It’s time for a new declaration: Pastor Todd Wagner

Last night on TV Glenn interviewed Pastor Todd Wagner, who recently did a sermon series called ‘Declaration’ at his church in Dallas, Texas. The founding fathers didn’t just choose to be free, they made a bold declaration and Wagner’s message really resonated with Glenn.

Pastor Wagner: And as any loving father wants, He just keeps saying hey, choose me, come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I’ll give you rest. So one of the things that I just shared, you know, with our body as we look back in history, if you go from Rome to Zimbabwe, it’s never, ever worked for a country to pay its debts by running the printing press. It’s always led to disaster.

Glenn: Right.

Pastor Wagner: I introduced them to a book written by a Harvard economist and a Virginia economist called This Time It’s Different, and what they did is they studied civilization after civilization, and every single one of them fell into the this-time-it’s-different fallacy.

Glenn: We’re hearing it now.

Pastor Wagner: Yeah, we’re hearing it now.

Glenn: The world needs us. China needs us. They’ll never abandon us. This time it’s different.

Pastor Wagner: Right. We’re not an isolated nation. There’s a world economy. And what I’m going to tell you is there are certain laws that are fixed and immutable, and this time is not different. Our own government accountability, okay, the GAO, has said this is unsustainable, and our Congress, our executive branch, didn’t respond to this.

Glenn: Made it worse.

Pastor Wagner: They made it worse, and so they came back, and they defined unsustainable. They said this can’t continue, as if they needed to know what unsustainable meant. And so here’s what I would say, what is a pastor doing talking about the economy, right? Because some guys go I want to be about the gospel. I do too, but the gospel has legs. The love of Christ, what God cares about…economy just means house administration. That’s what it means, this is the way you should run your house, okay? And it’s not going to go well for you.

The borrower is the lender’s slave, and God is a person that rescues us from slavery and bondage to the way that seems right to us but in the end leads to death. And so in the economy one, I just said look, gang, this is what’s going on, and by the way, we can’t get mad at Washington. We are responsible for Washington.

This is a government of the people, by the people, for the people, and I really meant, I want you guys to know, Glenn, I want you to know, I made the case and I make the case all the time that I think the greatest evil in America is not the radical left. It’s not the ultraconservative right. It’s not the abortion industry. It’s not the, you know, people that are trying to redefine marriage.

I really believe the greatest evil in America are the people that have been given the truth that say they know the truth that are supposed to be keepers of the truth that are not faithfully declaring that truth to others, okay?

Glenn: See why I like this guy?

Pastor Wagner: And so we’ve got to quit throwing stones at everybody else and just gotta go, so I’ve told my body this again and again. You want change? Everybody wants to change the world, but nobody wants to change themself, and so we have just continually said what we’ve got to do is draw a circle around ourself and change everything in it, and then as we experience the blessing and the prosperity of living ourselves wisely—

Glenn: The best missionary is one that lives it.

Pastor Wagner: Amen.

Glenn: There’s a great letter we have in the library to George Washington from Aaron Burr. He had just won a battle, got shot in the head, and he writes two lines. He says the fort and the garrison is ours, General. Your men behaved like men determined to be free. That’s why we’re missing it, because we’re not living it. We’re not determined to be free. If we were determined to be free, we would be looking for those things that free us. What frees us? Not having debt frees you. Once you have debt, you’re a slave to the bank or to the lender or to whoever. You’re a slave.

Pastor Wagner: And so one of the things that I would just say to folks because they might go Todd…Glenn, why do you have a pastor on there, right? Why do you have a guy who calls himself an evangelical Christian? You come from a Mormon expression. And there’s so much that we have in common about our desire for truth.

Glenn: And a lot I disagree with you on.

Pastor Wagner: Yeah, and a lot we disagree with each other on, but we love each other, right? Because, you know, love without truth is not love, and truth that isn’t loving is not going to be heard, and that’s one of the things I really appreciate about you. I think you’ve even said hey, I’m learning to be a little bit maybe even kinder about the way that I go about it. That’s my deal my wife would tell me, Todd, you need to learn. That tone helps you with me, right?

Glenn: Right.

Pastor Wagner: And there’s a great quote by a guy named Frederick Faber that was an Anglican gentleman, actually converted to Catholicism in England. He said this, there was a quote when I read it, it just stopped me in my track, and he said kindness has converted more sinners then eloquence, learning, and I even scribbled it down because sometimes I quote…than zeal, eloquence, or learning. And you know what—

Glenn: It’s true.

Pastor Wagner: We try to be zealous for what we believe. We try and learn a lot and be eloquent, but you know what, man, kindness, the Lord leads us to—.

