Rock 'n' roll guy who wasn't supposed to like Glenn joins him for incredibly open dialogue

September 15, 2015

WRITER

A rock 'n' roll "hero" joined Glenn on radio Tuesday morning to pretty much just talk about life. The topics they discussed included everything from music, fame and fortune to devastating illness, healing and being born again.

Who was the man Glenn called an "absolute legend"?

None other than the original lead singer for the band, Foreigner - Lou Gramm.

Listen to the interview or read the transcript below.

Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors.

GLENN: So my good friend, Pat, has been a friend of mine since the '80s. And -- and one of his heroes truly is Lou Gramm.

PAT: No doubt about it.

GLENN: Yeah, truly one of his heroes. And it was a big day -- it was a big day in his life at about 1992. '91.

PAT: In there somewhere.

GLENN: When Lou Gramm came into town and he came in for an interview. And we were just a couple of jokey --

PAT: Morning show hosts.

GLENN: That Lou Gramm would not remember at all. And I can sometimes make things uncomfortable for people.

JEFFY: No.

GLENN: Especially my good dear friends.

STU: Really?

PAT: Yeah. Are you surprised too?

STU: Yeah.

GLENN: So Lou Gramm is on with us now and I want to see if he remembers us at all. And Pat is hoping that the answer is, not in the least.

PAT: No.

GLENN: How are you, Lou?

LOU: I'm doing fine. And, Pat, your wish came true. I do not remember at all.

PAT: Yes!

GLENN: That's great. Now, the question is, should I remind you?

(laughter)

PAT: I will. I will explain that --

GLENN: You know, he doesn't remember. So leave it alone. Leave it alone. Your shame.

PAT: Yes.

GLENN: Has kind of been forgiven in a sort of.

PAT: That's great.

LOU: No. I've been listening to you, Glenn, for about 20 years.

GLENN: You have been?

LOU: Yes. Absolutely.

GLENN: Shut up. You're not supposed to like us. You're a rock 'n' roll guy. You're not supposed to like us.

LOU: No, no, no. Your political stance and the humor you inject is -- is right up my ally.

PAT: Wow.

GLENN: Holy cow.

PAT: That is great.

GLENN: Now, can I ask you a serious question, Lou? When was it when you had a brain tumor removed?

LOU: 1997.

GLENN: Is -- do you think that there's a chance that maybe they rattled some things upstairs, that that's why you like us now?

PAT: Stop it.

LOU: No. I liked you before that.

GLENN: Okay. All right. So, Lou, actually you've gone through an amazing thing. We've talked about this before you came on. You've gone through an amazing thing. First of all, Pat is -- the reason why you're here, Pat sincerely wants to start a campaign to make sure that you get into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame because we all that --

PAT: That's an atrocious oversight. Ritchie Valens with two songs is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He's got two songs.

LOU: Yeah, but what songs they were.

PAT: Yeah. They were good songs. But what songs you guys have, I mean, Foreigner has been around for -- you know, you guys were together for, what, 25, 27 years? Something like that.

LOU: Yep.

GLENN: How many albums did you sell?

LOU: I think the count is somewhere in the mid- to high 70 million.

GLENN: Wow. Jeez.

PAT: Yeah. Yeah, it's huge.

GLENN: Unbelievable. So do you feel -- I mean, Pat is behind himself. We have -- please pray for us, Lou. Because we have to listen to him all the time talk about what the atrocity is that you and Foreigner is not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

PAT: The Paul Butterfield Blues Band is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

GLENN: See, this is what happens. Does it bother you at all?

LOU: I somewhat have an idea of why we're not. And there's really not a lot to be done about it.

GLENN: Gosh. Does it have anything to do with you liking our political point of view?

LOU: No, no, no.

PAT: Okay.

LOU: From what I understand, that -- when the bands of our ilk and our time period were getting inducted and we were -- we were overlooked, our management at the time went to see the -- the head of the Hall of Fame and was wondering why -- why we were overlooked because we certainly had the credentials.

PAT: Uh-huh.

LOU: And I think there was a slightly heated discussion after that. And we were told that we would never be in the Hall.

PAT: Wow.

STU: Wow.

PAT: So it's essentially pettiness.

LOU: Yeah, I don't think it's based on what we've done.

GLENN: That's really done.

LOU: But a situation that was out of our hands, you know.

