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Glenn's Show Prep

Chris Mintz - a name you should remember after the Oregon shooting

October 02, 2015
Ted Tuttle

Editor

On radio Friday, Glenn shared his reaction to the news of the previous day's shooting massacre in Oregon. With reports surfacing that the perpetrator seemed to be after the notoriety the typically follows such crimes, Glenn refused to even mention his name on radio.

Instead, he focused on one of the heroes that day - Chris Mintz

A 30-year-old Army vet attending the college, Mintz charged the shooter in an effort to save others.

Source: CBS Pittsburgh Source: CBS Pittsburgh

He was shot between five and seven times. As he lay wounded on the ground, all he kept saying was, "It's my son's birthday. It's my son's birthday."

Listen to the moving story or read the transcript below.

Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors.

GLENN: The psychopath that killed at least nine in a college massacre, we know that he said on his Facebook page, everybody seems to remember those guys who did all the shootings. They're nobodies until they shoot people. And everybody knows their name. On this program, I'm not going to give this guy's name. His name is not important. He was a psychopath. He was a troubled, troubled individual. I don't know what his motivation was at this point. But it's certainly not what the media is giving you.

He was sick and disturbed. The name I want you to remember is Chris Mintz. He's a 30-year-old student that just started -- this was his first week at college. He was going because he wanted to become a fitness trainer. He was an Army vet. He was shot between five and seven times. We don't know the real number yet. Five and seven times while charging straight at the gunman in an effort to save other people.

He did so on his son's sixth birthday. As he lay wounded on the ground, all he kept saying was, "It's my son's birthday. It's my son's birthday."

When word of Chris Mintz, his heroism reached his native North Carolina. His cousin was hardly surprised. His cousin said, "Sounds like something he would do." He was amazed that a guy who survived a combat deployment without serious injury had come so close to being killed in a small town in Oregon.

They had both joined the Army after graduating from high school. Mintz had been sent to Fort Lewis in Washington State, both had been deployed. After leaving the Army, Chris Mintz, the hero yesterday, moved to Oregon, done a bit of martial arts. He had been working at the local YMCA, while enrolled at the community college, with an eye towards becoming a fitness trainer. His cousin said he's a big guy.

Mintz didn't forget the former colleagues and the former soldiers that he served with. He marked the seventh anniversary of the death of an Army captain Richard Gordon Jr. in Afghanistan by posting a photo and a bio of the fallen officer on Facebook. Just a few days ago, on September 28th on his Facebook page, he wrote, "To the limit. Sir, you are not forgotten."

Then yesterday Mintz began his day by posting again on Facebook. "Happy birthday, my son." Then he headed to UCC for his first week of classes. And when the gunman started firing, he did what he was trained to do. He did what he was born to do. Other students present, includes a woman who was a nurse. She began administering CPR in a desperate attempt to save one of the mortally wounded. After Mintz charged the gunman and he was laying down on the ground bleeding out, she held his hand and prayed with him while he just kept saying over and over again, "It's my son's birthday. It's my son's birthday."

Last night in the hospital, he underwent at least one surgery. He's expected to recover. Doctors say he's going to have to learn how to walk again. I don't want you to remember the guy's name who shot the people yesterday, that caused chaos, that brought death, because that's what he wanted. I don't want to mention his name on the air today. I'm not going to give him what he wants. But I do want you to remember the name Chris Mintz.

There was another veteran that showed up yesterday. He was at the college. He had a gun in his car. Perhaps things would have turned out differently had the college not told him -- I'm sorry. "Go back to your car. Give us your gun." They took his gun away. There was one security guard on campus. One security guard on campus.

He had a can of mace. People want to know why there's shootings at the schools. Because it's open season. You can kill as many as you want before anybody gets there and has any time to do anything. You can kill and kill and kill. It's open season.

You don't see a lot of shootings at firing ranges, do you?

