Steve Deace: Liberals Deconstruct Us Better Than We Construct Ourselves

Steve Deace, host of The Steve Deace Show, joined Glenn in studio Tuesday for an in depth conversation about the future of conservatism.

"I think that we have got to have a time period where there can be some family healing going on, after what's transpired over the last year. And I think I told you yesterday that I didn't really, truly understand how difficult the last six and seven months has been," Deace explained.

Glenn's wide-ranging conversation with Deace covered faith, principles, the media and how conservatives have failed to control their own conversation and identity.

Steve Deace is author of Nefarious Plot, available in bookstores everywhere.

Read below or listen to the full segment for answers to these questions:

• This election was really a repudiation of what?

• Do conservatives have an objective value system?

• Do people think socialism is related to social media?

• Do liberals define diversity by external identities?

• What song did Steve Deace have going through his head the day after the election?

Listen to these segments from The Glenn Beck Program:

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

GLENN: Steve Deace is a talk radio show host. Heard nationwide out of Iowa. And a friend of the program. Author of the new book, Nefarious Plot, which is very C.S. Lewis. I mean, it is a great, great book that everybody should read that is modeled after the Screwtape Letters. And if you like the Screwtape Letters, this is a modern version of it. And I think -- I mean, I hate to say this because it's C.S. Lewis, but I think just, you know, in the same category as good. It is really good, Steve.

STEVE: Wow. That's about the highest praise you can give a theo nerd like me, so I'd like to just walk off now, if that's okay. Send a (inaudible) at the --

GLENN: Yeah, okay. All right. See you later.

That's right. That's right. Welcome to the studios. Glad you're here.

You -- you called together a little get together of some of the people who were Never Trump and reluctantly Trump. And wanted to have a conversation with people of where we go from here. What are you trying to accomplish?

STEVE: Just that. I think that we have got to have a time period where there can be some family healing going on, after what's transpired over the last year. And I think I told you yesterday that I didn't really, truly understand how difficult the last six and seven months has been. Because it's not new necessarily for me. I'm kind of one of those grassroots rabble-rousers anyway.

GLENN: Uh-huh.

STEVE: So being on the outside, looking in, of some of my own friends, is almost like a state of being for me. But this took it to a whole new level. And I really wasn't aware until it was over, just what the weight of what the last few months was like, feeling like every day I was arguing with members of my own audience. You know, people who put food on our table, who we support, that support us, that make it possible for us to do things like this.

Arguing with our own peers and our friends. How many tweets I compose that I had to delete to my own friends because I just couldn't handle some of the things I was seeing. And then wondering how often they weren't doing the exact same thing to me. Right?

And when I got up the next morning, I was like, "Holy cow." It was like Katrina and the Waves. That one, I'm Walking on Sunshine song came on. It was like, "This weight is gone."

And I think there needs to be though some time to assess where we're at. Because I think strategically, we're in a place that we've never been before, as a movement. And that is, taking for granted that a conservative movement still exists, which I have my doubts about that. I think we also need to discuss, what does conservatism even mean?

I was on C-SPAN for an hour a week before the election, and I got that question. And I defined it as, I'm a conservative because I'm trying to conserve the things that history has proven are what's best for the human condition.

And a black man from Detroit calls up and says, "I'm a black man from Detroit." And says, "I've never voted Republican in my entire life, but if someone had explained it to me the way you just did, I might have -- I might have looked at this differently."

I think our damage -- our brand has been damaged quite a bit in this race. And I think it's not a victory as much as a reprieve. I think everybody to some extent is ecstatic the Marxists are out of the White House, right?

But that doesn't necessarily mean that Donald Trump had a character transplant because the communists are gone. And I think you're watching his capricious, mercurial, unstable nature play itself out, just in the Courts of Owls that we're seeing get assembled here in the -- in almost this sort of Kremlin-esque intrigue about transition teams and who's in and who's out.

