Glenn Beck's War Room

This is a rush transcript from "Glenn Beck," February 20, 2009. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

ANNOUNCER: Warning: Topics discussed on today's program may be disturbing to some viewers. The views expressed in this program are not predictions of what will happen, but what could happen. The panelists have been asked to think the unthinkable. Viewer discretion is advised.

GLENN BECK, HOST: Tonight, we have a very special edition of "The Glenn Beck" program. I want to you join me in the war room which is actually our regular set. We just lit it differently.

But we're going to play out some of the worst case scenarios with some of the greatest minds around, asking ourselves one simple question: What if? Everybody always says, "Gee, you know, we've got to bail out these banks because it will be really bad if we don't." Well, what does it mean "really bad"?

And tonight, we're going to think it out with the help of former CIA agents, some of the best money people around, military analysts, survival experts. We're going to try to show you how to prepare for the worst while everybody else is sitting back and hoping for the best. And I want you to know — everybody involved in this show is also hoping for the best.

We're not doing this show to scare you tonight. Quite honestly, I'll explain at the end of the show exactly why, but I'm doing it in a nutshell to get you to start thinking outside of the box.

In mid-January, the government war-gamed out a scenario where American cities were subjected to a coordinated two-day attack. Why? Are they saying that an attack is imminent like that? No. They just understand that planning for the unthinkable will allow them to act rationally while everybody else is panicking.

The truth is — that you are the defender of liberty. It's not the government. It's not an army or anybody else. It's you. This is your country.

So, ask yourself: What kind of sentry do you want to be as you stand there at the gate? What kind of sentry do you want to post at the gate? Which one would be the right one — somebody who refuses to consider how our country may come apart at the seams or somebody who gets freaked out at the first sign of trouble or somebody who has just lived by the words from former Arkansas Senator William Fulbright? He said, quote, "We must dare to think about the unthinkable things, because when things become unthinkable, thinking stops and action becomes mindless."

We're making decisions right now, and I don't think we're really thinking them through. Let that not happen to us. Let's make the unthinkable thinkable for 60 minutes, and we start right now.

(MUSIC)

BECK: All right. I mean, the spooky music was enough.

All right. I want to stress that we are not predicting these things are going to happen. We are asking you — what do you do if they happen? Can they be prevented?

Let's look at our first scenario. It's the financial meltdown. The year is 2014.

All the U.S. banks have been nationalized. Unemployment is about between 12 percent and 20 percent. Dow is trading at 2,800. The real estate market has collapsed. Government and unions control most of the business, and America's credit rating has been downgraded.

That's the first scenario.

Joining me now is — we have Stephen Moore, he's a senior economic writer for The Wall Street Journal. And Gerald Celente — he's the founder of Trends Research Institute.

Gerald, you, gosh, you're one of the spookiest dudes I know, because for you, this is like not a war game. You think a lot of this stuff is really coming.

GERALD CELENTE, FOUNDER, TRENDS RESEARCH INSTITUTE: We're writing the history of the future.

BECK: OK. What is life like — under that scenario — what is life like in 2014 for America?

CELENTE: New York City looks like Mexico City. If you have money or they think you're going to have money, you're going to be a target for a kidnapping. We're going to see major cities look like Calcutta. There is going to be the homeless, panhandlers, hookers.

BECK: Hold on just a second. Prozac?

(LAUGHTER)

STEPHEN MOORE, WALL STREET JOURNAL: Prozac, I'll take a couple.

BECK: Prozac, America, you can have some. OK.

CELENTE: It's going to be serious. It's going to be — we are going to see petty thieves and we're going to see pick-pockets.

BECK: OK. But what does — for instance, and, Stephen, tell me first before we go back, give me the economic — what does the economic picture look like? What has happened to us?

MOORE: Well, we allowed government to run away with itself. We became consumed by debt, runaway government spending, credit rating that's just been crushed by the overwhelming amount of debt and taxation. And, you know, when you asked me about this doomsday scenario, you don't have to think about these wild thoughts.