I want you to remember one other thing today. Yesterday, at this time, I told you on the air that this is the time of Christian persecution. I told you at this time yesterday on the air that you were going to see more persecution coming and this was the time that Christians are being persecuted and killed in larger numbers than they have been in the last 2,000 years. More people, more Christians had died for their faith in the last three years than the last 2,000, combined.

Media Matters, other organizations mocked me ironically -- mocked me by yesterday afternoon while Christians were being shot in Oregon. Nobody seems to want to really point out and focus that this man lined people up and said, "Are you a Christian?" If you failed to answer or you answered no, he shot you in the leg. If you answered yes, he shot you in the head. Does that sound like persecution?

But I don't want to focus on the persecution. I again want to focus on the positive. I've said on this program recently, I think al-Qaeda could come over here or ISIS could come over here and I'm not sure they would find any Christians.

Just like the Christians in the Middle East, there are those who are standing up. There are those who are not afraid. What would you have done yesterday as a Christian and you saw him asking people, "Are you a Christian?" And when you said yes, he shot you in the head. How would you have answered?

We have at least nine people that answered yes. Courage is contagious.

This morning as I was driving in, I started to say a prayer. And I asked for prayers last night on Facebook because I saw the president's speech. I see what the media is doing. Nobody seems to care about -- nobody seems to care about the kids that are being shot in Chicago. The president's hometown of Chicago being slaughtered on the streets. Is anybody saying anything about that?

The president is getting angry now because he can't get his way. Hillary Clinton came out yesterday and said, "People just think that this Second Amendment is sacrosanct." It is.

I got into my car this morning, and I -- I said, "God, it's me. It's all of us. Man, how tired you must be of hearing from us on days like today. It's your children, the ones who forget about you all the time, the ones who become arrogant, the ones who get busy. It's us. Your children that don't ever call you, except maybe on your birthday or the holidays. Good morning, Dad. It's us. You know, the children that only call when we're in trouble or we need money. I'm sorry, Dad."

It's funny, now that I'm a dad, now that I'm a grandfather, now that I'm getting older, I really see that I did all of those things to my parents until I was about 30. I forgot about them. It was all about me. I only called them when I needed something or I needed money. And in some ways, the pattern is repeating.

I can't imagine what it's like to be you. Eternal. With billions of children. All making the same mistake. Hearing from us only when we're in trouble.

You had to know we would be calling this morning. You had to know when we were closing our eyes last night that your phone would ring today because we're in trouble. You had to know yesterday when you saw a man walk in and target your children by name, you had to know as darkness played, instead of us coming together, some are using this event to keep us apart again. Some see the killing here in Oregon, that they see it for political purposes.

And I say that's for political purposes because they fail to see the killing on the streets in Chicago. Almost 400 of your kids, our brothers and sisters died this year in Chicago. Six times the amount that were killed yesterday were killed last month in Chicago. Nobody seems to say anything about those kids. Those brothers. Those sisters.

No one in the press seems to notice or care that it was Christians that were martyred yesterday. That this isn't new. Not to you. There were 2 million Christians in Syria 18 months ago. There are now less than 400,000. Children have been crucified in your name while we remain asleep.

Dad, I don't know how you put up with us. Forgive us.

I've been reading the patterns of history. I read what you told Jeremiah when he came to you because they were in trouble. You were really clear. You told him, "Tell the people just stop listening to the liars. Stop listening to the liars that say the temple, the temple, the temple. Stop listening to the liars who are saying, you're going to be fine. God's never going to wipe us off the map. He wouldn't do that. We're his people."

I read where you said, "Yes, I will. I've done it before. And I'll do it again."

I read where you said, "It was too late, Jeremiah. Don't even pray for them anymore."

Dad, I don't have any right to ask you this, but please who may be calling on you for the first time since your birthday. Hear the voices who are calling on you for the first time maybe ever.

