Ted Cruz Feeling Peaceful, Encouraged and Inspired in Iowa

How is Ted Cruz feeling on Iowa Caucus day? The senator called in to The Glenn Beck Program to let listeners know.

"I'm feeling very good. I'm feeling at peace. I'm feeling encouraged. And I'm feeling inspired," Senator Cruz said. "I mean, the energy, you and I, as we crisscrossed the state of Iowa yesterday, you saw the energy and passion on the ground. People are hungry. They're hungry to turn the country around."

Glenn spent the weekend in Iowa, speaking at several rallies on behalf of Senator Cruz and his constitutional conservatism. On Monday, he asked the senator what it was like to work so hard and so long for one day like this.

"Well, I'll tell you, on Election Day, my approach is to just become more and more calm. You know, we'll travel around. Actually, today we're going to hit our 99th county," Cruz said. 'We will have been to every county in Iowa, done events all across the state."

The senator will spend the evening visiting several of the larger caucuses, pouring everything he can into winning Iowa.

Cruz has a solid chance of winning in Iowa, but regardless, his time in the Hawkeye state has been well spent --- win or lose he'll keep fighting the good fight.

Trump, who is polling about five points ahead of Cruz feels differently.

"Just yesterday, he said, 'If he doesn't win Iowa, then everything here was a big, fat, and very expensive waste of time.' You know, I got to admit, I have a very different view," Cruz said. "Regardless of the outcome, it has been an unbelievable privilege to spend so much time with so many wonderful people here in Iowa, people who have welcomed us into their homes, churches that have welcomed my father to preach. I mean, the hospitality, the passion, the hard work. You know, last night, Glenn, we had our closing rally in Des Moines. And there was a young lady. Thirteen years old, a girl from Lubbock, Texas, who was at the rally. She yesterday made 833 calls for us."

If Cruz wins anything less than 100 percent in Iowa, however, the press will likely pounce.

"I'll go ahead and concede we won't win 100 percent of the votes tonight --- [and] the press will spin it as a stunning defeat for Cruz," the senator admitted.

But that won't stop him from pushing forward.

"We have from day one run been running a national campaign. We've got an incredible team here in Iowa," Cruz said. "But we have an amazing team on the ground in New Hampshire. We have an amazing team in South Carolina. We have an amazing team in Nevada. We're all-in in each of the first four states. And then ten days after South Carolina is Super Tuesday, the so-called SECC states: Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas."

Cruz's ground campaign has been noted as impressive and strong. Results from the Iowa Caucus should come rolling in around 8:00 or 9:00 PM CT.

Listen to this segment from :The Glenn Beck Program

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

GLENN: Oh, I didn't see him up on the board. Let's go to Ted. Hi, Ted.

TED: Good morning. How are you doing?

GLENN: Very good. How are things? How are you feeling today?

TED: I'm feeling very good. I'm feeling at peace. I'm feeling encouraged. And I'm feeling inspired. I mean, the energy, you and I, as we crisscrossed the state of Iowa yesterday, you saw the energy and passion on the ground. People are hungry. They're hungry to turn the country around.

GLENN: Yeah, it was an amazing thing. It was so -- first of all, it was an honor to be with you this weekend. It was a surreal experience, and it was a weird experience for my kids. They -- you know, my son played fuse ball with the next president of the United States. It was bizarre.

TED: I got to say, Raphe is a good little fuse ball player.

GLENN: Yeah.

TED: Although Pat could hustle fuse ball professionals.

STU: And he said.

GLENN: I said to him, I said, "You're playing fuse ball with the guy who might be the next president of the United States --

PAT: Next president and the boss' son.

GLENN: Right.

PAT: And yet still a crushing defeat. That's integrity right there. That's integrity.

TED: You know, I have to say, Pat, the victory dance on Raphe was probably a bit much. You probably pressed it there.

PAT: That was maybe too far? Okay.

GLENN: Yeah. When he threw him down to the ground, "I crushed you!"

PAT: I might rethink that next time.

GLENN: Yeah. Yeah.

Ted, how does it feel to be -- you've worked so hard and so long. All the candidates have. Your life is -- that picture of you guys playing fuse ball last night, that's kind of like the only fun you have, and that was while somebody else was -- well, me -- I was giving a speech that you had heard four or five times. And that's like your only outlet of having any personal time is just a little bit of time in between. And it's over today and you move on to another state. What does it feel like today, to be in your position or any candidates' position?

TED: Well, I'll tell you, on Election Day, my approach is to just become more and more calm. You know, we'll travel around. Actually, today we're going to hit our 99th county. So we'll complete the full Grassley this afternoon. We will have been to every county in Iowa, done events all across the state. And we'll do that at I think 1 o'clock this afternoon.

