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Glenn Beck

Salman Rushdie Weighs in on Muslims in Europe; How Survivable are Nuclear Bombs?

Aired October 12, 2006 - 19:00   ET

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

GLENN BECK, HOST: Coming up, Muslim extremists are taking over Europe. And are we next? Salman Rushdie weighs in on that.
Plus, can you survive a nuclear attack? Coming up.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: Tonight`s episode is sponsored by Glenn`s Hijab and Burqa Fashion Emporium. Don`t be caught dead without the latest hijabs and burqas from Glenn`s fall collection. So come on down to Glenn`s Hijab and Burqa Fashion Emporium, where black is the new black.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: Well, tonight we start here. Former British foreign secretary, Jack Straw, caused an uproar in the Muslim community just last week when he urged Muslim women to abandon their traditional veils, or hijabs, because it hampered community relations.

Straw said, and I quote, "I felt uncomfortable about talking to someone face-to-face whom I could not see. I explain that this is a country built on freedoms. I defend absolutely the right of any woman to wear a headscarf. As for the full veil, wearing it breaks no laws," end quote.

Author Salman Rushdie defended Straw`s comments by saying, that "he was expressing an important opinion, which is that veils suck," end quote.

This has created the latest in a long string of Muslim firestorms in Europe. One Muslim cleric said that Rushdie will "continue living his life in hiding. Any fatwa will stand until it is fulfilled. He is always going to be worried about a Muslim reaching him."

Let me ask you a question honestly: do these people do anything but threaten peoples` lives and cut their heads off?

Here`s the point tonight: it is time to cut through the B.S. and start telling the truth. Radical Muslims live in our midst, and they want to kill you. Because of political correctness, Europe lives in fear. And make no mistake, it will happen in America if we don`t stop it now. Here`s how we got there.

There`s a new book out that I have been reading. It`s "While Europe Slept". The author is Bruce Bauer. He outlines a number of disturbing things that have happened in Europe that have either intentionally gone unreported or were just swept under the rug.

He tells a story that you might have heard a little bit about, Theo Van Gogh. He was a Dutch filmmaker. A few years ago, he released a film about radical Islam. At the same time, he also said that America is Europe`s greatest hope.

In 2004, Theo Van Gogh was riding his bike in the street. He was on his way to work when he was shot 20 times, then stabbed repeatedly. Then a guy took him and slit his throat and drained his blood. He had a five-page manifesto knifed into his chest, which read, and I quote, "I know definitely you, oh America, will go down. I know definitely that you, oh Europe, will go down."

One of the reasons why this horrific crime got lost in the shuffle? Theo Van Gogh was killed on November 2, 2004. That was the day we were electing George Bush to a second term.

The other reason, and nobody in Europe wants to deal with it. About a week later, mourners made a shrine to Van Gogh in Amsterdam, people who were leaving candles and flowers. You`ve seen this scene a hundred times. But somebody painted a mural up on the wall that simply read, "Thou shalt not kill."

Well, some members of the Muslim community deemed that mural to be a hate crime, and the Dutch government -- it`s just riddled with paranoia, painted over "Thou shalt not kill."

The government painted over the Sixth Commandment because they felt that Muslims were right, and this was just stirring the pot. Bull stinking crap. When it becomes too offensive on planet Earth to say "thou shalt not kill," then let me tell you, the killing is about to begin.

That`s one of the many stories from the book that illustrate just how much Europe is cowing to the Muslim extremists. One of the reasons that they`re wielding more influence is the population. The Muslim birth rate in Europe is three times higher than that of non-Muslim Europeans, which is declining.

That, coupled with the fact that about one million new Islamic immigrants arrive in Western Europe every single year, means that by 2050, one in five Europeans will likely be Muslim. Already, Mohammed is one of the most popular new baby names in the U.K.

Last week, former secretary of state, James Baker, was here on the set. In fact he sat over here in the studio with me. And after we were done with this interview, I asked him, "Secretary Baker, we`ve run out of time, but I have to ask you before you leave, how much trouble is in Europe in with Muslims?"

He sat back in that chair and his eyes got wide, and he said, "Oh, Glenn, they`re in real trouble."

Europe is making the same mistakes that they made in the 1930s, and they are going to depend on us to bail them out again. But we`re falling into exactly the same trap because we refuse to look at the enemy and name names. Unless we act now, there will be no one left to save Europe. There will be no one left to save us.