I'd just like to remind you in a humble way, I have no right to do this to you, but it was you that chose your children of Israel. It was you that said, "I love these people. I love these children." And you established Israel. But there's only one nation, only one group of people that ever chose you. You chose the Israelites. But we chose you.

We founded our nation on you. We dedicated this nation to you. We're the only nation to ever do that, Lord. And I know we have so sorely lost our way, but that foundation, that covenant is still good. We just need your help. There's so many of us that refuse to wake up. And I thank you for the nudging. I thank you for all of the things that you have done so far to wake us up. You're ripping off the blankets, and you're even turning on the lights. You're opening up the curtains. I know because my mother used to do it to me when I wouldn't get up, and you're doing it to the whole world now.

Please remember, Dad, that we love you. Please remember that we're just foolish children, but there are millions here. And we know because we saw just a handful of them yesterday stand up and die for your sake, your name. Please hear us today. Please call on us. For here I am. Dad, I got to get to work. I know you don't have a reason to believe me. But I will call you back later today just to catch up. We love you.

Glenn Beck: Here's what's WRONG with conservatism today

Getty Images / Handout | Getty Images

What does it mean to be a conservative in 2025? Glenn offers guidance on what conservatives need to do to ensure the conservative movement doesn't fade into oblivion. We have to get back to PRINCIPLES, not policies.

To be a conservative in 2025 means to STAND

  • for Stewardship, protecting the wisdom of our Founders;
  • for Truth, defending objective reality in an age of illusion;
  • for Accountability, living within our means as individuals and as a nation;
  • for Neighborhood, rebuilding family, faith, and local community;
  • and for Duty, carrying freedom forward to the next generation.

A conservative doesn’t cling to the past — he stands guard over the principles that make the future possible.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: You know, I'm so tired of being against everything. Saying what we're not.

It's time that we start saying what we are. And it's hard, because we're changing. It's different to be a conservative, today, than it was, you know, years ago.

And part of that is just coming from hard knocks. School of hard knocks. We've learned a lot of lessons on things we thought we were for. No, no, no.

But conservatives. To be a conservative, it shouldn't be about policies. It's really about principles. And that's why we've lost our way. Because we've lost our principles. And it's easy. Because the world got easy. And now the world is changing so rapidly. The boundaries between truth and illusion are blurred second by second. Machines now think. Currencies falter. Families fractured. And nations, all over the world, have forgotten who they are.

So what does it mean to be a conservative now, in 2025, '26. For a lot of people, it means opposing the left. That's -- that's a reaction. That's not renewal.

That's a reaction. It can't mean also worshiping the past, as if the past were perfect. The founders never asked for that.

They asked that we would preserve the principles and perfect their practice. They knew it was imperfect. To make a more perfect nation.

Is what we're supposed to be doing.

2025, '26 being a conservative has to mean stewardship.

The stewardship of a nation, of a civilization.

Of a moral inheritance. That is too precious to abandon.

What does it mean to conserve? To conserve something doesn't mean to stand still.

It means to stand guard. It means to defend what the Founders designed. The separation of powers. The rule of law.

The belief that our rights come not from kings or from Congress, but from the creator himself.
This is a system that was not built for ease. It was built for endurance, and it will endure if we only teach it again!

The problem is, we only teach it like it's a museum piece. You know, it's not a museum piece. It's not an old dusty document. It's a living covenant between the dead, the living and the unborn.

So this chapter of -- of conservatism. Must confront reality. Economic reality.

Global reality.

And moral reality.

It's not enough just to be against something. Or chant tax cuts or free markets.

We have to ask -- we have to start with simple questions like freedom, yes. But freedom for what?

Freedom for economic sovereignty. Your right to produce and to innovate. To build without asking Beijing's permission. That's a moral issue now.

Another moral issue: Debt! It's -- it's generational theft. We're spending money from generations we won't even meet.

And dependence. Another moral issue. It's a national weakness.

People cannot stand up for themselves. They can't make it themselves. And we're encouraging them to sit down, shut up, and don't think.

