Monica Crowley discusses 'anti-incumbent mood' with Milwaukee County Sheriff

Guest hosting while Glenn was off the airwaves Wednesday, Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke took control of the microphone, sharing his views on the news of the day. He started his discussion by laying some ground rules.

"This is The Glenn Beck Program. My number one objective is to protect the brand," Clarke said.

Then, he quickly added, "Now, don't get me wrong, like I said, I'm at the helm here. You're going to hear my views. You're going to hear my take on things. It may compare with many of your views, Glenn Beck's views. It might not. But don't take that out on Glenn if it doesn't."

One of Clarke's guests was Monica Crowley, writer for The Washington Times, who joined the program to discuss how the presidential election process is playing out, particularly on the GOP side.

Clarke asked for Crowley's opinion on the "anti-incumbent mood" that has manifested itself among the American people.

"You know, it's interesting because we've not seen anything like this ever," Crowley said.

She continued.

We've certainly had outsiders run and win. You think of Andrew Jackson and some other candidates. And you've also seen impulses before, where voters are just so sick of the incumbents. Throw the bums out. That's been a tag line for American politics since the start.

What we have now is something completely different.

Listen to the segment or read the transcript below for more.

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

DAVID: Monica Crowley. She's a writer for the Washington Times newspaper. A prolific writer, I might add. Great insight. And I want to talk to her a little bit about this whole presidential process, what's going on, this dynamic of the -- appears to be the year of the outsider. And why that might be.

Monica, thanks for joining me.

MONICA: Hi, Sheriff. And Merry Christmas to you too, my friend.

DAVID: Thank you, back at you.

Give me your thoughts on this whole process playing out, specifically on the G.O.P. side. This -- this anti-incumbent mood. It's not the first time we've seen it. But kind of not in a presidential sweepstakes. Go ahead.

MONICA: Yeah, you know, it's interesting because we've not seen anything like this ever. I mean, certainly not in our lifetimes, and I would argue maybe never in the history of the republic have we seen a dynamic play out the way it's playing out now. We've certainly had outsiders run and win. You think of Andrew Jackson and some other candidates. And you've also seen impulses before, where voters are just so sick of the incumbents. Throw the bums out. That's been a tag line for American politics since the start.

DAVID: Right.

MONICA: What we have now is something completely different. In that I think particularly on the Republican side, we have a base of voters who time and again have sent Republicans to Washington in waves. In particular, we have two recent wave elections, 2010 and 2014, where we flipped both houses of Congress to Republicans. We have sent Republicans and conservatives to DC with two missions over the last seven years. One, to stop Barack Obama's radical agenda. And two, to advance a conservative one. And in most cases, these Republicans/Republicans have gone there and done neither. There have been some very visible exceptions like Senator Ted Cruz and others. But they have gone there and once again, like those before them, sold out.

And so what you're seeing now is what I argue is the latest incarnation of the Tea Party movement. This is Tea Party 2.0, Sheriff. The initial Tea Party came out of Barack Obama's radicalism, of course. But it also came out of the fact that the Republican Party failed to stand by and fight for its principles: Limited government, fiscal responsibility. They just let all those things fall by the wayside and basically became Democrat-lite. There would have been no need for an original Tea Party movement if the G.O.P. had stuck to its founding principles. Okay? It didn't. So you needed a Tea Party to try to bring it back.

Well, that Tea Party, as we know was squashed by the Barack Obama administration through the IRS and other weapons that they use. And so what you're seeing now, this grassroots movement that is supporting Donald Trump, that's supporting Ted Cruz, that is supporting Carly Fiorina and some of the other outsiders, this is the American people standing up, Sheriff, and saying, you know what, we're done. We're done. We've tried the Republican way. We've sent you off to Washington time and again. You've constantly let us down. And so you know what, we want to try something and someone completely different, somebody who is promising to blow up the system and burn the establishment to the ground.

DAVID: But you know what I find interesting, Monica, first of all, I've always thought about the Tea Party, that was the fighting force. They should have been given a job to be that fighting force within Republican the Republican Party. Actually they face most of their opposition, not from the left, not from the DNC or Democrat Party, but from the G.O.P. I like that Tea Party 2.0. One of the things that I've complained about from the G.O.P. is they don't have an identity. I think that this civil war going on within the party is good. I think that it needs a shaking out, and right now, the fight is for the soul of this party. What are they going to be? What are they going to stand for? And I went through a little bit of a litmus test. I said, "Has this current G.O.P. Congress demonstrated that they're for less government? No. Lower taxes? No. Less spending? No. Military superiority? No." And on and on and on. And I think that's what this -- this frustration is, if you will. I think frustration is a useless emotion. But I think that's what is at the base of it.

