Mike Rowe details the incredible history that built America

Glenn interviewed Mike Rowe on radio about the upcoming special tomorrow night at 8pm only on TheBlaze called Building America, presented by Caterpillar. Mike chronicles the major engineering and infrastructure feats that began rapidly rising in the 1800’s that eventually formed the foundation America currently operates on. As with many of the Mike Rowe conversations, the use of his Facebook page to respond to people's criticism was a topic of conversation. Watch his interesting, truthful responses and hear his opinion on the America who built the Empire State Building versus the America of today below. Also, don't miss the preview for Building America!

GLENN: I have to tell you, one of my favorite Facebook pages is Mike Rowe's Facebook page. And it's really becoming something — it's almost becoming ritualistic now, where you just kind of gather kids around and you're like, hey, somebody is going to be really rude to Mike and Mike is going to answer them in just the most polite way and yet eviscerate them. There was one that came out last week that Jim Green posted a series of inflammatory points about Republicans with a lot of, you know, caps locked words about the — you know, about how bad Christians were and how bad, you know, Republicans were. And then he used a series of exclamation points after each. How could anyone on earth vote Republican? A reptile has more decency than Republicans in Congress, blah blah blah blah blah. I just want to read just a little bit of Mike Rowe's responses. "Jim, greetings from somewhere over Colorado. It appears you're still trying to sell your books on my Facebook page. Personally I haven't read them and based on your marketing strategy, I suspect I'm probably not alone. Since part of your approach seems to involve me, I thought perhaps I might offer you some unsolicited marketing advice. One, consider starting each blurb off with a friendly salutation. In my experience, a little cordiality goes a long way especially when you're trying to persuade someone to give you money. Two, think about addressing your audience as something other than racist reptiles and toads."

PAT: What? That's revolutionary.

GLENN: "Three, reconsider your commitment to caps and exclamation points. These are excellent choices when warning people of a fire, volcanic eruption or an Ebola outbreak. But I'm afraid your use in the context of a book sale implies a level of urgency that may exist only in your mind." He goes on. He is brilliant. And I am — I'm proud to call him a friend of the program. Mike Rowe, welcome to the program.

ROWE: Hello, Glenn. I'm just so loving the image like a family gathered around the laptop in much the way they might have done in the 1930s. And actually —

GLENN: It's like —

ROWE: A Facebook page.

GLENN: Going to Facebook and to the Mike Rowe Facebook page is like — like in the 1800s gathering around a Mark Twain novel or a — or an Edgar Allan Poe. You're like, here come the murderers in Rue Morgue. Here comes —

ROWE: Look, here's the really humbling and ugly reality about how all this unfolds. That post you were reading, I wrote at about 37,000 feet, somewhere over Colorado. And I really laughed because I think the last time I was with you, I read an ad called — you know, that old ad for Jordan.

GLENN: Yeah, yeah.

ROWE: Somewhere out of Laramie.

GLENN: Right.

ROWE: And it made me laugh and I'm just scrolling through my Facebook page. And honestly, I think you and I are both fairly unoffendable at this point in our lives. You've heard about everything you can hear. But what really struck me is as offensive about the guy really wasn't his world view. It was his marketing strategy. I just — I just couldn't — why would you hit me with such an inflammatory blurb eight times in a row? It's sort of the opposite of persuasive. And just as I was pondering that, the captain walked out and give me a plastic set of wings, you know, like I was an 8-year-old, which just made me laugh hysterically. So I'm sitting there sipping a cocktail, holding my plastic wings looking at this lunatic on my Facebook page, and that's how the response happens. You can't — you don't think about it. You just happen to be on a plane one day holding a set of plastic wings.

(laughing).

ROWE: Addressing a marketeer. And that's the life we live.

GLENN: I want to talk to you about a couple things. First of all, how's the show on CNN doing?

ROWE: Apparently we're still on. There's a certain ambiguity in the news business to tell people to please tune in Wednesdays at 9:00. We're in a world of riots, Ebola, and endless calamity, so the word pre-emption has become sort of a routine thing in my world now. The show is doing very well when you can find it. Wednesday —

GLENN: You sound happy.