PAT: Really sad.

STU: Wow.

GLENN: Can I tell you something, this was -- sometime -- I don't drink anymore, and it's a good thing. But we should have a beer sometime and just talk about that. Because that is almost the same story with me on the Radio Hall of Fame. I've been told that I would never be in the Radio Hall of Fame because of an innocent thing that I said positive about Paul Harvey and it pissed the guy off who was the head of the Hall of Fame. And he -- he went to my people and said, "I just want you to know, Glenn Beck will never be in the Radio Hall of Fame." I'm like, "Okay. Well, we weren't really pushing for it anyway." But okay. Kind of sad.

LOU: Right. Yep.

GLENN: So you had the brain tumor, and you had it removed, and it changed your life. You want to tell me a little about that?

LOU: Well, it was -- it was about the size of a large egg. And it had tentacle-like features that were wrapped around my optic nerve and my pituitary.

So there was -- the optic -- my sight is fine, but my pituitary is damaged. And I need quite a bit of medication to stay functioning. But I feel great. But it was a long recovery. The operation was 1997. And I didn't start feeling about myself until about 2005.

GLENN: Holy cow.

PAT: Did your spiritual change come before that or after that, Lou?

LOU: My spiritual enlightenment came about 1991, when --

PAT: Oh.

LOU: When I was in rehab.

GLENN: What was that like? And what exchanges have happened to you since?

LOU: Well, I -- before I went to rehab -- we had just played -- Foreigner had played Madison Square Garden. Sold out. And there was -- of course, there was a big party afterwards. And I found myself in my hotel room at 3:30, 4 o'clock in the morning, and in -- in a condition that I had been in a number of times before, and I just -- I just felt like I -- I -- I didn't want to be there anymore. And that if -- if this accelerated anymore, that I'd probably be a statistic. And all the lights were off. And I just fell to my knees in prayer and called a friend of mine early next morning, and he booked me a flight to Minneapolis. And I spent 30 days in Hazelden, which changed my life.

GLENN: Did you -- was it unusual for you to fall to your knees and pray? Were you a praying guy?

LOU: I was. But not the desperation that I had that night.

GLENN: So now the Lou Gramm Band, how has your music changed?

LOU: We do all the hits from the Foreigner albums and my solo albums. You know, some of those songs are very suggestive. And, you know, I -- I have to do what I have to do. I can't start eliminating big hits.

PAT: Right.

LOU: But, you know, it does feel a little funny performing them when that was me as a young stud and it's not me now.

(laughter)

PAT: But you also have a complete CD filled with Christian music, right?

LOU: Yes, absolutely.

PAT: And you wrote that?

LOU: Yeah, with some of the guys in the band. It rocks pretty hard, you know. But the message and the tone where it's coming from is from a different place.

GLENN: So you started feeling well again 2006, you said?

LOU: Yeah.

GLENN: And I'm sorry. I'm not obsessive about Pat, I don't know what size pant you wear or anything else like Pat I think does. But have you been back on tour?

LOU: I started touring again in 2005, even when I wasn't feeling well.

PAT: Hmm.

GLENN: Wow.

LOU: Actually I was touring about 2000 with Foreigner. And left that band in -- at the end of 2003.

GLENN: How did you do that? How did you make it?

LOU: It was not easy because, you know -- one of the other things I developed was sleep apnea.

GLENN: Oh, horrible.

LOU: Yeah.

PAT: Wow.

LOU: And it was just -- I -- my short-term and long-term memory was very spotty. So when I had take the stage, I had the lyrics to all the songs written on white paper with a black marker, and it was taped on the floor.

GLENN: Wow.

PAT: Wow. But that's --

GLENN: How did that -- how did that make you feel while you were going through it?

LOU: I knew that I had no business on stage. And -- and I -- I felt like an invalid and that I couldn't be doing the band any good.

GLENN: Now how are you feeling? Now how much of this is -- have you returned full strength now?

LOU: I think so, yeah. Yep. You know, I was taking massive steroids back then too. And put on almost 100 pounds.

GLENN: Holy cow.

LOU: My weight as an adult has been 140 to 145 pounds.

GLENN: 140 -- hang on.

PAT: Wow.

GLENN: I think I've gained and lost 140 pounds in the last year. And -- that's what your scale says is 140? Because that's like one leg. Holy cow!

