Glenn Beck has shared a story from the late 2000s that left him stunned about who truly runs the country. In a recent video, he recounted being summoned to the White House after his on-air criticisms of the Iraq War caught the attention of President George W. Bush.
Beck explained that he had made a comment on-air that the left wanted to impeach Bush for the wrong reasons, but if they wanted grounds they could look elsewhere. “That didn’t sit well with the Bush administration,” he said. Not long after, he got a call that would change the way he saw the presidency.
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“It was freaky,” Beck recalled. “’Mr. Beck.’ ‘Yes.’ ‘The president would like to see you in the Oval tomorrow morning at 10:00.’”
When Beck arrived at the White House, he said the president immediately confronted him with harsh words. Bush let out his frustration, telling Beck that most people had no idea what it was like to be president. Beck sat through what he described as a long hour of being read “the riot act.”
But it was what happened at the end of that meeting that shook him the most.
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As Beck was preparing to leave, he brought up comments made that day by then-Senator Barack Obama about sending U.S. planes into Pakistan. Beck remembered Bush’s response vividly. “He said, ‘Oh, I heard that. Don’t worry about that. Don’t worry about that.’ And I said, ‘Okay.’ And he said, ‘Trust me, Glenn, whoever comes into this office, no matter what party they’re in, they’re going to sit behind this desk and they’re going to realize because they’re going to be advised by exactly the same people that have been advising me that they really have no choice. This is what they have to do.’”
Beck walked away disturbed. “Holy cow,” he said. “This is not good. The president isn’t really the president. The president is just listening to all these advisers who were advising the last president and the president before that. And it’s all State Department stuff. They’re just executing a long plan. What difference does it make who we have in the office if that’s true?”
According to Beck, that experience convinced him that much of America’s leadership was guided by unelected officials and not the elected president.
Years later, Beck said he saw a stark contrast when Donald Trump entered office. Unlike Bush, he believes Trump led with his own instincts and refused to be controlled by career officials.
“When Donald Trump sat at the table and said, ‘Just going to get old Vlad on the phone,’ he didn’t ask for permission. He didn’t have anybody whispering in his ear. He’s leading the State Department. He’s leading the world. He’s keeping his own counsel. That hasn’t been done by a president in I don’t know how long.”
Beck said that kind of leadership has not been seen since Ronald Reagan. “Donald Trump is doing this in example after example after example. He’s keeping his own counsel and he is telling his people this is what I’m going to do. Find the constitutional way to do it because this is what has to be done. And he’s not taking no for an answer.”
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For Beck, the memory of that Oval Office meeting still lingers, but he sees in Trump a leader who broke the mold and reclaimed what it means to be president. “America is leading because we actually have a leader who knows who he is, knows what he wants to do, and is not going to take no for an answer unless it’s unconstitutional. He gets it done. That in six months, that’s a remarkable development.”
James Lasher, a seasoned writer and editor at Charisma Media, combines faith and storytelling with a background in journalism from Otterbein University and ministry experience in Guatemala and the LA Dream Center. A Marine Corps and Air Force veteran, he is the author of The Revelation of Jesus: A Common Man’s Commentary and a contributor to Charisma magazine.