MONICA: Yeah, I think that's exactly right. I think, look, if you go in to weed out your garden and you remove half of the weeds, well, then the other weeds continue to grow and they take the garden over again. And I think what voters are saying is, look, we need somebody who is going to uproot this thing. Root and branch, so we can start over again. That's what somebody like Donald Trump is promising to do. They want to start fresh. It's sort of like a scorched-earth policy in their approach to the party and to the conservative movement. And Trump, you can argue whether he's a conservative or not a conservative, but the thing he's projecting is that he's on the outside. He's a successful businessman who will bring executive experience. But more importantly, he's saying to the American voter, look, you don't have to be an enemy in your own country anymore. And you know this better than anybody, Sheriff, because you bore the brunt of this too. The American people have been turned into the enemy in their own nation.

DAVID: That's amazing.

MONICA: If you oppose Barack Obama and the leftist agenda, you're a racist. You're a bigot. You're a homophobe. You're an Islamophobe. You're a sexist. You name it.

And the American people are going, "Wait a minute. Whose country is this?" Trump comes in and says, "We're going to give you your country back. We're going to restore America to its exceptional nature and its greatness. And here's how we're going to do it. We're not going to pay attention to the Republican establishment. Who, by the way, just sold you down the river again with a $1.2 trillion budget that funds everything Obama wanted. What is the point of voting Republican if you send these people to DC and they do what Obama and Pelosi and Reid want? What is the point?"

DAVID: You know what is interesting in this -- and let's just spend a minute on Trump. You know, he's probably the true outsider. You know what you hear. He's not a Republican. He's not a conservative. I'll leave people to argue that.

But one of the other enemies of this Republican establishment is one of their own. It's Ted Cruz.

MONICA: Yeah. I mean, they really don't like Ted Cruz either. And I'll tell you something, Cruz has run a brilliant campaign. Because he was the only one early on, Sheriff, who understood Trump and got what he was doing and got what he was tapping into. Because Trump was tapping into it years ago. Cruz very smartly established something of an alliance with Donald Trump. And the two of them are very helpful with each other with evangelical voters in Iowa, for example. And national security voters on the Cruz side for Trump. They've been implementing each other politically now for seven months. And it has been brilliant on both of their parts. But, look, the establishment is scared to death of these two guys because they will lose total control, not just of the White House, but of the party. The head of the RNC. I mean if you get one of these guys elected president, they control everything. And the establishment knows it will be out. That's why the important thing for everybody to understand here, and I think the American voter gets this on an instinctual level, is that the split in the country is less right/left, blue/red, and more elites versus the rest of us. And what Trump and Cruz are tapping into is, hey, we're one of you. We're with you. We want to protect you and defend this country against the elites on both sides who are destroying it.

DAVID: Right. A finger on the pulse of the American public. The, we, the people. And Trump is really one of the only ones who has established a vision for America, a vision defined as a plan for the future with imagination and wisdom. You know, when he talks about, we're going to make America great again, everybody likes to criticize -- you know, and I don't have a dog in this fight yet. I want to make that clear. I got a couple favorites, but, you know, other than -- other than Trump making America great again, everybody says, "Well, we don't know about his policies. We want to hear about this. We want to hear about his tax policies." Those are policies. It's not vision. All right.

The people in this country right now want to hear about vision. And we're not hearing that from really too many of these candidates.

MONICA: That's exactly right. They want a vision of leadership. Not just who you'll be as a leader, but how you will -- where you'll take the country and what you see for American superpower and our place in the world and how we should exercise that power.

Look, a lot of people, as you say, are critical of Trump because he's put out a specific tax plan and a specific immigration plan. But other than that, you know, the details are pretty sparse. And, you know what, Sheriff, no one cares.

DAVID: Right.

