Here is the transcript:
Glenn Beck Radio Show
Interview with Senator Jim DeMint
JUNE 26, 2007
GLENN: From Radio City in Midtown Manhattan, hello, sick freak. Welcome to it. Third most listened to show in all of America. The date of Feinstein’s existence, yes, part of the evil empire. I’m glad you’re here. My name is Glenn Beck and we have some disturbing news that I can’t quite figure out. I have a senator, Senator Jim DEMINT who says this: “There is a better way forward that ends the status quo of amnesty and empty security promises. The President can enforce the laws that we have already passed to strengthen the border and workplace enforcement. Once Americans regain trust in their government and believe we really have the will to solve this problem, we can begin to look at the other pieces of the muzzle.” I don’t — we have him on the phone? Senator DEMINT?
GLENN: You’ve not been drinking the water. What’s happened –
SENATOR DEMINT: We better do this quick. No telling what will happen to me.
GLENN: Whatever you do, just don’t drink the water. You seem to be okay.
SENATOR DEMINT: I’m losing it quickly but thankfully the American people seem to have a whole lot of resolve when it comes to stopping this immigration bill. So that’s a huge help to us.
GLENN: You know what, I have to tell you. Senator, thank you, thank you, thank you for not turning into an evil scum bag the minute you went into the Beltway. This is exactly what the American people think. When we trust that you guys have the spine to stop illegal immigration and beyond that, protect us from the dirtbags that are coming across that wish us ill will, i.e., Al-Queda, et cetera, when you have the Will to secure us on the border, we’ll absolutely talk about the rest of it.
SENATOR DEMINT: Well, Glenn, the most encouraging part of this process is to see how America has responded, you know, with anger and resolve, and it shows me that America is engaged and that we do have a pulse and that people do care about what citizenship means and they do care about a legal and honest immigration system, and it encourages me for the future on some big issues. If people get, you know, in this kind of mode, I think that we can be a government of the people and hopefully — and I think we will — I think we’re going to win this in the end. I think by the end of the week we’ll stop it, but the people need to keep calling their senators and calling talk shows and making it because when you’ve got a leader in the Senate who says that talk radio is controlling America, I think we’re moving in the right direction.
GLENN: We did a show on it last week. I said, well, if we’re running the place, let’s make some changes here and I mean, it’s not — you know, I love these people, Feinstein of all people to say this, that think that talk radio is somehow or another this hypnotic, that we have this power over people. All we do is talk common sense.
SENATOR DEMINT: Well, people listen, and you are confirming what they know is right in their hearts, and it’s — I think it does help them engage. They don’t feel so beaten down if they hear people on the radio talking common sense, talking just American values. And then it makes them willing to fight, and they have called us in the thousands from all over the country saying, you know, please fight for our country. They don’t see this as just an immigration issue. They see it as a betrayal and a sellout of America and they want us to fight and so I think a lot of us will fight and eventually bring this thing down before the end of the week.
GLENN: Okay.
SENATOR DEMINT: Today is the first big showdown. They are going to bring it back up and they have to get 60 votes to bring it back up, and we’re trying to stop it.
GLENN: So if you’re in the right time zone, you need to call your senator today and say, vote no on cloture.
SENATOR DEMINT: Yes. About noon, a little after noon Eastern time we’re going to vote to bring this bill back up and now is the time to stop it. It won’t be our last chance to stop it. So people shouldn’t give up, but we do have a shot at stopping it today if senators will not try to say they voted for it before they voted against it.
GLENN: Okay. I want to tell you a couple of fears that I have and hopefully you’ll be able to, in your common sense sort of way — I mean, jeez, you get it — maybe you can help me out. I’m afraid that this thing is pushed aside but then the real framework is buried some place else and it’s pushed through by the weasels in Washington one way or another, but this time in the cover of darkness.
SENATOR DEMINT: I don’t think that will happen. I think it’s very difficult to get something through that that is not exposed, particularly when so many of us and so many in the media are looking at it. I think if we can kill it this week, it’s gone in its current form and what will happen is we can force hopefully the administration to enforce our borders and do the things that are already in law.
