PART 2: Glenn Talks With Independent Presidential Candidate Evan McMullin

Evan McMullin, a former CIA agent, officially entered the presidential race on Wednesday as an Independent candidate, hoping to offer Americans an alternative to what he believes are two terrible choices. He joined The Glenn Beck Program on Thursday to talk about why he's qualified to be president, the three major issues he believes America faces and why he's far better suited for the presidency than Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton.

Following the interview, Glenn asked his co-host what they thought about McMullin.

RELATED: PART 1: Glenn Talks With Independent Presidential Candidate Evan McMullin

"Generally liked him. He's better than some of the other choices," Stu said.

"Liked him," Pat said.

While McMullin appears to be a serious, worthwhile candidate, Glenn identified his biggest challenge:

"Is there enough time for people to listen to him and get comfortable with him? You know, let's see him in a debate. Somebody like that has got to be tested some way or another," Glenn said.

Listen to Part 2 of Glenn's interview with Evan McMullin on The Glenn Beck Program:

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

GLENN: We're talking to Evan McMullin from EvanMcMullin.com. He's running for president of the United States.

Evan.

EVAN: Yes.

GLENN: Are you going to get on the ballots?

EVAN: Yes, we've got a multi-pronged strategy. I've got a phenomenal team who has been working on this for months to prepare for this, to prepare for a time at which they had a candidate to run.

We are going to be getting on ballots here in the near-term. We'll be rolling those out. We're excited about that. There are a number of ways to get on ballots. There's a lot of misunderstanding about that. People think that it's only via petition. But there are actually a number of other ways. And we're going to compete across the country.

GLENN: How do you respond to people who say you're a spoiler and you're going to cause Hillary Clinton to win?

EVAN: I would just say this: I mean, look at the numbers, Donald Trump, when we entered the race three days ago, was down 10 percent against Hillary. So he's losing already to a super weak candidate.

GLENN: Yeah, but those numbers are probably going to come back. They usually do, after, you know, somebody else's convention. I'm just playing devil's advocate here.

EVAN: Sure. Sure. Yeah, well, what I would say to that, sure, Donald Trump could, you know, rise in the polls a bit. But listen, Donald Trump has alienated so many groups in America. I mean, you just look at the numbers, and, you know, you can find them where he's polling so terribly among women and Hispanics. You name it. I mean, he's just alienated so many Americans. He just can't win that way.

PAT: He does have 1 percent support among blacks.

EVAN: What's that?

GLENN: He does have 1 percent --

PAT: He does have 1 percent support among blacks.

GLENN: So he's got that going for him.

EVAN: Well, that's good. He should be given a certificate.

GLENN: Yeah. Give me -- tell me what you think the biggest crisis that is coming our way.

EVAN: Well, I wish I could -- I wish there were only one, but I think there are three.

GLENN: Give me two. Three. Okay. Go ahead.

EVAN: Can I give you three? I'll be quick.

GLENN: Sure, yeah.

EVAN: Number one is we absolutely just must defeat Islamist terrorism. I know how to do it. I've been there, done that. We have to do it. And let me tell you something, and a lot of people don't think about it this way: We have to beat Islamist terrorism because the more we allow that threat to metastasize and expand, the more our civil liberties here at home come under threat. So it's not only the attacks and the lethality of those attacks, which is also obviously a priority, to prevent that, but the greater the threat is, the more the government needs to say, "Okay. Well, we're going to do this for security. We're going to do that for security." And our civil liberties start to get peeled back.

And so we have to go on the offensive and destroy these evil threats abroad before they -- before they do that to our country. And so that's one.

Number two is I think we need more economic opportunity in this country. We need to be better about fighting -- smarter about fighting poverty as an issue. I'm very passionate about. We need to be smarter about creating an environment here where -- where -- where companies thrive so that people and families can thrive. So that there's jobs and growth and all of this. The government is in the way of all of this. We need to get it out of the way. That's another thing.

GLENN: Can you give me any specifics on that?

EVAN: Well, yeah, for example, you know, it's true that our trade deals have resulted in sort of some shifts -- some industries shifting from one place or another, and jobs can be lost and all of that. And also due to automation and new technologies, some people are losing their jobs. I think we -- we need to -- we need to listen -- to listen to that reality. It's happening.

