Glenn Beck

In 1983, he moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, to work at radio station KZFM.[29] In mid-1985, Beck was hired away from KZFM to be the lead DJ for the morning-drive radio broadcast by WRKA in Louisville, Kentucky.[29] His four-hour weekday show was called Captain Beck and the A-Team.[56] Beck had a reputation as a "young up-and-comer". The show was not political and included the usual off-color antics of the genre: juvenile jokes, pranks, and impersonations.[35] The show slipped to third in the market and Beck left abruptly in 1987 amid a dispute with WRKA management.[57]

Months later, Beck was hired by Phoenix Top-40 station KOY-FM, then known as Y-95. Beck was partnered with Arizona native Tim Hattrick to co-host a local "morning zoo" program.[32] During his time at Y-95, Beck cultivated a rivalry with local pop radio station KZZP and that station's morning host Bruce Kelly. Through practical jokes and publicity stunts, Beck drew criticism from the staff at Y-95 when the rivalry culminated in Beck telephoning Kelly's wife on-the-air, mocking her recent miscarriage.[29] In 1989, Beck resigned from Y-95 to accept a job in Houston at KRBE, known as Power 104. Beck was subsequently fired in 1990 due to poor ratings.[29]

Beck then moved on to Baltimore, Maryland, and the city's leading Top-40 station, WBSB, known as B104. There, he partnered with Pat Gray, a morning DJ. During his tenure at B104, Beck was arrested and jailed for speeding in his DeLorean.[32] According to a former associate, Beck was "completely out of it" when a station manager went to bail him out.[32] When Gray, then Beck were fired, the two men spent six months in Baltimore, planning their next move. In early 1992, Beck and Gray both moved to WKCI-FM (KC101), a Top-40 radio station in New Haven, Connecticut.[32] In 1995, WKCI apologized after Beck and Gray mocked a Chinese-American caller on air who felt offended by a comedy segment by playing a gong sound effect and having executive producer Alf Gatineau mock a Chinese accent. That incident led to protests by activist groups.[58] When Gray left the show to move to Salt Lake City, Beck continued with co-host Vinnie Penn. At the end of 1998, Beck was informed that his contract would not be renewed at the end of 1999.[32]

The Glenn Beck Program first aired in 2000 on WFLA (AM) in Tampa, and took their afternoon time slot from eighteenth to first place within a year.[59][60] In January 2002, Premiere Radio Networks launched the show nationwide on 47 stations. The show then moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, broadcasting from new flagship station WPHT. On November 5, 2007, The New York Times reported that Premiere Radio Networks was extending Beck's contract. By May 2008, it had reached over 280 terrestrial stations as well as XM Satellite. It was ranked 4th in the nation with over six and a half million listeners.[61] As of July 2013, Beck was tied for number four in the ratings behind Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Dave Ramsey.[62]

In January 2006, CNN's Headline News announced that Beck would host a nightly news-commentary show in their new prime-time block Headline Prime. The show, simply called Glenn Beck, aired weeknights. CNN Headline News described the show as "an unconventional look at the news of the day featuring his often amusing perspective".[63] At the end of his tenure at CNN-HLN, Beck had the second largest audience behind Nancy Grace.[64] In 2008, Beck won the Marconi Radio Award for Network Syndicated Personality of the Year.[9]

In October 2008, it was announced that Beck would join the Fox News Channel, leaving CNN Headline News.[65] After moving to the Fox News Channel, Beck hosted Glenn Beck, beginning in January 2009, as well as a weekend version.[66] One of his first guests was Alaska Governor Sarah Palin[67] He also had a regular segment every Friday on the Fox News Channel program The O'Reilly Factor titled "At Your Beck and Call".[68] As of September 2009, Beck's program drew more viewers than all three of the competing time-slot shows combined on CNN, MSNBC and HLN.[69][70]

His show's high ratings did not come without controversy.[65] The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz reported that Beck's use of "distorted or inflammatory rhetoric" had complicated the channel's and their journalists' efforts to neutralize White House criticism that Fox is not really a news organization.[65] Television analyst Andrew Tyndall echoed these sentiments, saying that Beck's incendiary style had created "a real crossroads for Fox News", stating "they're right on the cusp of losing their image as a news organization."[65]

