take down the World Trade Center.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
He continued recording the Glenn Beck program from Tampa for
two years, and then he moved to the city of
brotherly love to be closer to his kids. And that's
when he got a call that would eventually change the
course of media. More of Red Pilled America after the break.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
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(21:43):
the difference. Welcome back to Red Pilled America. So Glenn
Beck's fusion of entertainment and enlightenment was conquering talk radio.
By 2005, the Glenn Beck program was becoming one of
the most successful shows in America. And that's right about
when his phone rang.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
And I'm in Philadelphia and CNN calls and they call
my agent and they said, you know, they were out
in the wilderness, out in the middle of the country somewhere.
And they heard people talking about this Glenn Beck and
so they listened to this thing called talk radio. And
so they called and my agent called me and he said, hey,
CNN wants to meet with you. And I said, no.
(22:30):
And he said, well, just think about it. And he
called me back a couple of days later. And I said, no,
I thought about it. No, definitely don't want to do
cable news. And he said, would you just go take
the meeting as rehearsal? Just take it for me and
just pretend you're interested. And I said, all right. So
(22:51):
I went up and I remember sitting in this big
executive boardroom, you know, at the time Warner Center and
they're acting all impressive and they're in jeans and a t-shirt.
And I'm like, hey, so what do you want to
talk about? And they're like, Well, we'd like to offer
you a position here and, you know, you could have
your own show. And they went on and on. And
(23:13):
I said, no. And they said, why not? And I
looked at his name was Ken Giles. And I said,
have you watched cable news? And he said, well, what
do you mean by that? And I said, it's awful.
I don't want to do that. And he said, well,
what would you do? Why don't you design a show?
(23:33):
And so I went back to Philadelphia and we designed
a show that I thought they'd never do. And they
kind of did.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
In 2006, Glenn hit CNN's headline news airwaves in a
way that would be forbidden just a few years later.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
If you watch this program, you know that I am
passionately opposed to the Islamic extremist agenda. The one that's
sweeping the globe and ends with people with their heads
cut off. Yeah, it's the kind of hate monger I am.
Too many of my critics have twisted that in to
make me seem like I'm anti-Muslim and nothing could be
further from the truth, but whatever. I embrace the celebration
of all faiths as long as you're not trying to
(24:11):
kill the other faiths. They made me a better broadcaster
because they made me work for every single fact. I
couldn't go live. They wouldn't let the show go live.
And sometimes it would take three hours to produce a
42-minute episode because they would say, what about that fact?
(24:35):
Where do you get that fact? And we'd have to
bring it in. And so by the end, we were
so buttoned up because they would never let anything slide.
But there was still some decency there. Anderson Cooper and
I were friends, and we all got along.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Glenn was using CNN's platform to discuss topics that would
eventually become off-limits on the network. He spoke out in
defense of the left's favorite punching bag, Sarah Palin. And
he produced documentaries that countered the left's gospel.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
I did a special on CNN, not headline, but on CNN,
on global warming. And it was the other side. And
they would never allow that to happen now. They would
never allow that. I did something on Muslim extremism, the
difference between Islam and Islamicists, and showed video of what
(25:28):
was happening in the Middle East, what they were saying
in their own language about Jews and everything else.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Remarkably, CNN was letting him do his thing. But Glenn
did see some glimpses of what the network would later become.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
I remember Christiane Anampour was the head of the Middle
East desk. And somewhere I have on tape, I recorded
these conference calls because it was so unbelievably anti-Israel. I
was astounded. The elevator rides were the longest rides of
(26:04):
my life. I mean, everybody would be happy and laughing
and then, ding, the door would open and I'd be
standing there and everybody would just stop. And then we'd
ride for five floors or whatever. And I would get off,
and then you'd hear people talk again as they were
going up.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
After a year into his two-year contract, Glenn began looking for.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
A way out. You know, I wanted to do something,
maybe HBO or something. I was more interested in the
entertainment than all the rest. And Roger Ailes, about a
year before my contract was up, he called me, and
(26:43):
we started having dinner. And You know, what people didn't
know about Roger Ailes is he was genius when it
comes to entertainment. Truly genius. I mean, he decided he
wanted to do a play. So he went out and
went to all of these readings, you know, in apartments
in New York. And he saw one called Hot El Baltimore.