And we need to do better -- we need to be better at helping -- helping people be retrained and find new opportunities and continue on. And so one idea that I've had that has worked well elsewhere is to use apprenticeship programs, so maybe we give an incentive for companies to say, "Okay. Well, this man or woman lost their job in this factory because it moved somewhere else, but, you know, I'm making microchips. And I'll bring them in, and there's some incentive to do that. I'll train them up, and they can -- they'll get on-the-job training while they're working, and then we help those people move forward. We help the economy, and we help these families. So things like that, I think we need to do. But it's also about lowering taxes, simplifying the tax code.

PAT: Yes.

EVAN: And most importantly, just cutting back on our -- just -- there's just so much overregulation and such little due process that -- and such -- and such uncertainty, regulatory uncertainty that's a real big challenge that companies face. We've got to limit that.

GLENN: Your third problem that you think we might hit?

EVAN: Government reform. We need to transfer more power back to the people. And that has everything to do with federalism and the Tenth Amendment. We must do this. We live in a large -- there are 330 million people here in this country. It's a big country, geographically. The idea that a centralized government in Washington is going to be able to serve well and be accountable to the people is just fantasy. There needs to be more power to the states, and the people's representatives in Congress also need to have their rightful Article One authorities restored.

GLENN: Can you tell me -- Mitt Romney has made some disparaging comments about the Tea Party. Where do you stand on the Tea Party, the values of the Tea Party?

EVAN: Well, listen, I stand with anybody who understands the -- again, federalism. I stand with anybody who understands and supports the Tenth Amendment, anybody who understands that the power of the government comes from the people and only from the people. And therefore, the government is accountable to the people.

This is -- Glenn, this is something I'm passionate about. Our Founders founded this country with the why, as Simon Sinek, the commentator says -- he talks -- every company needs to have a why. That why for our country was the pursuit of happiness.

If people are going to pursue happiness in their way, they need to actually have a -- a say in their government. And that power needs to be close to them, even though they may delegate it to their representatives. So it's a pursuit of happiness thing for me. That's what federalism is about. That's what the Tenth Amendment is about. We've got to get back to a system that allows people to pursue happiness the way our Founders intended.

GLENN: Pat has probably the best question of the day.

PAT: Well, I mean, I'm glad we've talked about some cute little subjects, but can we get to the real issue?

EVAN: Oh, boy. Here we go.

PAT: I'm wondering if, as president, you would seek a constitutional amendment and maybe even an executive order in the meantime, pending a constitutional amendment, to force your will in making BYU a part of the big 12?

EVAN: Yes, I will absolutely do that.

PAT: You will do that?

EVAN: Yes.

PAT: You have my vote.

EVAN: Okay. Good. All right.

GLENN: What a surprise.

EVAN: I got one. That's great.

PAT: You've got at least one vote.

STU: Wait. You're not voting for yourself? Shouldn't you at least have two?

EVAN: Oh, that's true. That's true. That's right. Yeah, I'm in too.

PAT: Are you married? I mean, hopefully we can at least get a family vote going there too.

GLENN: Are you married?

EVAN: I'm not married. But I want to promise the American people, since I'm making important campaign promises right now, guys -- thank you for that -- that I will not leave America without a First Lady if I'm elected. And it is my biggest aspiration in life to be a husband and a father, and I'm working on it.

(laughter)

PAT: Is there anybody --

GLENN: So, yeah. Is this like the Oval is the greatest chick magnet of all time, or is there somebody that you're thinking about?

EVAN: I really --

GLENN: Is there an announcement you'd like to make here?

EVAN: I really do not want to -- can I just not answer that question? Have mercy, please.

(laughter)

Yeah. That's a tough one. I just better keep my mouth shut.

PAT: So seriously, Evan, the deadline is tomorrow for Utah. Right? For ballot access.

EVAN: The 15th.

STU: The 15th. Okay. So you've got a few more days.

PAT: Okay. So you've got four days. You can make it in four days?

EVAN: Oh, yeah.

STU: A thousand signatures there. Right?

EVAN: Oh, yeah, we've got an army of volunteers out there taking care of this. The threshold of a thousand --

PAT: And what do you do in a state like Texas where the deadline has already passed?

EVAN: We'll probably file a legal challenge there.

PAT: Okay.

GLENN: Do you -- do you have the money to do this?

EVAN: Money is pouring in. Pouring in.

PAT: Is it really?

EVAN: Yeah.

PAT: I mean --

EVAN: Yeah. Yeah. From small donors, regular people who are just so frustrated. I'm telling you -- and you know this, 70 percent of Americans are just unhappy with the direction of the country. They think it's on the wrong track. And then we have two candidates that are historically unpopular and profoundly unprepared to face the challenges that this country faces now.

