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Glenn Beck

Dems Engaging in Political Games?; Congress Sits on Security Bill; Author Says Liberals Fascist; Should Schools Teach Global Warming?

Aired February 18, 2008 - 19:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GLENN BECK, HOST (voice-over): Tonight, the Clinton machine gets tougher as Obama gains momentum. Now they`re using the same sort of political tactics the left has complained about for years.

Plus, economy in crisis. How long before taxpayers have to bail out the banks in the subprime mortgage mess?

And the FBI warns U.S. law enforcement about possible revenge attacks by Hezbollah. We`ll talk to the guy who led the hunt for bin Laden to see how serious these warnings really are.

All this and more, tonight.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BECK: Well, hello, America.

Remember way back on Super Tuesday when I set a new standard for live political coverage? Which we probably shouldn`t ever discuss again. We all found out that Hillary Clinton decisively won New York state`s primary. The thing is, her -- her win may not have been that decisive.

According now to "The New York Times," when it comes to the unofficial results on primary night, there are about 80 districts here in New York City where Barack Obama didn`t receive even one vote, including the 94th District deep in the heart of anti-Obama country known as Harlem. So, here`s "The Point" tonight.

The Democrats are guilty of the same kind of infighting game-playing and conspiracy theories that they`ve always pinned on the Republicans, and here`s how I got there.

If you`re a Democrat and you somehow or another stumbled across the program, you can stop writing your angry little letters to CNN. I`m not saying the Clintons, you know, and their political machine flexed the muscles and rigged the New York primary.

These miscalculations in primary votes could cause trouble. Even a couple hundred votes in New York might mean a few additional delegates for a candidate, and everyone will count this time around. As we`ve seen, Hillary will scratch and claw her way to as many delegates as possible. Remember, this isn`t my conservative opinion. She`s the one now crying over Florida and Michigan`s unseated delegates that she helped unseat.

This is what kills me about the Democrats. I mean, when the rules -- you know, they`ll make all the rules, but when they -- when they stop really working in their favor, then they try to change them. It`s like playing, you know, a card game with a child. Hillary Clinton ain`t 4. Stop changing the rules.

Clinton`s even attacking her own news network, not this one. MSNBC is virtually a PR machine for the left and the Clintons. Yet, for Hillary, they didn`t go far enough. She went after a reporter`s job when he offhandedly suggested that her campaign seemed to be pimping out Chelsea Clinton.

Let me ask you this. If a conservative would have tried to have a reporter fired for an opinion or an offhanded remark, do you think they would have been accused of stepping on the freedom of press? You bet. The double standard is actually starting to get funny.

So tonight here`s what you need to know. Democrats, you cannot have it both ways. You cannot blame the Republicans for disenfranchising black voters, playing dirty politics, manipulating the media, you know, with evil talk radio, and then go out and do exactly the same thing yourselves.

It`s time for the good Democrats, the party of my grandparents, to take stock and ask themselves, is this really my party or has it been hijacked by the ultra left? We conservatives have had to do the same kind of soul-searching, and many of us have left our party. Maybe, Democrats, it`s your turn.

Peter Fenn is a former Gore adviser and current Democratic strategist. Peter, first of all, let me go through some of these.

PETER FENN, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: You went through a lot there.

BECK: I know. I know, so let`s start here. I`m not saying that there was anything, you know, illegal that was going on that gave Obama zero in some of these districts, not saying that Clintons flexed her muscles and did anything like that.

However, do you think somebody like Keith Olbermann or "The New York Times" would give conservatives the same benefit of the doubt if that election would have been McCain and Obama?

FENN: You know, I hate to tell you this, Glenn, but I think looking at the facts as they were in that "The New York Times" article, I think they probably would have. Look some of those things...

BECK: Bull crap.

FENN: No, some of those things were 116-0.

BECK: Uh-huh.

FENN: I mean, who got zero votes? The whole thing also was, that as you read in that same article, they did the same thing with the Clintons. In other words, the Clinton precincts had zero votes.

So I think, you know, before we throw out charges about whether or not someone deliberately did this...

BECK: Oh, Peter, I am not throwing those charges out. I`m not even implying them by any stretch of the imagination.

FENN: OK. OK, OK.

BECK: I don`t think so. What I -- what kills me is the hypocrisy of charging the Republicans and saying, "Look at the way they do these things." And it`s not. It`s just the way the system works sometimes.

FENN: Look, you know, there`s one thing which we could have a long discussion on, on this show about, and that is the crazy way we run our elections in all 50 states and localities in this country, and machines that don`t work, hanging chads that are ridiculous. So that`s a whole -- that`s a whole other kind of thing...

BECK: Look...