And the conservative who can't connect with fiscal prudence, and connect fiscal prudence to moral duty, you're not a conservative at all.

Being a conservative today, means you have to rebuild an economy that serves liberty, not one that serves -- survives by debt, and then there's the soul of the nation.

We are living through a time period. An age of dislocation. Where our families are fractured.

Our faith is almost gone.

Meaning is evaporating so fast. Nobody knows what meaning of life is. That's why everybody is killing themselves. They have no meaning in life. And why they don't have any meaning, is truth itself is mocked and blurred and replaced by nothing, but lies and noise.

If you want to be a conservative, then you have to be to become the moral compass that reminds a lost people, liberty cannot survive without virtue.

That freedom untethered from moral order is nothing, but chaos!

And that no app, no algorithm, no ideology is ever going to fill the void, where meaning used to live!

To be a conservative, moving forward, we cannot just be about policies.

We have to defend the sacred, the unseen, the moral architecture, that gives people an identity. So how do you do that? Well, we have to rebuild competence. We have to restore institutions that actually work. Just in the last hour, this monologue on what we're facing now, because we can't open the government.

Why can't we open the government?

Because government is broken. Why does nobody care? Because education is broken.

We have to reclaim education, not as propaganda, but as the formation of the mind and the soul. Conservatives have to champion innovation.

Not to imitate Silicon Valley's chaos, but to harness technology in defense of human dignity. Don't be afraid of AI.

Know what it is. Know it's a tool. It's a tool to strengthen people. As long as you always remember it's a tool. Otherwise, you will lose your humanity to it!

That's a conservative principle. To be a conservative, we have to restore local strength. Our families are the basic building blocks, our schools, our churches, and our charities. Not some big, distant NGO that was started by the Tides Foundation, but actual local charities, where you see people working. A web of voluntary institutions that held us together at one point. Because when Washington fails, and it will, it already has, the neighborhood has to stand.

Charlie Kirk was doing one thing that people on our side were not doing. Speaking to the young.

But not in nostalgia.

Not in -- you know, Reagan, Reagan, Reagan.

In purpose. They don't remember. They don't remember who Dick Cheney was.

I was listening to Fox news this morning, talking about Dick Cheney. And there was somebody there that I know was not even born when Dick Cheney. When the World Trade Center came down.

They weren't even born. They were telling me about Dick Cheney.

And I was like, come on. Come on. Come on.

If you don't remember who Dick Cheney was, how are you going to remember 9/11. How will you remember who Reagan was.

That just says, that's an old man's creed. No, it's not.

It's the ultimate timeless rebellion against tyranny in all of its forms. Yes, and even the tyranny of despair, which is eating people alive!

We need to redefine ourselves. Because we have changed, and that's a good thing. The creed for a generation, that will decide the fate of the republic, is what we need to find.

A conservative in 2025, '26.

Is somebody who protects the enduring principles of American liberty and self-government.

While actively stewarding the institutions. The culture. The economy of this nation!

For those who are alive and yet to be unborn.

We have to be a group of people that we're not anchored in the past. Or in rage! But in reason. And morality. Realism. And hope for the future.

We're the stewards! We're the ones that have to relight the torch, not just hold it. We didn't -- we didn't build this Torch. We didn't make this Torch. We're the keepers of the flame, but we are honor-bound to pass that forward, and conservatives are viewed as people who just live in the past. We're not here to merely conserve the past, but to renew it. To sort it. What worked, what didn't work. We're the ones to say to the world, there's still such a thing as truth. There's still such a thing as virtue. You can deny it all you want.

But the pain will only get worse. There's still such a thing as America!

And if now is not the time to renew America. When is that time?

If you're not the person. If we're not the generation to actively stand and redefine and defend, then who is that person?

We are -- we are supposed to preserve what works.

That -- you know, I was writing something this morning.

I was making notes on this. A constitutionalist is for restraint. A progressive, if you will, for lack of a better term, is for more power.