We've seen this happened to other countries. We've seen this happened to Mexico, Bolivia, Argentina, Zimbabwe, Russia, all consumed by government, all do-gooders — some of that led to the decline of their civilizations.

BECK: People say to me all the time, "Glenn, we're the United States of America." I read an editorial in The New York Times that said we don't know how these things will play out printing all of this money.

MOORE: Right. It is unchartered territory. But here's the point.

BECK: For the United States, it's not for other countries. It has been and it always ends the same way.

MOORE: That's right. And just look at what has happened in just the last six months. I mean, we have printed more money and increased the debt of the country more than in any time in the first 200 years. If you stay on that path, that story does not have a happy ending.

BECK: So, do we have hyperinflation with this scenario?

MOORE: Could be. I mean, that's happened — in some countries, hyperinflation gets so bad, Glenn, that people have to go to the shopping stores literally with wheelbarrows full of their currency. In some countries, that people don't even use the currency. In other countries, they print the currency but they don't put the denomination on it because they write it down on the piece of paper.

BECK: OK.

MOORE: And the currency becomes as valueless as the paper that it is printed on.

BECK: We are seeing now a Dow at — what did it close today?

MOORE: Seventy-five hundred or so. Maybe a little lower.

BECK: Seventy-five hundred, 7,300, something like that. The Dow in our scenario, I think, was about 3,000. Money is, in our scenario, is really worthless, because the government has debased it.

MOORE: Right.

BECK: And you say that people make their own money. I just want to show this. This is a liberty dollar. I believe the man who made this actually went to jail.

Is anybody familiar with this story? He went to jail. I have this money and this is the only thing I could find this morning. When I go out on tour or something, people will come up to me and hand me this money. They will hand it to me and say, "Brother, you got to preach on about the money." People are making bogus American money because they don't believe in it. Right now, this is happening.

CELENTE: Well, look at what's going on with gold. It topped over $1,000 an ounce today.

BECK: Right.

CELENTE: And we have been predicting this a long time. By 2015, you're going to see gold probably at $8,000 an ounce.

MOORE: And why do people buy gold?

(CROSSTALK)

MOORE: Because they don't think money is worth anything anymore.

CELENTE: Not worth the paper it's printed.

MOORE: Right. They don't think it's worth anything.

(CROSSTALK)

CELENTE: The New York Times could, you know, they could elaborate about how you could print up cheap money and for it to not mean anything. I would say The New York Times doesn't know what they are talking about.

BECK: Right. OK.

CELENTE: You can't print cheap money based on nothing.

BECK: OK. So, you have people printing up their own money. It's a barter system at this point, right?

MOORE: That's right. People — they don't even use currency anymore. You know, you trade your goods and service for — plumber trades for a carton of milk or things like that.

BECK: What is worth something? I mean, not everybody can go out and .

MOORE: Well, gold is. This coin — is this coin made of silver?

BECK: Yes.

MOORE: Well then it has value. Silver has value. Gold has value. There are times when coins have become as — you know, when coins have become so debased in terms of their value, people melt them down because the copper or the silver in the coin .

BECK: If you have a big bag of pennies.

MOORE: Right. That's why we — that's why we don't put copper in pennies anymore, because the copper was worth more than the penny is worth.

BECK: You're smiling. What do you thinking?

CELENTE: Well, you know, I'm right on the same page what Stephen is saying. I mean, this isn't — look, we are creating a scenario for the future that's happening in the present. That's what tracking trends is, a way of understanding where we are, seeing how we got here, and then looking where we're going.

This is unprecedented. And we have people telling us, "Oh, don't worry, it's going to be all right"? I mean, there's nothing that they could say that they've done right and they're going to pull this one off?

BECK: OK. The hyperinflation is caused in our scenario because nobody start — nobody is loaning us money anymore.

MOORE: Right.

BECK: And so, when they don't loan us money anymore, when China finally says no, then we have to print that money to cover our debts.

MOORE: Right.

BECK: In this scenario, Social Security doesn't live. There's no government...

(CROSSTALK)

MOORE: I love people say, "Oh, well, at least Social Security is safe."

BECK: Right.

MOORE: Folks, Social Security is not safe.

BECK: Nothing is safe.

