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Doc Thompson: NYC Mayor de Blasio among those putting "overheated rhetoric that angers and divides people" in wake of NYPD shootings

December 22, 2014
Wilson

Writer

TheBlaze Radio’s Doc Thompson and Skip Lacombe took over The Glenn Beck Program this morning and started things off with a look at one of the weekend’s biggest stories - the execution of NYPD police officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos. The killings were done seemingly in retaliation for the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner. With tensions between police and the communities they serve so strained, are leaders like NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio doing more harm than good?

Below is a rough transcript of this segment

DOC: I was leaning against the wall waiting for my smoothie. The lady about 60, 65, says to me, excuse me, sir. Are you in line? And I said, no, no, I'm sorry. I'm waiting for my smoothie. And she said, oh, okay, thank you. Merry Christmas. And she walked over and got in line with what I assumed was he grandson. She's Christmas shopping on Saturday. This was a black woman. And I thought to myself, having just gotten a text message minutes earlier about the huge protests that were going on at the mall of America over the Ferguson and Eric Garner cases out of New York and St. Louis. This woman didn't have a problem with me because I'm white. She didn't assume the worst. I didn't assume the worst about her. It was two people going through their lives respecting one another and saying, are you in line? No. I'm sorry. Line is right over there. Okay, thank you. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. It was a pleasant exchange. Because we were individuals. We weren't a white guy, a black lady. We weren't being divided up by that -- at that moment by the race baiters who seek to divide us for their own good. About 20 minutes after that, I was standing in the middle of this mall in Dallas where they have a huge like three-foot, two-foot pool of water. And as an attraction, kids can get inside these inflatable balls and they run in them on the water. And there's like four or five of them running and they'd fall down inside the ball and the water splashes up around it. It was really brought entertaining. I stopped with my wife and we're watching them, laughing at the kids. And a couple came up, stood next to me. They didn't have any kids that were playing. And started laughing at the kids as well and talking about it and said how much fun it looked and I engaged them in a conversation. And I they really need to make some of these for adults.

SKIP: I was going to say. I've seen the bouncy things on the water. They look like fun.

DOC: And the man, a black man and his wife, I was just telling her the same thing. And we engaged in a pleasant conversation the fun the kids were having a Saturday before Christmas. And it wasn't a black guy or a white guy trying to keep each other down, yelling at each other. We wrapped up the conversation by wishing each other a Merry Christmas. And this is what I experienced all day Saturday. And I kept thinking in my mind, juxtaposing that with all of the reports I'm getting out of New York in the Mall of America and other protests everywhere else. And I'm just walking through the mall going, why? And it comes down to what I said a few moments ago, and that is because when we think in those terms about what's going on in New York with the cops being shot and the protests and everybody upset, we're thinking in terms of groups of people. We're actually doing some of the very things that we're critical of people like Al Sharpton. We're thinking in groups. We say, stop segregating us, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. Stop race baiting. But if I allow them to do to to me, I'm doing the same thing. I'm thinking in terms of those people are marching because they're ticked off about something, instead of looking at each person as an individual. That's the key right there. Is unfortunate he all across our approximately all across our society we don't look at individuals. The courts don't. What happened to looking at each case and saying, you know what, there's mitigating circumstances here. It's not just three strikes and you're out. Looking at each case judging them based on the actions of that person and that case. That is the fail right now. We're allowing these race baiters like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Eric Holder and President Obama to do this to us. We're allowing Mayor de Blasio to do this to us. If you're not familiar with the story there, were two police officers who were shot execution style point blank by some nut with a gun. And he made references to shooting pigs, killing comes to, as some sort of retaliation for Ferguson and also Eric Garner. That's where we're at right now. It reached that level. Just days before Christmas that's where we're at. My name is Doc Thompson, along with my cohost Skip LaCombe, pinch-hitting for Glenn today. We're regularly heard on the radio six to nine eastern time. You can get it on I-Hart radio and the apps as well for it. Skip, what are the names of the Officers? The two officers that were shot, and this is really important, that we say their names. I don't know their names off the top of their head but Michael Brown, I know Eric Garner. We know their names. But we don't know the Officers off the top of our head.

SKIP: It was Rafael Ramos and then Wenjian Liu. I know I'm slaughtering the names.

DOC: These officers were just doing their job. Out on patrol. And as critical as I am over the race baiting -- it's important you remember, yeah, they may have contributed to the anti-cop sent minutes that some people have. They may have ginned some people up, gotten some people excitable. But this is not a fire in a movie theater situation. Did they contribute to it? Maybe. But the ultimate blame for what happens is on this nut who shot them. He has a history of mental illness. It is ultimately his fault. What I find so frustrating from the race baiters is how they started back pedaling and saying, oh, wait a minute. I -- categorically deny or categorically reject that this should have happened. The president said I categorically condemn the shooting of these police officers and it certainly wasn't necessary.

SKIP: Of course they are going to come out and say this. They can't give a quick little nod and say, yeah well, that's what happens.

