Glenn Beck announces he has COVID-19 while doing commercials for diet bars

Remember Glenn Beck? He’s still around and he’s still doing what he’s always done: grifting away. His modern look includes spectacles and a sort of Kentucky Fried Chicken Colonel Sanders look. Surprising no one, Beck’s evidence-free conspiracy theory stylings, now common on the right, are focused on all of the same tropes of misinformation, disinformation, and anti-vaxxer clickbait that allows for making money on his BlazeTV network.

Wednesday night, on the eve of the one-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by MAGA supporters hoping to install a dictator into the office of president, Glenn Beck released a video of his previously recorded interview with Donald Trump. Beck boasted of traveling down to Mar-a-Lago to talk with Trump about all the ways President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are trying to steal your freedoms. Also, Speaker Nancy Pelosi wants to steal your penis or something. 

But guess who opened his special interview with the announcement that he has “been diagnosed” with COVID? Glenn Beck did, silly billy. No worries—the grift must go on and Glenn used his COVID diagnosis as a jumping off point to … hawk things during commercial breaks.

Beck, looking very red and like he was about to burst, told his audience that he was at home quarantining, but that you needed to watch his interview with Trump, as liberals want you to worry about the Jan. 6 attempted coup because they don’t want you to know about the gospel of Trump. Then came the first segment: 

  • Trump says something about how wind power and solar power are terrible because you have to update your windmills and solar panels every three decades or something
  • Says we are standing on “liquid gold,” and the push away from fossil fuels is all a part of China’s plan to win.
  • Glenn Beck tells Trump that Putin respects him but doesn’t respect Biden.
  • Oh, liberals are worried about Jan. 6 because they are “scare-mongerers”

Then a quick commercial break to try and scare you into buying a home security system because “your home may not be a secure as you think.” One person you shouldn’t let into your home now? Glenn Beck, who is selling you this as he sits in his home with a positive COVID-19 diagnosis.

Back to the show:

  • Business is being killed by “the mandates.” You should get vaccinated, or not, if you don’t want to, it’s up to you. Business!
  • Dr. Fauci is the new president of the United States. Donald Trump didn’t do most of what Fauci suggested. [Side note: Dr. Fauci was suggesting things to Trump back in January 2020. Looks at watch? Two years later. Excellent job.]

Quick commercial to tell you that “I think it is critically important that you get your finances in order.” You’re telling me. Back to the show!

Joe Biden is trying to pit our children against each other and throw parents in trouble.

We need to abolish public schools and let states decide what students should learn about our country’s history.

Something something “cancel culture.”

Time for a commercial! Beck has COVID-19, in fact he doesn’t have much of an appetite and he had just started a diet. You know what’s saving his life? Diet bars. You know what else? You can buy them by way of Glenn Beck’s diet bar commercial. Back to the show!

  • Trump got 100% of the vote (on something).
  • The impeachment was a “hoax.”
  • Blah blah blah, witch trials.
  • Our army is run by “television generals”
  • Glenn Beck doesn’t “know” if he can tell his son to go into the military these days.

A quick reminder: Glenn Beck was promoting violence in the name of American fascism against other Americans, long before Donald Trump hit the scene. You don’t have to watch the interview, but if you want to see Glenn Beck hawk products ...

Watch right winger give out offer code for MyPillow during ‘StopTheSteal’ rally in Washington, D.C.

The Trump administration is a swamp. The great con that Trump was able to to perpetrate on the Americans who voted for him was that his political outsider credentials—which were and remain real—would allow him to clean up the big money corruption developed and fostered predominantly by the Republican Party in Washington, D.C. The reality has been that not only has Trump further swampified the government, he’s also brought in new con men and women into the government—or more realistically, brought around the government to leech off of. These are people like Mike Lindell and David Harris. Lindell you might remember as the MyPillow guy who sort of makes up a lot of right-wing media advertising dollars. He’s a shameless mad hatter pushing unproven COVID-19 remedies and alien-level conspiracy theories about the election.

David Harris is a lesser known former vitamin huckster who rebranded himself as a Black conservative and received a big boost from Trump in popularity. His angle is that he’s conservative and he’s Black and there’s a financial niche market to be found in super racist right-wing circles if you can serve the purpose of making right-wingers feel less racist than they are. Harris was highlighted as one of the top “superspreaders” of Trump’s false election misinformation by The New York Times in the weeks after Election Day. On Sunday, Harris was in Washington, D.C. for one of the “Stop The Steal” Trump rallies of people trying to overthrow the U.S. government. He spoke on stage in front of others, like the Mike “MyPillow” Lindell. It turns out that before Harris went into his speech, which mostly consisted of a long-winded recitation of a Bible passage, he had some shilling to do.

One of the people helping to fund these rallies is Lindell, and Harris wanted to make sure the audience gave Lindell the applause and recognition he deserves; being a scumbag who wants to overthrow the government takes money and time and conning. Before Lindell went up to bluster away relatively incoherently about how all of the Biden votes are proof that Donald Trump has more votes (yes, that was the basic statement by MyPillow man on Sunday), Harris had some business to do for what we call in the entertainment business the money.:

DAVID HARRIS: A special thank you to the cosponsor that really helped fund a lot of this. Mr. MyPillow himself, Mike Lindell! Amazing patriot, loves this country, loves us, loves the president, and the president loves him. And I gotta tell you I love his codes, right? I love his pillows, I love his sheets, I love his mattress topper, and I love his codes because you know what, the Kraken has been released. You are a part of the Kraken. So for the best deals to support this patriot, use the code “Kraken” at mypillow.com. He does not talk about a lot of what goes through behind the scenes, but he goes through a lot of hell for standing up for us.

It’s very important to note here how Harris began by saying, “And I gotta tell you I love his codes, right?” before remembering that he needed to do the whole make sure to mention the things Lindell sells (i.e., sheets and bed toppers), and then mention the codes. It’s one of the things you learn doing live readings for ads. There are a few things you need to hit and if you nail it, you make it seem like you aren’t doing an ad. Usually you just have to remember to mention all of the things in the right order. Harris does a fine job selling that MyPillow merch. We are just weeks away from their discount promotional codes going from “Kraken” to things like “IAMASucker” and “PleaseTakeMyMoney.”

After the day’s events, Proud Boys and other racists from the day’s “peaceful protests” went on to enact seemingly state-sanctioned violence against Americans who are interested in protecting our democracy from ethno-state insurgents and domestic terrorists like Trump and friends.