(laughter)

You suck. I don't like you.

LOU: Well, I got a small frame, you know. But taking the steroids, it was incredibly tough to lose anything.

STU: Yeah. Glenn did all of his weight gain without steroids which I thought was pretty impressive.

PAT: It was with food. Something called food.

GLENN: It was medication-related.

STU: Right.

GLENN: It was. It was.

PAT: If chocolate milkshakes are medication, yes. Yes.

GLENN: Thank you. Write another prescription, please.

LOU: Yes.

PAT: Things have been kind of famously chilly between you and McJones.

LOU: Well, they were for a number of years --

PAT: Is it better now?

LOU: -- after I left the band.

Yeah, two years ago, we were both inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. And there was a big ceremony for us and a number of other people in New York. And they asked us to play. They had some studio musicians and background singers and this and that. And so we rehearsed two days before the awards ceremony, and we kind of broke the ice and rekindled a friendship.

GLENN: That's great.

PAT: Oh, that's great. Because it seems like that happens with almost every popular band. Some kind of friction between the band mates.

LOU: Yep. You know, it was -- it was a number of things that I think were -- were just building over the years. And I just -- I just thought I -- you know, I had been with the band over 25 years. And I just thought I had enough, you know.

PAT: How is it now with your brothers? Because aren't two of your brothers in the Lou Gramm Band?

LOU: Well, two were in the band. One is in the band now.

PAT: Okay.

LOU: But it's good. It's good. Everybody in the band is from my hometown of Rochester. So, you know, it's what -- we all fly out of Rochester. We all fly home to hear it. It's good camaraderie. And they're very good players too.

GLENN: Let me ask you this: How difficult is it to be Lou Gramm, the guy from Foreigner that was -- I mean, you're Lou Gramm. And then your body changes. Your life changes. You change. Music changes. And you don't have that -- I mean, even Aerosmith. What's his name. Steven Tyler.

LOU: Yes.

GLENN: He's -- really, maybe it's Steven Tyler. But pretty much, only the people from the Rolling Stones that still will sell out those stadiums and they're still kings everywhere. How do you keep a handle on today, that today is all that's important, yesterday doesn't mean anything. Does that make sense to you. Do you know what I'm saying?

LOU: Yes, I definitely do. And, you know, when you had the success that Foreigner has had for the amount of years that we've had, I mean, radio has changed. Radio is owned by -- most radios are owned by corporations now.

GLENN: Yeah.

LOU: And pretty much, there's not even program directors that there's a set list which is -- which is played over and over again. And it's -- it's not the freedom to put in whatever song they feel like anymore.

GLENN: Correct.

LOU: It's a different beast. And when that changed over, Foreigner and a number of other bands, like Aerosmith and Bryan Adams and people like that, were kind of pushed to the side. And kind of relegated to the -- the oldies stations.

GLENN: I prefer to say classic rock. Oldies are what my dad used to listen to. I listen to classic rock.

LOU: No, you're right. And a whole new slew of artists came in to dominate the top 40 scene.

GLENN: Has it ever played -- I think fame -- honestly fame and fortune, celebrity is one of the worst -- I would not curse my best friend with this. It is -- and I have a very small amount. Has it ever played a game with your head?

LOU: I don't think so.

GLENN: Good for you.

LOU: I came from Rochester. Very small town. My mom and dad, you know, Italian descent. And the -- my first glimpse and desire to have that kind of fame is when I saw The Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show.

GLENN: Wow.

LOU: And that's what spurred me to not make music a hobby, but my life's calling.

GLENN: Yeah. Lou, it is great to talk to you. And Pat now has your phone number. We've traced the call.

(laughter)

LOU: Well, you're welcome to give me a buzz any time.

GLENN: God bless you.

LOU: I have a book out too.

GLENN: Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know about it.

PAT: Yeah, your autobiography, right?

LOU: Yeah, it's called "Jukebox Hero: My Five Decades in Rock and Roll."

GLENN: Great. Great song.

STU: It's an amazing story.

GLENN: Amazing story. I will pick it up today and start to read it. And I know Pat has already read it. But thank you, Pat, for informing me he had a book out. Lou, thank you very much.

LOU: Great to talk to you guys.

GLENN: Great to talk to you.

"Jukebox Hero" is the name of the book.