Glenn: The protesters that were on the streets last night, I agree with them last night in New York on what happened. That cop acted wrong. I think that was manslaughter. Now, I wasn’t in with the grand jury, so I don’t know, but it looked manslaughter to me. But they were marching in the streets with signs that said “F” this tree, and they were talking about the lighting of the Rockefeller tree. That’s not going to get anybody on your side. What are you doing?

Pastor Wagner: No.

Glenn: If instead you would have been kind and humble, and you would’ve locked arms, and you would’ve sang Christmas carols, and you would’ve done it, yes, in the middle of the street, the people who were there for the tree would’ve said what’s going on here? What’s going on? And you would listen to them. But we are so full of rage and anger right now, everything that is antichrist, everything.

Pastor Wagner: I’ll tell you why. How much time do we have in this segment?

Glenn: How much time do we have left? Two minutes?

Pastor Wagner: All right, let me in two minutes tell you why I think that we’re filled with rage. I think it’s because of the leaders that we’re choosing, and we’re not choosing leaders that are helping us focus on the thing that ultimately sets us free. And so specifically what used to really affect our country was this thing called Social Darwinism, this idea that individuals are not as good as other individuals because they’re not as fit as us, and so we can hold them down and oppress them.

But what has really started to happen in our society today is more defined by the philosophy, the world view, and not Judeo-Christian ethic, okay, which would say let’s pursue righteousness, peace, love and forgiveness and reconciliation together, but I would tell you it’s more culturally Marxist.

Now, what’s that mean? Marxists always want to push you into classes. It’s going to say let’s separate these people by class, by gender, by race, by sexual preference, and then let’s take you, the persecuted minority, and I will be your advocate. I’m going to get my power by appealing to your plight, and I frankly am going to maintain my power by keeping your plight the issue. And what it does is it pits us all against one another, and it makes us concerned about our own little small area, and it keeps us from working together toward the one thing we all need, which is righteousness, truth, peace, love.

Glenn: How did your church…did you have anybody walk out when you say these things?

Pastor Wagner: No. No. Here’s the thing, I’ve never done it in a series before, but I’m teaching this all the time because I’m teaching God’s word, okay?

Glenn: How’s the health of your church?

Pastor Wagner: Well, I hope it’s really healthy. You know, every year, one of the ways that we keep our church healthy is every year our membership goes to zero. So every December or January, we just say who’s still in for this? Who wants to be about believing in Christ, belonging to his body, being trained in truth, and being strong in life with ministry and worship? And if you don’t, we’re not going to love you more, okay? We’re not going to say you’re going to hell. We’re going to say you’re just saying I’m not going to pursue heaven with you anymore, okay? And so then what do we do? We do what the Scripture says we should do when a person is like that. We love them and call them to repentance.

Glenn: Most people will not say these things because they’re afraid that they’re going to lose their membership or whatever, and I think this is critical for people to say.

Pastor Wagner: Here’s what I would say to my pastor friends, here’s what I would say to leaders in general, here’s what I would say to politicians, we don’t need politicians. We need statesmen, people that are concerned for the state, not keeping himself in office. That’s their job. Here’s what I would say to a pastor, you’re not going to lose your people if you teach truth; you’re going to set them free. That’s not my idea. That’s God’s. Truth sets people free.

And when political correctness replaces theological soundness, what you’re going to have is the greatest problem in America, that the place that people should go to have a revolution from darkness to life is the one place they go to get put to sleep and where the rest of the world looks at them and goes I don’t know what the solution is, but it must not be God, because that church over there, I don’t see anything in there that’s attractive to me.

Glenn: Okay, we’ll come back. I want to talk to you a little bit about immigration and if we have time maybe a little bit of Ferguson and what your thoughts are on Ferguson.

Pastor Wagner: Yeah, I’d be happy to.

Glenn: I will tell you, America, that I did call him America’s pastor earlier. And Billy Graham gave me a book, and it was Billy Graham, America’s pastor. I saw that cover, and I thought who has the guts to put that on a title of their book?

Pastor Wagner: I don’t.

Glenn: Yeah, except for Billy Graham, and Billy Graham was right for doing it. There is a time for a new calling, and I don’t know who the Lord is going to call, but I think you should hear this man’s words. We’ll be back in just a minute.

The critical difference: Rights from the Creator, not the state

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When politicians claim that rights flow from the state, they pave the way for tyranny.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) recently delivered a lecture that should alarm every American. During a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, he argued that believing rights come from a Creator rather than government is the same belief held by Iran’s theocratic regime.

Kaine claimed that the principles underpinning Iran’s dictatorship — the same regime that persecutes Sunnis, Jews, Christians, and other minorities — are also the principles enshrined in our Declaration of Independence.

