Glenn Beck on His TIME Magazine Cover, DNC Czars Ad

This is a RUSH transcript from "The O'Reilly Factor," September 18, 2009. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

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BILL O'REILLY, HOST: In the "At Your Beck and Call" segment tonight: We have a man on fire. This week's TIME magazine cover attempts to explain FOX News anchor Glenn Beck. It's a long article. Not a hatchet job, but not exactly a Valentine either.

Joining us now from New York is the Beck-meister, author of the upcoming book "Arguing with Idiots," which will be out next Tuesday. That book is not about your appearances on "The Factor," is it?

GLENN BECK, HOST, "GLENN BECK": No. No, it isn't. I would — would I be the idiot?

O'REILLY: I think the audience would probably make that call, you know.

BECK: Sure.

O'REILLY: Sure. Just as many would be calling me an idiot. You know how it is.

BECK: Yes.

O'REILLY: All right. TIME magazine puts you and all your glory on the cover this week. Why did they do that?

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BECK: Probably because they couldn't get you.

O'REILLY: No, they couldn't. I wouldn't go anywhere near them.

BECK: Yes, I didn't either. I mean, it was a huge shock to me to get up, what was it, Thursday morning and see the cover of TIME magazine with my fat face on there. It is — it's amazing to me how the media still doesn't understand, really. They think that FOX is driving this, or I'm driving this, or you're driving this. This is a grassroots thing. We're just covering it.

O'REILLY: Yes, it's the folks. It's the folks. There's no doubt about that, and you're right. TIME magazine and the other New York-based media doesn't understand or the Washington-based doesn't understand either. But why you? I mean, you didn't cooperate with TIME. They called you up, and you said, "Look, I don't really want to be the focus of a feature," but they did it anyway. Why? Why you?

O'REILLY: I don't know, Bill. I mean, other than I think the Van Jones story turned into a story and, yet, still no one has gotten it right. It's not that he was, you know, he was a 9/11 truther or that he called the Republicans a bad name. This guy was a communist revolutionary, never disassociated himself from that. And the media is still not recording this and still not reporting and asking the president, "How did he get in? Do you disavow his views when he started the radical storm group — or the radical group called STORM? Do you agree with his radical views on police officers?" Nobody is asking that question. And it's important. They are only covering little tidbits of stories. For instance, ACORN and saying, "Well, this is just ACORN. And look at — look at these bad people in ACORN." It's about the higher ups that they have to start going after.

O'REILLY: Well, we have. And we...

BECK: I know you have.

O'REILLY: I think you know that the Beck program and "The Factor" kind of joined forces and went down to New Orleans and traced millions of dollars to an abandoned funeral home.

BECK: You know what, Bill? Again…

O'REILLY: I love that. Don't you love that though? New Orleans, abandoned funeral home, millions of dollars. I mean, you'd think somebody would go, "Maybe we should look into this."

BECK: And, if you look at who the president has surrounded himself, it's SEIU. They are all over the Oval Office.

O'REILLY: That's the union that's also in the funeral home.

BECK: If you look at the cover or the front of the funeral home, you see ACORN SEIU. These are the people that you want to have in the Oval Office?

O'REILLY: I said this the other day to Dick Morris. I said this the other day to Dick Morris. And by the way, I just want to mention — and I know you reported this, that the Louisiana attorney general has now issued subpoenas to Wade Rathke, the former president of ACORN.

BECK: Good.

O'REILLY: Turn over everything since 1998. So that...

BECK: I can't believe — I can't believe I'm saying this. But I believe you're maybe being too modest. I believe you were instrumental in getting the governor and the — the Louisiana politicians involved in this.

O'REILLY: Well, we urged them to do it in a very nice way, as we always do.

BECK: Always.

O'REILLY: But this is what I said to Morris the other day. I said, look, if you're Barack Obama and you've got an enormous union that loves you, SEIU, and you've got a nationwide grassroots Get Out the Vote ACORN, and they're both going to give you everything they have — they're going to give you money, manpower, support — you take it. You take it, right?

