Rick Santorum calls in for in-depth interview

January 09, 2012

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In the wake of the latest debate and with the New Hampshire primary a day away, Glenn interviewed Rick Santorum on radio this morning. What does the candidate think of the latest attacks coming his way?

Read the transcript below:

PAT: Rick, everywhere I go people are asking me is Rick Santorum going to want condoms. Everywhere I go, that's the main question on their mind.

GLENN: And the answer you'll have us believe is no.

PAT: Is that the answer? Is that the answer?

GLENN: Is that the answer you have us believe?

SANTORUM: The answer I have you believe is no.

PAT: Really?

GLENN: Now ‑‑

SANTORUM: But ask Chris Matthews. There's a secret plan.

PAT: Uh‑huh.

GLENN: No, that's not a con ‑‑

SANTORUM: That I really do deeply ‑‑ I mean, this is crazy.

PAT: Yeah.

SANTORUM: I mean, we were talking about the Griswold decision which you know very well which was the precursor to the Roe versus Wade decision and judicial activism and, you know, the creation of new rights because the Court says so. And that's what I've opposed and will continue to oppose.

GLENN: Okay. Well ‑‑

SANTORUM: In this country.

GLENN: We hear your BS answer on the contraception. Now let me ask you this, because it's all about the right question: Is it a state's right to limit all private body parts to bowel and urination evacuation only?

STU: Jeez.

GLENN: Is that what you're going for?

SANTORUM: (Laughing). All I ‑‑

GLENN: Are you going to rename Kansas City Vatican City?

SANTORUM: Oh, my goodness.

GLENN: Do you believe when it comes to language that America should be Latin only?

PAT: Now you're asking the right questions.

SANTORUM: Oh, now you're ‑‑

PAT: Now you're pinning him down.

SANTORUM: You've pulled back the veil.

GLENN: Yeah, I told you it would be tough. We see you squirm in there.

Let me get to some real ‑‑

SANTORUM: I do support English‑only but it's really a ploy to get to Latin, just so you know.

PAT: Uh‑huh.

GLENN: Yeah.

PAT: Uh‑huh.

GLENN: Yeah.

SANTORUM: Uh‑huh, there you go. Once you start one, there you go.

PAT: Slippery slope.

GLENN: You notice he didn't talk about the bowel and urination evacuation‑only.

PAT: Yeah, yeah. He conveniently ignored that question.

GLENN: He skipped over that.

SANTORUM: I skipped that. I skipped that, yeah.

GLENN: Let me get to a real question here. You have ‑‑ you have spent some money in your past, Rick, and you have also been for, you know, earmarks. You told us last time you were on, you explained the earmarks, you said that it was your duty. Well, you go ahead and explain it. Real quick, just try to do it real quick because I want to get to a bigger question.

SANTORUM: All I've said is that, you know, under the Constitution congress has the ability to appropriate funds and, you know, one of the ‑‑ one of the things that was generally done and frankly was done for decades is that members of congress, you know, in working with their states would identify things that they would want to spend money on and money that came from my state, taxes that were spent that were going to be reallocated back to the states and the senators in congress in that state would make sure that they were spent in a proper fashion and not just given to the executive branch and let them decide where that money was spent. There was abuse, that abuse led to higher spending, and Jim DeMint who also did those earmarks, too, and I and many others said we should end that abuse.

GLENN: Okay. Some people are saying that you're an economic liberal. And I mean, honestly just about everybody is an economic liberal compared to me now. I want to shut the whole, whole darn thing down enough to the point to where it doesn't ‑‑ we don't become the Articles of Confederation but we still have enough government to be able to manage the country and stop all this spending because we're completely out of money. Tell me about your economic liberalism.