FENN: But let me make one crucial point, Glenn. You know, this president had a civil rights division that -- that had a historic role in this country. He turned that civil rights division into going after what he thought was voter fraud on the part of the Democrats. He found none.

The point I think with this is, before we throw charges, you and I know, about voter fraud, we ought to really look at these facts and make sure that things are right. And I`m not accusing you of doing that. I`m just saying that`s awful important on both sides.

BECK: Right. Look, here`s the thing, you`re exactly right, but you have a party -- I mean, do you notice, as a former Gore adviser, you were there in 2000.

FENN: Right.

BECK: Do you have any point, say, "Gosh, it`s awfully ironic that my own party is disenfranchising voters, and you know, NAACP is saying minority voters, in Florida"?

FENN: Right, right. I think the whole business of anybody disenfranchising anybody is an outrage, whatever party it comes from, whatever groups.

You know, most of this is -- I hate to say it. I think there are a lot of lone rangers out there that think they`re being cute. They`ve put out mailings saying that the election is the next Tuesday. They`ve put out mailings saying that they should go to the wrong polling place. That stuff to me is cheap shots, dumb, stupid, has no place in our politics.

BECK: All right. Thanks a lot, Peter. I appreciate it.

Now, after 9/11, you remember we came up with all kinds of new -- aggressive, new laws to combat a new kind of enemy. One of them was the Patriot Act. Another one was the Protection -- Protest America Act. This was an extension of our eavesdropping. It helped our government listen in and find terrorists.

Well, over the weekend, the House failed to pass this Bill, which would have prevented the Protect America Act from lapsing, an extension requested by the president. It`s got a six-month sunset over and over again. He feels -- and I happen to agree with him -- that this congressional game-playing by Nancy Pelosi will end up killing Americans.

Now, what could be even more terrifying than that fact is that congress may be acting with reelection in mind and not your safety. Critics are saying now that the House caved to special interest groups, mostly trial lawyers who want their rights to sue these big, huge phone companies that release sensitive information to the government.

Representative Peter King is a Republican congressman from New York, ranking member of homeland security committee.

You know, the thing that really bothers me, Peter, is, you know, everybody makes this into an issue like they`re listening to Mom give me recipes over the phone. That`s not the way it works. A lot of these phone calls that originate overseas are routed through the United States and end up back overseas. That`s what we`re looking for. That`s what this is all about, if I`m not mistaken.

REP. PETER KING (R), NEW YORK: Yes, Glenn, we are. We`re looking for phone calls that originate overseas. Some of them are made to people in this country. But the target is the person overseas. Some of them are calls from overseas to overseas, which you`re right, end up being routed through the United States.

BECK: Right.

KING: All of that is absolutely essential that we cover those calls. This law allowed it. The law expired last week, and this is all because of the Democratic leadership. If this Bill was allowed to come to a vote, it would pass I think by 40 or 50 votes on the House floor...

BECK: Right, and that`s because...

KING: ... the Democratic leadership -- yes.

BECK: And that`s because the blue dog Democrats, the Democrats of my grandparents` age, the ones that still have common sense are not this progressive nightmare. They understand it; they back it.

KING: Yes. It`s the trial lawyers. Plus it`s MoveOn.org. Those two groups, especially MoveOn.org, right now on this issue, the trial lawyers have a stranglehold on the Democratic Party, and they feel that any going ahead of this legislation, it`s going to stop the lawyers from suing.

What they want to do is they want to sue the telephone companies who cooperated with the government after September 11. This law would give those companies immunity. And if -- you know, if this law goes through -- which, by the way, it passed the Senate 69-28, and it was sponsored by a Democrat. So it`s the House Democrats who are blocking this.

If the law goes through, you will not be able to sue the telephone companies. The trial lawyers will obviously lose money. And also, if these trials go ahead, it gives the Democrats an opportunity to basically spill out in public all that went on over the last several years. They`re hoping they can find something that will make George Bush look bad.

What it will do -- actually, what it will do is reveal secrets or give our methods away to the enemy. It`s absolutely disgraceful.

Glenn, I can be as partisan as the next guy. There`s a place for some partisanship, I guess, in politics, but when it comes to war, when it comes to protecting thousands and thousands of American lives, what happened here is shameful and disgraceful, and it`s a dark day in the history of the House of Representatives.

BECK: You guys are coming back in what, 12 days? Is this going to pass? Is this just a game or is she just going to block this?

KING: She can block it. If it comes to a vote, we will win. Now, what Congressman Vito Fossella and I are doing, we are going to circulate what`s called a discharge petition, which means that if we can get over 218 people to sign the petition, they have to allow it to come to a vote on the House floor. But even that takes 30 days just under the House rules.