In America, rights belong to the individual. In Iran, rights serve the state.

That claim exposes either a profound misunderstanding or a reckless indifference to America’s founding. Rights do not come from government. They never did. They come from the Creator, as the Declaration of Independence proclaims without qualification. Jefferson didn’t hedge. Rights are unalienable — built into every human being.

This foundation stands worlds apart from Iran. Its leaders invoke God but grant rights only through clerical interpretation. Freedom of speech, property, religion, and even life itself depend on obedience to the ruling clerics. Step outside their dictates, and those so-called rights vanish.

This is not a trivial difference. It is the essence of liberty versus tyranny. In America, rights belong to the individual. The government’s role is to secure them, not define them. In Iran, rights serve the state. They empower rulers, not the people.

From Muhammad to Marx

The same confusion applies to Marxist regimes. The Soviet Union’s constitutions promised citizens rights — work, health care, education, freedom of speech — but always with fine print. If you spoke out against the party, those rights evaporated. If you practiced religion openly, you were charged with treason. Property and voting were allowed as long as they were filtered and controlled by the state — and could be revoked at any moment. Rights were conditional, granted through obedience.

Kaine seems to be advocating a similar approach — whether consciously or not. By claiming that natural rights are somehow comparable to sharia law, he ignores the critical distinction between inherent rights and conditional privileges. He dismisses the very principle that made America a beacon of freedom.

Jefferson and the founders understood this clearly. “We are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights,” they wrote. No government, no cleric, no king can revoke them. They exist by virtue of humanity itself. The government exists to protect them, not ration them.

This is not a theological quibble. It is the entire basis of our government. Confuse the source of rights, and tyranny hides behind piety or ideology. The people are disempowered. Clerics, bureaucrats, or politicians become arbiters of what rights citizens may enjoy.

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Gifts from God, not the state

Kaine’s statement reflects either a profound ignorance of this principle or an ideological bias that favors state power over individual liberty. Either way, Americans must recognize the danger. Understanding the origin of rights is not academic — it is the difference between freedom and submission, between the American experiment and theocratic or totalitarian rule.

Rights are not gifts from the state. They are gifts from God, secured by reason, protected by law, and defended by the people. Every American must understand this. Because when rights come from government instead of the Creator, freedom disappears.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

POLL: Is America’s next generation trading freedom for equity?

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A recent poll conducted by Justin Haskins, a long-time friend of the show, has uncovered alarming trends among young Americans aged 18-39, revealing a generation grappling with deep frustrations over economic hardships, housing affordability, and a perceived rigged system that favors the wealthy, corporations, and older generations. While nearly half of these likely voters approve of President Trump, seeing him as an anti-establishment figure, over 70% support nationalizing major industries, such as healthcare, energy, and big tech, to promote "equity." Shockingly, 53% want a democratic socialist to win the 2028 presidential election, including a third of Trump voters and conservatives in this age group. Many cite skyrocketing housing costs, unfair taxation on the middle class, and a sense of being "stuck" or in crisis as driving forces, with 62% believing the economy is tilted against them and 55% backing laws to confiscate "excess wealth" like second homes or luxury items to help first-time buyers.

This blend of Trump support and socialist leanings suggests a volatile mix: admiration for disruptors who challenge the status quo, coupled with a desire for radical redistribution to address personal struggles. Yet, it raises profound questions about the roots of this discontent—Is it a failure of education on history's lessons about socialism's failures? Media indoctrination? Or genuine systemic barriers? And what does it portend for the nation’s trajectory—greater division, a shift toward authoritarian policies, or an opportunity for renewal through timeless values like hard work and individual responsibility?

Glenn wants to know what YOU think: Where do Gen Z's socialist sympathies come from? What does it mean for the future of America? Make your voice heard in the poll below:

Do you believe the Gen Z support for socialism comes from perceived economic frustrations like unaffordable housing and a rigged system favoring the wealthy and corporations?

Do you believe the Gen Z support for socialism, including many Trump supporters, is due to a lack of education about the historical failures of socialist systems?

Do you think that these poll results indicate a growing generational divide that could lead to more political instability and authoritarian tendencies in America's future?

Do you think that this poll implies that America's long-term stability relies on older generations teaching Gen Z and younger to prioritize self-reliance, free-market ideals, and personal accountability?

Do you think the Gen Z support for Trump is an opportunity for conservatives to win them over with anti-establishment reforms that preserve liberty?