Here`s what I know tonight. Once we go down the road that Europe has, there is no turning back. If we succumb to political correctness, and the spinelessness of some of our leaders, then Muslim extremists will have all of the power.

Here`s what I don`t know. How brave do you have to be in order to turn your back on these nut jobs when they start to threaten you? How do you actually survive?

Joining me now is the guy who taught me the word "fatwa" back in 1989, when he became a marked man by radical Islam after his book "The Satanic Verses" came out. His latest book is called "Shalimar the Clown".

Salman Rushdie, did I miss anything here, sir, about Europe?

SALMAN RUSHDIE, AUTHOR, "SHALIMAR THE CLOWN": No, I think we -- I think I more or less agree with that. I think there is a certain interest in appeasement, which I worry about a great deal.

A couple of weeks ago in London, there was a Muslim policeman on the British police force who refused to guard the Israeli embassy, for reasons of his own. I`ve never heard of a case in which a policeman was allowed to decide who he guarded and didn`t guard. And in this case he was allowed to not guard the Israeli embassy, because of his objections. And I thought that was really quite extraordinary.

BECK: Is Europe afraid or just stupid or both?

RUSHDIE: I think a little bit of each, to tell you the truth. And I think there`s a problem, I think with European liberal opinion. And speaking as somebody who`s considered himself a liberal all his life, there is a great, I think, mistake he made, which is not unlike the mistake made in the past by fellow travelers of communism, that you have a fascist ideology claiming to represent the downtrodden masses, in this case radical Islam. And the left has fallen for it. And I think it`s a really bad mistake.

BECK: What do you see -- you have been talking about this for a very long time. What do you see as our future? What -- if we don`t wake up and turn a corner, what happens to Europe?

RUSHDIE: But I think you`ve got to start holding the line. Because if you give up and censor yourself and allow freedom to be rolled back, it`s going to become a very different kind of world and not, certainly, the kind of world that attracted people like me to come and live in countries like England and the United States.

Because the pressure on fundamental freedoms, on free expression, is growing all the time. And it has become, as some people are beginning to say in Europe, the key issue of all time. And it needs to be very strongly resisted, because we need to remember we`ve got stuff to stand up for, too.

BECK: I don`t know what -- I don`t even know if you can answer this fully, because your life has got to be so weird. Why do you do this? Here you have -- you`re a guy who has spoken out since 1989. Why do you continue to square your shoulders and do it? Or how do you do that?

RUSHDIE: I think there`s a time for plain speaking, and there`s very few people doing it. And you know, this is a world that I come from. It`s a world that I know, and, therefore, I feel that I need to write about it.

And in this book, for example, one of the things I tried to do in "Shalimar the Clown" is show, if you like, the making of a terrorist. What is it that persuades somebody who grows up as a perfectly decent young man to go down that road?

BECK: So let`s go there. Let`s go there. What is it? You know, I just read a stat today that most of the extremists are from Europe. They`re not from Saudi Arabia. They`re -- in fact, we had -- what was his name -- the CIA agent. I can`t remember his name. Bob Baer, who said to me that he`s most afraid by the extremists in Europe than he is by the people in the Middle East.

RUSHDIE: Well, a lot of extremism has historically started in Europe. You know, Lenin, of all people, once described terrorism as bourgeois adventurism. And I think that there`s something to be said for that. If you look at many terrorists, they are middle class people.

But I think there`s a number of things which combine to make a terrorist. One of them has to do with a curious idea of manhood as being somehow expressed in this way. I think you have large numbers of essentially young, Islamic men facing dead-end futures, not feeling they have any chance, really, of making any impact in the time in which they lived of making a difference.

And the curious thing is that the death cult, the suicide bomber, the violent -- the manner of violence, feels like a way where you can be a person of consequence. You can be a kind of, in a terrible way, a star. And I think that -- the role of glamour in attracting people to the death cult of Islamic radicalism is not -- is not to be underestimated.

BECK: Salman Rushdie, best of luck to you, sir. Stay well. Thank you.

Coming up, an al Qaeda leader encourages his followers to get nukes and to use them. How prepared are you? We`ve got some tips that may just keep you alive.

And why Madonna`s trip to Africa could have Guy Ritchie sleeping on the couch.

Plus, putting the pressure on North Korea. Will China help take out the threat that is the crazy Kim Jong-Il?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: You were one of the pilots yesterday that -- you were scrambled over New York City?