MOORE: I mean, how can the government pay benefits? They may pay you benefits but the dollars they pay you aren't going to be worth anything.

BECK: OK. So, let me — let me go to another topic because the problem with this scenario is — how do you get people to have — to live under this without clamping down on the people? Civil rights, freedom of speech — what does that look like in 2014?

Onkar Ghate, he is a senior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute.

Onkar, tell me a little bit about what you see happening with freedom of speech in a scenario like this. How does — does the government need to keep people muted in a situation where things have really fallen apart?

ONKAR GHATE, SENIOR FELLOW, AYN RAND INSTITUTE: Yes, I think so. In this kind of night player scenario that you're envisioning, what would happen is that the government wouldn't tolerate any kind of objections and dissent. And what would happen is, that there would be a clampdown on free speech, particularly, I think, political speech.

And we've seen precursors of that with, say, McCain-Feingold Act which is an assault on the First Amendment rights which tells people, you can't spend your money to advocate for views you want. It tells you when you can do it. It puts periods when no one is allowed to speak or some groups aren't allowed to speak and we would see a real extension of that so that the people in political power can hold on to their power, to get a real collapse in a dictatorship, it's a one-party rule.

But to get that, you really have to silence other people, and that — and you can only do that by infringing on their free speech rights and making a mockery of the First Amendment.

BECK: All right. I'm not sure if you — and I don't mean to insult you by any stretch of imagination, we just haven't had a chance to talk beforehand. I'm not sure if you're familiar with the history of Woodrow Wilson or Franklin, but — or even Truman. We've done this before, and it was always wrapped in Uncle Sam and the flag. We have clamped down on people. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, back in the early 1900s, we had 150,000 people that were political prisoners that were in jail for speaking out against World War I.

So, this isn't a crazy scenario. This .

GHATE: No, I don't think it is.

BECK: Right.

GHATE: Yes.

BECK: This has happened before. So what are — besides the — what would be the signs, the road signs along the road to 2014 that we should be aware of?

GHATE: I think extensions of McCain-Feingold, extensions of — if there are some political speeches that is OK and other speeches isn't, and it's the government that gets to decide which is which. So, if we start seeing as we've seen stimulus czars, regulatory czars, if we start seeing speech czars, we're down the road to a real dictatorship.

BECK: OK.

GHATE: And that would be really scary.

BECK: OK. Let me go back to Gerald here for just a second. What
— tell me what life is like for the average person — and, Stephen, chime in on this — do we have the neighborhoods we're living in? Are we still living in our homes?

MOORE: Think gated communities. I mean, you were talking about this before. You know, those countries you were talking about like cities like Mexico City. Those are — the rich people live in fortresses, right? With armed guards and the masses are — as you said, people get kidnapped when they go outside the fortress, and you essentially privatize security and all the other kind of government functions because government breaks down. Isn't that what happens...

(CROSSTALK)

CELENTE: And the other thing, even these — even these gated communities won't be safe, because you're going to see criminality — you're going to see gangs like you've never seen before. Listen, when people have nothing left to lose, and they've lost everything, they lose it. And now, you have a society — we're a dissenting society. I mean, you look at high school graduation rates — you have under 50 percent in major cities.

So, now you have all these people — I'm not a classist, I'm a guy that was born in the Bronx, you know.

BECK: Right.

CELENTE: You have people that are ignorant, functionally illiterate, and whacked out on drugs, Hillbilly era, well, you name it, meth, go down the line, and they have nothing to lose.

You know, I'm a practitioner, a close combat practitioner, Attackproof.com is my instructing — teachers, John Perkins, and he's a self defense expert. He's a close combat. Number one, anybody that wants to look him up, he's there.

You know what he teaches us? He teaches us to prepare for the worst — survival. And then you back off from that. So, let's look at what you are doing. You are doing the perfect thing. You are building the worst-case scenario.

From that, we can back off, but people better realize that the worst-case scenario could actually happen.

BECK: Yes.

CELENTE: 9/11 happened. This can happen. An economic 9/11, the likes of which we've never seen.