ROWE: Where it actually appears, it's a crap shoot.

(overlapping speakers).

STU: Let me fill in the Mike Rowe details that he's not telling you. CNN's "Someone Gotta Do It" works up big ratings. TV ratings, CNN Mike Rowe, launched clobbers Rachel — I'm losing the headline. Mike Rowe's CNN premiere provides best original series Premier in x-amount of time. The show is huge, Mike.

PAT: And it's been re-upped, right, for another year?

ROWE: Yeah, they did pick it up. Very nice.

GLENN: May I just — your marketing strategy is a little confusing.

PAT: You might want to lead with that.

GLENN: You might want to use an exclamation point.

PAT: It's been re-upped! Wednesdays at 9:00.

ROWE: After that intro I'm scared to say anything about it. What network it is —

GLENN: You don't need to call yourself a reptile or toad here.

ROWE: My marketing strategy goes like this. Go ahead, find it, I dare you.

(laughing).

GLENN: All right. There's also something else that you have helped us with. "Building America," tonight, this is a — this is a project sponsored by Caterpillar and Mike is— is doing the voice-over work for it and actually appears on camera. Is that your house? Is that like a studio in your house or something?

ROWE: That's actually a guy that has a modest little studio down the street from me, so I just walked down and sat by a brick wall and told some stories. But this really goes back to — I think maybe the very first conversation you and I had when we met a couple years ago. And we were just kind of bemoaning the state of history. And by the state of history, I just mean the current enthusiasm for the wonder of it and for me, part of what's missing in the TV landscape is just a series of very simple shows that reminds people of the Herculean, if I can use the term, the Herculean tasks and the undertakings that the people who built this country faced. How they overcame them. You're not going to hear anything new in terms of, oh, gees, I didn't know there was a Golden Gate Bridge or Brooklyn bridge or the railroads. These are, you know, topics we all kind of probably remember from 8th and 9th grade but maybe we don't remember and maybe we've forgotten some key things and the people who were responsible for literally connecting the country in every single way that matters from an infrastructure standpoint. So when you guys said you were going to really approach that topic in a straightforward way, I talked to my buddies at Caterpillar and they said, look, we love it, too, obviously. We've got a hand in the infrastructure. So long story short, I said for God's sake, send me a script and I'll read it and I did and I think you're airing it —

GLENN: Tomorrow night at 8:00. And we won't be pre-empting for —

PAT: Any coverage.

GLENN: Any coverage.

ROWE: You spoil me.

GLENN: "Building America," Thursday at 8:00 p.m. That's tomorrow night with Mike Rowe only on TheBlaze TV. You know, when you hear the stories of — when you hear the stories of, for instance, the Empire State Building and how this thing was built in 11 months and how the steel —

PAT: Unthinkable now, right?

GLENN: It was poured in Pittsburgh. And it was still warm as the riveters were sitting on it trying in the rivets. It was still warm. It was moving that fast. That never would be done now. Never be done.

ROWE: Just the business of driving in a rivet is a thing that I bet 99% of the country doesn't really understand. We know what the words mean. We know driving in a — and most of us can visualize a rivet. But the rivets that held the bridge together, that held the Empire State Building together, these things weighed 20, 30 pounds apiece in some cases and just the business of moving them around and hammering them in. It's just — it's epic. It's — that's a word — that's thrown around all the time but it truly is epic.

GLENN: I can't get over the fact that these guys were throwing these rivets to each other.

ROWE: Yeah.

GLENN: I would be so afraid I would fall. OSHA would never let you do this.

ROWE: OSHA?

(laughing).

Listen, I mean, you simply couldn't have done the things that were done. Look, there was a pricee to pay, no doubt. Building, the transcontinental railroads was a bloodbath. The Brooklyn bridge was tough. You know, but the idea of construction under water.

GLENN: Oh, yeah.