In April 2011, Fox News and Mercury Radio Arts, Beck's production company, announced that Beck would "transition off of his daily program" on Fox News in 2011.[71] His last day at Fox was later announced as June 30.[72][73] FNC and Beck announced that he would be teaming with Fox to produce a slate of projects for Fox News and its digital properties.[12] Fox News head Roger Ailes later referenced Beck's entrepreneurialism and political movement activism, saying, "His [Beck's] goals were different from our goals ... I need people focused on a daily television show."[74] Beck hosted his last daily show on Fox on June 30, 2011, where he recounted the accomplishments of the show and said, "This show has become a movement. It's not a TV show, and that's why it doesn't belong on television anymore. It belongs in your homes. It belongs in your neighborhoods."[13] In response to critics who said he was fired, Beck pointed out that his final show was airing live.[13] Immediately after the show he did an interview on his new GBTV internet television channel.[13]

Beck's Fox News one-hour show ended June 30, 2011,[75] and a new two-hour show began his television network which started as a subscription-based internet TV network, TheBlaze TV, originally called GBTV, on September 12, 2011.[76][77] Using a subscription model, it was estimated that Beck is on track to generate $27 million in his first year of operation.[78] This was later upgraded to $40 million by The Wall Street Journal when subscriptions topped 300,000.[79] On September 12, 2012, TheBlaze TV announced that the Dish Network would begin carrying TheBlaze TV. TheBlaze is currently available on over 90 television providers, with eleven of those being in the national top 25.[4][80][81]

Mercury Ink is a co-publishing deal with Simon & Schuster and was founded by Glenn Beck in 2011 as the publishing imprint of Mercury Radio Arts.[82] Started in 2011, Mercury Ink publishes adult and young adult novels and non-fiction titles. Including books written by Glenn Beck, authors signed to Mercury Ink include New York Times best seller Richard Paul Evans.

Beck has reached No. 1 on The New York Times Bestseller List in four separate categories as of 2010: Hardcover Non-Fiction,[83][84] Paperback Non-Fiction,[83] Hardcover Fiction,[85] and Children's Picture Books.[86]

Since 2005, Beck has toured American cities twice a year, presenting a one-man stage show. His stage productions are a mix of stand-up comedy and inspirational speaking. In a critique of his live act, Salon Magazine's Steve Almond describes Beck as a "wildly imaginative performer, a man who weds the operatic impulses of the demagogue to the grim mutterings of the conspiracy theorist".[87] A show from the Beck `08 Unelectable Tour was shown in around 350 movie theaters around the country.[88]

In Beck's hometown of Mt. Vernon, Washington, supporters and detractors hold handmade signs on the day Beck was honored by the mayor.

The finale of 2009's Common Sense Comedy Tour was simulcast in over 440 theaters.[89] The events have drawn 200,000 fans in recent years.[90]

In March 2003, Beck ran a series of rallies, which he called Glenn Beck's Rally for America, in support of troops deployed for the upcoming Iraq War. On July 4, 2007, Beck served as host of the 2007 Toyota Tundra "Stadium of Fire" in Provo, Utah. The annual event at LaVell Edwards Stadium on the Brigham Young University campus is presented by America's Freedom Foundation.[91] In May 2008, Beck gave the keynote speech at the NRA convention in Louisville, Kentucky.[92]

In late August 2009, the mayor of Beck's hometown, Mount Vernon, Washington, announced that he would award Beck the Key to the City, designating September 26, 2009, as "Glenn Beck Day". Due to local opposition, the city council voted unanimously to disassociate itself from the award.[93] The key presentation ceremony sold-out the 850 seat McIntyre Hall and an estimated 800 detractors and supporters demonstrated outside the building. Earlier that day, approximately 7,000 people attended the Evergreen Freedom Foundation's "Take the Field with Glenn Beck" at Seattle's Safeco Field.[94]

In December 2009, Beck produced a one-night special film titled "The Christmas Sweater: A Return to Redemption".[95] In January and February 2010, Beck teamed with fellow Fox News host Bill O'Reilly to tour several cities in a live stage show called "The Bold and Fresh Tour 2010". The January 29 show was recorded and broadcast to movie theaters throughout the country.[96]

In July 2013, Beck produced and hosted a one-night stage event called Man in the Moon, held at the USANA Amphitheatre in West Valley City, Utah. The amphitheater sold out all 20,000 of its seats and was released on television and DVD in August 2013. The event was a narrative story told from the point of view of the moon, from the beginnings of the Book of Genesis to the first moon landing. The moon serves as the narrator of the story.