(27:07):
And he bought it. And then he decided he was
going to produce it on Broadway. He had no experience. None.
He won a Tony for it. He was brilliant. And
he also knew how to play to my ego. And
he said to me, you know, you're Jack Parr.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
The host of the Famous Tonight show before Johnny Carson.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
And I said, wow, thank you. And he said, no,
you're just, you're the best storyteller on TV. And he said,
you can hold them. And so he offered me a job.
And I said no to him several times. I think
they had offered me a job for like four different times.
And I said, no. And so he calls me into
the conference room at Fox, and I'm there in Rupert
(27:47):
Murdoch's lunchroom. And he says, so what is it about
our number one status and the money that I know
is way over what you're being paid now that just
doesn't seem to interest you? And I said, I know
your business, but you don't know mine. And he said,
what do you mean? I said, look, a partnership is
only good when we both win. And for me, a
(28:10):
win is not about money. I have things that I
would want to say and do, and I'm going to
do it my way. And I also have this radio thing,
and I'm getting into this new thing called the internet,
and you don't have any interest in that. And I
don't have any interest in doing television for the rest
of my life. He listened to me, and he said, okay,
(28:31):
I understand. You can do those things. And I said,
let me go home and talk to my wife.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
His wife gave her blessing. Glenn's new Fox News show
kicked off on January 19, 2009, the day before Barack
Obama's inauguration. And on his debut episode, he welcomed a
new friend, a rising star within the conservative movement.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
Governor Sarah Palin is joining us now from Alaska.
Speaker 8 (28:54):
Glenn, thank you so much for letting.
Speaker 5 (28:56):
Me be here.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
Glenn's Fox News show became a phenomenon almost overnight. He
was doing something that no one had done before.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
You get what you pay for. You might have heard
that saying applied to a bargain, but I'm going to
show you how this idea works when it comes to
economic advice from the government or economists. I'm going to
start with Ben Bernanke. Back in March 2007, he said, quote,
the problem in the subprime market seems to be likely contained.
Speaker 8 (29:33):
Oops.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Unlike every cable news program before and after, His show
wasn't about soundbites and quick gotcha moments. He was spending
entire episodes on it. one topic, using an old-fashioned chalkboard
and the tried-and-true technique of storytelling to explain complex issues.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
I told you that we were going to talk about
these things. We're going to talk about Obama. The left, internationalists, graft,
acorn-style organizations, revolution, and hidden agenda. O-L-I-G-A-R-H. One letter is missing.
(30:12):
When I was at CNN, they told me not to
have the camera on me or to be doing more
than a 30-second monologue. By the time I left, we
were up to seven minutes. Fox told me no more
than 12 minutes. And by the end, I was at
42 and a half minutes. And nobody had really ever
(30:34):
done that before.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
And he used his time effectively. Glenn was one of
the few on cable to fully indict the Obama regime's
radical socialist intentions.
Speaker 3 (30:44):
But the problem is there are more radicals surrounding this president.
You must remain focused. You're fighting for the Constitution. Gang,
we're not even at the beginning of round one. As
I told you, this fight is not going to be
fought with guns. This fight is going to be fought
with the truth.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
When the Tea Party began to take root, he worked
with Sarah Palin to help grow the burgeoning movement.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
When I knew we wanted to honor our military, I
didn't want to have a military person. I wanted to
have a dad or.
Speaker 4 (31:18):
A mom.
Speaker 3 (31:19):
And that's why... I picked up the phone and I
called a mom. And she's speaking to you today as
a mother of someone in the military. Ladies and gentlemen,
Sarah Palin.
Speaker 7 (31:37):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Are you not so proud to be an American?
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Glenn's appearances on Fox News were not just a boring
discussion of the day's news stories. He was actually saying
uncomfortable truths on a big corporate media platform that often
punishes that action.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
This president, I think, has exposed himself as a guy
over and over and over again who has a deep-seated
hatred for white people or the white culture. I don't
know what it is. This guy is, I believe, a racist.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
But it was his exposing of a radical within the
Obama White House that made him enemy number one of
the Marxist left in the media.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
Today, we're going to start highlighting one of our czars.