GLENN: Okay. May I just point out that — I’m trying to see what the name of this thing was. This is the bill that allowed the Mexican truckers to have access to U.S. roads.
SENATOR DEMINT: Right.
GLENN: Okay. That was put into the defense bill, the emergency spending bill and passed in, in that in the cover of darkness, and there were a lot of us looking for things like this and we missed it.
SENATOR DEMINT: You’re right. There are little things, and that’s not so little in effect, that seemed innocuous that did go through and so we’ve got to be a lot more vigilant about what’s going to happen after this bill is brought down hopefully.
GLENN: Senator, I have been called crazy — I’ve been called worse things before that — but I’ve been called crazy because I really, truly believe the power that we are seeing behind this bill is really the power of the SPP. It is the power of those who want to take down our borders. The reason why you guys can pass money and fund, fully fund an 800-mile fence and yet it not be built, you can pass in ‘96 another, what was it, 14 miles of fence but not even be able to get that done in over a 10-year period is because a fence, a strong border does not fit in to Bush I believe, really, truly believes this. The idea of one giant trading block here called North America. Do you believe there’s anything to that?
SENATOR DEMINT: Not in that sense. I mean, I do think there’s a move to try to have a seamless trading zone in North America, which there are a lot of merits to if you’re trying to compete with the European Union and the Asian block, as well as perhaps OPEC in the future but, you know, when you start mixing that in with national sovereignty and protecting our borders, then I think it gets real confusing.
GLENN: Then what is the reason why we can have the money, we have the national will to build a fence? Is it the environmentalists protecting the ocelot? What is it that’s stopping it?
SENATOR DEMINT: Well, what’s happened is the enforcement is being held hostage to amnesty. There are a lot of folks who want to make the 12 million or so people legal, permanent residents and eventual citizens because a lot of people, a lot of groups stand to gain from that, but for what it means to be an American, I think we lose a lot, and the secular progresses or whatever you want to call them do not see America as an entity, as being as important as many of the rest of us do. So, you know, citizenship doesn’t mean as much to them and it does to traditional thinking Americans and that’s why I think Americans are so outraged that we’re going to so devalue citizenship that if you can get here illegally that we’re going to give you the benefits that our taxpayers paid for and that you can be a citizen. I mean, it just cheapens everything we believe.
GLENN: How is it that anyone with a straight face can actually say that we are going to give illegal aliens an instant background check that would be finished in one day when I can’t go buy a handgun without 72 hours? And I don’t have to go — you don’t have to get any records from any foreign countries on me.
SENATOR DEMINT: And it would take months to get you a passport even though you are a citizen.
GLENN: How is it –
SENATOR DEMINT: The Government cannot carry out what’s in this bill. I mean, it does not have the confidence or capability to do it. The only thing that will happen is the amnesty. I mean, that will happen immediately regardless of any performance by government. The rest is a promise, and people do not trust the Government to carry out that promise and that’s why people are outraged, that’s why a lot of us want to stop this bill is that we’re not going to have border enforcement unless we do that first, and that’s got to be the first thing we do.
GLENN: How long do you think it will take to gain the trust back of the American people? Because I’ve got to tell you, with me until I see a fence, I don’t buy it. The way our border patrol are being treated, the Johnny Sutton bullcrap that’s going on, I’m telling you I smell rats in the system and until there’s an actual fence, I don’t buy it. What do you have to do? Do you think before people say, okay, these guys are serious?
SENATOR DEMINT: I think it’s going to take years, but if we in the next year put up a few hundred miles of fencing and got some reporters down on the borders and they saw barricades and they saw people being caught and shipped back, if people saw some evidence that we were actually doing what we said we were going to do, I think that trust would begin to build. But we then have to have a worker verification program that cannot be forged and it has to be hard for people who are illegal to get a job and then you would see, we don’t have to deport millions of people. You would see people figuring out how to get plugged into our legal system. But we’ve got to be willing to develop a legal immigration system that works and can be enforced, and there’s no intent in this bill to do that.
GLENN: Senator, let me just change subjects here with you real quick.
SENATOR DEMINT: Sure.
GLENN: Kind of. Feinstein is thinking about bringing back the fairness act.