SANTORUM: Well, I propose ‑‑ this economic liberal has proposed $5 trillion in spending cuts over five years, a balanced budget in five years, specific ‑‑ as the Wall Street Journal says, nobody was out there working on entitlement reform. Well, you know, Glenn, that's where the problem is in this country. It's the whole idea that Washington has entitled you to certain things simply because you are here in this country and/or you may be in a situation that requires some help at some point this time. That is the problem. We need to get Washington out of that business, get those ‑‑ get those responsibilities back to the states and give them the flexibility to design programs, if they want to design programs, to deal with ‑‑ to deal with these issues. So if you're looking for the person, the only person in this race and one of the few people who actually stood up when it ‑‑ when we weren't running deficits, when we weren't in fiscal crisis as we are today and said, in the second oldest state in the country, Pennsylvania, as the youngest member of the Senate and talked about the need for Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid, these big programs that affect disproportionately seniors and I was leading the charge in all those issues. In fact I'm getting questions here in New Hampshire: I can't believe you're out there talking about specific reforms to Social Security, and the answer is yes, I am. Why? Because we need leadership. And so if anyone actually questions my bona fides, don't look at, you know, a few earmarks here and there during my, what I believe my constitutional duty to represent the interests of my state, look at the fundamental reforms that I have been advocating for 20 years in Washington D.C. before anyone was talking about them.

GLENN: By the way, I just want to point out, I don't think it's ‑‑ I think it's bona fides and not bona fatties unless that was a comment about me, Rick. I'm just ‑‑

SANTORUM: Did I say that?

PAT: No.

GLENN: No. All right. It sounded like it.

PAT: Rick, we learned last week from the New York Times ‑‑

GLENN: Maybe I'm sexy.

SANTORUM: It's that Latin again.

GLENN: No, I know. It might be sensitive every time somebody says fatty. Go ahead.

PAT: And we learned last week from the New York Times, and you just said the word: Entitlement. Now, we know that's code speak for your hideous racism. Do you want to explain why you hate all people of color?

SANTORUM: Oh, my goodness. You know ‑‑

GLENN: You know what, can you play this ‑‑ I would like to hear this answer. Can you play this? I hate to bring this up on you, Rick. You know you're a friend but this really was ‑‑ this really doesn't make sense to me. Do you have that audio by any chance?

PAT: No. It was actually printed. It was the op‑ed, remember, from last week?

GLENN: No, no, the audio of where you said, you know, look, we want to make sure that we take care of all people but we shouldn't be giving, you know, black people a handout or ‑‑

SANTORUM: No, no, no, no, no. First off, I didn't ‑‑ I listened to that, I looked at it. I think it was one of those things where I sort of got my tongue tied there for a second and because I just, first off I don't think that, I don't believe that. But I do believe in the concept of what I said that we shouldn't create dependency, that we should create opportunity and, you know, I'm ‑‑ the more I look at it, the more I ‑‑ and by the way, no one in the room ‑‑ and there were 100 reporters in that room ‑‑ came up to me with that question. I think it was ‑‑ I feel to this day that it was simply just, you know, I started to say one thing and then sort of stopped and said something else. But the point is a valid point. The point is that we need to create a society of opportunity instead of dependency and I would absolutely encourage everyone to look at the work that I've done when I was in the United States Senate in working with the African‑American community in the State of Pennsylvania and across this country, no Republican had more interaction and worked closer with the urban areas of my state, with the African‑American community. I got the endorsement of the Black Pastors of Philadelphia which is not, let me assure you, a conservative group because of the work that I did in the inner city in trying to ‑‑ tried to help improve the quality of life there. And the idea that, you know, you make a little bobble with your language and all of a sudden you're ‑‑ you know, you're someone who's insensitive or feels ‑‑ or tries to stereotype blacks is an absolute absurdity and it simply is not what I said and certainly from my actions nothing close to the record that I have.

GLENN: I will tell you that I'm sick of even the pandering now of saying, "Well, I've worked with this group or this group." It's not that you were pandering but people that are pointing this thing out and, you know, "I work with this group or that group." What difference does it make? We all need to work together. The policies are for white, black, brown, yellow.