ROWE: It was kind of primitive. Caissons, getting the bends. When we didn't know even when decompression sickness was or nitrogen narcosis or anything like that. It was a brave new world. And I think we're just disconnected from it today in a way that we probably shouldn't be.

GLENN: So here's — I want to see if you think this is good news or bad news. There's a story out today from La Figaro newspaper in France that says —

ROWE: Bad news.

GLENN: That says that — I think you're going to change your opinion. That says that the French Jihadists who are now writing letters to their parents from Syria who have joined ISIS are now saying they want to come home and I've got to just read a couple of these. One French Jihadist wrote to his parents, I'm fed up, mom and dad. My iPod doesn't work here anymore. I have to come back. So as we're talking about the rivets, as we're talking about hard work, and I think the same thing is happening with Ferguson. It's not yet, but I think the minute it starts to get cold, Jihadists, revolutionaries, pretty much everybody is like, you know what, it's cold.

ROWE: Nobody told me it was going to be cold. Where is my fleece.

PAT: I'm going home.

ROWE: You know what? You should turn your satirical cannons toward — I don't know if your audience remembers. You will, Allan Sherman I think wrote, "Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh."

GLENN: Yeah, yeah.

ROWE: You should write the Jihadist —

GLENN: That sounds totally politically correct. Totally safe. Non-boycottable.

ROWE: I don't see what could possibly go wrong.

(laughing).

PAT: Mike, we understand that you're still getting — are you still getting flack from the one voice-over thing you did for the WalMart commercial where they announced a quarter of a trillion-dollar initiative to bring back manufacturing to America? Are you still getting flack for that?

ROWE: Yeah, it pops up once in a while. In fact, it did yesterday. I had another rant on a plane that I put up yesterday. But a kid from Solon wrote an article just, you know, the usual stuff. Very upset that — you know, I'm a hypocrite.

PAT: That you would do such a thing.

ROWE: That and the other and WalMart is bad for this, that, and the other. Of course it's still out there. It has nothing to do — you know, people are looking for things to pivot off of in order to come back and make whatever point ultimately they need to make. This thing was so convoluted, I mean, it's actually worth looking at just because it's a study in dubious rhetoric. But I had done an AMA, which is an Ask Me Anything, on Reddit, which is a big website that people go to and they'll ask you anything over the course of an hour. And this writer really took offense to the fact that of the 4,500 questions I was asked, I only answered about 60, which is you know, like one a minute. But one of the ones I didn't answer was a question that said, would you work a shift at a WalMart on a Black Friday. And so he wrote about 700 words, maybe a thousand, based on the fact that my failure to answer that question was indicative of my deep-steeded tacit disdain for the everyday worker and my quiet nefarious association with my evil overlords in corporate America.

GLENN: Well, I will tell you this. And I think — it's what I heard and I think all of America heard. You'll notice he still did not answer the question. He still has not answered that.

PAT: Still won't. Still won't.

GLENN: And it's really what America wants to know. Will Mike Rowe work at a WalMart on Black Friday.

ROWE: The short answer is my plans for Black Friday included a list of activities that precluded me from leaving my apartment. So no —

GLENN: So wait a minute, you're telling me you wouldn't work at WalMart and you wouldn't fight over panties at Victoria's Secret?

ROWE: I wouldn't want to be in involved in the selling of undergarments on Black Friday in any establishment for really any amount of recompense.

GLENN: When you see what happens on Black Friday, what the hell have we turned into, Mike?

ROWE: That's it, right? The pursuit of happiness has become the pursuit of spending and our relationship with debt really is about as disconnected as our relationship from the people who built the icons we were talking about a couple of minutes ago. We just don't know our butt from a hot rock. And it reality is — it's an extraordinary thing to see that level of excitement matriculate in a grown-up over the prospect of saving 40 or 50% on some shiny toy that is doomed and destined to malfunction within two years of its purchase and occupy valuable space in the garage which is attached to the home which is too large and is probably too difficult to afford anyway. And so around and around we go. We buy stuff because it fills a hole somewhere.