BECK: Unbelievable.

KING: So we could be another six weeks. And every day that goes by, America is at risk.

BECK: We`ve got another threat against Hezbollah we`ll talk about in about a half hour. Congressman, thank you very much. Thanks for all your hard work.

Coming up now, I have had the "F" word thrown my way more than I care to think about, and that word is not the one you`re thinking. Tonight, go ahead and say it. It`s fascist. We begin our weeklong series with author Jonah Goldberg. He explains what the word really means and why it should be applied to progressives.

And then, California`s at it again. A new Bill there seeks to mandate global warming curriculum in public schools. Can you say fascist? All the details, coming up. Back in a minute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BECK: There is a great new book out that examines the history of fascism, and you may be surprised by the facts. I can`t tell you. It`s probably the first book that I have taken and went and looked for second sources myself because I was just jaw-dropped shocked that I didn`t know these facts. I figured, they`ve got to be untrue.

Too often, the word "fascist" gets thrown at conservatives, but as it turns out, according to Jonah Goldberg, and -- oh, I don`t know -- the facts, the real face of fascism is liberal. The book is called "Liberal Fascism." Its author is Jonah Goldberg.

Jonah, first of all, the thing that really hacks me off about the book is I want to throw it across the room so many times, because you keep trying to make the point that I`m not calling liberals Nazis.

JONAH GOLDBERG, AUTHOR, "LIBERAL FASCISM": Right.

BECK: And, you know, about here, I`m like, I get it.

GOLDBERG: Right, right.

BECK: But still, I have asked liberals, would you read this book? Have you ever read this book? Just because of the cover, they say no.

GOLDBERG: Yes, yes, yes.

BECK: Why the smiley face with the Hitler mustache? What does it mean?

GOLDBERG: Well, I agree with you. Reviewers, critical viewers have said that I keep calling liberals Nazis, and I don`t do that. I must say at least 50 times I don`t. And apparently, they`re impervious to it.

Anyway, the smiley face thing, it`s explained on page 1 or maybe 2 of the book. And it`s a reference to an exchange between Bill Maher and George Carlin on Bill Maher`s television show, where George Carlin says that, "Look, if fascism ever comes to America, it`s not going to be in jackboots and uniforms. It`s going to be happy fascism, smiley fascism."

BECK: When he said this, because I read this. When he said this, did he know what he was saying? Did he know...

GOLDBERG: I don`t think, really, but he gets at a core insight which I think he`s right about...

BECK: Right.

GOLDBERG: ... which is simply this. Fascism is popular. We have trained ourselves in America, because the left is so controlled fascism, to define it as anything they don`t like. I mean, you know this from talk radio. The best definition for fascist in America is a conservative who`s winning an argument.

BECK: Right.

GOLDBERG: But the real lesson of history is that fascism is popular. That`s why it`s dangerous!

BECK: Right.

GOLDBERG: You know, if it was only evil mustache-twisting villains with, you know, British accents from World War II movies, who cares? But it turns out that, you know, the reason it appealed to people is that it`s appealing.

And that`s the -- that`s the point of the cover, is to point out that the things that we like may be fascist. It`s very easy to say we`ll never be fascist if you only point to evil things and death camps.

BECK: Everybody has -- everybody has defined -- and it`s actually a redefinition of the word fascism -- everyone has defined fascism as Adolf Hitler.

GOLDBERG: Right.

BECK: And one of the things that -- I mean, it`s just been an amazing journey, looking at fascism and the history of it. Mussolini was extraordinarily popular here in the United States.

GOLDBERG: Oh, yes, yes, yes.

BECK: And Hitler was actually a vegetarian. Wanted to take and spread the glories of vegetarianism and saying, you know, it`s good for everybody, we should eat this. It`s the same kind of things that we`re dealing with now here in America in many ways. What`s good for you is just forced upon you.

GOLDBERG: A famous Hitler youth slogan was "Nutrition`s not a private matter." You know, it was the idea that what you wanted to eat, that wasn`t up to you anymore, it was up to the government, and we`re finding that in all sorts of -- there`s a reason we talk about food fascists.

BECK: Right.

GOLDBERG: These people who want to get rid of transfats, want to determine what you eat, because the more socialized medicine we have, the more rationale they think they have to determine what you can eat, what you can put in your body.

And in terms of Mussolini`s popularity in the United States, it is almost exactly like the popularity that we`ve seen Fidel Castro enjoy on the left for the last 35, 40 years and that we now see Hugo Chavez enjoy, and they were the exact same kinds of guys. They were nationalist socialists.