Progressives want the government to have more power.

Conservatives are for more restraint.

But the -- for the American eagle to fly, we must have both wings.

And one can't be stronger than the other.

We as a conservative, are supposed to look and say, no. Don't look at that. The past teaches us this, this, and this. So don't do that.

We can't do that. But there are these things that we were doing in the past, that we have to jettison. And maybe the other side has a good idea on what should replace that. But we're the ones who are supposed to say, no, but remember the framework.

They're -- they can dream all they want.
They can come up with all these utopias and everything else, and we can go, "That's a great idea."

But how do we make it work with this framework? Because that's our job. The point of this is, it takes both. It takes both.

We have to have the customs and the moral order. And the practices that have stood the test of time, in trial.

We -- we're in an amazing, amazing time. Amazing time.

We live at a time now, where anything -- literally anything is possible!

I don't want to be against stuff. I want to be for the future. I want to be for a rich, dynamic future. One where we are part of changing the world for the better!

Where more people are lifted out of poverty, more people are given the freedom to choose, whatever it is that they want to choose, as their own government and everything.

I don't want to force it down anybody's throat.

We -- I am so excited to be a shining city on the hill again.

We have that opportunity, right in front of us!

But not in we get bogged down in hatred, in division.

Not if we get bogged down into being against something.

We must be for something!

I know what I'm for.

Do you?

How America’s elites fell for the same lie that fueled Auschwitz

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

The drone footage out of Gaza isn’t just war propaganda — it’s a glimpse of the same darkness that once convinced men they were righteous for killing innocents.

Evil introduces itself subtly. It doesn’t announce, “Hi, I’m here to destroy you.” It whispers. It flatters. It borrows the language of justice, empathy, and freedom, twisting them until hatred sounds righteous and violence sounds brave.

We are watching that same deception unfold again — in the streets, on college campuses, and in the rhetoric of people who should know better. It’s the oldest story in the world, retold with new slogans.

Evil wins when good people mirror its rage.

A drone video surfaced this week showing Hamas terrorists staging the “discovery” of a hostage’s body. They pushed a corpse out of a window, dragged it into a hole, buried it, and then called in aid workers to “find” what they themselves had planted. It was theater — evil, disguised as victimhood. And it was caught entirely on camera.

That’s how evil operates. It never comes in through the front door. It sneaks in, often through manipulative pity. The same spirit animates the moral rot spreading through our institutions — from the halls of universities to the chambers of government.

Take Zohran Mamdani, a New York assemblyman who has praised jihadists and defended pro-Hamas agitators. His father, a Columbia University professor, wrote that America and al-Qaeda are morally equivalent — that suicide bombings shouldn’t be viewed as barbaric. Imagine thinking that way after watching 3,000 Americans die on 9/11. That’s not intellectualism. That’s indoctrination.

Often, that indoctrination comes from hostile foreign actors, peddled by complicit pawns on our own soil. The pro-Hamas protests that erupted across campuses last year, for example, were funded by Iran — a regime that murders its own citizens for speaking freely.

Ancient evil, new clothes

But the deeper danger isn’t foreign money. It’s the spiritual blindness that lets good people believe resentment is justice and envy is discernment. Scripture talks about the spirit of Amalek — the eternal enemy of God’s people, who attacks the weak from behind while the strong look away. Amalek never dies; it just changes its vocabulary and form with the times.

Today, Amalek tweets. He speaks through professors who defend terrorism as “anti-colonial resistance.” He preaches from pulpits that call violence “solidarity.” And he recruits through algorithms, whispering that the Jews control everything, that America had it coming, that chaos is freedom. Those are ancient lies wearing new clothes.

When nations embrace those lies, it’s not the Jews who perish first. It’s the nations themselves. The soul dies long before the body. The ovens of Auschwitz didn’t start with smoke; they started with silence and slogans.