SANTORUM: I agree.

GLENN: Purple, orange. It doesn't matter. It should be for humans. We are all helping humans and American humans first. I mean, that's just the way it should be. And I don't ‑‑ you know, now I'd be ‑‑ now I'll be a xenophobist for saying that, you know, it should be Americans first.

Let me go to the reduction in the military and its connection to the private hill tear that is being created. Can you tell me anything about the reductions and the private military, the use of ‑‑

SANTORUM: Well, when you say "private military," I'm not ‑‑

GLENN: State Department ‑‑

SANTORUM: It does ‑‑

GLENN: Reducing the number of troops ‑‑

SANTORUM: Private contractors?

GLENN: Yeah, private contractors, reduce ‑‑ the reduction of troops in Iran and using private contractors instead.

SANTORUM: Right.

GLENN: Taking the uniform off and doing it in a different way.

SANTORUM: Well, again, I mean, we've seen this over and over as we originally entered Iraq, it was because we simply didn't have the military capability, we didn't have the force structure to be able to support the mission that we had and so we brought in a bunch of former, you know, former military, on a private contract basis to do a lot of the personal security for people in the country and the like. And now we have the president further now proposing reductions in the military, which is going to lead, as you mentioned, to further growth in these ‑‑ in a variety of these companies that do private, sort of a private military. That is ‑‑ that's not the direction we should be going. You know, we need to be very up front about our costs, we need to be very up front about the accountability of the people that we are deploying around this, around the world to defend our interests, and the less we have of the private military and the more that we have of our men and women in uniform who are accountable to the behavior, the better off we are.

GLENN: Tell me about your ‑‑ because this is being touted ‑‑ your anti‑gun record.

SANTORUM: What?

GLENN: You haven't heard that one yet?

PAT: You haven't seen that yet.

GLENN: Oh, that's everywhere. You're anti‑gun.

PAT: Every time we talk to you, Rick ‑‑

SANTORUM: I'm (inaudible) with the NRA. I'm an NRA member.

GLENN: Yeah, but you can buy that.

SANTORUM: Oh, yeah, sure.

GLENN: Yeah, that and the Better Business Bureau, you can buy into those. For 50 bucks, they will give you an A‑plus rating. Yeah, that's what they all say.

SANTORUM: Well, call Chris Cox. He's the head of the NRA.

GLENN: Yeah, I know.

SANTORUM: And goes out there and fights for the rights of gun owners on a daily basis.

GLENN: I know.

SANTORUM: We work with them very, very closely. I'm as a leader with them in pushing forward. Here's the amazing thing. The guy who attacks me on this is Ron Paul. Ron Paul, if it was Ron Paul had his way, he voted against the most important gun issue in, well, maybe ever because it was a gun manufacturer's liability bill. As you know, Glenn, there were all these trial lawyers were going out and suing gun manufacturers if their gun was used in the commission of a crime. Whether the gun functioned properly or not didn't matter. They were going to hold them liable for any damage that occurred from someone being shot with their gun. And literally manufacturers were going to pack up and leave the United States, which meant we wouldn't have any guns ‑‑ there wouldn't be any guns made in this country or be able to be available to be made in this country and so I'm one of the guys that led the effort to put a ban on these types of lawsuits that passed on a bipartisan basis. Ron Paul was one of I think three Republicans who voted no. This is the kind of ‑‑ for him ‑‑ which would have eliminated de facto, de facto eliminated, one of those Latin words again, de facto eliminated the ‑‑

GLENN: He's slowly working it in. He is a Papist ‑‑

SANTORUM: (Inaudible) the Second Amendment.

GLENN: He's a Papist progressive. He just throws those words in and before you know it, we're all speaking Latin. I know. How long before you make us wear the hat and the shoes that the pope wears?

PAT: (Laughing).

SANTORUM: Got to wear the red shoes, though. Got to wear those red shoes. Slippers, not shoes. Slippers.