In 2011, Beck founded the non-profit organization Mercury One, which is designed to sustain itself through its entrepreneurship without the need for grants or donations.[97] In early 2011, Beck began work toward developing a clothing line to be sold to benefit the charity and October 2011, Mercury One began selling the upscale clothing line labeled 1791 exclusively at its website, 1791.com. The clothing in the line's eleven-piece inaugural offering was manufactured by American Mojo of Lowell, Massachusetts.[98]

In July 2014, after tens of thousands of undocumented immigrant children crossed into Texas via the Southern United States border, unaccompanied by parents, Beck, along with Texas senator Ted Cruz, and Texas representative Louie Gohmert, traveled to the U.S.-Mexico border with his charity organization Mercury One with tractor trailers full of food, hot meals, and teddy bears for the unaccompanied minors. While Beck and Cruz both made it clear in interviews that they wanted a full repeal of DACA, Beck also noted his belief in the importance of helping children caught in "political crossfire". "Through no fault of their own, they are caught in political crossfire, and while we continue to put pressure on Washington and change its course of lawlessness, we must also help," Beck said. "It is not either, or. It is both. We have to be active in the political game, and we must open our hearts." [99]

As of 2017, Beck's "The Nazarene Fund" had reportedly relocated 10,524 Christian refugees from northern Iraq and Syria to other host countries, including Australia, the United States, France, Slovakia, Greece, Lebanon, Brazil, and Canada. The fund's website notes 1,646 families have been evacuated from the ISIS ravaged region since its launch in 2014, and 45,000 people have received humanitarian aid as a result of donations to Mercury One.[100]

In March 2009 Beck put together a campaign, the 9-12 Project, which is named after nine principles and twelve values that he says embody the spirit of the American people on the day after the September 11 attacks.[101] The Colorado 9–12 Project hosted a "Patriot Camp" for kids in grades 1–5, featuring programs on "our Constitution, the Founding Fathers, and the values and principles that are the cornerstones of our nation".

The Restoring Honor rally was promoted/hosted by Beck and held at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. on August 28, 2010. The rally—which purported to embrace religious faith and patriotism—was co-sponsored by the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, promoted by FreedomWorks, and supported by the Tea Party movement.[102] Crowd estimates varied from 87,000 ± 9,000[103] to 300,000.[104]

In December 2010, Beck went to Wilmington, Ohio, a town devastated by the late-2000s recession, to host live events to encourage his fans to go to the town to boost the local economy in a project called "America's First Christmas".[105] He hosted an event and his radio and television shows from the local theater.[106]

Beck headlined his "Restoring Courage" events in Jerusalem, Israel, in August 2011 in a campaign Beck said was designed to encourage people worldwide "to stand with the Jewish people".[107][108] After Jerusalem, Beck visited Cape Town, South Africa, and was scheduled to visit Venezuela.[109]

Actively supporting Mitt Romney as "perhaps the best-known Mormon after the Republican presidential candidate and a major influence on evangelical Christians, ... Beck has emerged as an unlikely theological bridge between the first Mormon presidential nominee and a critical electorate [evangelicals]", according to a pre-election article in the New York Times. Along with personal campaign appearances in Ohio and Iowa, Beck unusually directly addressed doctrinal issues between Mormons and evangelical Christians—wherein the latter often consider the former a "cult" rather than Christian—on his radio show in September 2012. During the one-hour show in early September, he asked his audience, "Does Mitt Romney's Mormonism make him too scary or weird to be elected president of the United States?" The article concluded by addressing the "fear of making Mormonism mainstream" as a reason Beck could be acceptable to evangelicals and Romney not be, quoting John C. Green, the author of The Faith Factor: How Religion Influences American Elections:

There's a difference between a public figure like Glenn Beck and someone who could be the president of the United States. ... Many evangelicals believe this country was founded by Christian leaders. It is important that the person in the White House be positive about Christianity, if not a devout Christian himself.[110]

In August 2012, Beck held a rally at AT&T Stadium in Irving, Texas. The event's theme was service to one's fellow citizens, and loving each other. The event saw a "Day of Service", which saw Mercury One (Beck's charity organization) volunteering to feed homeless and disadvantaged individuals, doing community-building projects, and mowing lawns. The event culminated in a keynote speech presented by Beck imploring the audience to "commit to each other. Go home and wake up your neighbors." In regards to serving fellow Americans, Beck said, "Those who count us out are counting on one weekend of action, one weekend of speeches. One weekend. One day. Please my fellow countrymen, let this be the first of many." [111][112]

In August 2015, Beck and Mercury Radio Arts organized a rally that saw a little over 20,000 people march through the streets of Birmingham, Alabama in a statement of unity and support for the persecuted Christians in Iraq, a cause that Beck's Mercury One charity organization focuses on, and as a call for unity among the American people. After the march, the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex held a rally featuring speakers including Glenn Beck, Ted Cruz, Rafael Cruz, Jon Voight, Alveda King, the niece of Martin Luther King, Jr., and David Barton.