Andrew Harnik / Staff | Getty Images

A time for choosing

So what do we do? We speak truth — calmly, firmly, without venom. Because hatred can’t kill hatred; it only feeds it. Truth, compassion, and courage starve it to death.

Evil wins when good people mirror its rage. That’s how Amalek survives — by making you fight him with his own weapons. The only victory that lasts is moral clarity without malice, courage without cruelty.

The war we’re fighting isn’t new. It’s the same battle between remembrance and amnesia, covenant and chaos, humility and pride. The same spirit that whispered to Pharaoh, to Hitler, and to every mob that thought hatred could heal the world is whispering again now — on your screens, in your classrooms, in your churches.

Will you join it, or will you stand against it?

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Bill Gates ends climate fear campaign, declares AI the future ruler

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

The Big Tech billionaire once said humanity must change or perish. Now he claims we’ll survive — just as elites prepare total surveillance.

For decades, Americans have been told that climate change is an imminent apocalypse — the existential threat that justifies every intrusion into our lives, from banning gas stoves to rationing energy to tracking personal “carbon scores.”

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates helped lead that charge. He warned repeatedly that the “climate disaster” would be the greatest crisis humanity would ever face. He invested billions in green technology and demanded the world reach net-zero emissions by 2050 “to avoid catastrophe.”

The global contest is no longer over barrels and pipelines — it is over who gets to flip the digital switch.

Now, suddenly, he wants everyone to relax: Climate change “will not lead to humanity’s demise” after all.

Gates was making less of a scientific statement and more of a strategic pivot. When elites retire a crisis, it’s never because the threat is gone — it’s because a better one has replaced it. And something else has indeed arrived — something the ruling class finds more useful than fear of the weather.The same day Gates downshifted the doomsday rhetoric, Amazon announced it would pay warehouse workers $30 an hour — while laying off 30,000 people because artificial intelligence will soon do their jobs.

Climate panic was the warm-up. AI control is the main event.

The new currency of power

The world once revolved around oil and gas. Today, it revolves around the electricity demanded by server farms, the chips that power machine learning, and the data that can be used to manipulate or silence entire populations. The global contest is no longer over barrels and pipelines — it is over who gets to flip the digital switch. Whoever controls energy now controls information. And whoever controls information controls civilization.

Climate alarmism gave elites a pretext to centralize power over energy. Artificial intelligence gives them a mechanism to centralize power over people. The future battles will not be about carbon — they will be about control.

Two futures — both ending in tyranny

Americans are already being pushed into what look like two opposing movements, but both leave the individual powerless.

The first is the technocratic empire being constructed in the name of innovation. In its vision, human work will be replaced by machines, and digital permissions will subsume personal autonomy.

Government and corporations merge into a single authority. Your identity, finances, medical decisions, and speech rights become access points monitored by biometric scanners and enforced by automated gatekeepers. Every step, purchase, and opinion is tracked under the noble banner of “efficiency.”

The second is the green de-growth utopia being marketed as “compassion.” In this vision, prosperity itself becomes immoral. You will own less because “the planet” requires it. Elites will redesign cities so life cannot extend beyond a 15-minute walking radius, restrict movement to save the Earth, and ration resources to curb “excess.” It promises community and simplicity, but ultimately delivers enforced scarcity. Freedom withers when surviving becomes a collective permission rather than an individual right.

Both futures demand that citizens become manageable — either automated out of society or tightly regulated within it. The ruling class will embrace whichever version gives them the most leverage in any given moment.

Climate panic was losing its grip. AI dependency — and the obedience it creates — is far more potent.

The forgotten way

A third path exists, but it is the one today’s elites fear most: the path laid out in our Constitution. The founders built a system that assumes human beings are not subjects to be monitored or managed, but moral agents equipped by God with rights no government — and no algorithm — can override.

Hesham Elsherif / Stringer | Getty Images

That idea remains the most “disruptive technology” in history. It shattered the belief that people need kings or experts or global committees telling them how to live. No wonder elites want it erased.