DOC: It's unfortunate in a time of great tragedy, some would resort to irresponsible overheated rhetoric that angers and divides people. This is the criticism you should be heaping on President Obama and de Blasio and Eric Holder. See, everybody is failing at this. It's not just the cops being shot. It's not just Michael Brown. It's not just Eric Garner. It's all of it. And everybody is failing somewhere. There's enough fails in getting this wrong to go around. They're all missing this. President Obama did not pull the trigger. Did he gin some people up? Yeah. His biggest fail is by now back pedaling and saying, unconditionally condemning the murder of the two New York police officers and there's no justification for the slayings. Yes, there is a justification for the slayings if you listen to everything else Obama has said in the past. If I had a son, he would look like Trayvon Martin. He talks about the fails. He supported the wearing of the "I can't breathe" shirt by people like L e Bron James. What is that saying, then?

You're saying that it's true. You're saying if -- by supporting LeBron James wearing the t-shirt and the other protestors out there, you're saying it's true, that police officers are shooting black kids. And it's epidemic.

SKIP: Indiscriminately.

DOC: Right. And you know how you know? Because that's what the protestors have said. You cannot as president separate yourself from the protesters and say, well, I believe in some of what they say but all the other stuff is comploong.

SKIP: He likes to come around and say in a round-about way I'm not going to go and comment on these types of things but he will come out and talk about Lebron James wearing the "I can't breathe "shirt or people holding their hands up coming out of a football game. So he is come, saying I do stand with you and the supports. I can't breathe either or whatever.

DOC: There's no justification in the slayings? No, based on what Obama said. I there is justification. But he obviously does. When you stand with the protestors and say there are cops killing black kids and it's epidemic, which is part of their mantra, you can claim you want peaceful demonstrations all you want but who is going to say it's not justified to stop people even using deadly force if you believe they're going to kill people. Case in point. You're at your home sleeping. Minding your own business. A guy breaks in your house tonight. And attempts to kill you. Are you justified in using deadly force to stop him?

SKIP: Absolutely.

DOC: Absolutely. If cops are out there randomly shooting black kids, isn't it justified to stop them? With deadly force? Again, if you buy in to this crap President Obama and Eric Holder and others are saying. That cops are killing black kids simply because they're black. De Blasio is even worse. De Blasio said if it's unfortunate that in a time of great tragedy, some would resort to the irresponsible overheated rhetoric that angers and divides people. Wait a minute, wait a minute. Overheated rhetoric? What did de Blasio say? What did de Blasio say after Eric Garner? Do you remember? Both in press conference and in interviews, official interviews, he said, that he has warned his son to be careful.

That cops may shoot him because he's black.

SKIP: It's different for the black kids out there. You know, it's different if you're going out there. I'm worried about sending my kid out there with the horrible Officers -- this is from the mayor. The mayor of New York is saying the NYPD officers are indiscriminately attacking black people. What do you expect is going to happen? That is dangerous talk.

DOC: Mayor de Blasio said, police officers are shooting black kids. Or are inclined to shoot black kids simply because they're black. That's what he said. So who is really putting overheated rhetoric that angers and divides people? It's not me. I'm the one who said, reasonably, if you resist arrest, police are going to use force to arrest you and what happens? Sometimes it ends up being deadly. It's not pleasant. It's not fun. I feel bad for anybody who suffers. And their families as well. But the fact is both of those men resisted arrest. That's it. It's tragic. Maybe you need some better training. I don't balk at that. But you know who else needs training? Not just the police. Citizens.

SKIP: People, absolutely.

DOC: All people.

SKIP: Eric Garner and Michael Brown would still be alive today if they did just one thing. Listen. Listen to instructions from a police officer. If a cops tells you to do something, do it. Take them back in the legal court next year if it's some sort of a problem and you think they're in the wrong and you're in the right. Hell, the ACLU will probably help defend knew that case. But if a cop tells you to do something, you do it.

DOC: Right. Did he tell his son, did de Blasio tell his son that? Just listen to police officers? Did he tell white kids that? Because what, they're going to let off white kids if they resist arrest? It's asinine.

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

Getty Images / Handout | Getty Images

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

To be a conservative in 2025 means to STAND

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

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

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is what we're supposed to be doing.

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

The stewardship of a nation, of a civilization.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Global reality.

And moral reality.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Our faith is almost gone.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why can't we open the government?

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

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

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

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

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

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

But not in nostalgia.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A conservative in 2025, '26.

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

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

For those who are alive and yet to be unborn.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Progressives want the government to have more power.

Conservatives are for more restraint.

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

And one can't be stronger than the other.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We have that opportunity, right in front of us!

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

Not if we get bogged down into being against something.

We must be for something!

I know what I'm for.

Do you?

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

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

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

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

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

Evil wins when good people mirror its rage.

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

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

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

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

Ancient evil, new clothes

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

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

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

Andrew Harnik / Staff | Getty Images

A time for choosing

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

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

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

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

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

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

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The new currency of power

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

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

Two futures — both ending in tyranny

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

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

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

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

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

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

The forgotten way

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

Hesham Elsherif / Stringer | Getty Images

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

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

Both are traps.

The only way

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

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

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

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Why the White House restoration sent the left Into panic mode

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A restoration, not a renovation

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

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

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

The selective guardians of history

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

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

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

The real desecration

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

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

Julia Beverly / Contributor | Getty Images

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

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

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.