GLENN BECK: Steve Emerson is the Executive Director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism. Steve, you're in Tel Aviv. Is this – is this even real news over in Tel Aviv, this new bin Laden tape?
STEVEN EMERSON: It got news on Friday. But frankly, they face a lot of bin Ladens on the east, the west, and on their northern borders. So they're preoccupied with their own survival here.
BECK: I was surprised that the White House came out and said that, well, he's impotent. And they just kind of blew him off. And while he's not the guy who's leading it, he is the face on the stamp. I mean, he's an icon. He's not as strong as he was. But he still wants to kill us, and he still controls power. Does he not?
EMERSON: Well, that's exactly true. The use of the word "icon" is perfectly accurate here. He's an icon. He's an inspirational symbol. He motivates people to carry out terrorism.
And to the extent that we call him impotent, we really do ourselves a disservice, because he has the capability of mobilizing people. That's his real power. He's not an operations man. He's an ideas man. He's an inspirational person to those Mujahideen or holy warriors willing to carry out suicide bombings or fly planes into our buildings.
BECK: I've got to tell you, the politicians on both sides of the aisle just pissed me off this weekend. I heard John Edwards or some clown out there saying, "Well, if I were president, we'd have him by now. And he's still loose, and we've got to get him." And I thought to myself, he's not the guy. You get him and it doesn't really matter. And then the President comes out and says, "Well, he's really impotent." And I thought, he still plays a role. Both sides are just playing this ridiculous game. In the tape itself, did you go over it with a fine-tooth comb? Did you – let's start with the call to Islam. Do you think this is one of those twisted final warnings of, "Hey, I told you, and then I had to kill you?"
EMERSON: No, actually, I think he's been calling for an embrace of Islam, a conversion, almost in virtually every single tape that he's made since 9/11, even before 9/11.
In 1996, the Ladenese Epistle, in which he – was his first call for destruction of the West, and of Israel . He said, you have to convert to Islam. So that's a staple of his – of his pedigree in terms of calling to people to convert to Islam.
BECK: He seemed very reasoned. I mean, it was almost like he was a statesman. He said what Putin has said, what Ahmadinejad had said, what Chavez has said. He's talking about Michael Scheuer and books from Chomsky. I mean, he seemed almost like he was running for President.
EMERSON: Well – well, in fact, it looked like he had been coached by Adam Gadahn, that American P.R. guy that converted to Islam and is now doing his P.R. His speech read like a Presidential speech. He actually fancies himself as an astute American analyst, thinking that he can actually cause a rebellion in the United States . He's wrong on all accounts. No one's going to buy into his – his propaganda and his delusions.
BECK: In – on the radio in the next couple of days, I'm going to be talking a little bit about some of the things that are going on in the economy right now. We're in a very precarious six-week to 90-day window here with the economy. Do you – do you have any sense on whether or not there is added pressure on them to strike us now? Do you have a sense that anything's coming quickly?
EMERSON: Look, I think that – I don't have a sense that anything is coming quickly. And the fact is that the way we would know would be chatter or some type of movement. And hopefully, the intelligence agencies would have evidence of that. And I've asked around, and no one seems to think that there is that going on. However, there added pressure to resurrect themselves and to show that they're active and capable of hitting us. That's the problem right now.
BECK: OK.
EMERSON: And I think we face a much more dangerous period now from al Qaeda than we ever did before.
BECK: Steve. Thank you very much. Stay safe.