GLENN: Talking to Mike Rowe, one last question. I believe my grandfather was, you know, World War II, greatest American generation. I think he would have wanted to beat 70% of this population to death with a shovel. How about your grandfather?

ROWE: If the shovel was made in the USA, my guess is he would not only have used it to subdue the masses. He would have helped dig their necessary —

GLENN: Bury the wealth. And then deep so you know, they wouldn't be dug up by dogs. He was respectful.

ROWE: It is a heck of a thing to watch what happens, you know. I mean, there's nothing new to say about consumerism, but it is alarming the way the events get stacked up, you know, from Black Friday to Cyber Monday and whatever the weekend in between is and. It really doesn't seem to stop.

GLENN: Check out the latest on Mike Rowe at ProfoundlyDisconnected.com. His Facebook page is the best. He's on CNN tonight, assuming that there's not a rainstorm or a rain shower or a sprinkle someplace.

(laughing).

GLENN: And for sure he will be on TheBlaze tomorrow night at 8:00 p.m. "Building America," new series sponsored by Caterpillar, tomorrow night 8:00 p.m. only on TheBlaze TV. Mike, thanks a lot. Appreciate it, man.

ROWE: Hey, all kidding aside, watching building America with your kids is probably a better snapshot than you're gonna get in most schools right now of what mattered and what happened in terms of our infrastructure. It's a good thing and I'm glad you guys did it.

GLENN: Thank you very much, Mike. Appreciate your help. God bless.

EXPOSED: Why Eisenhower warned us about endless wars

PAUL J. RICHARDS / Staff | Getty Images

Donald Trump emphasizes peace through strength, reminding the world that the United States is willing to fight to win. That’s beyond ‘defense.’

President Donald Trump made headlines this week by signaling a rebrand of the Defense Department — restoring its original name, the Department of War.

At first, I was skeptical. “Defense” suggests restraint, a principle I consider vital to U.S. foreign policy. “War” suggests aggression. But for the first 158 years of the republic, that was the honest name: the Department of War.

A Department of War recognizes the truth: The military exists to fight and, if necessary, to win decisively.

The founders never intended a permanent standing army. When conflict came — the Revolution, the War of 1812, the trenches of France, the beaches of Normandy — the nation called men to arms, fought, and then sent them home. Each campaign was temporary, targeted, and necessary.

From ‘war’ to ‘military-industrial complex’

Everything changed in 1947. President Harry Truman — facing the new reality of nuclear weapons, global tension, and two world wars within 20 years — established a full-time military and rebranded the Department of War as the Department of Defense. Americans resisted; we had never wanted a permanent army. But Truman convinced the country it was necessary.

Was the name change an early form of political correctness? A way to soften America’s image as a global aggressor? Or was it simply practical? Regardless, the move created a permanent, professional military. But it also set the stage for something Truman’s successor, President Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower, famously warned about: the military-industrial complex.

Ike, the five-star general who commanded Allied forces in World War II and stormed Normandy, delivered a harrowing warning during his farewell address: The military-industrial complex would grow powerful. Left unchecked, it could influence policy and push the nation toward unnecessary wars.

And that’s exactly what happened. The Department of Defense, with its full-time and permanent army, began spending like there was no tomorrow. Weapons were developed, deployed, and sometimes used simply to justify their existence.

Peace through strength

When Donald Trump said this week, “I don’t want to be defense only. We want defense, but we want offense too,” some people freaked out. They called him a warmonger. He isn’t. Trump is channeling a principle older than him: peace through strength. Ronald Reagan preached it; Trump is taking it a step further.

Just this week, Trump also suggested limiting nuclear missiles — hardly the considerations of a warmonger — echoing Reagan, who wanted to remove missiles from silos while keeping them deployable on planes.

The seemingly contradictory move of Trump calling for a Department of War sends a clear message: He wants Americans to recognize that our military exists not just for defense, but to project power when necessary.

Trump has pointed to something critically important: The best way to prevent war is to have a leader who knows exactly who he is and what he will do. Trump signals strength, deterrence, and resolve. You want to negotiate? Great. You don’t? Then we’ll finish the fight decisively.