And then we'll visit several of the larger caucuses in the evening. And, you know, my approach to a campaign, you pour everything you can into it. We've been working 16, 18 hours a day for six to seven days a week for the past year. And when you pour everything you can into it, when you try to do it right, when you do it with integrity and character, which is how we set out to do it at the beginning, that we were going to take the high road, that we would not go down into the mud. That if others insulted us, we would not respond in kind, but we would keep the campaign focused on issues, focused on substance, focused on record.

You know, when you've put everything within your ability into it and you've done your very best, there's a peace that comes with -- as you're waiting for election returns, at some point, it's out of your hands. It's out of your hands. And it's in the people's hands. And it's in God's hands. And that peace is very much where I am now. I'm hopeful. I believe we'll have a good night. But the voters of Iowa are going to let us know later this evening.

GLENN: Two questions: First, there are scenarios where Donald Trump comes in even third, but if he comes in second, how long is it going to take him -- this is kind of like how many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop, but how many minutes does it take before he turns on the voters of Iowa?

(laughter)

TED: Well, you know, that's an easy one to predict because he has already. You know, in the course of the campaign, he already bellowed, "How stupid are the people of Iowa," and that's while he was asking for their votes.

PAT: And that was just over a poll.

TED: Yeah. And yesterday -- well, he was mad that some people liked Ben Carson. That made him angry, and that's why he yelled how stupid are they.

PAT: Yeah.

TED: Just yesterday, he said, "If he doesn't win Iowa, then everything here was a big, fat, and very expensive waste of time." You know, I got to admit, I have a very different view. Regardless of the outcome, it has been an unbelievable privilege to spend so much time with so many wonderful people here in Iowa, people who have welcomed us into their homes, churches that have welcomed my father to preach. I mean, the hospitality, the passion, the hard work. You know, last night, Glenn, we had our closing rally in Des Moines. And there was a young lady. Thirteen years old, a girl from Lubbock, Texas, who was at the rally. She yesterday made 833 calls for us.

PAT: Wow.

GLENN: Wow.

TED: Sat in the headquarters just calling and calling and calling. That's inspiring.

GLENN: I met two doctors. Because I went to your phone center. And that was impressive. But I went to the phone center, and I met two doctors that have walked away from their practice since the beginning of December to make phone calls for you. Just moved. Just left the state. I think they're from Nebraska. Just left. Went to Iowa and started making phone calls. I mean, the sacrifice that these people have made because they believe in you and the ground game that you have -- the people -- the number of people that you have on the ground that are volunteers dwarfs anything else that anybody has. It's impressive.

TED: Go ahead.

GLENN: I'm up against a break here. I only have about three minutes, so I want to get to one question. Because if you come in second or, God forbid, third tonight, they're going to -- the press -- if you win, the press is going to say, "Of course, you won, the evangelicals."

TED: Right.

GLENN: "This was made for him. Of course, he won. He had to win."

If you come in second or third tonight, they're going to count him out and say, "See, he's just unelectable. People don't like him." And blah, blah. So there's no way for you to win in the press. Let's just play this scenario out.

TED: Yeah.

GLENN: You come in and you do as the polls show or a little less than what the polls show.

TED: Right.

GLENN: Donald Trump wins. Is there a path to you winning or anybody winning if Donald Trump wins?

TED: Oh, of course, there is.

Listen, the press -- if we win anything less than 100 percent of the votes tonight, which I'll go ahead and concede we won't win 100 percent of the votes tonight -- the press will spin it as a stunning defeat for Cruz. That's where the reporters are.

But we have from day one run been running a national campaign. We've got an incredible team here in Iowa. But we have an amazing team on the ground in New Hampshire. We have an amazing team in South Carolina. We have an amazing team in Nevada. We're all-in in each of the first four states. And then ten days after South Carolina is Super Tuesday, the so-called SECC states: Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas.

Our team across the Super Tuesday states is stronger by a factor of three or four or five than anybody else's team. And the reports just came out publicly that on the money front, that we ended last year with nearly $20 million in the bank, which is roughly as much as Rubio, Bush, Christie, and Kasich combined. So we've got the resources to go the distance. If Donald pulls out a win tonight, I will happily congratulate him. And then we will see this two-man race continue to go nationally, and we've got the resources and the grassroots.

And it will be a choice for the voters. Do Republicans want to nominate a candidate, who like Donald Trump, agrees with Hillary that we should adopt full-on socialized medicine, we should expand Obamacare to make it socialized medicine? The Republicans want to nominate a candidate like Donald Trump and like Marco Rubio, who agrees with Hillary Clinton that the 12 million people here illegally should be given a path to citizenship. Donald would send them home first, but then let them come back as citizens. I don't think the American people agree with that.