Here's czar number one. The first stop is Van Jones.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
More of Red Pilled America after the break.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Do you want to hear Red Pilled America stories ad-free?
then become a backstage subscriber. Just log on to redpilledamerica.com
and click join in the top menu. Join today and
help us save America one story at a time.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
Welcome back to Red Pilled America. So the day Glenn
Beck's Fox News show launched in 2009, he became a
media sensation almost overnight. He was doing something that no
one was doing on cable news. He was using storytelling
to deliver his message. sometimes spending an entire show on
a single topic. Uncomfortable truths became his calling card, but
(33:12):
it was his exposing of a radical within the Obama
White House that made him enemy number one of the
Marxist left and the media.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
There are nearly three dozen of these czars. They don't
answer to anybody. They are special advisors to the president.
They are advising our president. Who are they? What do
they believe? What are they advising the president to do? Today,
we're going to start highlighting one of our czars. Here's
czar number one. The first stop is Van Jones. He
(33:43):
is a self-admitted communist. He is a self-admitted radical who
he has said in his own words, and we have
shown you the tape, he wants to fundamentally change America.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
Glenn wasn't wildly pontificating about Obama's green czar, Van Jones.
He was using the radical's own words to expose his intentions. Well,
Van Jones didn't like the attention, and behind the scenes,
He began using his activist organization, Color of Change, to
attack Glenn Beck by targeting his advertisers.
Speaker 4 (34:14):
Most of the storm was about Jones' founding in 2005
of the group Color of Change, which has thus far
stripped 57 advertisers from the Glenn Beck show.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
But Glenn didn't back down.
Speaker 6 (34:24):
We're so delighted to be able to recruit him into
the White House. We've been watching him really for, he's
not that old, but for as long as he's been
active out in Oakland and all of the ways that
he has, the creative ideas that he has. And so
now we have captured that.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
So they've been following Van Jones' career since Oakland.
Speaker 8 (34:40):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (34:41):
That doesn't fit with the he's changed since Oakland and
no longer a communist thing. Because when he was in Oakland,
according to their timeline, he was a communist.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
Glenn's methodical exposés on Van Jones would eventually lead to
his resignation.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
Van Jones, the president's green-job czar, at about 12.12 a.m.
Speaker 7 (35:02):
He resigns.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
At least that's when we're notified of his resignation.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
The resignation sent shockwaves through the mainstream media. How was
this newcomer able to take out one of Obama's favorite advisors? Well,
it was kind of easy. Glenn Beck was willing to
seek the truth in an environment that largely avoided it.
But Glenn wasn't done with the White House. He caught
word of a story your humble hosts were working on,
and in the wake of Van Jones' resignation, he introduced
(35:28):
it to the world.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
I'm going to show you the beginning of something that
should scare the living daylights out of you. It is
propaganda in America. The National Endowment of the Arts is
now holding conference calls. There is a propaganda arm now
engaging artists and the art community using your tax dollars
in propaganda. The people involved in a conference call, including
(35:53):
the White House, knew that this was on the fence,
if not outright illegal. They knew for sure that this
would outrage you if it would ever get out. Well,
it did because of the gentleman who is on with us,
Pat Coriel.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
And again, unbelievably illegal.
Speaker 5 (36:08):
The Obama administration's use of federal tax dollars and the
administration's efforts to fund artists chosen to promote the president's
policies through the National Endowment for the Arts has forced
the resignation of a top NEA official.
Speaker 3 (36:22):
By the way, the left blogs are calling this, Glenn
Beck has another scalp. I want you to know, I
personally find that offensive. I think that's demeaning to Native Americans.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
In many ways, Glenn was becoming bigger than Fox News.
On every platform he entered, he commanded an audience. And
it wasn't only because he was entertaining or enlightening. He'd
become effective, extraordinarily effective. And it was just too much
for corporate media to take.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
It was foolish of me to think that people would
be honest in that industry. And I really thought if
I showed people what the truth was, that somebody in
the newsroom would go, I hate this guy. But, you know,
I mean, is that true? That didn't work. The American
people did, but that didn't work on the newsrooms. And
(37:14):
I think that's where everybody started to pivot to, I
don't care what the truth is. This is my truth.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
Corporate media could not handle the uncomfortable truths on its airwaves.
So began its war on Glenn Beck. The modern day
cancel culture was born.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
Aren't you concerned about the language that Glenn Beck is using?
This crime is losing it before our eyes. He's bad
for the conservative movement.
Speaker 6 (37:46):
He's bad for the Republican Party.