Mussolini was a guy who was a nationalist socialist, and he appealed to the same segments of society that today still get, you know, these full- blown crushes on people like Hugo Chavez.

BECK: There`s two things that come to mind, and first thing is -- and maybe you can comment on this -- when people try to shut you down by calling you a fascist, doesn`t that make them more of a fascist, no matter what I`m saying?

GOLDBERG: There`s a weird catch-22. It`s this -- because the use of the word "fascist" in American political culture is essentially, it`s a way to silence people. It`s a cudgel. It`s a way to shut someone up. "Oh, he`s a fascist."

When Al Gore says his critics on the Web are digital Brownshirts when he says people who disagree with him on global warming are like Holocaust deniers. It`s his way of saying, "Oh, you don`t have to listen to these people. They`re crazy. They`re illegitimate. They`re evil. They`re bad. They`re fascists."

And so in that sense, if you want to call it fascism or not, it`s undemocratic to simply demonize anyone who dissents from the popular, conventional view that people like Gore are putting out. You know, when you call them a fascist, basically what you`re doing is you`re saying we don`t have to listen to them anymore.

BECK: And the other thing that shocks me is so many people on the left, they hate corporations.

GOLDBERG: Mm-hmm.

BECK: Hate them. And yet, they are fine with corporations, as long as they`re doing good. And it goes back to this. You`ll make all kinds of special exceptions. You won`t notice things that corporations are doing, as long as it`s happy, as long as it`s for global warming, for example.

GOLDBERG: Correct.

BECK: Where does that split come?

GOLDBERG: It`s funny. I mean, the -- the reaction from the left whenever the corporations do bad things, is they say, "OK, we need more regulation of corporations."

And then the reaction from corporations is, "OK, well, if you`re going to regulate me, I`m going to get more involved in the crafting of the regulations that affect me." And so government and corporations get in bed together.

The right wing, i.e., free market response, is to keep government and business as far away as possible. Let businesses fail in the free market when they need to, not use corporations as government by proxy for health care and that kind of thing.

BECK: The name of the book, "Liberal Fascism." Back in a second.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: Since time is so short on TV, I have asked Jonah to write a special series of reports exclusively for subscribers to my free e-mail newsletter. If you sign up right now at GlennBeck.com, you will get a column from Jonah each day this week, starting with tomorrow`s, called "The Facts Your Liberal Friends Need to Hear."

Again, that`s our e-mail newsletter subscribers only. It is free. You can sign up right now at GlennBeck.com.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BECK: Well, today it was 64 degrees, balmy here in New York City, yet for most thinking adults who are not named Al Gore, the exact cause of this fluctuation in climate remains a little unclear.

Could it be that the climate has, and always will, changed back and forth? Or is it something more sinister, maybe something we should panic about?

Lots of theories in the scientific community, but one lawmaker feels he knows best. And I bet you can`t guess what state he lives in. Yes, California. A state senator there has proposed a bill that would require climate change to be a science topic for all California public school students.

He also thinks it would be totally rad, man, that the state mandated that all future textbooks approved for California public schools included facts on global warming.

In case you`re keeping track at home, this is reason No. 639 that I just could never live in California.

Chris Horner is the author of "Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming and Environmentalism."

Chris, is it climate change they`re going for or global warming? Because if it`s climate change, then they have to include the Ice Age, where the climate changed naturally, and if it`s global warming, then they would need to include global cooling that we all freaked out about in 1975.

CHRIS HORNER, AUTHOR, "POLITICALLY INCORRECT GUIDE TO GLOBAL WARMING AND ENVIRONMENTALISM": Well, the rhetoric will soon return to climate change, because we are in the fourth year in a row of appreciable cooling and the warming peaked in 1998. And I wish I could express confidence to you that that`s what these schools in California will be teaching.

BECK: Right, right.

HORNER: But I suggest it will probably be ecofundamentalism, and we need a Scopes monkey trial to get that out of the classroom.

BECK: And you know what? They won`t even show -- they say, "Oh, well, we`ll present the other side." Really? Like intelligent design? That`s not going to happen. The other side`s not going to be there.

HORNER: Here`s how we can possibly force this, however. As you know, in the United Kingdom, that government mandated that all secondary school students be taught climate change. The alarmist perspective of Gore`s movie.

And the court there, the high court threw this out, saying not only that "all of these claims are made in context of alarmism and exaggeration in furtherance of a political agenda" -- that`s a quote -- but they said there is a at least one other view and the schools need tell the kids that. And guess what they called that view? The mainstream view. That is, the scientific view.

So maybe if they did teach climate change, that`s what the kids would learn, reality.

