Depraved Indifference: In the wake of Charleston shooting, we must all become first responders

Dylann Roof wanted to start a race war when he shot the church in Charleston, SC, but he picked the wrong city and the wrong people. The people are rallying together, and prayers are pouring in from all over the country. Glenn and some of his friends flew to Charleston to pray for the community and provide comfort. On the way there, they discussed the dangers of "depraved indifference", and why people must stand together now in opposition to the hate that led to this attack.

Below is a rush transcript of this segment:

GLENN: From Charleston, South Carolina, in WSC radio. Hello. And welcome to the Glenn Beck program. We're glad that you've joined us today. I got up in New York at about 4 o'clock this morning. It was about 11:00 or 10 o'clock that we finally found where we would be gathering today in Charleston, South Carolina.

Yesterday, when we spoke, I said, I just felt that I needed to be in South Carolina. I needed to be in Charleston. If you felt that way, join me in Charleston today. And all day we looked for a place -- and we had one early in the morning. We were ready to announce it. There was a bomb threat. And the city went kind of in lockdown. And things went nuts again in the city. And they're struggling with so much.

And they wanted to put us into -- they wanted to put us into an arena away from the church. And I finally said last night, you know, let's just gather. Let's just meet in a park. Let's just come together. Hold each other's hands. Hold each other's arms up. And pray together.

Well, this morning, I got up at about 4 o'clock. And I checked my Facebook page, and I checked the email. And there were people coming from California, from Texas, Nevada, Utah, coming from all up and down the eastern seaboard. From Florida, from Atlanta, from Kentucky, Ohio, Missouri. I don't know if there's going to be 25 people here or 250 people. I don't know. And I saw all of that, and it really was Field of Dreams: If you build it, they will come. And then I realized, but I didn't build a baseball diamond. I don't know what game we're supposed to be playing here. I don't have a baseball bat, and I don't have a diamond. I don't know what we're supposed to do.

And I got on my knees this morning and prayed that at some point an answer would come of, okay, well, now we're here together, what is it we're supposed to do? And I think the answer is just love each other. As we arrived here in Charleston this morning early, I was overwhelmed with a kindness and how somber everybody is, but yet determined.

This is not Baltimore. This is not Ferguson. This is not -- this is unlike anything we've seen since I think September 11th. You know, how September 11th happened. The next day we gathered today. And we all stood together to give blood, even though there wasn't any need for blood. But we stood together. And we let the people in Pennsylvania know that we love them. We let the people know at the Pentagon that we loved them. That we were all New Yorkers that day. And just for that brief moment of time, America became her better self.

It's found out now that the shooter, Dylann Roof, the killer wanted to start a race war. What a sad disappointment he has now, knowing that no race war is going to start.

He picked the wrong city. He picked the wrong people. If that's what you're trying to start, you don't -- you don't pick a fight with a place called the Holy City. You don't -- you don't pick a city where the highest points in the sky are not skyscrapers, but church steeples. As I was walking around New York the last couple of days, I'm always -- I'm always in awe of the Manhattan skyline. I'm always in awe -- just, I walk down the street. And I look at some of these buildings, I was standing in front of our hotel this morning. And I was talking to Rabbi Kula who has joined us and some other people that joined us, and I said, look at this building. And I told the history of the building. Bored him to tears. But as I told him the history of the building, I am so -- I love what man has done on that island. But at night, when I walked by myself or in the morning as I was walking in the park, I looked up and I couldn't see anything but the glow of the city. So I am never marveling at what God has done. I can't see the stars. I can rarely see the sun. I can't see the moon. Sometimes you see the clouds, but that's it.

You're only really allowed to look up and see what man has done. And you lose your place. In a small town like Charleston, you still look up. It's not a sea of skyscrapers. The highest points in the sky are the church steeples. So as you look up, you see what man is doing, praising God. And you can still see the stars and the sun and the moon and all of his creations.

And I think it keeps you rooted.

This is not the 1860s, and it's not the 1960s. And this is a town that's not going to be dragged back down into it. This is a town that knows who she is.

Do we have problems with people? Yeah. We have race problems all around the country. Was this guy a bad racist? You bet he was. Did people know about it? Yes, they did.

His roommate knew for six months that he was planning something like this. Those were his words. Something like this. Wanted to start a race war or a civil war. Now, think of that. You're 20, 21 years old, and you have a friend, a roommate who is carrying a gun, who you think may be a little off. Who wants to start a civil war, who wants to start a race war, and you don't say anything.

It's not enough to get away from him. It's not enough to ignore.