Americans expose Supreme Court’s flag ruling as a failed relic

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In a nation where the Stars and Stripes symbolize the blood-soaked sacrifices of our heroes, President Trump's executive order to crack down on flag desecration amid violent protests has ignited fierce debate. But in a recent poll, Glenn asked the tough question: Can Trump protect the Flag without TRAMPLING free speech? Glenn asked, and you answered—thousands weighed in on this pressing clash between free speech and sacred symbols.

The results paint a picture of resounding distrust toward institutional leniency. A staggering 85% of respondents support banning the burning of American flags when it incites violence or disturbs the peace, a bold rejection of the chaos we've seen from George Floyd riots to pro-Palestinian torchings. Meanwhile, 90% insist that protections for burning other flags—like Pride or foreign banners—should not be treated the same as Old Glory under the First Amendment, exposing the hypocrisy in equating our nation's emblem with fleeting symbols. And 82% believe the Supreme Court's Texas v. Johnson ruling, shielding flag burning as "symbolic speech," should not stand without revision—can the official story survive such resounding doubt from everyday Americans weary of government inaction?

Your verdict sends a thunderous message: In this divided era, the flag demands defense against those who exploit freedoms to sow disorder, without trampling the liberties it represents. It's a catastrophic failure of the establishment to ignore this groundswell.

Want to make your voice heard? Check out more polls HERE.

Labor Day EXPOSED: The Marxist roots you weren’t told about

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During your time off this holiday, remember the man who started it: Peter J. McGuire, a racist Marxist who co-founded America’s first socialist party.

Labor Day didn’t begin as a noble tribute to American workers. It began as a negotiation with ideological terrorists.

In the late 1800s, factory and mine conditions were brutal. Workers endured 12-to-15-hour days, often seven days a week, in filthy, dangerous environments. Wages were low, injuries went uncompensated, and benefits didn’t exist. Out of desperation, Americans turned to labor unions. Basic protections had to be fought for because none were guaranteed.

Labor Day wasn’t born out of gratitude. It was a political payoff to Marxist radicals who set trains ablaze and threatened national stability.

That era marked a seismic shift — much like today. The Industrial Revolution, like our current digital and political upheaval, left millions behind. And wherever people get left behind, Marxists see an opening.

A revolutionary wedge

This was Marxism’s moment.

Economic suffering created fertile ground for revolutionary agitation. Marxists, socialists, and anarchists stepped in to stoke class resentment. Their goal was to turn the downtrodden into a revolutionary class, tear down the existing system, and redistribute wealth by force.

Among the most influential agitators was Peter J. McGuire, a devout Irish Marxist from New York. In 1874, he co-founded the Social Democratic Workingmens Party of North America, the first Marxist political party in the United States. He was also a vice president of the American Federation of Labor, which would become the most powerful union in America.

McGuire’s mission wasn’t hidden. He wanted to transform the U.S. into a socialist nation through labor unions.

That mission soon found a useful symbol.

In the 1880s, labor leaders in Toronto invited McGuire to attend their annual labor festival. Inspired, he returned to New York and launched a similar parade on Sept. 5 — chosen because it fell halfway between Independence Day and Thanksgiving.

The first parade drew over 30,000 marchers who skipped work to hear speeches about eight-hour workdays and the alleged promise of Marxism. The parade caught on across the country.

Negotiating with radicals

By 1894, Labor Day had been adopted by 30 states. But the federal government had yet to make it a national holiday. A major strike changed everything.

In Pullman, Illinois, home of the Pullman railroad car company, tensions exploded. The economy tanked. George Pullman laid off hundreds of workers and slashed wages for those who remained — yet refused to lower the rent on company-owned homes.

That injustice opened the door for Marxist agitators to mobilize.

Sympathetic railroad workers joined the strike. Riots broke out. Hundreds of railcars were torched. Mail service was disrupted. The nation’s rail system ground to a halt.

President Grover Cleveland — under pressure in a midterm election year — panicked. He sent 12,000 federal troops to Chicago. Two strikers were killed in the resulting clashes.

With the crisis spiraling and Democrats desperate to avoid political fallout, Cleveland struck a deal. Within six days of breaking the strike, Congress rushed through legislation making Labor Day a federal holiday.

It was the first of many concessions Democrats would make to organized labor in exchange for political power.

What we really celebrated

Labor Day wasn’t born out of gratitude. It was a political payoff to Marxist radicals who set trains ablaze and threatened national stability.

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What we celebrated was a Canadian idea, brought to America by the founder of the American Socialist Party, endorsed by racially exclusionary unions, and made law by a president and Congress eager to save face.

It was the first of many bones thrown by the Democratic Party to union power brokers. And it marked the beginning of a long, costly compromise with ideologues who wanted to dismantle the American way of life — from the inside out.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.