BECK: So here`s the one thing that really scares me in a way, is the path that we`re going down. I don`t even know if you noticed this with SUV commercials. A lot of times, the kids will say -- in the commercials say, "Dad, I don`t want to be dropped off in front of school in this bad SUV."

And the father will say, "But wait a minute. This is a hybrid. This is OK."

I mean, this is indoctrination of our children. It really reeks of what the Nazis did with turn in your parents, kids. Tell us about how bad your parents are.

HORNER: I`ll tell you what. There`s a poll taken in Great Britain recently that shows that half of all children are losing sleep because they`ve been indoctrinated with fear of global warming, and 15 percent of them are blaming their parents already.

So these absurd commercials you pointed out that say don`t drop me off there in an SUV because we`re going to that part of town where people ride bikes, don`t take your kids to that part of town, is my guess.

But you`re talking about children blaming their parents for putting them in a comfortable, safer vehicle. The environmentalists actually say the Model T was more fuel efficient. You couldn`t put that on the road today, and if it got in a wreck, your children would die.

We are making trade-offs, but changing climate isn`t part of the equation.

BECK: But I`m so afraid that, again, this is an extension of the government just trying to wrap their arms around the kids and saying, "No, really, we know better than your parents."

HORNER: It`s the latest excuse. Here`s the one thing, Glenn. Nobody claims that even the Kyoto Protocol would have a detectable impact on the climate, right. But they do know it would impose a long-held policy agenda. So we know that that`s what it`s about. It`s not about the climate; it`s about a policy agenda.

BECK: You got it. Thanks, Chris. Appreciate it.

Coming up, plagued by reckless spending and exploding deficit, how can the U.S. make it out in one piece, especially with global warming? David Walker, soon to be former head of Government Accountability Office, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BECK: Lebanese militia group Hezbollah has promised to seek revenge for the death of one of their top commanders, pointing the finger primarily to Israel, but is there reason for us to be concerned in the U.S.? The government says yes. We`ll find out in just a bit.

But first, welcome to our "Real Story."

The economy seems to be unbelievably complex, if you listen to the experts. I like to think about it, you know, like I think about my own finances. I`ve get an income, I make money. You`ve got an income, you`ve got expenses.

At the end of the year, you`ve either saved money or you`ve piled up, you know, debt on credit cards and home equity lines, right? Every year that you don`t pay that money back, the interest payments get higher and higher, forcing you to either cut your spending or borrow even more money, which is basically robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Eventually, when there`s no more money left for you to borrow and banks say, OK, you`re not really a good risk, you have to declare bankruptcy. Well, that is exactly the position our country is now entering in.

Despite all of the lip service about cutting back, the U.S. Treasury Department announced just last week that the 2008 deficit, now in the hands of Democrats, has doubled. Doubled the same time, same period last year.

The reason for it is simple. While our revenue is up 3.2 percent, our spending is up 8.3 percent. If we were a business, we`d be bankrupt by now.

Issues like the credit crisis, the housing market collapse, the rising oil prices, they get all of the blame, but the real story is, our core problem, the one nobody wants to talk about, is simple -- spending and debt. Americans have spent far too much money, banks have lent too much money.

Everybody is greedy. The government has printed too much money. And now both in our homes and in Washington, we`re starting to see the consequences.

Yet, instead of letting this forest burn, instead of letting it all play out, instead of letting the markets correct themselves so everybody learns a lesson to not be greedy, our government is once again riding in on a white horse to save the day. They`re slashing interest rates, they`re pumping out billions in rebate checks, they`re freezing mortgage rates.

Some politicians even want our government now to guarantee these bad loans made either to stupid people or made by greedy, private lenders. And somehow or another, we`re all supposed to learn a lesson from that. I know what lesson we should be learning -- stop buying things we can`t afford.

How and when will this ever get through the pinheads in Washington? How is that ever going to be learned if no one is ever allowed to fail?

A few weeks ago I introduced you to a guy who I think may be the last honest guy in Washington. He`s the comptroller general of the United States. He heads the Government Accountability Office -- which there is none in Washington -- which makes him our nation`s chief bean counter.

He`s a presidential appointee. He answers to no one except you.

Last Friday our comptroller, General David Walker, announced that he will resign next month. He joins me now to talk about some of the things he wants Americans to know about the future of their country before he leaves.

And David, I can`t wait to talk to you when you`re out of office. I want to invite you at the front to come back at that time.

I`ve been trying to figure out one thing, and maybe you can help me with this. How is it we are going to be in better shape if the government comes in -- Schumer and Chris Dodd are already talking about resurrecting, you know, programs that were part of the new deal era, to take on all of these bad loans from the banks -- how does this put us in a better position?