During his 2010 keynote speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Beck wrote progressivism on a chalkboard and declared, "This is the disease. This is the disease in America", adding that "progressivism is the cancer in America and it is eating our Constitution!"[127][128] According to Beck, the progressive ideas of men such as John Dewey, Herbert Croly, and Walter Lippmann, influenced the Presidencies of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson; eventually becoming the foundation for President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal.[127] Beck has said that such progressivism infects both main political parties and threatens to "destroy America as it was originally conceived".[127] In Beck's book Common Sense, he argues that "progressivism has less to do with the parties and more to do with individuals who seek to redefine, reshape, and rebuild America into a country where individual liberties and personal property mean nothing if they conflict with the plans and goals of the State."[127]

A collection of progressives, whom Beck has referred to as "Crime Inc.", comprise what Beck contends is a clandestine conspiracy to take over and transform the United States.[129][130][131] Some of these individuals include Cass Sunstein, Van Jones, Andy Stern, John Podesta, Wade Rathke, Joel Rogers and Francis Fox Piven.[129][132] Other figures tied to Beck's "Crime Inc." accusation include Al Gore, Franklin Raines,[133] Maurice Strong, George Soros,[134] John Holdren and President Barack Obama.[130] According to Beck, these individuals already have or are surreptitiously working in unison with an array of organizations and corporations such as Goldman Sachs, Fannie Mae, ACORN, Apollo Alliance, Tides Center, Chicago Climate Exchange, Generation Investment Management, Enterprise Community Partners, Petrobras, Center for American Progress, and the SEIU; to fulfill their progressive agenda.[130][134] In his quest to root out these "progressives", Beck has compared himself to Israeli Nazi hunters, vowing on his radio show that "to the day I die I am going to be a progressive-hunter. I'm going to find these people that have done this to our country and expose them. I don't care if they're in nursing homes."[35] Beck compared Al Gore to the Nazis while equating the campaign against global warming to the Nazi campaign against the Jews.[135]

Progressive historian Sean Wilentz has denounced what he describes as Beck's progressive-themed conspiracy theories and "gross historical inaccuracies", countering that Beck is merely echoing the decades-old "right-wing extremism" of the John Birch Society.[136] According to Wilentz, Beck's "version of history" places him in a long line of figures who have challenged mainstream political historians and presented an inaccurate opposing view as the truth, stating:

Glenn Beck is trying to give viewers a version of American history that is supposedly hidden. Supposedly, all we historians – left, right and center – have been doing for the past 100 years is to keep true American history from you. And that true American history is what Glenn Beck is teaching. It's a version of history that is beyond skewed. But of course, that's what Beck expects us to say. He lives in a kind of Alice in Wonderland world, where if people who actually know the history say what he's teaching is junk, he says, 'That's because you're trying to hide the truth.'[136]

Conservative David Frum, the former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, has also alleged Beck's propensity for negationism, remarking that "Beck offers a story about the American past for people who are feeling right now very angry and alienated. It is different enough from the usual story in that he makes them feel like they've got access to secret knowledge."[35]

In 2020, Beck argued that the election of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders could lead to "another Holocaust."[137]

Beck promoted numerous conspiracy theories and falsehoods about President Barack Obama and the Obama administration.[138] [139][140][141] Beck suggested that Obama was building FEMA concentration camps to put opponents in,[142] that Obama was planning to fake a terrorist attack such as the Oklahoma City bombing in order to boost the administration's popularity,[143] and that Obama was the "puppet" of George Soros.[144] He frequently likened Obama and his administration to Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich.[142] Beck falsely claimed that the John Holdren who led the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Obama administration "proposed forcing abortions and putting sterilants in the drinking water to control population."[145]