Shocking shift: America’s youth lured by the “Socialism trap”

Jeremy Weine / Stringer | Getty Images

A generation that’s lost faith in capitalism is turning to the oldest lie on earth: equality through control.

Something is breaking in America’s young people. You can feel it in every headline, every grocery bill, every young voice quietly asking if the American dream still means anything at all.

For many, the promise of America — work hard, build something that lasts, and give the next generation a better start — feels like it no longer exists. Home ownership and stability have become luxuries for a fortunate few.

Capitalism is not a perfect system. It is flawed because people are flawed, but it remains the only system that rewards creativity and effort rather than punishing them.

In that vacuum of hope, a new promise has begun to rise — one that sounds compassionate, equal, and fair. The promise of socialism.

The appeal of a broken dream

When the American dream becomes a checklist of things few can afford — a home, a car, two children, even a little peace — disappointment quickly turns to resentment. The average first-time homebuyer is now 40 years old. Debt lasts longer than marriages. The cost of living rises faster than opportunity.

For a generation that has never seen the system truly work, capitalism feels like a rigged game built to protect those already at the top.

That is where socialism finds its audience. It presents itself as fairness for the forgotten and justice for the disillusioned. It speaks softly at first, offering equality, compassion, and control disguised as care.

We are seeing that illusion play out now in New York City, where Zohran Mamdani — an open socialist — has won a major political victory. The same ideology that once hid behind euphemisms now campaigns openly throughout America’s once-great cities. And for many who feel left behind, it sounds like salvation.

But what socialism calls fairness is submission dressed as virtue. What it calls order is obedience. Once the system begins to replace personal responsibility with collective dependence, the erosion of liberty is only a matter of time.

The bridge that never ends

Socialism is not a destination; it is a bridge. Karl Marx described it as the necessary transition to communism — the scaffolding that builds the total state. Under socialism, people are taught to obey. Under communism, they forget that any other options exist.

History tells the story clearly. Russia, China, Cambodia, Cuba — each promised equality and delivered misery. One hundred million lives were lost, not because socialism failed, but because it succeeded at what it was designed to do: make the state supreme and the individual expendable.

Today’s advocates insist their version will be different — democratic, modern, and kind. They often cite Sweden as an example, but Sweden’s prosperity was never born of socialism. It grew out of capitalism, self-reliance, and a shared moral culture. Now that system is cracking under the weight of bureaucracy and division.

ANGELA WEISS / Contributor | Getty Images

The real issue is not economic but moral. Socialism begins with a lie about human nature — that people exist for the collective and that the collective knows better than the individual.

This lie is contrary to the truths on which America was founded — that rights come not from government’s authority, but from God’s. Once government replaces that authority, compassion becomes control, and freedom becomes permission.

What young America deserves

Young Americans have many reasons to be frustrated. They were told to study, work hard, and follow the rules — and many did, only to find the goalposts moved again and again. But tearing down the entire house does not make it fairer; it only leaves everyone standing in the rubble.

Capitalism is not a perfect system. It is flawed because people are flawed, but it remains the only system that rewards creativity and effort rather than punishing them. The answer is not revolution but renewal — moral, cultural, and spiritual.

It means restoring honesty to markets, integrity to government, and faith to the heart of our nation. A people who forsake God will always turn to government for salvation, and that road always ends in dependency and decay.

Freedom demands something of us. It requires faith, discipline, and courage. It expects citizens to govern themselves before others govern them. That is the truth this generation deserves to hear again — that liberty is not a gift from the state but a calling from God.

Socialism always begins with promises and ends with permission. It tells you what to drive, what to say, what to believe, all in the name of fairness. But real fairness is not everyone sharing the same chains — it is everyone having the same chance.

The American dream was never about guarantees. It was about the right to try, to fail, and try again. That freedom built the most prosperous nation in history, and it can do so again if we remember that liberty is not a handout but a duty.

Socialism does not offer salvation. It requires subservience.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Faith, family, and freedom—The forgotten core of conservatism

Gary Hershorn / Contributor | Getty Images

Conservatism is not about rage or nostalgia. It’s about moral clarity, national renewal, and guarding the principles that built America’s freedom.

Our movement is at a crossroads, and the question before us is simple: What does it mean to be a conservative in America today?

For years, we have been told what we are against — against the left, against wokeism, against decline. But opposition alone does not define a movement, and it certainly does not define a moral vision.