CALLER: That is correct. The alarm went off. We were airborne. Very shortly thereafter. And the first thing I heard, which made my heart sink, was that the plane had hit a large building in Manhattan. All those -- all those emotions came rushing back. On top of what will I have a couple miles in front of me here?

BECK: It is a very nice sense of security. You feel, as somebody who`s walking down in the streets, oh, I can be vaporized any time, you see our fighters flying over, and you just feel better. You just feel better.

CALLER: Well, we`re glad -- we`re glad to provide that security. Like you said, we live in a much different world now. So can`t play around. You just got to be -- got to be on your guard.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: A man believed to be an al Qaeda member who escaped from a maximum security prison in Afghanistan was shown in a video broadcast recently, urging his followers to attack the White House.

In the video, escaped prisoner Abu Yahya al-Libbi says, "Allah will not be pleased until we reach the roof of the White House" and "you have to learn how to use technology until you are capable of nuclear weapons."

Well, that`s great news, isn`t it?

Whether you believe it or not, it doesn`t really matter. These people want to get their hands on a nuke and use it against us. If that happens, God forbid, how vulnerable are we?

Shane Connor, he`s the president of KI4U, a group that seeks to educate the public on nuclear survivability.

Shane, if a nuclear bomb goes off, how -- how many of us survive? Let`s say one goes off in Washington, D.C.

SHANE CONNOR, CIVIL DEFENSE EXPERT: Glenn, I`m glad to be here.

There was a test done by the federal government a few years ago, or a study rather, looking at a 10 kiloton weapon, terrorist nuke going off in Washington D.C. This is about two-thirds the size of the Hiroshima bomb.

And what they found in that study is 99 percent of the residents there in the Washington, D.C., area would actually survive. In other words, they would not only witness but survive the nuclear explosion.

Now, we would -- we would end up losing 15,000 people from the blast, the initial blast. Another 15,000 would be injured and wounded. But overwhelmingly, 99 percent of the people would survive, as horrific as those numbers are.

The biggest surprise to the American people, when nukes do go off here in this country, is that they will still be here.

BECK: You say that with such certainty, "When nukes do go off here in America." What makes you believe that that is a certainty?

CONNOR: Well, I wish it were -- I wish it weren`t so. I have kids, too. And -- but we can listen to our government leaders. They`re all telling us at the top level, that it`s no long a matter of if, but when.

Unfortunately, I`m convinced that we`re going to see nukes in our future here in the U.S. within our lifetime and perhaps not too far down the road.

BECK: You were with FEMA. This was your job with FEMA, wasn`t it?

CONNOR: I`ve had some training with FEMA.

BECK: OK.

CONNOR: I`ve taken some training with FEMA.

BECK: OK, OK. We never seem to be prepared. I mean, we knew -- we knew about the levees. I mean, I was on the air, radio, a year before saying, the levees are not prepared for this. And yet we`re building the same exact walls that we -- the levees, that we had before. We`re not ready for the next hurricane.

We weren`t ready for 9/11, yet we knew that it was coming. Our fallout shelters, I remember seeing the orange and yellow -- or the yellow and blue signs that said "fallout shelter." Those are not even around any more. The Geiger counters were taken out of our fallout shelters by Bill Clinton, were they not?

CONNOR: That`s true. The first Bush administration after Reagan started defunding the radiological arm of FEMA. The Clinton administration totally shut it down. We had over six million Geiger counter survey meters distributed throughout communities coast to coast.

We had laboratories. We had people trained up in the use of them. And we don`t today. All of that has been removed. The fallout shelters, the sirens, the evacuation plans, all of that has fallen aside.

What we need to understand is that most people today -- and this also follows through to our government leaders -- they are under these myths of nuclear unsurvivability.

In other words, if you took a poll, most people feel that if nukes went off, everybody would die, or if you didn`t, it would be so bad, you`d wish you had. And that is patently false.

The biggest surprise people are going to have is that they will still be here. The majority of people will survive. But without the proper training, and even just modest preparations, they won`t survive the next two weeks.

BECK: You know, Shane, I`m out of time. But give me the web site where people can go and find that information.

CONNOR: Www.KI4U.com. The letter "K", the letter "I", the number four, the letter "U" dot com.

BECK: I would like to put you back in a time tunnel here and show you just a little clip of what we used to learn as kids with duck and cover. Can we roll that as we go out?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Duck and cover. That`s the first thing to do. Duck and cover. First you duck. Then you cover you.

