Glenn Beck: Trump Looking Like "Another Republican Who Said Stuff, Didn't Mean It"

CNN: The Blaze founder Glenn Beck tells CNN's Anderson Cooper that President Donald Trump is abandoning his voters after flipping his stance on China, Russia, and other campaign trail promises.



Transcript, via CNN:





ANDERSON COOPER, CNN: Glenn, I mean, you haven't been -- obviously, you're no fan of Bannon. Though, there was this quote from Newt Gingrich in the "Washington Post," and I just want to read it. He said, "Bannon is a brilliant pirate who has had a huge impact, but White House is in the end are like the U.S. Navy Corporate Structures and very hard on pirates." Is he right? I mean, is this just a matter of different styles of there's more going on here?



GLENN BECK, FOUNDER, THEBLAZE: No, I don't know. I hate to make this into a reality show especially with reality president. And, you know, who's going to be next to be voted off the island.



But, I think that Bannon was instrumental in a few things that didn't go well for the president. And the president likes to win.



Also, I mean, I don't know anybody who would bet against the son-in- law winning in the end.



COOPER: Yeah.



BECK: What was disturbing here is a couple things. When you bring a guy in who was supposedly on the outside and get -- gave Breitbart really to the campaign. When he leaves, what does he do on the outside?



(CROSSTALK)



BECK: Yeah, and a danger in two ways. Is he on the outside but still kind of in, so he's influencing from a distance or is he angry and turns that populist (inaudible) against the president. There's, you know, what he's done just this week with Syria, North Korean, even dropping MOAB today, Russia, the export-import bank, those things were all very big with the far-right in the populist movement that was angry.



You don't inflict the wound on them. They're now thinking, who is this guy? Do they feel betrayed? We can worry about that little circle, but really the most disturbing thing that Bannon was a part of was this idea that we're going to put sanctions on the biggest currency manipulator in the history of the world, that's what the president said, China.



The reason why he said that and it connected with a lot of people, not me, but a lot of people and it connected because there were people out in the countries that really Donald Trump was their lost hope. I haven't had a raise since 2001. Who is going to understand it? How do they feel today when the president reverses all of this policy and that's where they put their stock that I'm going to get a job -- my job is coming back or I'm going to get a better job. He's just abandoned a lot of people.



COOPER: Well, I mean, he's abandoned people but also just -- things he stood by and said very loudly and very effectively on the campaign trail. The currency manipulator thing is one, obviously, NATO is obsolete, now it's not obsolete, even though nothing really has changed with NATO, it's just the president has changed. But he doesn't even acknowledge that he's changed.



I keep thinking about --



BECK: Right.



COOPER: -- the Republican candidates who were against him in the primary who, you know, were kind of -- you know, had policy positions and were sort of trying to be presidential and stand by positions and Donald Trump, you know, very effectively, obviously, but was able to basically just kind of take some very extreme positions and kind of make fun of the others, but now has adopted the very positions he ran against and effectively won against.



BECK: This is so far -- I mean, I can't speak for tomorrow. But today, so far, it's not my worst nightmare. My worst nightmare was that the president would turn to Steve Bannon and he'd go down this populist burn it to the ground ideology. The good news is he's not going that way, but the next question is where is he going? Is he going left? Is he going -- he's not going conservative. And, who is he going to have left in the end? Who's going to believe him? This is why I warned my audience and America that he doesn't have a core. He goes for the win. And that can be dangerous if things start to fall apart economically or, you know, in the world.



But it -- tonight at least, it looks the president is on the verge of beginning to look like another Republican who said stuff, didn't mean it, and turned into Reince Priebus or Paul Ryan and that's not good, but I remembered, Anderson, what Pres. Bush said to me. I was in the Oval Office the day that candidate Obama said that he would just fly over to borders in Pakistan and if he had to he would bomb Pakistan.



And I remember at that time Pakistan was very important ally for us and I remember thinking, my gosh, you don't bomb an ally. And, this took on real weight because it was said by the president and he pointed to his desk in the Oval Office and he said don't worry, whoever occupies that seat behind that desk, man or woman, will quickly find out that their hands are tied and they'll end up doing almost exactly as I have done.