SENATOR DEMINT: Right.
GLENN: Which is absolute insanity, and it is a way to kill broadcast radio. I mean, music radio is going to be gone soon. You want to kill broadcast radio, the cash cow right now, the future is opinion and talk, and the way to kill it is to balance these stations out and put crap on it that nobody wants to hear. They already tried Air America. They put their best foot forward. Nobody listened.
SENATOR DEMINT: This is a very real threat because in all areas of our society, the voices of traditional thinking Americans are being quieted, and we missed it when they gagged the churches years ago that if a pastor happens to get too political, they’ll have to pay taxes and so we’ve kind of quieted that whole segment. The talk radio is the one voice of sanity and what they’re trying to do here is if you say something political, then suddenly you lose your ability to do that without various types of — you have to be a certain type of organization, which would basically kill this thing.
GLENN: Sure.
SENATOR DEMINT: And the paperwork would be incredible because just what we’re doing this morning would be a political event that has to be documented and so we can’t allow that. But we need to know there’s a very real threat led by the secular progressives or whatever the name is for them this week that want to quiet the voices of traditional Americans and common sense Americans, and we’ve got to be ready for a fight.
GLENN: You know, I have to tell you, I have never been more optimistic, I think, than I am right now because I believe in the people of this country. However, I’ve never been more pessimistic at the same time because I’ve never believed less in our government than I do right now, and we are facing times. I mean, Senator, I don’t — I mean, I would imagine you feel the same way in many ways. There are a lot of people that actually in America today risk their lives to speak out about the issues of the day. That’s incredible. And we’re at a point to where we don’t know if the Government is on our side on speaking out or not.
SENATOR DEMINT: We really don’t. I mean, and I’m in the government and I can see it from both sides because I haven’t been here that long, but people can control things with their voices and their votes, and when they call into your show or they call into the Senate offices, they’ve got to stop voting for people who obviously disagree with their values, and it’s been clear. I mean, a year ago a lot of senators voted for an immigration bill that was worse, and most of them were Democrats and most of them were re-elected. I mean, people have to realize if they want to be energy-independent, they can’t keep voting for people who cut off developing our own energy supplies. So I think as Americans get more engaged with their voices, they have to look at the people they’re voting for and see that many times they’re voting against common sense ideas that would make America stronger. But I’m encouraged on this immigration debate that people have risen up, they’re angry and if we can just keep that, I think we can change congress. And we do need to change congress. A lot of people don’t need to come back in both parties.
GLENN: You know, I’d love you. If you weren’t a man and we weren’t on the phone, I’d French kiss you.
SENATOR DEMINT: Let me get off here.
GLENN: I’ve got to tell you, both parties, thank you, Senator, for saying that there are scum bags in both parties.
SENATOR DEMINT: I didn’t exactly say that.
GLENN: Well, I didn’t exactly say that.
GLENN: What you said is there are a lot of people in both parties that don’t need to come back, and amen to that. It is not a party thing. It is a corruption thing. These guys get in there and then they lose the values, lose sight of the values that Americans have, and they just do whatever the hell they want to do.
SENATOR DEMINT: Well, hopefully we can start to change that this week. So just get your listeners to continue to call their senators and get them to vote against these procedural motions. Some people are going to vote for this motion to bring it back up today and they say, well, we’re going to vote for this but we’re going to vote against the bill. But if you vote to bring it back up, you’re voting to pass it, and that’s what senators need to know.
GLENN: Okay. So no on cloture.
SENATOR DEMINT: Yes. We’ll probably have two cloture votes this week if we don’t defeat the one today and that’s our best shot of killing this and so people who vote for it are really voting to pass the bill.
GLENN: Senator Jim DEMINT, South Carolina, do not eat the cupcakes or drink the water.
SENATOR DEMINT: We’ll do our best, but you come get me if I stray, okay?
GLENN: We will. Thanks a lot, senator.
SENATOR DEMINT: All righty.
GLENN: All right. Bye-bye. Like that guy. Stu, do you know anything about him beyond our conversation here?
STU: He’s a senator from South Carolina.
GLENN: Thank you very much. Appreciate that.