(singing) And you and you and you and you duck and cover.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: I have to tell you, there is more to that. If you`re like me and you suffer from the fear of being vaporized, hang on, there is some hope out there.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: Is the threat of impending nuclear annihilation giving you a headache? Well, now your worries are over. New from Exploitico Industries is Head Off, the new headache remedy guaranteed to instantly relieve headache pain.

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What does this man have in common with Dr. Strangelove? Nope. It`s not doomsday. The answers is on this week`s podcast: "Ask Glenn". Download it for free on iTunes or at CNN.com/Glenn.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BECK: Every day you can hear my radio program on stations all across the country, including 1210 WPHD in Philadelphia. And if you can`t find an affiliate in your area, sign up and listen online at my web site, GlennBeck.com.

We go now to Chicago and find out what the buzz is from Roe Conn, WLS 890 AM.

Roe, it snowed in Chicago today.

ROE CONN, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: It did show. It was snowing -- can I use this term, Glenn, like hell. It was coming down in sheets.

BECK: I didn`t think it snowed in hell.

CONN: Sometimes it does, I think.

BECK: You would know. I`m not up on any my snow forecast in hell. You know what? I have to tell you, I live in Chicago where it snows in October. We could have nuclear snow at any time. I think I`d take the nuclear snow. I roll the dice with the nuclear snow as opposed to the actual snow.

CONN: You know, Glenn, where is my global warming? I paid for my global warming, and I am not getting it and I`m upset about that.

BECK: I`m doing my part. Now let`s change gears and go to Madonna in -- what country was she in exactly?

CONN: Malawi.

BECK: I love that. I hear it`s beautiful this time of year.

CONN: Malawi. I don`t even know where it is. But I did look it up so that we could talk about it today.

I do not know when it started that celebrities could go to the continent of Africa and rent a nation. Remember Angelina Jolie, she went to Namibia...

BECK: Yes.

CONN: She rented the police. She went to the army and she rented the president so that the paparazzi wouldn`t bother her while she was having a baby.

Well, now Madonna goes to Malawi. Now listen to this, Glenn. I find this very hard to believe in the 21 Century. She goes to Malawi. The Malawians line up 12 children in front of her, and she gets to pick one of them and take him home.

BECK: Hang on just a second. You`re not saying that this has any kind of semblance to slavery, are you?

CONN: I`m saying we stopped this over 150 years ago.

BECK: It`s so disturbing. First of all, it`s illegal to adopt a child from this country. She bought that off. And it`s not even an AIDS orphan.

This child has a father and a family and couldn`t -- once the mom died, he couldn`t afford to keep the child. Madonna, how about writing a freaking check instead of taking the kid out of the country?

CONN: Well, you think for a second she knew? They just lined them up in front of her, and she`s like, "Oh, that one`s cute. I`ll take that one home." I mean, how does she know what the back story is?

And on top of that, she told the father that she`ll bring the kid back to Malawi for visits. And she`ll send post cards.

BECK: Sure. I stop by Malawi all the time. It`s on my way home, you know?

CONN: Yes.

BECK: I just -- holy cow.

CONN: Unbelievable.

BECK: You know what -- you know what`s really frightening? Is I read a story in "The Post" today -- and I don`t know how accurate this is.

CONN: Completely.

BECK: Yes. Inside source close to Guy Ritchie says that Guy and Madonna have been fighting about this. He`s not convinced that it`s good. And Guy Ritchie`s family is claiming that she looks at the child as some sort of sick celebrity status symbol now. That you know, everybody is going to get a little black baby from Africa. I need one, too. It`s sick.

CONN: It`s absolutely awful. And I think that Guy Ritchie is one of those guys who probably has just woken up from a long national nightmare of thinking, "I just married Madonna. Isn`t that cool?" And now it`s like, "Oh, my God, I married Madonna."

BECK: Roe from Chicago, WLS, thank you, sir.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BECK: All right. Welcome to "The Real Story."

By now I`m sure that you`ve heard the Senate recently approved a security bill authorizing, among other things, a 700-mile-long fence along the U.S.-Mexican border. Yay, they`re finally listening to us! But the real story is, it is almost guaranteed that those 700 miles of fence, never going to be built.

And I say that because most people, unfortunately, don`t have any idea how our government really operates. There is a huge difference between the headline-grabbing, election-year sound bites that politicians love and what actually happens once those headlines are gone.