As we were on the plane today, we talked about that story. And because we didn't have any Wi-Fi on the plane, we -- we grappled with what it was. Is that depraved indifference?

I think it is. Depraved indifference. Your indifference is so deep, that you do nothing. You know what's coming. You know what somebody is going to do. You hear them. But you do nothing. What this man did when he walked into the church, it was depraved. What his friends did, who knew that it was coming is equally as depraved.

As we -- as we landed and our Wi-Fi started to work, we looked up depraved indifference. It's a legal term. And you couldn't charge his roommate with depraved indifference. It's not depraved indifference.

However, may I ask, are we citizens of the United States, or are we citizens of another kingdom? Do we lose our first citizenship by merely obeying the laws of our second citizenship? Do we -- has our second citizenship overtaken and trumped everything of our first citizenship, to the point where we do nothing because we're afraid of the law. We're afraid that somebody's going to be offended. We don't know what to do. Let's call somebody else because, as we learned in the 1970s, because that's when this term first began, you call a first responder. You call a first responder. No, no. Your citizenship, your first citizenship makes you the first responder.

The police, they're the second responders. You're the first. You're the first and really sometimes last line of defense. If you hear somebody saying things like that, you report it.

This week, I was on with Howard Stern. And he brought up the suicide of my mother. And we started talking about that. And he said, you know, there was a press report a few years ago that somebody said it wasn't a suicide. I said, you know, Howard, I didn't even respond to that. Because, A, how dare you start to investigate something -- my mother's death from 1979. You actually spent the time just to discredit me, you started going through the death records and the police reports of my mother's death from 1979, that's ghoulish. It's fiendish. It's cynical. It's sick.

But let me tell you how I know. My mother left a note. And more importantly, something that we hadn't talked about. We never talked about until the press started to say it. She went to my aunt, the Sunday before, and she said, you know, Joanne, I'm going to kill myself. I can't do it anymore. Well, my aunt had heard that many times. My grandmother heard that many times. They had offered help. They had begged her for help. They had done everything they could, except call and have her committed.

I'm going to end it. This week, I'm going to end it. Now, what did my aunt have to live through? What was she carrying around? She took it seriously, but not seriously enough. Because she had heard it before over and over again. And nobody does that. Because this was the first suicide in my family. We've had two suicides in my family. This was the first time it had happened. And believe me, I know. When somebody says, hey, I'm thinking about killing myself, you take action.

Well, I know. But they're my friend. And I don't want to -- no, no, no. You take action. You watch them. You get them to a hospital. You get them to a doctor. You get them to call a suicide prevention line. You don't just say that.

And if you do say that and your friend rejects you and says, hey, thanks a lot for telling everybody. Thanks a lot for calling the cops.

I'm your friend! I'm your friend. I'm your family member. That's what I'm supposed to do because I'm the first responder.

I love you, and if you hate me because I tried to save your life because you said you're going to throw it away, then you can hate me. I love you.

Now, how does this roommate feel today?

I asked this morning when I got here to WSC, has anybody heard from the parents? This is the Amish moment. The Amish mourn together. The Amish -- when the truck driver came in and shot all of the schoolchildren in the Amish school and everybody was raising money for the Amish, the Amish that day went and mourned with the killer's family. Begged them to stay in the community. Please don't move away. We don't hate you. We love you.

Has anybody reached out to the killer's family? I don't know the answer. The people I've asked don't know the afternoons. I'm guessing the media has. How do you feel? How do you feel? What did you think? What did you know? When did you know it? And when they say how do you feel, they don't mean that. They want a juicy story. How do they feel? How would you feel?

Your son looks the way he does in the pictures. And everybody in America says, how did you not know? Look at that picture.

Perhaps because we all struggle with our children. Because perhaps all of our children go through phases and none of us can accept that our children would be so crazy that we would -- that we would raise somebody that could do something so evil.

Hindsight is 20/20. Is it the parents' fault? By the way, he bought the gun. The parents didn't give him the gun. He took money that the parents gave him, and he bought the gun. This is just another way to demonize the family. Did you know? Look at that. Look at the culture in the South. Look at these gun lovers, giving their kid who looks like that, a gun.

No. They gave him money. They were estranged. Imagine your son -- have you ever been asked for money? I remember the time that I was on the street, and I think Stu you were with me on the street of New York. And there was a woman who looked like she was strung out on heroin, and I mean badly strung out. She was shaking. She was crying. It was one of the most incredible things I've seen in my life. And I stopped on the streets of New York, which you don't do, and I got down on my hands and knees on the streets of New York, which you definitely don't do. And I talked to her.