That’s why the world listens to us. That’s why nations come to the table — not because Trump is reckless, but because he means what he says and says what he means. Peace under weakness invites aggression. Peace under strength commands respect.

Trump is the most anti-war president we’ve had since Jimmy Carter. But unlike Carter, Trump isn’t weak. Carter’s indecision emboldened enemies and made the world less safe. Trump’s strength makes the country stronger. He believes in peace as much as any president. But he knows peace requires readiness for war.

Names matter

When we think of “defense,” we imagine cybersecurity, spy programs, and missile shields. But when we think of “war,” we recall its harsh reality: death, destruction, and national survival. Trump is reminding us what the Department of Defense is really for: war. Not nation-building, not diplomacy disguised as military action, not endless training missions. War — full stop.

Chip Somodevilla / Staff | Getty Images

Names matter. Words matter. They shape identity and character. A Department of Defense implies passivity, a posture of reaction. A Department of War recognizes the truth: The military exists to fight and, if necessary, to win decisively.

So yes, I’ve changed my mind. I’m for the rebranding to the Department of War. It shows strength to the world. It reminds Americans, internally and externally, of the reality we face. The Department of Defense can no longer be a euphemism. Our military exists for war — not without deterrence, but not without strength either. And we need to stop deluding ourselves.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Censorship, spying, lies—The Deep State’s web finally unmasked

Chip Somodevilla / Staff | Getty Images

From surveillance abuse to censorship, the deep state used state power and private institutions to suppress dissent and influence two US elections.

The term “deep state” has long been dismissed as the province of cranks and conspiracists. But the recent declassification of two critical documents — the Durham annex, released by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), and a report publicized by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard — has rendered further denial untenable.

These documents lay bare the structure and function of a bureaucratic, semi-autonomous network of agencies, contractors, nonprofits, and media entities that together constitute a parallel government operating alongside — and at times in opposition to — the duly elected one.

The ‘deep state’ is a self-reinforcing institutional machine — a decentralized, global bureaucracy whose members share ideological alignment.

The disclosures do not merely recount past abuses; they offer a schematic of how modern influence operations are conceived, coordinated, and deployed across domestic and international domains.

What they reveal is not a rogue element operating in secret, but a systematized apparatus capable of shaping elections, suppressing dissent, and laundering narratives through a transnational network of intelligence, academia, media, and philanthropic institutions.

Narrative engineering from the top

According to Gabbard’s report, a pivotal moment occurred on December 9, 2016, when the Obama White House convened its national security leadership in the Situation Room. Attendees included CIA Director John Brennan, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, National Security Agency Director Michael Rogers, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Secretary of State John Kerry, and others.

During this meeting, the consensus view up to that point — that Russia had not manipulated the election outcome — was subordinated to new instructions.

The record states plainly: The intelligence community was directed to prepare an assessment “per the President’s request” that would frame Russia as the aggressor and then-presidential candidate Donald Trump as its preferred candidate. Notably absent was any claim that new intelligence had emerged. The motivation was political, not evidentiary.

This maneuver became the foundation for the now-discredited 2017 intelligence community assessment on Russian election interference. From that point on, U.S. intelligence agencies became not neutral evaluators of fact but active participants in constructing a public narrative designed to delegitimize the incoming administration.

Institutional and media coordination

The ODNI report and the Durham annex jointly describe a feedback loop in which intelligence is laundered through think tanks and nongovernmental organizations, then cited by media outlets as “independent verification.” At the center of this loop are agencies like the CIA, FBI, and ODNI; law firms such as Perkins Coie; and NGOs such as the Open Society Foundations.

According to the Durham annex, think tanks including the Atlantic Council, the Carnegie Endowment, and the Center for a New American Security were allegedly informed of Clinton’s 2016 plan to link Trump to Russia. These institutions, operating under the veneer of academic independence, helped diffuse the narrative into public discourse.