In the case of the fence, politicians were adjourning the day after the vote and they wanted to be able to trumpet the fact when they got home that they just, you know, approved $1.2 billion for a fence on the campaign trail. But the reality is they created many loopholes with the bill that the Department of Homeland Security, which is the agency that actually will decide how to use the funds, that they can do almost anything they want with the money.

A lot of people believe that only a very small amount of fence will actually ever be built and the rest of the money is going to go for things like cameras and sensors and create that "virtual fence." But that`s the whole point: Politicians don`t bother with the details. They just want the headlines.

And since I`m already blasting politicians on this kind of stuff, what is happening with earmark spending, Congress? It is absolutely out of control. Now, if you don`t know what earmark spending is, it`s a tactic where a member of Congress makes a special request to fund a project. Last year, there were 15,000 of them; that is an increase of 1,000 percent. That`s in the last 10 years.

Let me ask fellow conservatives: You don`t think the Republicans have sold their soul to the devil, do you? No. Apparently, our politicians have figured out that, by using earmarks, you could just tack your request onto huge spending bills that are almost always written in secret and hardly ever debated.

In fact, until last month, members didn`t even have to sign their name to their own earmarks. They were basically anonymous. But the best part is, if you`re a politician, that the bill almost always passes because everyone`s got their own earmarks in it.

It`s a win-win, unless you`re us: $47 billion of our money was spent in secret last year alone. That`s not how this country is supposed to do business. We were built by great men having open and honest debates, not by a bunch of politicians holding secret, backroom deals and where they only care about an election year sound bite.

Next, in the least surprising headline of the day, China has said they oppose any military action with North Korea and that they shouldn`t be punished. "Oh, I mean, it`s only a little nuclear bomb, right? Who gets hurt by that?"

The real story tonight is that China, along with their little friends in Russia, are proving that they have absolutely no idea how to play the game of world politics right now. They really think that they can be everyone`s friend and promote peace and harmony, that they can play footsie with us while being North Korea`s largest trading partner and signing multi-billion dollar oil deals with Venezuela and Iran, like we`re not going to notice.

Well, they`re wrong. We do notice. And we see them -- or at least I do -- for who they are: our enemies.

If you want to understand how frustrating this situation is for us and the administration, think of it this way. Let`s say you catch a neighborhood kid throwing eggs at your house. You call the kid`s parents, and say, "Hey, listen to the story. I mean, he`s throwing eggs at our house. You ask them to discipline him." But they not only refuse, they tell you not to discipline him either, because, you know, he`s already a pretty bad kid and we don`t want to make things worse.

Well, China and Russia are those parents, and they just don`t understand that standing there silently while your house is being egged will make that kid grow up to be an even more dangerous adult. The real story with China and Russia, as I see it, is these guys don`t believe that a strong United States, other than a strong, economically speaking, United States, is really good for them or the world.

They think that they`re going to be able to sit back while we`re cornered or caged by extremists and fascists and then worry about nuclear North Korea and millions of radical Muslims in the Middle East armed with nukes later. But what they don`t realize is, if these people are strong enough to defeat us, or cage us, they will be next.

This is not something that can be contained at will. When you cut through all of the crap about diplomacy and the U.N. resolutions, the key question here is whether or not the U.S. and the U.K. can convince Russia and China that inaction is not action. Maybe, just maybe, if we can`t convince them, it`s time to stop with all of these 1940s treaties and organizations and find partners who have a spine, partners who see the future like we see it, partners who will be willing to stand up and stop that bully from throwing eggs.

Gordon Chang is the author of "Nuclear Showdown: North Korea Takes on the World."

Gordon, China doesn`t get it. Or do they?

GORDON CHANG, AUTHOR, "THE COMING COLLAPSE OF CHINA": Well, I think that they sort of get it. In Beijing right now, there`s paralysis. There are some people who have a constructive view. But, unfortunately, many Chinese officials still are close to their North Korean counterparts, and that means there`s no consensus to act. And that`s why China is irresponsible right now.

And the United States is not having honest conversations with the Chinese in public, because we should say to them: There is no middle ground. Either you`re a responsible stakeholder or you`re not. And now is the time that you should be responsible, because tomorrow and the day after that, it`s going to be too late.

BECK: We have made so many mistakes on this, as I see it, at least. I mean, we made mistakes with the Clinton administration; now we`re making them with the Bush administration. And the Bush administration keeps putting these lines down and saying, "You better not cross this, OK?" And then they cross it. "OK, well, don`t cross this line." What do we do? Because we don`t have any options without China.