We are not here to cling to the past or wallow in grievance. We are not the movement of rage. We are the movement of reason and hope.

The media, as usual, are eager to supply their own answer. The New York Times recently suggested that Nick Fuentes represents the “future” of conservatism. That’s nonsense — a distortion of both truth and tradition. Fuentes and those like him do not represent American conservatism. They represent its counterfeit.

Real conservatism is not rage. It is reverence. It does not treat the past as a museum, but as a teacher. America’s founders asked us to preserve their principles and improve upon their practice. That means understanding what we are conserving — a living covenant, not a relic.

Conservatism as stewardship

In 2025, conservatism means stewardship — of a nation, a culture, and a moral inheritance too precious to abandon. To conserve is not to freeze history. It is to stand guard over what is essential. We are custodians of an experiment in liberty that rests on the belief that rights come not from kings or Congress, but from the Creator.

That belief built this country. It will be what saves it. The Constitution is a covenant between generations. Conservatism is the duty to keep that covenant alive — to preserve what works, correct what fails, and pass on both wisdom and freedom to those who come next.

Economics, culture, and morality are inseparable. Debt is not only fiscal; it is moral. Spending what belongs to the unborn is theft. Dependence is not compassion; it is weakness parading as virtue. A society that trades responsibility for comfort teaches citizens how to live as slaves.

Freedom without virtue is not freedom; it is chaos. A culture that mocks faith cannot defend liberty, and a nation that rejects truth cannot sustain justice. Conservatism must again become the moral compass of a disoriented people, reminding America that liberty survives only when anchored to virtue.

Rebuilding what is broken

We cannot define ourselves by what we oppose. We must build families, communities, and institutions that endure. Government is broken because education is broken, and education is broken because we abandoned the formation of the mind and the soul. The work ahead is competence, not cynicism.

Conservatives should embrace innovation and technology while rejecting the chaos of Silicon Valley. Progress must not come at the expense of principle. Technology must strengthen people, not replace them. Artificial intelligence should remain a servant, never a master. The true strength of a nation is not measured by data or bureaucracy, but by the quiet webs of family, faith, and service that hold communities together. When Washington falters — and it will — those neighborhoods must stand.

Eric Lee / Stringer | Getty Images

This is the real work of conservatism: to conserve what is good and true and to reform what has decayed. It is not about slogans; it is about stewardship — the patient labor of building a civilization that remembers what it stands for.

A creed for the rising generation

We are not here to cling to the past or wallow in grievance. We are not the movement of rage. We are the movement of reason and hope.

For the rising generation, conservatism cannot be nostalgia. It must be more than a memory of 9/11 or admiration for a Reagan era they never lived through. Many young Americans did not experience those moments — and they should not have to in order to grasp the lessons they taught and the truths they embodied. The next chapter is not about preserving relics but renewing purpose. It must speak to conviction, not cynicism; to moral clarity, not despair.

Young people are searching for meaning in a culture that mocks truth and empties life of purpose. Conservatism should be the moral compass that reminds them freedom is responsibility and that faith, family, and moral courage remain the surest rebellions against hopelessness.

To be a conservative in 2025 is to defend the enduring principles of American liberty while stewarding the culture, the economy, and the spirit of a free people. It is to stand for truth when truth is unfashionable and to guard moral order when the world celebrates chaos.

We are not merely holding the torch. We are relighting it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

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?

From Pharaoh to Hamas: The same spirit of evil, new disguise

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.

Glenn's Show Prep

Rock 'n' roll guy who wasn't supposed to like Glenn joins him for incredibly open dialogue

Shocking shift: America’s youth lured by the “Socialism trap”

A generation that’s lost faith in capitalism is turning to the oldest lie on earth: equality through control.

The appeal of a broken dream

The bridge that never ends

What young America deserves

Faith, family, and freedom—The forgotten core of conservatism

Conservatism is not about rage or nostalgia. It’s about moral clarity, national renewal, and guarding the principles that built America’s freedom.

We are not here to cling to the past or wallow in grievance. We are not the movement of rage. We are the movement of reason and hope.

Conservatism as stewardship

Rebuilding what is broken

A creed for the rising generation

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

Transcript

From Pharaoh to Hamas: The same spirit of evil, new disguise

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 wins when good people mirror its rage.

Ancient evil, new clothes

A time for choosing