How can I help you? Can I get you to a hospital? What can I do?

She was beyond strung out. I gave her money. Everybody mocked me and made fun of me. How could you do that? Because I felt like I had to do something.

A month later, we found out, she was a scam artist. She was making like $90,000 a year just doing that. She was like an actress.

We don't know what's real and what's not. But once we allow somebody else to rule our heart, once we allow somebody else to take care of our problems, once we allow our second citizenship to overrule our first citizenship, we're done.

Today is the day we worry about our first citizenship. And today is the day that at 2 o'clock, I'm going to be here in Charleston, South Carolina, in the town square, just right by the church. What's it called? Marion Square, by the statue of John Calhoun. And we're just going to meet as friends. We don't have a permit. We're not going to do anything. There's no stage. There's no microphone. It's just friends gathering together. We're going to walk to the church, and we're going to pray together. We're going to hold people's hands and hold people's hearts up. And I invite you to join us.

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.

Exposed: The radical Left's bloody rampage against America

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For years, the media warned of right-wing terror. But the bullets, bombs, and body bags are piling up on the left — with support from Democrat leaders and voters.

For decades, the media and federal agencies have warned Americans that the greatest threat to our homeland is the political right — gun-owning veterans, conservative Christians, anyone who ever voted for President Donald Trump. President Joe Biden once declared that white supremacy is “the single most dangerous terrorist threat” in the nation.

Since Trump’s re-election, the rhetoric has only escalated. Outlets like the Washington Post and the Guardian warned that his second term would trigger a wave of far-right violence.

As Democrats bleed working-class voters and lose control of their base, they’re not moderating. They’re radicalizing.

They were wrong.

The real domestic threat isn’t coming from MAGA grandmas or rifle-toting red-staters. It’s coming from the radical left — the anarchists, the Marxists, the pro-Palestinian militants, and the anti-American agitators who have declared war on law enforcement, elected officials, and civil society.

Willful blindness

On July 4, a group of black-clad terrorists ambushed an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Alvarado, Texas. They hurled fireworks at the building, spray-painted graffiti, and then opened fire on responding law enforcement, shooting a local officer in the neck. Journalist Andy Ngo has linked the attackers to an Antifa cell in the Dallas area.

Authorities have so far charged 14 people in the plot and recovered AR-style rifles, body armor, Kevlar vests, helmets, tactical gloves, and radios. According to the Department of Justice, this was a “planned ambush with intent to kill.”

And it wasn’t an isolated incident. It’s part of a growing pattern of continuous violent left-wing incidents since December last year.

Monthly attacks

Most notably, in December 2024, 26-year-old Luigi Mangione allegedly gunned down UnitedHealth Group CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan. Mangione reportedly left a manifesto raging against the American health care system and was glorified by some on social media as a kind of modern Robin Hood.

One Emerson College poll found that 41% of Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 said the murder was “acceptable” or “somewhat acceptable.”

The next month, a man carrying Molotov cocktails was arrested near the U.S. Capitol. He allegedly planned to assassinate Trump-appointed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and House Speaker Mike Johnson.

In February, the “Tesla Takedown” attacks on Tesla vehicles and dealerships started picking up traction.

In March, a self-described “queer scientist” was arrested after allegedly firebombing the Republican Party headquarters in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Graffiti on the burned building read “ICE = KKK.”

In April, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s (D-Pa.) official residence was firebombed on Passover night. The suspect allegedly set the governor’s mansion on fire because of what Shapiro, who is Jewish, “wants to do to the Palestinian people.”

In May, two young Israeli embassy staffers were shot and killed outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C. Witnesses said the shooter shouted “Free Palestine” as he was being arrested. The suspect told police he acted “for Gaza” and was reportedly linked to the Party for Socialism and Liberation.

In June, an Egyptian national who had entered the U.S. illegally allegedly threw a firebomb at a peaceful pro-Israel rally in Boulder, Colorado. Eight people were hospitalized, and an 82-year-old Holocaust survivor later died from her injuries.

That same month, a pro-Palestinian rioter in New York was arrested for allegedly setting fire to 11 police vehicles. In Los Angeles, anti-ICE rioters smashed cars, set fires, and hurled rocks at law enforcement. House Democrats refused to condemn the violence.

Barbara Davidson / Contributor | Getty Images

In Portland, Oregon, rioters tried to burn down another ICE facility and assaulted police officers before being dispersed with tear gas. Graffiti left behind read: “Kill your masters.”