CHANG: Well, you know, China always acts irresponsibly when it has company. And with regard to North Korea, it has the company of South Korea, because they both want to support the North. And Iran, it`s China and Russia.

So for us, our diplomacy should be separating China from South Korea, with regard to North Korea, and separating China and Russia, with regard to Iran, because China is ruthlessly pragmatic and, when they`re alone, they`re not going to stand up to us. They`ll be accommodating.

BECK: Gordon, do you see that the world is changing, that there is a new global order that is -- I mean, we have to forge new systems and allies. What was built for the Cold War and after World War II just isn`t working.

CHANG: Well, you know, depending who you talk to, you know, we`re fighting World War III, World War IV, or what someone said was World War v, which is China. And some analysts say that this is 1914; others say it`s 1938. But everybody agrees that now is a consequential time.

Henry Kissinger six weeks ago said that at no time in history has so many changes been taking place simultaneously. And that means that the world order could dissolve, and it`s time for the United States to show leadership to stabilize the international system.

BECK: I will tell you, I read some old books from the 1960s. One was "The Naked Capitalist" and one was -- what was it -- "Tragedy and Hope." And I read these two, and they`re both talking about how the world will be safe because, you know, there are nation-states, et cetera, et cetera.

But neither of them warned about the backdoor, which is, once you have an enemy that doesn`t care about the nation-states or doesn`t about companies, the whole thing can collapse. And it seems like that`s what our enemies are doing. What is going to wake someone like Russia or China up to this?

CHANG: Well, I think that, with China, the only way they`re going to wake up is when the North Koreans turn their missiles towards Beijing. And we got to remember that the Koreans and the Chinese have been fighting for six centuries or more. And so, you know, one day the Chinese, the light bulb is going to go on, and they`re going to see that they`ve got a very hostile neighbor, small and destitute, but enough to equalize Beijing. And that`s...

BECK: Do you see this happening soon enough? Because the other problem is, as Henry Kissinger, as you just pointed out said, things are happening just like this. Iran is watching.

CHANG: Oh, Iran is definitely watching. You know, the Iranian technicians were in North Korea on Sunday to watch that bomb go off. They were in North Korea in July to see those missiles. The Iranians and the North Koreans have been talking to each other about how to defeat the U.N., all of this.

And the Iranians, most important, have been watching the international communities` reactions to Kim Jong Il`s increasingly productive behavior. And if the world`s response is not firm, they`re going to see that as a big, green light.

BECK: Holy cow, man. When you see the desert rise up and Iran announces that they now need the jacket for the nuclear club, the whole world has changed. Gordon, thank you very much.

CHANG: Thank you.

BECK: That is "The Real Story" tonight. If you`d like to read more about this story or if you`ve found a real story of your own that you`d like to tell us about, please visit glennbeck.com and click on the "Real Story" button.

All right, let`s go "Straight to Hill," Erica Hill, the author of -- well, nothing. She`s an anchor, but not an anchor.

ERICA HILL, CNN HEADLINE NEWS ANCHOR: Someday I`m going to write something.

BECK: No, I don`t know. I don`t know.

HILL: I think I will.

BECK: Will you? Just to spite me?

HILL: Maybe.

BECK: OK. She`s the anchor of "PRIME NEWS" on Headline News. Hi, Erica, what`s happening?

HILL: And to be an author in the future. We actually want to get you caught up on what we`re learning about the investigation into that tragic plane crash yesterday in New York. Investigators at this point still looking for clues as to why the small plane carrying Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle and flight instructor Tyler Stanger crashed into a New York City high-rise yesterday.

NTSB board member Debbie Hersman told CNN they are combing the wreckage and the debris. Basically, they want to find every piece of the plane they can so they can analyze those parts. They`re also going to take a look at the flight logs to try to determine exactly what happened.

We know at this point sort of the four corners, as they call it, have been recovered, the nose, the tail. They have parts of the wing and rudder. The aircraft propeller, as well as the engine, were found inside the building. Other parts of the plane, including the headsets and, of course, the passengers` bodies fell to the street.

BECK: Unbelievable.

HILL: We also know there was this parachute system onboard this particular plane. It looks like it was thermally discharged. It was actually found tightly packed with burn marks.

BECK: OK. Erica, thanks for following the story for us. Back in a minute.