DAVID WALKER, U.S. COMPTROLLER GENERAL: It doesn`t necessarily put us in a better position. I mean, we`ve become addicted to debt in good times and bad.

We ran a $163 billion deficit last year. We`re going to run a $410 billion deficit this year. And that`s before baby boomers retire in big numbers. We`re out of control.

BECK: But David, these are -- I mean, we`re talking about -- I mean, we`re talking about billions and billions and billions of dollars of loans. We`re talking about allowing the government to basically become a bank. Basically, what happened this weekend over in London, where they just nationalized a bank. We`re on the verge of doing that stuff, are we not?

WALKER: Well, we have to get serious and recognize that while nobody wants a recession, recessions happen. That`s part of the business cycle. But the real problem that we have is spending is out of control. We are going to see record deficits and debt levels if we don`t end up starting to reform our retirement programs and our tax system, and the first thing we have to do is learn the rule of hole -- stop digging and reimpose some tough budget controls.

BECK: OK. Tell me, because you`re smarter than most people, David, on this kind of stuff -- I think it was the World Bank came out and said foreign governments need to start digging a hole themselves. They need to start debt spending. Some guy from AIG over in London last week said the United States government, in order to avoid a depression, needs to start buying assets and start buying stocks and save the stock market, et cetera, et cetera.

I look at this stuff, and again, I put it in the view of my own home, and I say, I couldn`t run it like this. This would make me bankrupt.

Are these people stupid? Is it intentional? Are they intentionally trying to drive this down, or are they somehow or another so naive to think that debt spending actually, somehow or another turns a profit eventually?

WALKER: Well, people are just, frankly, very short-term focused. You know, the United States government and too many American families, spending more money than it makes, charging the national credit card, building up debt, and expecting our kids and grandkids to pay it off. I mean, you can do that for a short period of time. You can`t do it forever.

BECK: OK. Now, here`s what -- here`s what really concerns me, and I want to show a couple of graphics here.

The big things are not what we`re spending -- you know, everybody talks about earmarks. That`s pennies in comparison to what we`re facing. Let me show you the first one -- $53 trillion to cover programs like Social Security and Medicare. That is $455,000 needed per every single household to pay that debt off. But let me -- David, I want to take these one by one, and you kind of explain what we`re facing here.

You say by 2027 -- you`ve done the math -- Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and net interest consume all revenues. The deficit hits 10 percent of GDP. Debt held by the public exceeds 100 percent of GDP.

What does that mean, 2027? What does that mean?

WALKER: Well, what that means is, is that all of the things that the founding fathers intended for the federal government to do are going to be crowded out by entitlement programs unless we end up reforming those programs, unless we end up re-examining the base of spending, and also look at our tax system. I mean, we`re just on an imprudent unsustainable path, and the problem, Glenn, is not just the deficits and debt, it`s that we have a savings deficit.

We`re having to borrow all this money from foreigners. So foreign players hold more of our national mortgage. That`s a high-risk strategy.

BECK: OK. Let me go to this, because this -- you know, I saw the secretary of Treasury up testifying, I saw the Fed chair testify on this stimulus package. I didn`t see you testify.

Did anybody ask you to testify on this and see if this stimulus package was a good idea, that it will do anything? Do you believe in this stimulus package?

WALKER: Well, I`ve been asked about it. I wasn`t asked to testify.

I was, however, the sole witness before the Senate Budget Committee on I think it was January 29th, to talk about our real problem, and our real problem`s not short-term economic uncertainty and weakness. Our real problem are these structural deficits and the debt levels that will come with them.

BECK: Right. But doesn`t this -- because like you just said, we don`t have this money, you know to -- you say, oh, we`re just going to give you a refund. We don`t have this money to give a refund. We`re spending in debt.

So don`t we have to go to places like China, borrow that money, pay interest on that money? It just -- it`s another log on the top of the fire, long term, is it not, David?

WALKER: Well, there`s no question that it will increase the deficit. And about 75 percent of our new debt within the last several years has been purchased by foreign players. And we`re lucky they`re willing to do it in the short term, but over the long term, they may not be willing to do it.

And if they change their mind, then interest rates will go up. And if interest rates go up, then you start seeing a ripple effect, not just on the budget, but on the economy and on American families.

BECK: How likely is that to happen, any time soon?

WALKER: Over time I think it will happen if we don`t mend our ways. I really believe, Glenn, we`ve got five to 10 years to get our act together and show our foreign lenders that we`re going to get serious. And that`s one of the reasons I`m going to the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, to try to get more active and more specific to help save America`s future.

BECK: Show me the slide of 2053, please. You say -- by 2053, you say the model blows up.