Beck argued in 2009 that Obama has repeatedly shown "a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture", saying "I'm not saying he doesn't like white people. I'm saying he has a problem. This guy is, I believe, a racist."[146] These remarks drew criticism, and resulted in a boycott which resulted in at least 57 advertisers requesting their ads be removed from his programming.[147][148][149][150] He later apologized for the remarks, telling Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace that he has a "big fat mouth" and miscast as racism what is actually, as he theorizes, Obama's belief in black theology.[151] In November 2012, Beck attempted to auction a mason jar holding an Obama figurine described as being submerged in urine (in fact, submerged in beer). Bidding reached $11,000 before eBay decided to remove the auction and cancel all bids.[152][153]

In a 2016 interview with The New Yorker, Beck said of his commentary on Obama: "I did a lot of freaking out about Barack Obama." But added, "Obama made me a better man." Beck said that he regrets calling Obama a racist and is a supporter of Black Lives Matter. He said, "There are things unique to the African-American experience that I cannot relate to. I had to listen to them."[139]

In July 2009, Beck began to focus what would become many episodes on his TV and radio shows on Van Jones, special advisor for Green Jobs at Obama's White House Council on Environmental Quality. Beck called Jones, "an avowed, self-avowed, radical revolutionary communist". PolitiFact rated Beck's claim "mostly false", noting that Jones, who has open about his past as a communist during the early 1990s, had since expressed firmly capitalist beliefs.[154]

Beck also criticized Jones for his involvement in STORM, a Bay Area radical group with Marxist roots,[155] and his support for death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal, who had been convicted of killing a police officer. Beck spotlighted a video of Jones referring to Republicans as "assholes", and a petition Jones signed suggesting that George W. Bush knowingly let the September 11 attacks happen. Time magazine credited Beck with leading conservatives' attack on Jones.[90]

In a move attributed by The New York Times as a response to the controversies by the White House, which had not seen Jones' position as senior enough to warrant a full vetting, and Jones' decision that "the agenda of this president was bigger than any one individual," Jones resigned his position in September 2009.[156] Jones characterized the attacks from his opponents as a "vicious smear campaign" and an effort to use "lies and distortions to distract and divide".[155]

Cass Sunstein, Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Obama White House, was a frequent target of Glenn Beck's conspiracy theories.[157][158] Beck led opposition against Sunstein's nomination to the position.[159] Beck described Sunstein as "the most dangerous man in America."[160] Beck suggested that Sunstein was plotting ways to "ban" conspiracy theorizing.[161]

In 2009, Beck and other conservative commentators were critical of Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) for various reasons, including claims of voter registration fraud in the 2008 presidential election.[162] In September 2009, he broadcast a series of alleged undercover videos by conservative activists James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, which portrayed ACORN community organizers offering inappropriate tax and other advice to people who had said they wanted to import "very young" girls from El Salvador to work as child prostitutes.[163][164] Following the videos' release, the U.S. Census Bureau severed ties with the group while the U.S. House and Senate voted to cut all of its federal funding.[90]

On December 7, 2009, the former Massachusetts Attorney General, after an independent internal investigation of ACORN, found the videos that had been released appeared to have been edited, "in some cases substantially". He found no evidence of criminal conduct by ACORN employees, but concluded that ACORN had poor management practices that contributed to unprofessional actions by a number of its low-level employees.[165][166][167][168] On March 1, 2010, the District Attorney's office for Brooklyn determined that the videos were "heavily edited"[169] and concluded that there was no criminal wrongdoing by the ACORN staff in the videos from the Brooklyn ACORN office.[170][171] On April 1, 2010, an investigation by the California Attorney General found the videos from Los Angeles, San Diego and San Bernardino to be "heavily edited",[172] and the investigation did not find evidence of criminal conduct on the part of ACORN employees.[172][173] On June 14, 2010, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) released its findings, which showed that ACORN evidenced no sign that it, or any of its related organizations, mishandled any federal money they had received.[174][175] In March 2010, ACORN announced it would be closing its offices and disbanding due to loss of funding from government and private donors.[176]

According to a 2010 study in the journal Perspectives on Politics, Beck played a prominent role in media attacks on ACORN.[177]

In 2009, lawyers for Beck brought a case (Beck v. Eiland-Hall) against the owner of a satirical website named GlennBeckRapedAndMurderedAYoungGirlIn1990.com with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The claim that the domain name of the website is itself defamatory was described as a first in cyberlaw.[178] Beck's lawyers argued that the site infringed on his trademarked name and that the domain name should be turned over to Beck.[179] The WIPO ruled against Beck, but Eiland-Hall voluntarily transferred the domain to Beck anyway, saying that the First Amendment had been upheld and that he no longer had a use for the domain name.[180]