GLENN: May I ask you ‑‑

SANTORUM: Slippers, you can't work and so we're going to keep you in the house and keep you under control. You didn't know about all this, huh?

GLENN: May I ask you, how much money have you raised since ‑‑

SANTORUM: Well, we've got a money bomb going right now at RickSantorum.com. We're trying to raise a million dollars here between now and the next few days to get us ready so we can aggressively go out and compete in South Carolina which is the next big primary after New Hampshire and so that's RickSantorum.com if you can help. I can tell you we raised more money in the three days after the Iowa caucuses than I did in the entire year before.

GLENN: Well, wait. Rick, I think you were, you were running your campaign off of candy wrappers.

STU: (Laughing).

SANTORUM: That's an insult to candy wrappers.

GLENN: (Laughing). I mean, that's not really a big statement there.

SANTORUM: Yeah.

GLENN: You're facing ‑‑

SANTORUM: It's true.

GLENN: You're facing Rick Perry alone who I think has, what, $65 million?

STU: No, I don't ‑‑

SANTORUM: Well, reports are that I guess his ‑‑ the reports says his following is like, he has like $3 million left in the bank or something like that. He, I tell you he burned through millions and millions in Iowa. We spent $30,000 on television in Iowa.

GLENN: How are you doing in the polls in New Hampshire and South Carolina? Can you win South Carolina?

SANTORUM: Yeah, absolutely. I think the last poll I saw, we were within three points of Romney in South Carolina.

PAT: Wow.

SANTORUM: And we were just down there yesterday, just made a little quick visit down there for the day and had huge enthusiastic crowds up in the upstate which is, you know, the conservative upstate of South Carolina, the Greenville/Spartanburg area and we'll be heading down there first thing Wednesday morning and do the sprint. We feel like that's a great place for us to really make this a two‑person race.

GLENN: I ‑‑

SANTORUM: We need to get it down to a two‑person race and if we can finish very strongly in either first or second, a strong second in South Carolina, we'll turn it into a two‑person race.

GLENN: I only have just about two minutes left here. Can you help me ‑‑ not even that. Ninety seconds. How are you going to appeal to ‑‑ because while you're not Mitt Romney and certainly not Newt Gingrich, you're not a libertarian.

SANTORUM: I'm not.

GLENN: How are you appeal to the people that ‑‑ like I really lean ‑‑ I think I'm a libertarian that leans more ‑‑ you know, I believe in a little more government than some of the Ron Paul people do. How do you appeal to those people while not compromising your values? So what are the things that you can say to a Ron Paul supporters that they will understand that is true about you, that's not some campaign promise? Where is the libertarian streak in you?

SANTORUM: Well, you know, if you look at, look at the ‑‑ I go with entitlement reform. I mean, you know, welfare reform was a bill that I helped author and I was representing a state with, you know, with big cities and lots of folks who were dependent upon these programs and the second highest per capita population of seniors in the country and I'm out talking about limited government and I'm talking about removing entitlement. I'm talking about, back in the 1990s talking about removing personal retirement accounts which is something that the Cato Institute was pushing back then. So I mean, I think you'll find that I very much believe in free people, free enterprise and free markets but, you know, I do believe in a referee private sector and I do believe government has some roles for helping, for being involved in not just national security but providing some sort of, you know, basic safety net, particularly for those who are on the margins of society, it should be done at the state level, not at the federal level, but I do believe that government has a role to play in that regard to make sure that, you know, we have some basic transitional safety net or help for those, particularly those with disabilities, and it's a little personal to me because of my own situation but it's something that I think is an important safety net that has to be out there.

GLENN: Gotta go. Laus deos. Yeah! You know what it means!

PAT: Starting already.

GLENN: All right. Thank you very much, Rick. I appreciate it. RickSantorum.com.