WALKER: Well, the model that we`ve used at GAO since 1992 to do long- range simulations, you know, we had fiscal sustainability for 40-plus years in 2001. Now that same model, based upon reasonable assumptions, crashes in 2053.

Now, we`re not going to allow that to happen, Glenn. You and I both know that. This country will never allow itself to go bankrupt. But we`ve got to start getting serious. We`ve got a large and growing problem that elected officials are not taking seriously enough, and that`s got to change.

BECK: David, here`s the thing -- and I know you can`t speak out politically, so I`m not going to ask you. Answer this, you know, any way you can.

We`ve got a guy, John McCain, who says no new taxes, and he wants to cut earmarks. But earmarks is a drop in the bucket. Earmarks is not the answer.

Then you`ve got Obama and Hillary, the other two remaining candidates. They`re proposing to spend an additional -- I think Obama`s was $197 billion every single year. There is -- there are new deal programs that are right around the corner.

What does that mean for us?

WALKER: Well, people have to learn how math works. I mean, you know, the numbers don`t come close to working.

In the case of John McCain, he says no new taxes. Well, one has to keep in mind that even if you don`t change the tax laws, the amount of revenues that we`re going to have are going to go up over time because we haven`t fixed the Alternative Minimum Tax, because with any inflation, any economic growth, over time you`ll generate more revenue. So what does he mean by that?

But I`ll tell you this -- you can`t be promising a bunch of new entitlement programs and a bunch of new spending and not pay for it. We`re in a $53 trillion hole that goes up $2 trillion to $3 trillion a year by doing nothing.

BECK: All right. David, we want to have you back when you`re not part of the government again, and have a real frank conversation.

I can`t tell you how much I appreciate -- you are -- you are a true public servant, sir, being honest when times are tough.

Thank you so much for being on the program.

That`s the "Real Story" tonight. If you`d like to receive a link to the video of this segment so you can wake your friends and family up to what we`re really facing, sign up right now for my free email newsletter at glennbeck.com. It is completely free. We will put this video link in tomorrow`s edition.

Now, coming up, tragedy last week at a college campus that was in a gun-free zone. I say arm the students and the teachers if you want to stop this from happening. I`ll explain in just a minute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BECK: All right. I don`t know -- most people just don`t watch, you know, the stories about the terror groups in the Middle East. But last week -- or was it a couple of weeks ago -- there was an assassination of a high-ranking Hezbollah member. It went unnoticed by most Americans, but the government was paying attention. They say it was a very, very, very big deal.

We`re now fearing a retaliatory attack here in America. The FBI, Department of Homeland Security, sent out an alert bulletin last Friday to 18,000 state and local officials that came on top of a previous confidential FBI bulletin issued a few days earlier which warned of the possibility of "domestic consequences" as a result of the killing. It urged field officers to increase surveillance of suspected Hezbollah members living here in the United States.

Shouldn`t we have already been doing that?

While Hezbollah has plenty of funding and weapons, thanks to Iran, are they well organized enough to pull off an attack here so quickly? Are they really willing to put themselves in our crosshairs over an incident like this? My guess is, yes, they are, but they won`t.

Michael Scheuer is a veteran CIA counterterrorism analyst and a author of a new book called "Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam After Iraq."

Michael, welcome to the program.

MICHAEL SCHEUER, AUTHOR, "MARCHING TOWARD HELL": Thank you, sir.

BECK: First of all, real quick, attack the United States over this, yes or no?

SCHEUER: No.

BECK: OK. Attack Israel over this, yes or no?

SCHEUER: Almost certainly, sir.

BECK: Kill Americans while doing it?

SCHEUER: Certainly possible.

BECK: Yes, OK.

SCHEUER: Yes.

BECK: I saw this quote that came out from the leader of Iran`s Revolutionary Guard in a letter to Hassan Nasrallah. He said, "We will soon witness the destruction of the cancerous scum of Israel at the strong, capable hands of Hezbollah."

Is this more rhetoric or -- I mean, every time -- it`s always, let`s get the scum and drive it into the sea, let`s -- they will soon be vaporized. Is this just more rhetoric or do they mean it?

SCHEUER: Well, they probably mean it. But they talk a lot about Israel and the Americans like we talk about them, so it`s kind of 50/50. The Iranians and Hezbollah are...

BECK: But wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

We actually mean -- I hope we do -- we actually mean it. Well, no, you`re the guy who sat there in the cave. We don`t, do we? I just realized, that`s the point of your whole book. We don`t actually mean it.

SCHEUER: Glenn, in 25 years since those Marines were killed in Beirut, the governing class of the United States managed to do absolutely zero against Mugniyah, and the Israelis finally killed him. And now we`ll have some blowback from that, but the paralytic cowards that run our government in 25 years did nothing to avenge those Marines.