On July 7, a Michigan man opened fire on a Customs and Border Protection facility in McAllen, Texas, wounding two police officers and an agent. Border agents returned fire, killing the suspect.

Days later in California, ICE officers conducting a raid on an illegal cannabis farm in Ventura County were attacked by left-wing activists. One protester appeared to fire at federal agents.

This is not a series of isolated incidents. It’s a timeline of escalation. Political assassinations, firebombings, arson, ambushes — all carried out in the name of radical leftist ideology.

Democrats are radicalizing

This isn’t just the work of fringe agitators. It’s being enabled — and in many cases encouraged — by elected Democrats.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz routinely calls ICE “Trump’s modern-day Gestapo.” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass attempted to block an ICE operation in her city. Boston Mayor Michelle Wu compared ICE agents to a neo-Nazi group. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson referred to them as “secret police terrorizing our communities.”

Apparently, other Democratic lawmakers, according to Axios, are privately troubled by their own base. One unnamed House Democrat admitted that supporters were urging members to escalate further: “Some of them have suggested what we really need to do is be willing to get shot.” Others were demanding blood in the streets to get the media’s attention.

A study from Rutgers University and the National Contagion Research Institute found that 55% of Americans who identify as “left of center” believe that murdering Donald Trump would be at least “somewhat justified.”

As Democrats bleed working-class voters and lose control of their base, they’re not moderating. They’re radicalizing. They don’t want the chaos to stop. They want to harness it, normalize it, and weaponize it.

The truth is, this isn’t just about ICE. It’s not even about Trump. It’s about whether a republic can survive when one major party decides that our institutions no longer apply.

Truth still matters. Law and order still matter. And if the left refuses to defend them, then we must be the ones who do.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

America's comeback: Trump is crushing crime in the Capitol

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Trump’s DC crackdown is about more than controlling crime — it’s about restoring America’s strength and credibility on the world stage.

Donald Trump on Monday invoked Section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act, placing the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department under direct federal control and deploying the National Guard to restore law and order. This move is long overdue.

D.C.’s crime problem has been spiraling for years as local authorities and Democratic leadership have abandoned the nation’s capital to the consequences of their own failed policies. The city’s murder rate is about three times higher than that of Islamabad, Pakistan, and 18 times higher than that of communist-led Havana, Cuba.

When DC is in chaos, it sends a message to the world that America is weak.

Theft, assaults, and carjackings have transformed many of its streets into war zones. D.C. saw a 32% increase in homicides from 2022 to 2023, marking the highest number in two decades and surpassing both New York and Los Angeles. Even if crime rates dropped to 2019 levels, that wouldn’t be good enough.

Local leaders have downplayed the crisis, manipulating crime stats to preserve their image. Felony assault, for example, is no longer considered a “violent crime” in their crime stats. Same with carjacking. But the reality on the streets is different. People in D.C. are living in constant fear.

Trump isn’t waiting for the crime rate to improve on its own. He’s taking action.

Broken windows theory in action

Trump’s takeover of D.C. puts the “broken windows theory” into action — the idea that ignoring minor crimes invites bigger ones. When authorities look the other way on turnstile-jumping or graffiti, they signal that lawbreaking carries no real consequence.

Rudy Giuliani used this approach in the 1990s to clean up New York, cracking down on small offenses before they escalated. Trump is doing the same in the capital, drawing a hard line and declaring enough is enough. Letting crime fester in Washington tells the world that the seat of American power tolerates lawlessness.

What Trump is doing for D.C. isn’t just about law enforcement — it’s about national identity. When D.C. is in chaos, it sends a message to the world that America is weak. The capital city represents the soul of the country. If we can’t even keep our own capital safe, how can we expect anyone to take us seriously?

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Reversing the decline

Anyone who has visited D.C. regularly over the past several years has witnessed its rapid decline. Homeless people bathe in the fountains outside Union Station. People are tripping out in Dupont Circle. The left’s negligence is a disgrace, enabling drug use and homelessness to explode on our capital’s streets while depriving these individuals of desperately needed care and help.

Restoring law and order to D.C. is not about politics or scoring points. It’s about doing what’s right for the people. It’s about protecting communities, taking the vulnerable off the streets, and sending the message to both law-abiding and law-breaking citizens alike that the rule of law matters.

D.C. should be a lesson to the rest of America. If we want to take our cities back, we need leadership willing to take bold action. Trump is showing how to do it.

Now, it’s time for other cities to step up and follow his lead. We can restore law and order. We can make our cities something to be proud of again.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.