Americans want something else. So, yeah, I mean, the metrics are unbelievable. I mean, people are helping out. They're chipping in. But, also, we're getting major mega donor interest. We've already had some really critical meetings on that. I'm going to be in New York next week for some -- you know, some follow-up meetings. You know, we're -- we're getting some good signals there too. So we're very excited, and we feel good on that end.

GLENN: Where is the Republican Party falling short?

EVAN: Well, let me say this: I -- I think that the Republican Party is certainly doing a lot more that's right, right now, than the Democratic Party. And I'm not trying to -- I don't desire to be super partisan here.

PAT: That's not saying much.

EVAN: The Republicans are at least trying to return power to the people, the Republicans in the House. So they got -- they have that going for them.

But I would say this: I think that it is time for the conservative movement to be more tolerant of people of variety of faiths and a variety of ethnicities and nationalities. Conservatism doesn't have to be sort of the Trump bigotry. And that's -- conservatism has nothing to do with --

GLENN: So hang on just a second. Do you think Trump is a conservative?

EVAN: I do not. But there are a lot of people who say that they're conservatives who are supporting Trump.

GLENN: Yes, okay.

EVAN: Yeah, no. I appreciate that clarification. He is most certainly not a conservative. And I feel like -- I feel like he deceived America by claiming that he is. People are so desperate in America for change, that they're willing to believe a total -- I mean, Donald Trump is a con man. I spent ten years in the Central Intelligence Agency. I know a con man when I see one, and I see Donald Trump coming from a mile away.

STU: How about the -- one recent specific policy proposal from Trump and Clinton -- Clinton proposed a 275 billion-dollar stimulus program to -- for our infrastructure. Trump when asked about that proposal said, "That's not enough. We need to double it. Actually more than double it."

EVAN: Wow, okay.

STU: Do you feel the need to -- what's your stimulus plan idea? Do you have a number? Do you want to triple Trump's? What's your --

EVAN: Yeah, no. Look, I think my stimulus plan is getting the government out of the way of free enterprise. That's my stimulus plan.

PAT: Thank you. That would be nice.

STU: Hmm.

GLENN: I like that.

PAT: So if people like what they've heard, Evan, how do they help out?

EVAN: Go to EvanMcMullin.com. Chip in if you can. Every little the bit helps. You'll be joining many, many Americans who are doing the same. Sign up so that we can -- we can contact you and get you involved if you want to volunteer. We'd love that. Share -- share things about us on social media. You know, obviously we've entered this race late, not because we think that's the ideal way to do it, but because nobody else was going to and it was the last minute, so we jumped in. So we need to raise awareness as quickly as possible, so people can be helpful on all three fronts.

GLENN: At what point are you going to name a vice presidential candidate?

EVAN: Well, we're looking at people now. I mean, not in the extremely near-term, I think. We're getting some bases covered here as we launch at this early stage. But what we're looking for is somebody who understands what makes America special on a profound level, something that neither Hillary Clinton nor Trump certainly do.

GLENN: Will it be somebody that has some governing experience? I mean, you know, it's a pretty big job to take on and just go, "I got it."

EVAN: Yeah, no, I agree with you. I agree with you.

But, hey, listen, I'll say this about this: Our Founding Fathers had the -- the way they did it is they would tend to their fields, and then they would serve from time to time. And I'm -- I'm a big believer in that model. I think we need people with practical experiences and know-how to help America overcome its challenges. And the other thing I think we need --

PAT: So are you promising to also farm if you're elected president?

EVAN: I would love that. I would --

GLENN: You've got a date, you've got a farm. I mean, holy cow, you got a lot on your plate.

EVAN: Yeah. Yeah, I would love that. But I guess I'm just pushing back on the idea that it's got to be a career politician who has sort of worked their way up.

GLENN: Sure.

EVAN: I just don't think we need that. I think we need new ideas. And we also need -- we need leaders that put the interests of the American people before their own and that will have some character around that. And I just don't think we have that, clearly, in these two major candidates.

GLENN: Evan McMullin, thank you very much for being on the program today. Appreciate it.

EVAN: Thank you, Glenn. Thank you, team.

GLENN: Best of luck.

EvanMcMullin.com. EvanMcMullin.com.

Featured Image: Former CIA agent Evan McMullin announces his presidential campaign as an Independent candidate on August 10, 2016 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Supporters gathered in downtown Salt Lake City for the launch of his Utah petition drive to collect the 1000 signatures McMullin needs to qualify for the presidential ballot. (Photo by George Frey/Getty Images)

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?

From Pharaoh to Hamas: The same spirit of evil, new disguise

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.