BECK: You know, I have to tell you something, Michael, you and I disagree on quite a few things, but I think we would agree on this one, that the action that was originally taken by Ronald Reagan and then followed by every single president of retreat, retreat, retreat, retreat, fall back, fall back, fall back, and don`t punch them in the face when they do that, knock them out, has really caused where we are now. We`ve taught them, we`ve trained them -- hit us as hard as you want, we won`t do anything.

SCHEUER: It has made our military a laughing stock, sir. The greatest military on earth, the best trained young men and women, are now held in contempt by the enemy, and it`s all because of -- no difference between President Bush, President Clinton, or the first President Bush.

BECK: Our politicians, you say, are mistaken to tell us that this is about religion. You know, that this is -- this is about our policy.

I believe, Mike, that that is too simple-minded to say this. For a lot of the people who are blowing themselves up, this is about religion. The leaders, it`s all about policy. They have taken religion and used it for politics.

SCHEUER: Well, Glenn, I entirely agree with that. The reason our policy is at question here is because the Islamic world regards it as an attack on their faith and on their brethren. I think that there is no candidate in the field in the United States, for example, that will tell Americans that. They keep telling us crazy things like we`re being bombed because we have women in the workplace or because I might have a beer after work on Tuesdays.

BECK: Everybody is saying that John McCain is -- you know, at least he`s strong on defense. Conservatives are trying to convince me, oh, well, at least he`s strong on defense.

I don`t think so. I don`t think he takes this stuff that seriously. I mean, he`s strong on other things, unbelievably, like Gitmo and everything else, in another direction. I want Jack Bauer alive, he doesn`t.

Is he good? Would he be a guy that you`d be like, yes, he`ll take it seriously?

SCHEUER: I don`t think so, sir. He`s stuck in the Cold War, too. He still thinks Iran is a threat to the United States directly. He`s more afraid of Russia and China.

They don`t want to go after the guy who can actually detonate a weapon of mass destruction inside the United States. What McCain will do, I think, is involve us in a lot of places around the world that will require the resumption of the draft of conscription in America.

BECK: OK. Michael, thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Coming up, the horrific tragedy at Northern Illinois University, a gun-free zone. What is it going to take to put the guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens who might be able to prevent tragedies like this?

I`ll examine that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BECK: Well, just a few days after that horrific tragedy in Illinois, where a shooter pointlessly murdered five people and then killed himself for his own selfish reasons, CNN spoke exclusively to his girlfriend, who, say it with me, was shocked that her boyfriend could ever do anything like this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The person that I knew was not the one that walked into Cole Hall and did that. I mean, that wasn`t -- that wasn`t the Steve I knew. He was anything but a monster. He was probably the nicest, most caring person ever.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: OK. Needless to say, her impression of him as "the most caring person ever" really didn`t pan out. What did pan out, of course, was his estimation that he would have absolutely no resistance when he arrived on campus. That`s because this psycho did his killing in a gun-free zone.

Wait a minute. How did he shoot a bunch of people in a gun-free zone? Didn`t he see the signs? Oh, yes, that`s right, murderers don`t tend to pay much attention to the anti-gun catch phrases posted around campus.

Once again, we`ve seen a gun-free zone transform into a life-free zone. You know, when criminals are looking to rob a house, they usually skip the houses that have the security system. I mean, why bother the risk of setting off an alarm and getting caught?

A gun-free zone is just like that, putting up a giant sign in front of your house that says, no security system here. In fact, the front door is unlocked and there`s a hand truck down in the basement in case you need, you know, something to help you with the heavy appliances.

But beyond paying attention to the Second Amendment, was there any warning sign that could have helped us stop this?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice over): She says he had a troubled childhood and spent time in a group home as a teenager, battling depression.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He did cut himself, and, you know, he showed me the scars on his arms. And he was on medication, and he did stop taking it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He also sent her "The Antichrist" by Nietzsche.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: Nietzsche. Let me see if I can follow the logic of the anti- gun crowd here for a second.

Hitler and Stalin loved Nietzsche. Loved him. It seems like a favorite of a mass murderer.

Maybe what we should do is make colleges Nietzsche-free zones. Require a three-day waiting person for otherwise law-abiding citizens to buy anything by Nietzsche.

What do you say, sound reasonable? Of course not. It`s not reasonable with guns, either.

By the way, tomorrow we`ll be sending you the first of a week-long special from Jonah Goldberg. It is the biggest facts your liberal friends need to hear. Don`t miss it. You can sign up. It is absolutely free from glennbeck.com.

Now, from New York, goodnight, America.

END