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BECK: Mark Foley, Mel Gibson, they`re giving us alcoholics a bad name. Any alcoholic that I know that is a recovering alcoholic is not looking for excuses, doesn`t want sympathy, doesn`t want pity, is not using it, nothing. Every single alcoholic I know that is really in true recovery doesn`t use this as an excuse. And it drives me nuts when somebody like this -- because people don`t understand alcoholism that aren`t alcoholics. They don`t get it. And when somebody will use an excuse and say, "I`m not an anti-Semite. What? Oh, that was the tequila."

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BECK: All right. There`s a fiction author that is just absolutely amazing. His new book is "Act of Treason." He is a best-seller, "New York Times" best-seller, blah, blah, blah. He helps the guys out on one of my favorite TV shows, "24." Brilliant, brilliant man, and also really good at looking at the world and seeing what is coming.

You were one of the first -- let me just introduce you. Vince Flynn, how are you, sir?

VINCE FLYNN, AUTHOR: Good, Glenn. Thank you for having me on.

BECK: You were one of the first guys to really start writing about Muslim extremists way before we had anything really going on.

FLYNN: Yes, it was back -- I was still in college when the Berlin Wall fell. And I thought, "What`s the next big threat going to be?" And there had been the stuff in Beirut and the discotheque bombing in Germany, and we had to go after, you know, Qaddafi in Libya. And you could just see it bubbling up. And I thought, "That`s going to be the next front."

And I think in my third book I have a really prophetic line by the director of the CIA that says, "Islamic radical fundamentalism is like a erratic wave coming toward America`s shores. And when it hits, it`s going to kill thousands, not dozens."

BECK: So Mitch Rapp is one of the main characters. When are we going to see his appearance in actual life? When is this guy -- because you`ve been writing about an awful lot of things, except the way we deal with it.

FLYNN: Well, we have guys like Mitch Rapp. Unfortunately, we just don`t hear a lot about them. A lot of them are over in Afghanistan; they`re also in Iraq. They`re doing some stuff. And, you know, I don`t want to be critical of politicians in general and the Clinton administration, but we didn`t have the will to go after this prior to 9/11. We were a very happy country, economically speaking.

BECK: I got to tell you, I don`t know if we really have the will now.

FLYNN: Well, I don`t know if we have the will to win it now, but at least now we`ve kind of let some of the dogs loose, some of the Special Forces guys, some of the SOG guys with the CIA and the operations people. This rendition stuff really gets me worked up. You know, after 9/11, we`re like, "How dare the CIA let this happen. Let`s make sure it doesn`t happen again."

BECK: Right.

FLYNN: Well, you know, one of the ways we make sure it doesn`t happen again is, when we catch a guy who`s been running around saying, "Death to America, death to America, let`s kill the infidels," we might want to find out -- you know, not give them a cot and three square meals a day -- we might want to keep them up, and so he`s a little disoriented, and get him talking.

BECK: In one of your books, Mitch foils a plan to nuke New York and Washington.

FLYNN: And Washington, D.C.

BECK: How likely do you think that is?

FLYNN: The good news is material, full-up nuclear weapons are very difficult to come by. The bad news is, you`ve got this cult of suicide, with these Islamic radical fundamentalists. So you do get a weapon, let`s say, that gets out of Iran or some rogue general in the Soviet Union that sells one in Russia. And you`ve got now a person who doesn`t care. Kim Jong Il is not the person. He`s a sociopath. They don`t want to die.

BECK: Oh, I know.

FLYNN: And he knows, if he hands one over and it goes off on our soil, goodbye. But Osama bin Laden and his ilk, they would love it. They`d go down in infamy.

BECK: Are you surprised how many feminists and -- I mean, you just name it, anybody on the left -- are you surprised that they don`t see the way honor killings...

FLYNN: Oh, it`s mind-boggling.

BECK: ... how they just don`t stand -- why, why don`t they see this?

FLYNN: I think it`s literally this simple: They so despise President Bush -- and I`m talking about the Hollywood elitists, the feminists out there -- they so despise him, they think that, "My enemy`s enemy is my ally." And they can`t come to grips with the fact that they have now gotten into bed, and actually they defend these people.

BECK: But you know what? You kind of, I mean, in a roundabout way, you kind of have been a part of this a little bit. You have been involved with "24," which is one of my favorite shows. But if I see one more English terrorist, if I see one more old, white guy saying, "Well, I think we should blow up the White House." I mean, come on, man.

FLYNN: It`s amazing. You know, Joel Surnow, Bob Cochran, Howard Gordon, they got a lot of heat for the year when they had, you know, the Iranian terrorists on the show.