BECK: I will tell you that it's deja vu all over again, if you will, for me. Back in 1999, I was on WABC and I had never even heard of Usama bin Laden. I read something and I read it and mispronounced his name on the air. I said Usama Ben-ladin (ph) or something. And I read his words and I looked at it and I said, "This guy is serious. You got to take this guy at his word."

And I remember conservatives calling me up and yelling at me and saying, "Oh, you're just trying to help out the Clinton administration." I said, "You're out of your mind." And I said at that time, "Within 10 years, there will be bodies and buildings in the streets of New York, will you then fight terrorism?" And I feel the same way now, that people aren't willing to look at the unspeakable, and if we act now, we don't have to have all of these things.

People don't understand it. This is what worries me. I'll live in any condition. I don't care. I'll grow my own food and whatever.

MOORE: I worry, too.

BECK: Yes, I worry about my kids.

CELENTE: Right.

BECK: Do they — there's no — in this scenario, if these things would come to pass, there is no Apple store anymore, right? There is no .

MOORE: That's right. And we have ourselves to blame for this, because we have built up a society that everyone's entitled to have what everyone else produces. We've become moved very gradually but in a much accelerated pace in the last few years.

BECK: They're trying to...

MOORE: It's just kind of a socialistic attitude where what you have belongs to me and what you have belongs to him.

BECK: Right. But we're trying to — even with this bailout, we're trying to build this back up and say, "Oh, these houses, you know, we'll be able to, it will turn around." The malls in this scenario .

CELENTE: Ghost malls.

BECK: Ghost malls?

CELENTE: Ghost malls.

BECK: OK. I want to talk to you now about something called the "Bubba effect." I believe this part of the scenario is likely to happen, and I hope to God it doesn't, but we need to talk about it.

Tim Strong is a retired command sergeant major in the U.S. Army.

Hey, Tim, how are you?

CSM TIM STRONG, U.S. ARMY (RET.): Hey, Glenn, good evening. How are you doing tonight?

BECK: Explain what the "Bubba Effect" is. This is something that the military has been concerned about.

STRONG: Well, we'll go back to the segue of the survivalist attitude. You know, it's that American that exists, that believes in trust in American as it currently exists, and, you know, they lose that faith and confidence within the various politicians and the areas that surround them. They end up developing their own infrastructure, their own means to survive, to basically fend for themselves.

The disadvantage to that, Glenn, is with the "Bubba Effect," it's not diesel trucks and all that as we currently refer to, but, you know, they can critically be a key play when it comes to, you know, having their own biofuel, that type of stuff to survive. They'll be very conscious of who enters their own community and it's almost going to be a commune-based society, but they won't project that based on the fact that they want to project normalcy...

BECK: OK.

STRONG: But those that enter their space that are threatening to them. And again, we don't want to use the word "profiling," but that's — you are definitely going to stand out. You are not going to look like a bubba.

BECK: OK.

STRONG: And .

BECK: So, Tim, I want to break here — I have to take a commercial break, but I want to — at the bottom of the hour, I want to come back and show how that community, because that's like a "Mad Max" community.

STRONG: In a sense.

BECK: How that actually — how that actually starts here? How that is probably beginning — it has already begun here in America — and how it manifests itself. What are the other pressures that are building around the globe, and what if the U.S. can no longer be the world's policeman, because the economy, the global economy has broken down?

That scenario, when we return.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: Warning: Topics discussed on today's program may be disturbing to some viewers. The views expressed on this program are not predictions of what will happen, but what could happen. The panelists have been asked to think the unthinkable. Viewer discretion is advised.

(MUSIC)

BECK: We're guessing here the situation anywhere; this is the war that possibly is coming to our shores, the war room. We are war-gaming different scenarios. We are not predicting that these things will happen, we are asking — could do they happen? What do we do if they happen?

Here's our second scenario: Global civil unrest. Now, the United States is no longer the world's policeman. Mexico has been taking over by narco gangs. Oil and gas pipelines have been targeted and destroyed. Tourism nonexistent due to safety concerns.

Ukraine is the first European country to fail, eastern European. Ireland is the first western country to fail. Fifty million people worldwide are unemployed. There are riots in the streets.