In January 2011, in protest against what they saw as inappropriate references to the Holocaust and to Nazis by Beck (and by Roger Ailes of Fox News), four hundred rabbis signed an open letter published as a paid advertisement in The Wall Street Journal. The ad was paid for by Jewish Funds for Justice (JFFJ), which had previously called for Beck's firing. The JFFJ have claimed on their website that Beck seems "to draw his material straight from the anti-Semitic forgery, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion".[181] The letter states that Beck and Fox had "... diminish[ed] the memory and meaning of the Holocaust when you use it to discredit any individual or organization you disagree with. That is what Fox News has done in recent weeks." In response, a Fox News executive said to Reuters that the letter was from a "George Soros-backed leftwing political organization".[182][183]

Beck is a prominent proponent of conspiracy theories about George Soros, a Jewish philanthropist.[184] Beck falsely claimed that Soros as a boy helped to "send the Jews to the death camps."[184] Beck frequently referred to Soros as a puppet-master and repeated the unsubstantiated conspiracy theory that Soros caused the 1997 Asian financial crisis.[184] In 2010, Beck was accused of being anti-Semitic due to his smears against Soros. The Anti-Defamation League said Beck's remarks about Soros sending Jews to the death camps were "horrific" and "totally off-limits."[185]

On February 22, 2011, during a discussion on his radio show about the controversy surrounding his earlier comments about Soros, Beck said "Reform Rabbis are generally political in nature. It's almost like radicalized Islam in a way where it's less about religion than it is about politics." He was quickly criticized by other conservatives, rabbis, and others. The Anti-Defamation League labeled Beck's remarks "bigoted ignorance". On February 24, Beck apologized on air, agreeing that his comments were "ignorant".[186][187]

In 2016, Beck, a friend of actor and director Mel Gibson claimed he and Gibson shared a conversation in which Gibson claimed Jewish people had stolen a copy of The Passion of the Christ before its official theatrical release, and that Jewish people were assaulting him in the streets.[188]

Beck condemned the 2011 Norway attacks,[189] but was condemned for his comparison of murdered and surviving members of the Norwegian Workers' Youth League to the Hitler Youth. He said, "There was a shooting at a political camp which sounds a little like, you know, the Hitler Youth or whatever, you know what I mean. Who does a camp for kids that's all about politics? Disturbing."[190] The statement was ill-received in Norway, prompting political commentator and Labour party member Frank Aarebrot to label Beck as a "vulgar propagandist", a "swine" and a "fascist",[191] and Torbjørn Eriksen, former press secretary to Norway's prime minister Jens Stoltenberg, to describe Beck's comment as "a new low", adding that "Glenn Beck's comments are ignorant, incorrect and extremely hurtful".[192] Commentators pointed out that groups affiliated with the Tea Party movement and the Beck-founded 9–12 Project also sponsor politically oriented camp programs for children.[191][192][193][194][195]

Beck opposed Donald Trump during his 2016 campaign for president, comparing him to Adolf Hitler and describing him as "an immoral man who is absent decency or dignity."[196][197]

Sirius XM suspended Beck on May 31, 2016, for remarks made during an interview a week earlier. During an interview with author Brad Thor about a hypothetical situation where Trump was abusing his power as president and Congress was unable to stop him, Thor asked "what patriot will step up and [assassinate him] if, if, he oversteps his mandate as president?"[198] Thor and the show's general manager both denied that the comments were a call for his assassination.[199] Beck's radio show was moved from the SIRIUS XM Patriot channel to the Triumph channel soon after.[200]

Beck's opposition to Trump did not sit well with many Trump supporters and hurt his businesses and viewership.[201] [202] On May 18, 2018, Beck stated on his radio program that he intended to vote for Trump in the 2020 presidential election, calling Trump's record "pretty damn amazing".[203] Beck said Trump's defeat in the 2020 election would be "the end of the country as we know it."[196]