BECK: Right, but it`s reality.

FLYNN: It`s reality. I always liken it to -- I remember when Tom Clancy wrote "Patriot Games," and then they did the movie about a bunch of Irish IRA terrorists that tried to kill the prince of Wales and they do all that stuff. And I don`t remember any Irish Catholic Americans protesting.

BECK: Why is it you can get away with it in your books but you can`t get away with it on television?

FLYNN: Oh, I get heat.

BECK: Do you?

FLYNN: Oh, yes. I get heat. And I also think it`s the main reason why these haven`t been optioned by a major studio. They`re so afraid -- I had a big producer in Hollywood explain to me, he thinks it`s because they`re hubris. They`re so afraid they will become the target of an assassination.

BECK: Wow.

FLYNN: Remember what happened after 9/11 when they all fled New York, all of the movie stars, and they all started hiring body guards? And no one else can have a gun, but...

BECK: Yes.

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FLYNN: ... but their body guards can have guns, you know?

BECK: But Rosie O`Donnell can.

FLYNN: That was so hypocritical.

BECK: Yes, I know.

FLYNN: And so I think that that`s -- you know, it`s a big part of it.

BECK: "Act of Treason" is the book. Vince Flynn, what a pleasure. What a pleasure to see you.

FLYNN: Thanks, Glenn.

BECK: You bet.

All right. Let`s check in with Nancy Grace. She`s got a lot of things coming up tonight. Nancy, what`s on the show?

NANCY GRACE, HOST: Tonight, just-released surveillance photo emerge in the search for a Vermont coed. The photos seemed to show the girl with the man whose cell phone she had apparently just used just before she went missing.

And cover girl Anna Nicole Smith back to court over paternity of her baby girl. At the same time, her personal doctor under questioning by police over the death of Smith`s 20-year-old son. How did this kid get his hands on methadone? That`s only found in rehab clinics and hospitals, Glenn.

BECK: All right. Don`t forget, you can check out Nancy tonight at 8:00 and 10:00 p.m. Eastern, right here on "Headline Prime."

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BECK: All right. As you know, there is nothing better than someone on TV reading e-mail. It`s just an automatic homerun for ratings. It really is.

Actually, we`re going to try to spice this segment up together with your help, and we`ll tell you about it tomorrow. First, though, Aaron in Indiana says, "Dear Glenn, I think that Dr. Evil`s brother is running the show in North Korea. Take a look at a picture of Kim Jong Il and compare it side-by-side to Dr. Evil from `Austin Powers.` They both wear that crazy polyblend grey suit. What`s up with that?"

Aaron, very interesting observation. I`ve never put that one together. Mike Myers and Kim Jong Il certainly don`t look alike, but we did find a picture of the clothes, and here it is. Freaky, huh? It`s like they`ve both bought it from the same factory. And I don`t know. It might be a members-only jumpsuit.

I know that when people ask Americans what the most important issue is on their mind today, they say things like Iraq, terrorism, the economy, et cetera, et cetera. But I would think looking at that picture, in North Korea, it would be things like brutal poverty, the extreme munchies, and fashion-related embarrassment by our president. I`m not a designer, but I am a thinker.

Sandy writes in, "Does anyone read my questions or am I writing this to improve my typing skills?" Actually, there`s nobody reading these things. "Will I be notified if the question is used?" Nope, not a chance. "Do you just sit there and think, `What a bunch of suckers. They think we really want to know what they think`?" Yep, definitely. I mean, that`s not always in those exact words, but -- "Should I keep investing time in asking questions or should I feed my family instead?"

Actually, I`d feed my family, but, of course, you won`t know I said that because I never notified you that we`d be using your question.

Dwayne writes in, "Glenn, every time you close your show with that `sick, twisted freak` reference it kind of makes me feel like Captain Highpants or ex-Representative Mark Foley. Do you have to say that? Please, stop freaking me out."

Yes, you know, sometimes I forget that a lot of our TV viewers are new and they just think I`m insulting them at the end of every show. The term "sick freak" is actually a term of endearment -- don`t ask me how we got there -- on my radio program.

So I`m not calling you a guy who admits to killing children, only to later be set free and freak everybody out, or, you know, a congressman chatting up with pages on how hot they look in lacrosse uniforms. And that, my friend, is my promise to you.

You can e-mail me at GlennBeck@CNN.com. And we will see you tomorrow on the radio program, you sick freak.

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