BECK: No. Not if they — if they violate your values, and that's the point. Do they violate their values? Do they violate the values of Barack Obama? Does Barack Obama share the values of these organizations? Who are they? And it's not that they — he's just taking the money, Bill. He's got himself surrounded by members of SEIU, and these two organizations are glove in hand.

O'REILLY: No, listen. It's a legitimate question, and you always say that on your program. You say we are raising legitimate questions, and we want them answered. And, of course, the Obama administration doesn't want any part of this.

BECK: No.

O'REILLY: Final question about TIME magazine. Did you read the piece, and did you think it was fair?

BECK: Yes, I did. I actually did. I think you stated exactly right. It wasn't exactly a valentine. But I thought it was fair, which is really all you can ask from anybody in the media, is you can say things, you're going to say things that I disagree with, but at least you tried to do a fair article, and I think they did.

O'REILLY: And you don't think they tried to marginalize you at the end with the network references and things like that?

BECK: Oh sure. I mean, yes. I mean, look, they tried to...

O'REILLY: Because they always do that.

BECK: They tried to make it look like I don't actually mean what I say. I'm just doing this for cash and all kinds of reasons. That's fine. Whatever. The viewers know the truth.

O'REILLY: All right. Now, we're going to have more with Mr. Beck in a moment, because the DNC put together an advertisement on him, and we'll show it to you and get his reaction.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'REILLY: Thanks for staying with us. I'm Bill O'Reilly, reporting tonight from Washington. We continue now with our pal, Glenn Beck, from New York. He's got a new book coming out next Tuesday. Check it out.

Now, recently the Democratic National Committee spent some money on this ad:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GLENN BECK: How many does that make now? We decided to count them up. There's the drug czar.

GRAPHIC: John Walters, drug czar, Bush administration.

BECK: Then there's the intelligence czar.

GRAPHIC: John Negroponte, intelligence czar, Bush administration.

BECK: The economic czar.

GRAPHIC: Neel Kashkari, bailout czar, Bush administration.

BECK: The Border czar. Homeland Security.

GRAPHIC: Tom Ridge, Homeland Security czar, Bush administration.

BECK: Terrorism czar.

GRAPHIC: Gen. Wayne Downing, counterterrorism czar, Bush administration.

BECK: The regulatory czar.

GRAPHIC: Susan Dudley, regulatory czar, Bush administration.

BECK: Technology czar.

GRAPHIC: David Brailer, health IT czar, Bush administration.

BECK: The car czar.

GRAPHIC: Albert Frink, manufacturing czar, Bush administration.

BECK: And now the cyber czar.

GRAPHIC: Rod Beckstrom, cyber security czar, Bush administration.

GRAPHIC: And let's not forget... Karl Rove, domestic policy czar, Bush administration. Karen Hughes, public diplomacy czar, Bush administration.

Total # Bush czars: 47.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'REILLY: All right. Here is Beck again. So, you know, a whole political ad.

BECK: I don't know if they know this. I'm not running for anything. I mean, I saw that. I was watching TV, and I saw it on TV. And I'm like, what, am I running for office? What is that?

O'REILLY: But, wait, they want to marginalize you, the Democratic Party does, because you are doing some damage to President Obama. But that was a pretty good ad, because Bush did have a lot of czars, did he not?

BECK: Yes. If anybody who would like to do their homework on me, I wasn't really a fan of George W. Bush either. I just want to make sure the man for change is — his defense is, well, Bush was doing it. Change.

O'REILLY: Change we can believe in. I'm going to have more czars than he has. Good, Beck. That's good. I like that.

