Did Hillary use her personal email to send classified information?

Buck Sexton filled in for Glenn on Monday, and kicked off the show with a deep dive into Hillary Clinton’s ongoing email saga. The former Secretary of State claims she never used her personal email account for classified information - but is she telling the truth? Buck delved into his own background in the CIA and why he thinks she isn’t telling the full story. After all, the Clintons have a long history of protecting their own secrets.

Listen to the segment in the opening moments of today's radio show:

Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it may contain errors:

BUCK: Buck Sexton here. Buck Sexton in for Glenn Beck today on the Glenn Beck Program. Thank you so much for joining. Good to have you with me. 877-727-BECK is the phone number. You can call in. Love to chat with you. Hope you had a good weekend. We have a lot to get to today. Thank you very much for your time. Those of you who may not be familiar with me. I'm the Blaze's National Security Editor, also the host of the Buck Sexton Show on the Blaze. Formerly a CIA analyst and an NYPD Intelligence Division Specialist for counterterrorism. So counterterrorism is what I did before. I was able to join all of you fine folks and do some media.

So Hillary Clinton's email is still a big issue, although not if you listen to the Clinton camp. It was a pretty amazing situation on Friday, where you had the revelation -- and this was apparently a leak of some kind -- that there was a desire to look more closely at Hillary's private email account.

Now, before we even get into the particulars of this, and this holds a real resonance for me, as someone who held the top secret security clearance in the United States government and had to learn all the various protocols and the, including classification origination, all of that stuff, and had to live with the constant reality, the constant possibility of a complete and utter annihilation were I ever to transgress while a CIA officer, even accidentally, by the way. Accidentally does not mean that you would not get into some sort of trouble. It didn't mean there wouldn't be some sort of issue as well. You might not go to jail for a long time, but your career would be ruined. That much is to be sure. For real issues of national security, you can understand why the sanctions are so severe.

You have an understanding of that. You can't lose the nuclear codes while you're out getting a burger. I get that. We all get that. We can all understand that. To give you a sense of just how extreme it was, to give you a sense of what we're talking about here, I saw fellow officers, fellow CIA officers reduced to tears because perhaps a young lady walked out to her car and had something in her pocket that she should not have in terms of sensitive information. And was essentially told that she had almost made the terrorists win because of this. Now, you could say that, of course, you have these strict procedures and protocols. But I'm pretty sure the Russians, I'm sure Bin Laden didn't sneak a peek into her pocket into the 30-second walk outside of the facility. But that just gives you a sense of how strict it is in these government agencies with the protection of classified information. That's what the rest of us all have to live with.

Meanwhile, we have to go back and forth in this sort of lawyerly discussion, lawyerly debate with Hillary Clinton, in which we talk about whether or not it was classified when she sent it. Now, keep in mind, and this is very, very important indeed. Keep in mind that Hillary could have avoided all of this. We wouldn't even have to have this discussion if the woman who now really believes that the presidency is, in fact, something that she is entitled to, if she had just decided that she would do what everybody else would have done in these circumstances, she could have avoided this whole thing. This is entirely of her making. Which is largely why a lot of Democrats are annoyed about this, upset about this. Who recognize that this is probably going to be a real problem. And it didn't have to be a problem at all.

But the Clintonian obsession with secrecy -- and when people talk about the obsession with secrecy, keep in mind that's because the Clintons need to keep secrets. Right? That's a relatively straightforward proposition. The Clintonian obsession with secrecy is something that we have pay pretty close attention to because there are reasons for it.

They are secretive because they should be secretive because they do things that they should not do. And then they look at all of us and suggest that somehow this is a right-wing conspiracy. This is some sort of issue that's been foisted upon their shoulders. It's only because of all the other people. You see. They're the real problem.

On Friday, we're told there was a referral, a referral as to whether there was criminality inherent using her home brew server that she decided to do. To send communications in her role as Secretary of State. Thousands and thousands of times.

If she used classified information in those emails, that is at a minimum, a violation of her duty to protect classified information. That could be criminally charged. You see, the way this works. And this is where the Clintons love. They love the gray areas. The shades of complexity here. They'll say the information wasn't classified when she sent it. Of course, it's not inherently classified. You can write something down in an email and send it to all your buddies, it hasn't been classified at the top of that email. But there's still a recognition that the sensitivity of that information could be national security data. There could be a classification issue there. And if Hillary is using this email address for most of her communications, it is beyond anyone's wildest imagination that she did not somehow use information that is classified.