An author with ideological influence on Beck is W. Cleon Skousen (1913–2006), a prolific conservative political writer, American constitutionalist and faith based political theorist.[204][205] As an anti-communist supporter of the John Birch Society,[206] and a limited-government activist,[207] Skousen, who was Mormon, wrote on a wide range of subjects: the Six-Day War, Mormon eschatology, New World Order conspiracies, even parenting.[207] Skousen believed that American political, social, and economic elites were working with communists to foist a world government on the United States.[127] Beck praised Skousen's "words of wisdom" as "divinely inspired", referencing Skousen's The Naked Communist[208] and especially The 5,000 Year Leap (originally published in 1981),[207] which Beck said in 2007 had "changed his life".[207] According to Skousen's nephew, Mark Skousen, Leap reflects Skousen's "passion for the United States Constitution", which he "felt was inspired by God and the reason behind America's success as a nation".[209] The book is recommended by Beck as "required reading" to understand the current American political landscape and become a "September twelfth person".[207] Beck authored a foreword for the 2008 edition of Leap and Beck's on-air recommendations in 2009 propelled the book to number one in the government category on Amazon for several months.[207] In 2010, Matthew Continetti of the conservative Weekly Standard criticized Beck's conspiratorial bent, terming him "a Skousenite".[127] Additionally, Alexander Zaitchik, author of the 2010 book Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance, which features an entire chapter on "The Ghost of Cleon Skousen",[210] refers to Skousen as "Beck's favorite author and biggest influence", while noting that he authored four of the 10 books on Beck's 9-12 Project required-reading list.[211]

In his discussion of Beck and Skousen, Continetti said that one of Skousen's works "draws on Carroll Quigley's Tragedy and Hope (1966), which argues that the history of the 20th century is the product of secret societies in conflict",[127] noting that in Beck's novel The Overton Window, which Beck describes as "faction" (fiction based on fact), one of his characters states "Carroll Quigley laid open the plan in Tragedy and Hope, the only hope to avoid the tragedy of war was to bind together the economies of the world to foster global stability and peace."[127]

Glenn Beck's viewpoint about early 20th century progressivism is greatly influenced by Ronald J. Pestritto, who holds a PhD in Government from Claremont Graduate University, and currently teaches at Hillsdale College.[212] R. J. Pestritto has been so influential in this respect, that the GlennBeck.com web portal's page for "American Progressivism" [213] not only uses Pestritto's teachings, but links directly to one of his books. Professor Pestritto wrote an article on the Wall Street Journal detailing "Glenn Beck, Progressives and Me".[214] As noted on The New York Times, when Glenn was on his Fox News show, Professor Pestritto was a regular guest.[215][216][217]

Princeton University historian Sean Wilentz says that alongside Skousen, Robert W. Welch, Jr., founder of the John Birch Society, is a key ideological foundation of Beck's worldview.[218] According to Wilentz: "[Beck] has brought neo-Birchite ideas to an audience beyond any that Welch or Skousen might have dreamed of."[218]

Other books that Beck regularly cites on his programs are Amity Shlaes's The Forgotten Man, Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism, Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen's A Patriot's History of the United States, and Burton W. Folsom, Jr.'s New Deal or Raw Deal.[127] Beck has also urged his listeners to read The Coming Insurrection, a book by a French Marxist group[127] discussing what they see as the imminent collapse of capitalist culture,[219] and The Creature from Jekyll Island, which argues that aspects of the U.S. Federal Reserve system assault economic civil liberties, by conspiracy theorist G. Edward Griffin.[220]

On June 4, 2010, Beck endorsed Elizabeth Dilling's 1936 work The Red Network: A Who's Who and Handbook of Radicalism for Patriots, remarking "this is a book, The Red Network, this came in from 1936. People – [Joseph] McCarthy was absolutely right ... This is, who were the communists in America."[221] Beck was criticized by an array of people, including Menachem Z. Rosensaft and Joe Conason, who stated that Dilling was an outspoken anti-Semite and a Nazi sympathizer.[222][223][224]

Beck during his religiously-themed speech at the Restoring Honor rally on August 28, 2010.

Beck has credited God for saving him from drug and alcohol abuse, professional obscurity, and friendlessness.[225] In 2006, Beck performed a short inspirational monologue in Salt Lake City, Utah,[28] detailing how he was transformed by the "healing power of Jesus Christ", which was released as a CD two years later by Deseret Book, a publishing company owned by the LDS Church, entitled An Unlikely Mormon: The Conversion Story of Glenn Beck.[226]