MONICA: I mean, people care. But no one cares because they want the bigger picture, which is what you're saying. They want the vision. And that one slogan he came up with, make America great again. Boom. That is the compelling reason to elect him. Whether he's your choice or not, he has set out a compelling vision and a compelling reason to vote for him. Mrs. Clinton has been on the national scene for 25 years, Sheriff. She still doesn't have a compelling reason for why people should elect her as president beyond I'm a woman and it's my turn. Well, that doesn't -- that doesn't ring out the way make America great again. And that's one of the big reasons why Trump has traction.

DAVID: It's just a power grab by her. Monica, I have to let you go. I want to thank you for joining me.

Merry Christmas, really.

MONICA: It's always a pleasure, Sheriff. Thank you so much, my friend. Merry Christmas to you too.

DAVID: Thank you.

Featured Image: Monica Crowley attends the The Hill, Extra And The Embassy Of Canada Celebrate The White House Correspondents' Dinner Weekend at Embassy of Canada on April 24, 2015 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Dave Kotinsky/Getty Images)

Civics isn’t optional—America's survival depends on it

JEFF KOWALSKY / Contributor | Getty Images

Every vote, jury duty, and act of engagement is civics in action, not theory. The republic survives only when citizens embrace responsibility.

I slept through high school civics class. I memorized the three branches of government, promptly forgot them, and never thought of that word again. Civics seemed abstract, disconnected from real life. And yet, it is critical to maintaining our republic.

Civics is not a class. It is a responsibility. A set of habits, disciplines, and values that make a country possible. Without it, no country survives.

We assume America will survive automatically, but every generation must learn to carry the weight of freedom.

Civics happens every time you speak freely, worship openly, question your government, serve on a jury, or cast a ballot. It’s not a theory or just another entry in a textbook. It’s action — the acts we perform every day to be a positive force in society.

Many of us recoil at “civic responsibility.” “I pay my taxes. I follow the law. I do my civic duty.” That’s not civics. That’s a scam, in my opinion.

Taking up the torch

The founders knew a republic could never run on autopilot. And yet, that’s exactly what we do now. We assume it will work, then complain when it doesn’t. Meanwhile, the people steering the country are driving it straight into a mountain — and they know it.

Our founders gave us tools: separation of powers, checks and balances, federalism, elections. But they also warned us: It won’t work unless we are educated, engaged, and moral.

Are we educated, engaged, and moral? Most Americans cannot even define a republic, never mind “keep one,” as Benjamin Franklin urged us to do after the Constitutional Convention.

We fought and died for the republic. Gaining it was the easy part. Keeping it is hard. And keeping it is done through civics.

Start small and local

In our homes, civics means teaching our children the Constitution, our history, and that liberty is not license — it is the space to do what is right. In our communities, civics means volunteering, showing up, knowing your sheriff, attending school board meetings, and understanding the laws you live under. When necessary, it means challenging them.

How involved are you in your local community? Most people would admit: not really.

Civics is learned in practice. And it starts small. Be honest in your business dealings. Speak respectfully in disagreement. Vote in every election, not just the presidential ones. Model citizenship for your children. Liberty is passed down by teaching and example.

Samuel Corum / Stringer | Getty Images

We assume America will survive automatically, but every generation must learn to carry the weight of freedom.

Start with yourself. Study the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and state laws. Study, act, serve, question, and teach. Only then can we hope to save the republic. The next election will not fix us. The nation will rise or fall based on how each of us lives civics every day.

Civics isn’t a class. It’s the way we protect freedom, empower our communities, and pass down liberty to the next generation.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

'Rage against the dying of the light': Charlie Kirk lived that mandate

PHILL MAGAKOE / Contributor | Getty Images

Kirk’s tragic death challenges us to rise above fear and anger, to rebuild bridges where others build walls, and to fight for the America he believed in.

I’ve only felt this weight once before. It was 2001, just as my radio show was about to begin. The World Trade Center fell, and I was called to speak immediately. I spent the day and night by my bedside, praying for words that could meet the moment.

Yesterday, I found myself in the same position. September 11, 2025. The assassination of Charlie Kirk. A friend. A warrior for truth.

Out of this tragedy, the tyrant dies, but the martyr’s influence begins.

Moments like this make words feel inadequate. Yet sometimes, words from another time speak directly to our own. In 1947, Dylan Thomas, watching his father slip toward death, penned lines that now resonate far beyond his own grief:

Do not go gentle into that good night. / Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Thomas was pleading for his father to resist the impending darkness of death. But those words have become a mandate for all of us: Do not surrender. Do not bow to shadows. Even when the battle feels unwinnable.

