Revealed: Glenn Beck has business ties to 'warlord' shampoo magnate he condemns as a 'false prophet'

Glenn Beck condemned shampoo magnate Charles Haywood as a "false prophet" over reports that he was funding a secretive network of paramilitary groups to set himself up as a "warlord."

The right-wing broadcaster read aloud from a Guardian report on Haywood’s apocalyptic Society for American Civic Renewal (SACR), describing the revelations as “extraordinarily disturbing," and compared him to Russian political theorist Alexander Dugin and the Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt, but the same publication exposed Beck's own ties to Haywood and his organization in a follow-up report.

"Haywood’s ally Matthew Peterson – who last year recorded a podcast featuring Haywood promoting authoritarian government in the U.S. – remains in place as editor-in-chief of the Beck-founded Blaze Media operation, a role he assumed after Blaze acquired two media properties this month from the rightwing venture firm New Founding, which Peterson co-founded," The Guardian reported. "Peterson’s former partner at New Founding, Nathaniel Fischer, meanwhile, also serves as president of the Dallas lodge of SACR."

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Blaze Media announced on Aug. 1 the acquisition of two properties from New Founding – the right-wing consumer guide Align, which bills itself as “a response to the overwhelming politicization of the most popular brands in America," and the Return newsletter devoted to essays on technology and spiritual crisis, and Peterson joined the Blaze as part of the deal.

Beck spent five minutes of his broadcast last week denouncing Haywood and his group without disclosing his ties to Peterson or Fischer, who has led the Dallas SACR lodge since its founding in 2021, a year after Haywood founded the organization -- which also has three lodges in Idaho -- with donations from his foundation and the conservative Claremont Institute.

Haywood, who sold his Indianapolis-based shampoo manufacturing company Mansfield-King in 2020 and started SACR, which he describes as an “organizing device" to conduct "more-or-less open warfare with the federal government" in the eventuality that "central authority has broken down."

Peterson, who recently joined Blaze Media, hosted Haywood last year on his podcast for a panel discussion on "Caesarism," which the host presented authoritarian rule as a means to “arrest the decline of our declining republic," and the SACR's founding principles condemn modern-day leaders who “[alienate] men from family, community, and God” and promises to “counter and conquer this poison."

Beck himself seems disturbed by the SACR, despite his proximity to its leaders.

“Is this the one where they wear the horns at night and howl at the moon in their lodge?" Beck said on his broadcast. “Do they think that’s not creepy?”