Media coordination was not incidental. On the very day of the aforementioned White House meeting, the Washington Post published a front-page article headlined “Obama Orders Review of Russian Hacking During Presidential Campaign” — a story that mirrored the internal shift in official narrative. The article marked the beginning of a coordinated media campaign that would amplify the Trump-Russia collusion narrative throughout the transition period.

Surveillance and suppression

Surveillance, once limited to foreign intelligence operations, was turned inward through the abuse of FISA warrants. The Steele dossier — funded by the Clinton campaign via Perkins Coie and Fusion GPS — served as the basis for wiretaps on Trump affiliates, despite being unverified and partially discredited. The FBI even altered emails to facilitate the warrants.

ROBYN BECK / Contributor | Getty Images

This capacity for internal subversion reappeared in 2020, when 51 former intelligence officials signed a letter labeling the Hunter Biden laptop story as “Russian disinformation.” According to polling, 79% of Americans believed truthful coverage of the laptop could have altered the election. The suppression of that story — now confirmed as authentic — was election interference, pure and simple.

A machine, not a ‘conspiracy theory’

The deep state is a self-reinforcing institutional machine — a decentralized, global bureaucracy whose members share ideological alignment and strategic goals.

Each node — law firms, think tanks, newsrooms, federal agencies — operates with plausible deniability. But taken together, they form a matrix of influence capable of undermining electoral legitimacy and redirecting national policy without democratic input.

The ODNI report and the Durham annex mark the first crack in the firewall shielding this machine. They expose more than a political scandal buried in the past. They lay bare a living system of elite coordination — one that demands exposure, confrontation, and ultimately dismantling.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Trump's proposal explained: Ukraine's path to peace without NATO expansion

ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / Contributor | Getty Images

Strategic compromise, not absolute victory, often ensures lasting stability.

When has any country been asked to give up land it won in a war? Even if a nation is at fault, the punishment must be measured.

After World War I, Germany, the main aggressor, faced harsh penalties under the Treaty of Versailles. Germans resented the restrictions, and that resentment fueled the rise of Adolf Hitler, ultimately leading to World War II. History teaches that justice for transgressions must avoid creating conditions for future conflict.

Ukraine and Russia must choose to either continue the cycle of bloodshed or make difficult compromises in pursuit of survival and stability.

Russia and Ukraine now stand at a similar crossroads. They can cling to disputed land and prolong a devastating war, or they can make concessions that might secure a lasting peace. The stakes could not be higher: Tens of thousands die each month, and the choice between endless bloodshed and negotiated stability hinges on each side’s willingness to yield.

History offers a guide. In 1967, Israel faced annihilation. Surrounded by hostile armies, the nation fought back and seized large swaths of territory from Jordan, Egypt, and Syria. Yet Israel did not seek an empire. It held only the buffer zones needed for survival and returned most of the land. Security and peace, not conquest, drove its decisions.

Peace requires concessions

Secretary of State Marco Rubio says both Russia and Ukraine will need to “get something” from a peace deal. He’s right. Israel proved that survival outweighs pride. By giving up land in exchange for recognition and an end to hostilities, it stopped the cycle of war. Egypt and Israel have not fought in more than 50 years.

Russia and Ukraine now press opposing security demands. Moscow wants a buffer to block NATO. Kyiv, scarred by invasion, seeks NATO membership — a pledge that any attack would trigger collective defense by the United States and Europe.

President Donald Trump and his allies have floated a middle path: an Article 5-style guarantee without full NATO membership. Article 5, the core of NATO’s charter, declares that an attack on one is an attack on all. For Ukraine, such a pledge would act as a powerful deterrent. For Russia, it might be more palatable than NATO expansion to its border

Andrew Harnik / Staff | Getty Images

Peace requires concessions. The human cost is staggering: U.S. estimates indicate 20,000 Russian soldiers died in a single month — nearly half the total U.S. casualties in Vietnam — and the toll on Ukrainians is also severe. To stop this bloodshed, both sides need to recognize reality on the ground, make difficult choices, and anchor negotiations in security and peace rather than pride.

Peace or bloodshed?