Joining me now from Berkeley, California, is former CIA operative, Bob Baer — one of the scariest dudes I know. And in Chicago, is Department of Homeland Security's red cell unit, Brad Thor, also author of many bestsellers.

Brad, let me start with you because we're going to start with Mexico. There's breaking news that just came over the wire just the last couple of minutes. I believe you have that update.

BRAD THOR, FORMER DHS RED CELL UNIT: I do. Out of Juarez, that their chief law enforcement officer there has now resigned after one of his officers and a prison guard were killed over the last couple of days, with notes threatening his family and everything. Glenn, this is what we talked about last time I was on with you, is that Mexico is this close to being a failed state. And it's going to be a narco state. And this is going to pose serious, as we discussed before, serious security concerns for the United States.

BECK: Right. And it will lead to, I believe it will play into, at least, the disenfranchisement and a possible uprising here in the United States with — God forbid — please, everybody, have a seat and relax just a little bit.

Bob, on the world stage, what are you most concerned about if these things would come true? What happens to us as we have to retract back into ourselves because we can't afford to be the world's policeman? What concerns you? What does the world look like?

BOB BAER, FORMER CIA OPERATIVE: Well, here's a couple of scenarios that are becoming very real, are becoming not just risks but probability. Let's say we go into a prolonged depression, price of oil falls to $5 or $6 a barrel. The Gulf states start going under one by one. Saudi Arabia depends on very expensive oil, and so does Iran.

Iran's got a population of 70 million. People start to starve. They're out of money, a big army. They move into the Gulf and take it. We have a hostile regime in control of our resources that. That is not that far away.

BECK: You know, we have, I know, both of you gentlemen, we have talked over the years about Iran getting a nuke, and Benjamin Netanyahu is now the guy in charge. And he looked me in the eye and said, "We have a right to survive. We have a right to live." And he was very clear with me that he would not allow Iran to get a nuke, they now have the material to make one.

How much of a role does that play in what's coming?

BAER: Glenn, you know, it's .

THOR: I think — I think it's huge, Glenn. I .

BECK: Go ahead. Brad and then Bob.

THOR: I think it's going — I think it's going to be a big deal, especially if this crisis, and I have confidence in America, I don't think we're going to get wiped off the map as far as just having to remove ourselves from the world stage. But if it does happen, if we're war-gaming that here, Israel, if your older brother is all of a sudden not at the playground with you one morning, your younger brother needs to step up and knock the biggest kid right in the teeth if he doesn't want to have problems. I wouldn't begrudge Israel the right to do that for a second.

BECK: Bob?

BAER: Glenn, there is — there is a pool at the Pentagon right now. I talked to a couple of officers in the last couple of days, that what are the chances of a major war in the Middle East and they are putting it at 55 percent with Netanyahu's appointment today.

BECK: What does that — what does that do to us, Bob? You know, Arch Duke Ferdinand was a guy that most people in America never even heard of. He was gunned down in the streets and all of a sudden, we were in World War I and the whole world was at war, and we were there with them.

BAER: I'll tell — I'll tell you the way it goes, Glenn. Netanyahu goes into Gaza, Gaza City, and at the same time, there's rockets coming across the border from Lebanon. The Israelis are obligated to go into Damascus and hit Hamas headquarters there, hit Hezbollah. That will pull in Iran. There will be retaliation against Iran.

Iran has a couple thousand rockets facing, again, this is my bias, but facing the oil facilities on the other side of the Gulf. And they have promised — and I truly believe they will — they'll fire the rockets at these oil facilities and this will all occur within minutes. I mean, this is a risk, it's not a certainty, but this is the kind of considerations that are going on at the Pentagon today.

BECK: Does anybody — did anybody — and this is one of the things that really woke me up. And it was after 9/11. I remember the first time I read it. It was Osama bin Laden, and he said "What I did to Russia, I will bring to the United States." And I thought — you arrogant SOB, you didn't bring down Russia. It was Reagan and the Pope and Thatcher.