Charlie Kirk lived that mandate. He knew the cost of speaking unpopular truths. He knew the fury of those who sought to silence him. And yet he pressed on. In his life, he embodied a defiance rooted not in anger, but in principle.

Picking up his torch

Washington, Jefferson, Adams — our history was started by men who raged against an empire, knowing the gallows might await. Lincoln raged against slavery. Martin Luther King Jr. raged against segregation. Every generation faces a call to resist surrender.

It is our turn. Charlie’s violent death feels like a knockout punch. Yet if his life meant anything, it means this: Silence in the face of darkness is not an option.

He did not go gently. He spoke. He challenged. He stood. And now, the mantle falls to us. To me. To you. To every American.

We cannot drift into the shadows. We cannot sit quietly while freedom fades. This is our moment to rage — not with hatred, not with vengeance, but with courage. Rage against lies, against apathy, against the despair that tells us to do nothing. Because there is always something you can do.

Even small acts — defiance, faith, kindness — are light in the darkness. Reaching out to those who mourn. Speaking truth in a world drowning in deceit. These are the flames that hold back the night. Charlie carried that torch. He laid it down yesterday. It is ours to pick up.

The light may dim, but it always does before dawn. Commit today: I will not sleep as freedom fades. I will not retreat as darkness encroaches. I will not be silent as evil forces claim dominion. I have no king but Christ. And I know whom I serve, as did Charlie.

Two turning points, decades apart

On Wednesday, the world changed again. Two tragedies, separated by decades, bound by the same question: Who are we? Is this worth saving? What kind of people will we choose to be?

Imagine a world where more of us choose to be peacemakers. Not passive, not silent, but builders of bridges where others erect walls. Respect and listening transform even the bitterest of foes. Charlie Kirk embodied this principle.

He did not strike the weak; he challenged the powerful. He reached across divides of politics, culture, and faith. He changed hearts. He sparked healing. And healing is what our nation needs.

At the center of all this is one truth: Every person is a child of God, deserving of dignity. Change will not happen in Washington or on social media. It begins at home, where loneliness and isolation threaten our souls. Family is the antidote. Imperfect, yes — but still the strongest source of stability and meaning.

Mark Wilson / Staff | Getty Images

Forgiveness, fidelity, faithfulness, and honor are not dusty words. They are the foundation of civilization. Strong families produce strong citizens. And today, Charlie’s family mourns. They must become our family too. We must stand as guardians of his legacy, shining examples of the courage he lived by.

A time for courage

I knew Charlie. I know how he would want us to respond: Multiply his courage. Out of this tragedy, the tyrant dies, but the martyr’s influence begins. Out of darkness, great and glorious things will sprout — but we must be worthy of them.

Charlie Kirk lived defiantly. He stood in truth. He changed the world. And now, his torch is in our hands. Rage, not in violence, but in unwavering pursuit of truth and goodness. Rage against the dying of the light.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Glenn Beck is once again calling on his loyal listeners and viewers to come together and channel the same unity and purpose that defined the historic 9-12 Project. That movement, born in the wake of national challenges, brought millions together to revive core values of faith, hope, and charity.

Glenn created the original 9-12 Project in early 2009 to bring Americans back to where they were in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. In those moments, we weren't Democrats and Republicans, conservative or liberal, Red States or Blue States, we were united as one, as America. The original 9-12 Project aimed to root America back in the founding principles of this country that united us during those darkest of days.

This new initiative draws directly from that legacy, focusing on supporting the family of Charlie Kirk in these dark days following his tragic murder.

The revival of the 9-12 Project aims to secure the long-term well-being of Charlie Kirk's wife and children. All donations will go straight to meeting their immediate and future needs. If the family deems the funds surplus to their requirements, Charlie's wife has the option to redirect them toward the vital work of Turning Point USA.

This campaign is more than just financial support—it's a profound gesture of appreciation for Kirk's tireless dedication to the cause of liberty. It embodies the unbreakable bond of our community, proving that when we stand united, we can make a real difference.
Glenn Beck invites you to join this effort. Show your solidarity by donating today and honoring Charlie Kirk and his family in this meaningful way.

You can learn more about the 9-12 Project and donate HERE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

From Muhammad to Marx

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

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

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

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

John Greim / Contributor | Getty Images

Gifts from God, not the state

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

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

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.