Soon, you will be told you must choose: Live in a world run by machines or in a world stripped down for planetary salvation. Digital tyranny or rationed equality. Innovation without liberty or simplicity without dignity.

Both are traps.

The only way

The only future worth choosing is the one grounded in ordered liberty — where prosperity and progress exist alongside moral responsibility and personal freedom and human beings are treated as image-bearers of God — not climate liabilities, not data profiles, not replaceable hardware components.

Bill Gates can change his tune. The media can change the script. But the agenda remains the same.

They no longer want to save the planet. They want to run it, and they expect you to obey.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Why the White House restoration sent the left Into panic mode

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

Presidents have altered the White House for decades, yet only Donald Trump is treated as a vandal for privately funding the East Wing’s restoration.

Every time a president so much as changes the color of the White House drapes, the press clutches its pearls. Unless the name on the stationery is Barack Obama’s, even routine restoration becomes a national outrage.

President Donald Trump’s decision to privately fund upgrades to the White House — including a new state ballroom — has been met with the usual chorus of gasps and sneers. You’d think he bulldozed Monticello.

If a Republican preserves beauty, it’s vandalism. If a Democrat does the same, it’s ‘visionary.’

The irony is that presidents have altered and expanded the White House for more than a century. President Franklin D. Roosevelt added the East and West Wings in the middle of the Great Depression. Newspapers accused him of building a palace while Americans stood in breadlines. History now calls it “vision.”

First lady Nancy Reagan faced the same hysteria. Headlines accused her of spending taxpayer money on new china “while Americans starved.” In truth, she raised private funds after learning that the White House didn’t have enough matching plates for state dinners. She took the ridicule and refused to pass blame.

“I’m a big girl,” she told her staff. “This comes with the job.” That was dignity — something the press no longer recognizes.

A restoration, not a renovation

Trump’s project is different in every way that should matter. It costs taxpayers nothing. Not a cent. The president and a few friends privately fund the work. There’s no private pool or tennis court, no personal perks. The additions won’t even be completed until after he leaves office.

What’s being built is not indulgence — it’s stewardship. A restoration of aging rooms, worn fixtures, and century-old bathrooms that no longer function properly in the people’s house. Trump has paid for cast brass doorknobs engraved with the presidential seal, restored the carpets and moldings, and ensured that the architecture remains faithful to history.

The media’s response was mockery and accusations of vanity. They call it “grotesque excess,” while celebrating billion-dollar “climate art” projects and funneling hundreds of millions into activist causes like the No Kings movement. They lecture America on restraint while living off the largesse of billionaires.

The selective guardians of history

Where was this sudden reverence for history when rioters torched St. John’s Church — the same church where every president since James Madison has worshipped? The press called it an “expression of grief.”

Where was that reverence when mobs toppled statues of Washington, Jefferson, and Grant? Or when first lady Melania Trump replaced the Rose Garden’s lawn with a patio but otherwise followed Jackie Kennedy’s original 1962 plans in the garden’s restoration? They called that “desecration.”

If a Republican preserves beauty, it’s vandalism. If a Democrat does the same, it’s “visionary.”

The real desecration

The people shrieking about “historic preservation” care nothing for history. They hate the idea that something lasting and beautiful might be built by hands they despise. They mock craftsmanship because it exposes their own cultural decay.

The White House ballroom is not a scandal — it’s a mirror. And what it reflects is the media’s own pettiness. The ruling class that ridicules restoration is the same class that cheered as America’s monuments fell. Its members sneer at permanence because permanence condemns them.

Julia Beverly / Contributor | Getty Images

Trump’s improvements are an act of faith — in the nation’s symbols, its endurance, and its worth. The outrage over a privately funded renovation says less about him than it does about the journalists who mistake destruction for progress.

The real desecration isn’t happening in the East Wing. It’s happening in the newsrooms that long ago tore up their own foundation — truth — and never bothered to rebuild it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.