BECK: The other side of this is did George Bush or anybody else, because we've had czars — and I pointed this out on the show. We've had czars way back. I believe the first one we had was — was FDR. Some of them had power. Some of them didn't. Did any of Bush's czars — were they communist? Were they revolutionaries? Were they socialists? Were there — were they people that thought your dog should have an attorney? Were any of them thinking that we should have a second Bill of Rights? These guys do.

O'REILLY: All right. Now, we talked about this a few weeks ago, and I got a lot of mail, a lot of hate mail.

BECK: Yes. My viewers are all haters.

O'REILLY: Let's do the communist thing. The communist thing. Let's do the communist thing. See, look, my primary fear is Islamic fundamentalism. I think they're the real danger in the world.

BECK: I do, too.

O'REILLY: And they — and they continue to be — Iran is at the top of the list.

BECK: Yes.

O'REILLY: OK. Communist guys — Raul Castro, Hugo Chavez — they don't bother me too much. Little guys running around the United States like Michael Moore doesn't like capitalism, they — they don't — I don't pay a lot of attention to them. But you still — that kind of thing...

BECK: No. No, I never have, Bill. I've been — I mean, you know, whenever communists and Soviet Union, clearly — you know, I think I was 7 cowering underneath my bed going, "They're going to nuke us." So I haven't for a very long time. However, there is a new group. I mean, these are new communists. These are people — look into what's his name, the czar for — the diversity czar for FCC. Look into Mark Lloyd, where he talks about the — the important revolution in — in Venezuela that almost didn't happen because Chavez didn't have control of the media. This is the guy now in control of our media. This is not good. These people do believe in Marxist principles.

O'REILLY: Right. Now, that's — that's an interesting — that's an interesting tableau.

BECK: Is that French?

O'REILLY: Because you have Barack Obama, who comes up in a very far-left atmosphere in Chicago. You don't get much far left than that. We saw the Reverend Wright and we saw William Ayers. Now, they called me the other day, the Obama people about the William Ayers thing. They had a point. They said, "Look, can you please stop with the William Ayers thing? Obama really never had a relationship with the man, other than meeting with him in a living room once or twice."

BECK: Unbelievable.

O'REILLY: OK. And I'm willing to find that slack.

BECK: Don't, Bill. And here's why. You say to them, "Great, then let's talk about the other founder of the Weather Underground, a man named Jeff Jones, who is part of the Apollo Alliance that helped write the stimulus package" — not my words, Harry Reid's words — "and is currently here in New York as the chair of the Apollo Alliance and in bed with the New York government and our federal government. That is another guy. These guys have not...

O'REILLY: There's a lot of these guys. There's a lot of these guys.

BECK: They're — but they're now...

O'REILLY: They bring them out all the time.

BECK: They're now institutionalized in our government. They're now institutionalized.

O'REILLY: Now we have to cut to the chase, Beck.

BECK: OK.

O'REILLY: What's the name of your book, "Talking to Idiots" or something?

BECK: "Arguing with Idiots."

O'REILLY: OK, all right. Now we have to cut to the chase. You built — you built a case that Barack Obama is basically filling the federal government with extremists...

BECK: Yes.

O'REILLY: ...with left-wing extremists.

BECK: Revolutionaries, key revolutionaries.

O'REILLY: So do you think that he is a left-wing extremist?

BECK: Bill, my mother used to say to me, "Show me your friends. I'll show you your future." I can't — I can only ask the question. Mr. President, please give me some other option. Please come out and say, "I reject Van Jones and his principles of communism, Marxism, and shared wealth." The man never will. Come out and stand against Jeff Jones. Rat out and say the people that wrote the stimulus package should not have anything to do with a guy who was in the Weather Underground and has never retracted his movements in that.

O'REILLY: All right. So you want more definition on what Barack Obama believes.

BECK: Yes. Because I think we're...

O'REILLY: That's what Glenn Beck wants.

BECK: Not me. I think the American people should be able to know what their president actually believes.

O'REILLY: And I agree. Glenn Beck, everybody. Thanks, Glenn.

BECK: Thank you.

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