Speaker 3 (37:48):
He's bad for Fox News.
Speaker 6 (37:49):
I think he's advancing a kooky brand of conspiracy theory.
Speaker 8 (37:53):
You know, we asked Twitter questions and said, what would
you ask Glenn Beck? Some people couldn't believe that we
were even giving you a platform because they feel that
you are bad for America.
Speaker 3 (38:05):
Beck and the.
Speaker 4 (38:06):
Tea Party movement are reviving ideas that circulated on the
extremist right half a century ago. Find everything you can
on Glenn Beck, Stu Bajer, his radio producer, and Roger Ailes,
and to promise that we on this program tonight would
announce a dedicated email address to send tips on them.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
But it wasn't just the far-left corporate media that was
targeting Glenn. He began to feel some heat from within
his own network.
Speaker 3 (38:29):
I remember one time when I was at Fox and
Roger Ailes called me in. And working at Fox, they
were at times a predator as well towards me. So
I had gotten a word that somebody was looking into
my background. And I had already gone through this with
(38:49):
the left. So I knew it was Fox. And it
was after I had really caught on there. and I
wouldn't play the Fox game, and nobody could become bigger
than Fox, and they needed you to be dependent on them.
And so I was told, somebody's going through your garbage,
and this group is investigating you, and I knew who
(39:13):
had hired them. So I get a call a few
weeks later, and I go into Roger Ailes' office, and
he's sitting behind his desk, and usually he would get up,
and he'd say, hello, young man, how are you? And
this time he sat behind the desk and he didn't
he didn't get up. And I sat down and I said,
what's on your mind, Roger? He said, you know, there's
(39:35):
a lot of people that would like to see you destroyed.
I said, I bet. And he said, yeah, lots of people,
people investigating you. I don't know if you know this.
And I said, they'd be investigating me. What would they
hope to be finding? And he said, I don't know.
I don't know. But there's a lot out there on you.
And then he reached down the side of his desk
(39:57):
and he pulled out a stack of files. I, to
this day, am convinced it was like, you know, reports
or something else from something entirely different. And he put
them on his desk and then he almost petted it
(40:19):
like it was a cat. And he ran his hand
across the top of it and he said, a lot
of stuff is out there about you. And I said,
that's fascinating. I said, the great thing is I don't
have anything to hide because I've already said it all.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
This was the gift of Glenn's early on-air confessionals.
Speaker 3 (40:39):
And he said, well, you know, Glenn, it's always a
shame when a man is married to a wonderful woman
like your wife. And now the hair just stood up
on the back of my neck and I was like,
(41:00):
you are not going here. And I sat up on
my chair. I was on the edge of his desk
like I was about to pounce. And I said, yes,
she's a wonderful woman. And he said, it's always a
shame when some man does something to hurt somebody like that.
And I said, and that's exactly why that's never happened before.
(41:25):
And he stared at me and it seemed like it
went on for five minutes, but I'm sure it was
like 30 seconds. And we were in like a third
grade stare down. And he looked at me and he said, yeah,
I just wanted to warn you. Thanks for coming by.
He was bluffing and I knew he needed his thumb
(41:45):
on me. He had to have a way to have
a thumb on me and he had nothing.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
That is, until a story crossed American airwaves.
Speaker 3 (41:55):
I was strangely at a Broadway play, and my security
detail came in and handed me a phone with that
story on it in the middle of the play. And
I said, everything's about to change.
Speaker 1 (42:09):
Next time on Red Pilled America.
Speaker 3 (42:11):
And I was praying the whole time. Lord, this is
in your hands, man, because I'm changed. Dead, either way.
Speaker 2 (42:18):
He must have seen what happened to the radio legend
and knew he never wanted it to happen to him.
Speaker 3 (42:24):
And as I was leaving, I heard him say, get
f * * * ing Palin on the phone. And
that's the day Palin changed.
Speaker 1 (42:33):
So Glenn made the trailblazing decision. It would not only
change media, but would also show everyone how to fight
back against cancel culture.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
For all things Glenn Beck... Visit glennbeck.com. That's glennbeck.com. Red
Pilled America is an iHeartRadio original podcast. It's produced by me,
Adriana Cortez, and Patrick Karelchi for Informed Ventures. Now, our
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Adryana Cortez
Patrick Courrielche
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