Writer Joanna Brooks contends that Beck developed his "amalgamation of anti-communism" and "connect-the-dots conspiracy theorizing" only after his entry into the "deeply insular world of Mormon thought and culture".[204] Brooks theorizes that Beck's calls to fasting and prayer are rooted in Mormon collective fasts to address spiritual challenges, while Beck's "overt sentimentality" and penchant for weeping represent the hallmark of a "distinctly Mormon mode of masculinity" where "appropriately-timed displays of tender emotion are displays of power" and spirituality.[204] Philip Barlow, the Arrington chair of Mormon history and culture at Utah State University, has said that Beck's belief that the U.S. Constitution was an "inspired document", his calls for limited government and not exiling God from the public sphere, "have considerable sympathy in Mormonism".[227] Beck has acknowledged that Mormon "doctrine is different" from traditional Christianity, but he said that this was what attracted him to it, stating that "for me some of the things in traditional doctrine just doesn't work."[228]

In June 2010, investigative reporter Alexander Zaitchik released a critical biography titled Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance, with a title mocking Beck's work, Common Sense.[254] In an interview about the book, Zaitchik theorized, "Beck's politics and his insatiable hunger for money and fame are not mutually exclusive", while stating:

Beck's true religion is not Patriotism, Mormonism, or Conservatism. His true religion is cross-platform self-marketing ... According to Beck's worldview, there's no inherent contradiction between his sophisticated instinct for self-promotion, his propagandist rodeo clown act, his self-image as a media mogul, and his professed belief system. I think he actually believes that God wants him to make a ton of money and become this huge celebrity by fear mongering and generally doing whatever it takes in the media to promote right-wing causes.[255]

In September 2010, Philadelphia Daily News reporter Will Bunch released The Backlash: Right-Wing Radicals, High-Def Hucksters, and Paranoid Politics in the Age of Obama.[256] One of Bunch's theses is that Beck is nothing more than a morning zoo deejay playing a fictional character as a money-making stunt.[256] Writer Bob Cesca, in a review of Bunch's book, compares Beck to Steve Martin's faith-healer character in the 1992 film Leap of Faith, before describing the "derivative grab bag of other tried and tested personalities" that Bunch contends comprises Beck's persona:

His (Beck's) adenoidal 'Clydie Clyde' voice is based on morning zoo pioneer Scott Shannon's "Mr. Leonard" character. His history is borrowed from the widely debunked work of W. Cleon Skousen. His conspiracy theories are horked from Alex Jones and maybe Jack Van Impe. His anti-Obama, anti-socialist monologues are pure Joe McCarthy. His chalkboard is stolen from televangelist Gene Scott. His solemn, over-processed radio monologue delivery is a dead ringer for Eric Bogosian in Talk Radio. This is all well-worn stuff, but no one has drawn it all together and sculpted it for the purpose of conning an especially susceptible audience during turbulent racial and economic times.[256]

In October 2010 a polemical biography by Dana Milbank was released: Tears of a Clown: Glenn Beck and the Tea Bagging of America.[257]

Beck has been the subject of mockery and ridicule by a number of humorists. In response to Beck's animated delivery and views, he was parodied in an impersonation by Jason Sudeikis on Saturday Night Live.[258] The Daily Show's Jon Stewart has spoofed Beck's 9–12 project with his own "11-3 project", consisting of "11 principles and 3 herbs and spices",[259] impersonated Beck's chalk board-related presentation style for an entire show,[260] and quipped about Beck "finally, a guy who says what people who aren't thinking are thinking".[261] Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report satirized Beck's "war room" by creating his own "doom bunker".[262] Through the character Eric Cartman, South Park parodied Beck's television program and his commentary style in the episode "Dances with Smurfs".[263] The Onion, a satirical periodical and faux news site, ran an Onion News Network video "special report" where it lamented that the "victim in a fatal car accident was tragically not Glenn Beck".[264] Meanwhile, the Current TV cartoon SuperNews! ran an animated cartoon feature titled "The Glenn Beck Apocalypse", where Beck is confronted by Jesus Christ who rebukes him as the equivalent of "Sarah Palin farting into a balloon".[265] Political comedian and satirist Bill Maher has mocked Beck's followers as an "army of diabetic mallwalkers",[266] while The Buffalo Beast, named Beck the most loathsome person in America in 2010, declaring "It's like someone found a manic, doom-prophesying hobo in a sandwich board, shaved him, shot him full of Zoloft and gave him a show."[35] The October 30, 2010 Rally To Restore Sanity and/or Fear in Washington, hosted by Comedy Central personalities Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, was conceived as a parody of Beck's earlier Rally to Restore Honor,[267] even though Stewart and Colbert said that they came up with the idea of holding a rally in March[268] and Stewart had put down the deposit for the National Mall before Beck announced his rally.[269]