In fact, we find out that, later on, they decided that some of it was classified. So what -- this whole thing hinges on a very straightforward concept. And I want those of you who haven't held a clearance and those of you who haven't worked in national security before, I want you to be very clear on this because this is what the whole issue now turns on. They're going to say that when she sent them, it wasn't classified. What I'm going to tell you is that that's not the standard that other people with clearances are held to. It's not, well, it didn't have a stamped "secret" at the top of it when I sent it, therefore, it's not classified. That's not how it works. It's the information and the sensitivity of that information. This is not just a bureaucratic procedural issue. This is an issue of what is she putting out there on the open internet for others to see. And that she's using a personal home brew email address I think tells you a lot of what's going on here. That she deleted thousands and thousands of emails before there could be any review of them whatsoever. I think tells you a lot.

I think it tells you that the Clintons are lying to you. But that's nothing new, is it? That's nothing surprising. In fact, at this point, as depressing as it is to say, that's really our expectation, isn't it? We expect that the Clintons would lie. We expect that Hillary Clinton is going to obfuscate the truth. Attack those who point out the obfuscation. She's trying to muddy the waters. We expect that they'll have some ridiculous justification for their behavior. And it really is just the best defense is a good offense. That's what the Clinton strategy comes down to.

But on these emails, there's another issue that I want to raise here because it's essential. It's very, very important. It's not just a question of what the Clintons are doing. It's also inside the machinery. It's inside the many headed hydro of the federal bureaucracy in D.C. We initially heard there was a referral from two inspectors general, saying they would want a look into whether there was criminality into this. Into whether or not it may have violated US federal criminal law. Then there was a huge walkback. Oh, no. That's not it. The New York Times broke the story Friday. Then we heard over the weekend, this is all nonsense and garbage. See, the media in reactionary way, knee-jerk fashion, knew they had to do whatever was necessary to protect Hillary's chances to be the next president of the United States, and to enforce this narrative, this narrative that no person could really believe with more than a few moments of thoughts. Of course, she was hiding emails from us. That was the purpose of all of this. You would say, why would anyone be so foolish. That's a huge vulnerability. Didn't she know it would come out? That's what the Clintons deal with. That's how they are, who they are. There's no shock here. It's also shocking and surprising for a normal human being to think they can accept speeches for half a million, three-quarters of a million. Hey, why not make it a cool million? While your wife is the most powerful foreign policy official in the world, and you as her husband are going around giving speeches to organizations, not just that would want to curry favor in a sort of general sense, but in that very specific sense of, I have business. Me, we, this foreign entity, we have business in front of the Secretary of State.

Why not pay her husband a half a million to give a speech. Can't hurt. We have the money. That sort of rampant corruption. And that's what it is, by the way. Is the sort of thing that only a power couple at the top of American politics that believes that they are untouchable would ever engage in.

Unless you understand that mentality, then all of a sudden the logic of this email position becomes very clear indeed. They can get away with taking away huge fees for speeches. Just like they can get away with running their own home email servers. Because Bill could get away with any number of transgressions -- and that's putting it far too kindly, by the way -- in the '90s, including though very notably, lying under oath, which would be a federal felony for normal people. But for Bill Clinton, it's nothing. Not even charged with a crime. This is what we're dealing with. These are the individuals standing before us now and pretending to be absolutely pure and outraged that anyone would question their integrity. The real trick with the Clintons is that they have no integrity to protect. There is nothing they will not do as long as it serves their interest because why not? What are you going to do about it? You're going to rely on prosecutors to go after them? You're going to rely on the enforcement of the law? Let me tell you something, there are a lot of Democrat prosecutors out there.

In fact, just as the infiltration of universities by the Democratic Party has essentially made it a one-party situation on college campuses across the country, you have a preponderance, you have Democrat prosecutors all over the place who are very politicized, who view the tools of the prosecutor's office as both of social justice -- we've seen that time and again. And I'm not just talking about the civil rights division of this Department of Justice, which we know is absolutely politicized, but across the country as well.

You have a lot of lawyers who are Democrats, of course, though it's a little more split there. But if you start to look at party affiliation of prosecutors, I think you'll find out really quickly that in blue areas of the country, but also outside of them, you have a very -- a sort of stunning disparity of prosecutors who happen to be Democrats, who happen to give money to Democrats. You have a lot of federal prosecutors out there who give money to the Clintons. I'm sure of it, my friends. So when they now tell us, oh, no, it's not a criminal referral. There's nothing to see here. Just remember that the same federal apparatus that can't enforce immigration law, we're now relying on to tell us all about the latest with the Clintons and their violations of law.

Featured Image: CARROLL, IA - JULY 26: Democratic presidential hopeful and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks to guests gathered for a house party on July 26, 2015 in Carroll, Iowa. Although Clinton leads all other Democratic contenders, a recent poll had her trailing several of the Republican candidates in Iowa. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

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

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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.