Both Russia and Ukraine claim deep historical grievances. Ukraine arguably has a stronger claim of injustice. But the question is not whose parchment is older or whose deed is more valid. The question is whether either side is willing to trade some land for the lives of thousands of innocent people. True security, not historical vindication, must guide the path forward.

History shows that punitive measures or rigid insistence on territorial claims can perpetuate cycles of war. Germany’s punishment after World War I contributed directly to World War II. By contrast, Israel’s willingness to cede land for security and recognition created enduring peace. Ukraine and Russia now face the same choice: Continue the cycle of bloodshed or make difficult compromises in pursuit of survival and stability.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

The loneliness epidemic: Are machines replacing human connection?

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Seniors, children, and the isolated increasingly rely on machines for conversation, risking real relationships and the emotional depth that only humans provide.

Jill Smola is 75 years old. She’s a retiree from Orlando, Florida, and she spent her life caring for the elderly. She played games, assembled puzzles, and offered company to those who otherwise would have sat alone.

Now, she sits alone herself. Her husband has died. She has a lung condition. She can’t drive. She can’t leave her home. Weeks can pass without human interaction.

Loneliness is an epidemic. And AI will not fix it. It will only dull the edges and make a diminished life tolerable.

But CBS News reports that she has a new companion. And she likes this companion more than her own daughter.

The companion? Artificial intelligence.

She spends five hours a day talking to her AI friend. They play games, do trivia, and just talk. She says she even prefers it to real people.

My first thought was simple: Stop this. We are losing our humanity.

But as I sat with the story, I realized something uncomfortable. Maybe we’ve already lost some of our humanity — not to AI, but to ourselves.

Outsourcing presence

How often do we know the right thing to do yet fail to act? We know we should visit the lonely. We know we should sit with someone in pain. We know what Jesus would do: Notice the forgotten, touch the untouchable, offer time and attention without outsourcing compassion.

Yet how often do we just … talk about it? On the radio, online, in lectures, in posts. We pontificate, and then we retreat.

I asked myself: What am I actually doing to close the distance between knowing and doing?

Human connection is messy. It’s inconvenient. It takes patience, humility, and endurance. AI doesn’t challenge you. It doesn’t interrupt your day. It doesn’t ask anything of you. Real people do. Real people make us confront our pride, our discomfort, our loneliness.

We’ve built an economy of convenience. We can have groceries delivered, movies streamed, answers instantly. But friendships — real relationships — are slow, inefficient, unpredictable. They happen in the blank spaces of life that we’ve been trained to ignore.

And now we’re replacing that inefficiency with machines.

AI provides comfort without challenge. It eliminates the risk of real intimacy. It’s an elegant coping mechanism for loneliness, but a poor substitute for life. If we’re not careful, the lonely won’t just be alone — they’ll be alone with an anesthetic, a shadow that never asks for anything, never interrupts, never makes them grow.

Reclaiming our humanity

We need to reclaim our humanity. Presence matters. Not theory. Not outrage. Action.

It starts small. Pull up a chair for someone who eats alone. Call a neighbor you haven’t spoken to in months. Visit a nursing home once a month — then once a week. Ask their names, hear their stories. Teach your children how to be present, to sit with someone in grief, without rushing to fix it.

Turn phones off at dinner. Make Sunday afternoons human time. Listen. Ask questions. Don’t post about it afterward. Make the act itself sacred.

Humility is central. We prefer machines because we can control them. Real people are inconvenient. They interrupt our narratives. They demand patience, forgiveness, and endurance. They make us confront ourselves.

A friend will challenge your self-image. A chatbot won’t.

Our homes are quieter. Our streets are emptier. Loneliness is an epidemic. And AI will not fix it. It will only dull the edges and make a diminished life tolerable.

Before we worry about how AI will reshape humanity, we must first practice humanity. It can start with 15 minutes a day of undivided attention, presence, and listening.

Change usually comes when pain finally wins. Let’s not wait for that. Let’s start now. Because real connection restores faster than any machine ever will.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.