But we can have those debates on issues and substance. And the most important thing right now, Glenn, is for every one of your listeners in Iowa, if you want to turn this country around, if you want to get back to the Constitution, if you want to believe again in the promise of America, then I ask you to come out tonight, 7:00 p.m. and caucus. But don't just come. Bring your friends. Bring your family. Get on the phone this afternoon. If you know anybody in Iowa, come out and caucus. If conservatives show up tonight, we will win. And we're seeing that old Reagan coalition coming together. We're seeing conservatives and evangelicals and Libertarians and Reagan Democrats. And it's all about turnout right now

GLENN: Great. Thank you very much, Ted.

PAT: TedCruz.org.

GLENN: Thank you very much. We'll talk to you again, and we'll be watching tonight. Ted Cruz.

Featured Image: Screen shot from The Glenn Beck Program

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.

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

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The new currency of power

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

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

Two futures — both ending in tyranny

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

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

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

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

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

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

The forgotten way

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

Hesham Elsherif / Stringer | Getty Images

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

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

Both are traps.

The only way

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

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

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

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Why the White House restoration sent the left Into panic mode

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A restoration, not a renovation

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

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

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

The selective guardians of history

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

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

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

The real desecration

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

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

Julia Beverly / Contributor | Getty Images

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

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

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Trump’s secret war in the Caribbean EXPOSED — It’s not about drugs

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

The president’s moves in Venezuela, Guyana, and Colombia aren’t about drugs. They’re about re-establishing America’s sovereignty across the Western Hemisphere.

For decades, we’ve been told America’s wars are about drugs, democracy, or “defending freedom.” But look closer at what’s unfolding off the coast of Venezuela, and you’ll see something far more strategic taking shape. Donald Trump’s so-called drug war isn’t about fentanyl or cocaine. It’s about control — and a rebirth of American sovereignty.

The aim of Trump’s ‘drug war’ is to keep the hemisphere’s oil, minerals, and manufacturing within the Western family and out of Beijing’s hands.

The president understands something the foreign policy class forgot long ago: The world doesn’t respect apologies. It respects strength.

While the global elites in Davos tout the Great Reset, Trump is building something entirely different — a new architecture of power based on regional independence, not global dependence. His quiet campaign in the Western Hemisphere may one day be remembered as the second Monroe Doctrine.

Venezuela sits at the center of it all. It holds the world’s largest crude oil reserves — oil perfectly suited for America’s Gulf refineries. For years, China and Russia have treated Venezuela like a pawn on their chessboard, offering predatory loans in exchange for control of those resources. The result has been a corrupt, communist state sitting in our own back yard. For too long, Washington shrugged. Not any more.The naval exercises in the Caribbean, the sanctions, the patrols — they’re not about drug smugglers. They’re about evicting China from our hemisphere.

Trump is using the old “drug war” playbook to wage a new kind of war — an economic and strategic one — without firing a shot at our actual enemies. The goal is simple: Keep the hemisphere’s oil, minerals, and manufacturing within the Western family and out of Beijing’s hands.

Beyond Venezuela

Just east of Venezuela lies Guyana, a country most Americans couldn’t find on a map a year ago. Then ExxonMobil struck oil, and suddenly Guyana became the newest front in a quiet geopolitical contest. Washington is helping defend those offshore platforms, build radar systems, and secure undersea cables — not for charity, but for strategy. Control energy, data, and shipping lanes, and you control the future.

Moreover, Colombia — a country once defined by cartels — is now positioned as the hinge between two oceans and two continents. It guards the Panama Canal and sits atop rare-earth minerals every modern economy needs. Decades of American presence there weren’t just about cocaine interdiction; they were about maintaining leverage over the arteries of global trade. Trump sees that clearly.

PEDRO MATTEY / Contributor | Getty Images

All of these recent news items — from the military drills in the Caribbean to the trade negotiations — reflect a new vision of American power. Not global policing. Not endless nation-building. It’s about strategic sovereignty.

It’s the same philosophy driving Trump’s approach to NATO, the Middle East, and Asia. We’ll stand with you — but you’ll stand on your own two feet. The days of American taxpayers funding global security while our own borders collapse are over.

Trump’s Monroe Doctrine

Critics will call it “isolationism.” It isn’t. It’s realism. It’s recognizing that America’s strength comes not from fighting other people’s wars but from securing our own energy, our own supply lines, our own hemisphere. The first Monroe Doctrine warned foreign powers to stay out of the Americas. The second one — Trump’s — says we’ll defend them, but we’ll no longer be their bank or their babysitter.

Historians may one day mark this moment as the start of a new era — when America stopped apologizing for its own interests and started rebuilding its sovereignty, one barrel, one chip, and one border at a time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.