Faith, family, and freedom—The forgotten core of conservatism

Gary Hershorn / Contributor | Getty Images

Conservatism is not about rage or nostalgia. It’s about moral clarity, national renewal, and guarding the principles that built America’s freedom.

Our movement is at a crossroads, and the question before us is simple: What does it mean to be a conservative in America today?

For years, we have been told what we are against — against the left, against wokeism, against decline. But opposition alone does not define a movement, and it certainly does not define a moral vision.

We are not here to cling to the past or wallow in grievance. We are not the movement of rage. We are the movement of reason and hope.

The media, as usual, are eager to supply their own answer. The New York Times recently suggested that Nick Fuentes represents the “future” of conservatism. That’s nonsense — a distortion of both truth and tradition. Fuentes and those like him do not represent American conservatism. They represent its counterfeit.

Real conservatism is not rage. It is reverence. It does not treat the past as a museum, but as a teacher. America’s founders asked us to preserve their principles and improve upon their practice. That means understanding what we are conserving — a living covenant, not a relic.

Conservatism as stewardship

In 2025, conservatism means stewardship — of a nation, a culture, and a moral inheritance too precious to abandon. To conserve is not to freeze history. It is to stand guard over what is essential. We are custodians of an experiment in liberty that rests on the belief that rights come not from kings or Congress, but from the Creator.

That belief built this country. It will be what saves it. The Constitution is a covenant between generations. Conservatism is the duty to keep that covenant alive — to preserve what works, correct what fails, and pass on both wisdom and freedom to those who come next.

Economics, culture, and morality are inseparable. Debt is not only fiscal; it is moral. Spending what belongs to the unborn is theft. Dependence is not compassion; it is weakness parading as virtue. A society that trades responsibility for comfort teaches citizens how to live as slaves.

Freedom without virtue is not freedom; it is chaos. A culture that mocks faith cannot defend liberty, and a nation that rejects truth cannot sustain justice. Conservatism must again become the moral compass of a disoriented people, reminding America that liberty survives only when anchored to virtue.

Rebuilding what is broken

We cannot define ourselves by what we oppose. We must build families, communities, and institutions that endure. Government is broken because education is broken, and education is broken because we abandoned the formation of the mind and the soul. The work ahead is competence, not cynicism.

Conservatives should embrace innovation and technology while rejecting the chaos of Silicon Valley. Progress must not come at the expense of principle. Technology must strengthen people, not replace them. Artificial intelligence should remain a servant, never a master. The true strength of a nation is not measured by data or bureaucracy, but by the quiet webs of family, faith, and service that hold communities together. When Washington falters — and it will — those neighborhoods must stand.

Eric Lee / Stringer | Getty Images

This is the real work of conservatism: to conserve what is good and true and to reform what has decayed. It is not about slogans; it is about stewardship — the patient labor of building a civilization that remembers what it stands for.

A creed for the rising generation

We are not here to cling to the past or wallow in grievance. We are not the movement of rage. We are the movement of reason and hope.

For the rising generation, conservatism cannot be nostalgia. It must be more than a memory of 9/11 or admiration for a Reagan era they never lived through. Many young Americans did not experience those moments — and they should not have to in order to grasp the lessons they taught and the truths they embodied. The next chapter is not about preserving relics but renewing purpose. It must speak to conviction, not cynicism; to moral clarity, not despair.

Young people are searching for meaning in a culture that mocks truth and empties life of purpose. Conservatism should be the moral compass that reminds them freedom is responsibility and that faith, family, and moral courage remain the surest rebellions against hopelessness.

To be a conservative in 2025 is to defend the enduring principles of American liberty while stewarding the culture, the economy, and the spirit of a free people. It is to stand for truth when truth is unfashionable and to guard moral order when the world celebrates chaos.

We are not merely holding the torch. We are relighting it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

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.

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Transcript

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

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 wins when good people mirror its rage.

Ancient evil, new clothes

A time for choosing

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

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

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

The new currency of power

Two futures — both ending in tyranny

The forgotten way

The only way