And indeed, he played a huge role. We all did. It was the perfect storm, and about five years ago, that's — when I reread it again and I went, "Oh, my gosh."

That's what I'm most concerned about, is that there are so many of these things that could be huge, but also, that's tied in to what would happen in the Middle East is also tied in to just running over Europe. Europe, itself, is teetering with Muslim extremists as well.

How does the world stand without America standing there and being prepared to deal with it?

THOR: Glenn, you know, this is a very important point that you brought up. What happens with America not there is exactly what happens when the teacher leaves the classroom. A lot of these people go wild. I'm talking in particular in the Muslim world.

And what you have in western Europe, in particular, is they are no longer going to be able to be embarrassed how we interact with them or how we think about them and how they deal with this threat over there. They are going to fold like a cheap wallet. They already are falling. We saw with Geert Wilders when they wouldn't let him to speak and he got invited to the House of Parliament there.

So, this is a big problem. And Bin laden also said that his goal was to cripple us economically. So, what a great time to kick America is when it is in a financial crisis to try to make it worse.

BECK: Yes. And we all said, you know, we all didn't have a problem thinking that the Russia could fall and collapse from economics, and yet, for some reason, a lot of Americans are like, "Oh, that will never happen to us." Why? What makes us different?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: Warning, topics discussed on today's program may be disturbing to some viewers. The views expressed in this program are not predictions of what will happen, but what could happen. The panelists have been asked to think the unthinkable. Viewer discretion is advised.

BECK: Tonight is a special, it's the "War Room." We are war gaming different scenarios. We are not predicting these things will happen. In fact, I think everybody on the set is praying these things don't happen, but it's interesting.

We were talking in the middle of the break that most of the people on the set and that are joining us via satellite really think these are the light scenarios. These are the bedtime stories, as Bob Baer said just a minute ago. We are just asking what would we do if they did happen.

Our third scenario: anger and discontent at home. The year is 2014. Many Americans are feeling disenfranchised. People are isolated from their political leaders and have been betrayed over and over and over again. Internet connects like-minded people and the "Bubba Effect" — a rise in individual militias.

With me now is Michael Scheuer. He is the former head of the CIA Bin Laden unit. And back again is Tim Strong, a retired command sergeant major in the U.S. Army.

Quickly, let me just — before we go, let me go to Michael and Gerald here on — or Stephen. Stephen, give me the —

MOORE: I'm not Michael.

BECK: God. Stephen, give me the — real quick, how much are taxes — in our scenario of 2014 to pay for all the stuff that we're doing, how much are taxes?

MOORE: We tried to pay for all of the spending we have done in just the last 18 months with higher tax rates. The Heritage Foundation and other groups have estimated that the tax rate at the top would have to go to 80, 90, perhaps even 95 percent, which means that 95 percent of everything you make would have to go to the government just to pay for what we have already spent money on.

BECK: Gerald, what happens to the people when you start taxing?

GERALD CELENTE, FOUNDER, TRENDS RESEARCH INSTITUTE: Tax revolts.

BECK: Yes, tax revolts.

CELENTE: We all heard it on CNBC.

BECK: But you're not talking about a tea party.

CELENTE: Oh, no, no. This is going to be violent. People can't afford it anymore.

BECK: OK.

CELENTE: The cities are going to look like Dodge City. They're going to be uncontrollable. You're going to have gangs in control, motorcycle marauders. You're not going to have enough police or federalis, just like Mexico, to control the situation.

BECK: Tim, I want to come back to you now. You're a credible guy. You were one of the first guys in Iraq, if I'm not mistaken, during this war. You have been with the military a very long time. You were one of the guys on the frontlines.

Michael, you were up in the caves hunting for Usama bin Laden. You guys have all the credibility there can be on thinking the unthinkable and living the unthinkable. Tim, let me come back to you and ask you about the "Bubba Effect." As I understand, the "Bubba Effect," prior to what you set up in the opening, it is — let's say there is a rancher who's protecting his property down in Texas or Arizona, like the rancher that just lost this week.

And he defends his property. The ATF and the FBI come down. They arrest him. They haul him away. There has got to be Texans and Arizonans — they say, "Whoa, wait a minute, hang on. You people knew this was going to happen. Mexico has collapsed. They're coming across. I have a right to protect my own property." That's the "Bubba Effect."

Now the government has to make a choice who the bad guys and who the good guys are, because people have been so disenfranchised. Is that possible?

STRONG: Glenn, that's totally possible, and that's the problem, because the Bubbas are compliant to civil, you know, right or civil ordain. The problem you have, Glenn, is you've got people that are going to do the right thing to truly protect the interests of the United States to include their own.

But they're the ones that will be apprehended for it, because they did something to somebody that was not in compliance with what the U.S. Government - because it's easy to arrest a guy who is going to be orderly and conduct himself accordingly, because that's what our society breeds.

BECK: So —

STRONG: The problem is —

BECK: No. Go ahead. No, finish.

STRONG: No, no. The problems is, you know, that it's going to get to the point where you see the other Texans and Arizonans that aren't going to allow to be arrested because of the first and second individuals at war. So your second and third orders of effect are going to become your Bubbas hunkering down and being anti-government.

BECK: OK. Michael, the government coming in and disenfranchising people over and over and over again, and having the people say, "Please listen to us," the average person, some people will listen to the government, but others - and I'm seeing it already.

They know the Constitution. They know the writings of the founders, and they feel that the government, or they will in this scenario, and I think we're on this road - the government has betrayed the Constitution. And so they will see themselves as people who are standing up for the Constitution.

So how do you defuse this, Michael, or how long even do we have before this becomes a crazy real scenario?

MICHAEL SCHEUER, FORMER HEAD OF THE CIA BIN LADEN UNIT: Well, I don't think you would want to defuse it, Glenn. We have had a 40-minute program so far, and all of the problems we have talked about in one way or another are the result of the American government either overspending or overreaching.

BECK: Wait, wait, wait, wait. Wait a minute. Are both of you guys saying that you don't want to — I don't think we would head for an American revolution. We would head for a French revolution.

SCHEUER: Civil war.

BECK: This is the scenario that would tear this country apart, and spiral us into something that maybe we have never even seen before, including the civil war.

SCHEUER: Glenn, the Second Amendment is about, at base, not about hunting or about a militia, but about resisting tyranny. The founders were very concerned about allowing individual citizens weaponry to defend themselves as a last resort against the tyrannical government.

I don't think the government — the founders ever considered that there would be a tyranny of incompetence, but I think that's what we're facing.

BECK: OK. Wait. Gentlemen —

SCHEUER: And ultimately, that's the right of the Americans.

BECK: Both of you guys — I mean, I can't believe I'm hearing this. And don't get me wrong. I am against the government, and I think that they have just been horrible, and I do think they are betraying the principles of our founders every day they're in office.

But I have to tell you, this scenario scares the living daylights out of me because it is completely — it is shaking nitroglycerine.

You both served in the military. You tell me, do the soldiers come in and do they round up people? Or do they fight with the people for the Constitution? What is the Army? What does the military do?

Neither one of you — you just said that, Michael Scheuer, but you won't say which side the military chooses?

SCHEUER: No. I don't think the military is ever going to shoot on the American people, Sir. I think —

BECK: OK. Then —

SCHEUER: The military, of all people, read the Constitution every year right through.

BECK: OK. Can you give me an extra minute? Tim, I want to ask you real quick. Tim, we have military exercises going on in Iowa right now. We have a battalion, I believe, in Maryland. People are training for civil unrest all over the country.

I believe the answers, you know, that they give and they say this is for this kind of unrest or this kind of unrest, except we just had in our stimulus package, a way for — if your governor says no to the money, the legislature can go around the governor and go right to the feds.

It is this kind of thing that would make the federal government say, "You know what? We can call up the National Guard. We don't need your governor to do it." Do you believe those scenarios or is this crackpot stuff?

STRONG: No. Hey, Glenn, I think that's a possibility. But to be frank with you, you know, Civil War — history repeats itself. And I don't think that you will have brothers fighting each other like we did back in the Civil War. We've learned our lesson. It is state-owned but also state-sponsored by those people of that community.

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