GLENN: This happens to all of them. Why is this a negative? This happens all the time. The transition team -- this seems normal to me.

STEVE: We're on like our third transition team. This thing has been on it for a week, you know, and there's mixed signals everywhere. And I just think that one thing --

PAT: That's how the Trump camp rolls though.

STU: Well, yes.

PAT: This happened the whole campaign.

STEVE: Because that's how he rolls.

PAT: That's how he rolls.

STEVE: No campaign can rise above its own candidate.

PAT: Right.

STEVE: The candidate is always the one responsible for the outcome of a campaign.

PAT: Right.

GLENN: We should say you were a friend and supporter of Donald Trump's for a long time.

STEVE: At first. At first. A long time may be a relative term.

GLENN: Okay.

STEVE: What really changed my mind for good --

PAT: You endorsed Ted, right? The Iowa caucus.

STEVE: Yes, I did. In fact, I remember I called Ted up in early July. And I told him, I said, "You know, I'm thinking about -- I'm leaning going this way. I'm really thinking about it. You know, I do think we need to burn it down. I I think we need something dramatically different." And about a week later, there was an event in Iowa where they had 13 of the candidates show up. It was a leadership summit. And I was the co-MC with Frank Luntz. And I'm sitting there backstage. I'm actually getting ready to meet with Donald Trump again. He's going to come off backstage. We're going to grab a private room, presumably to try to close me as a supporter. And I'm sitting 20 feet from him when he talks about, "I've never asked God for forgiveness because I've never done anything wrong."

PAT: Right.

STEVE: Which was -- to me, that was the biggest thing that stood out to me, even more than the McCain comments, as offensive as those were. That was the thing like, wow, you just walked into a room of 3,000 evangelicals and dropped that bomb. You may not -- you don't understand what you're walking into.

And then he talked about, "Well, I like soldiers who weren't captured." And I knew -- or, I suspected when they walked off of there, that him and his people were going to ask me, "How do you clean up this mess?" I didn't know what the answer was.

So this was not a great -- this was not a real Men of Courage moment, guys. I hit the eject. I just walked out. Because I was like, I wouldn't know how to fix this. It's done. Don't fix it. Go home. Go back to Trump Tower. This is not fixable. Salvage your brand.

GLENN: But it didn't hurt him. It didn't hurt him.

STEVE: You know why it didn't hurt him? Is Sam Nunberg, who is still a friend of mine, who was the guy that helped set up Trump's original campaign -- Sam called me the next day. He had sent me a column that he had ghostwritten for Trump for USA Today in response to this.

And it was -- and he essentially doubled down on it. And Sam -- and the column was, "Hey, look at all the money that I've given to veterans groups. Look at everything I've done. Who are you people to question me?" And Sam to me -- he said, "Hey, Steve, do you like this column?" And I said, "I think it's forceful. I like it." I go, "Why?"

And he said, "Because I took everything that you put in your book, Rules For Patriots: How Conservatives Can Win Again, the previous book I wrote, and I used that to construct this piece." And I am convinced that that is what turned everything around.

The first time the media came at him -- see, this election wasn't a repudiation of Hillary Clinton. I don't even think it was a repudiation of Barack Obama. I think it was a backlash repudiation of the media. And Trump ran against the media the entire time. Ran against them in the primary. Fox tried to kill him in the first debate. They couldn't. And so's they ended up shilling for him after that. I think he beat the media. And I think most people as conservatives, guys, define their conservatism, not by an objective values -- or, set of values, but by opposition to the liberal media.

GLENN: Explain that.

STEVE: Meaning that I think we're so -- we don't -- first of all, we don't have an objective value system. Ask the average conservative, "Why are you a conservative?" And you're probably not going to get a cogent answer.

I mean, I was listening to the roundtable you had before I came on, and you talked about the Declaration of Independence. When I go around the country, if I teach in churches or I speak in churches or I preach in the church where I go to back home, if I ask believers, "What is the foundation of the Christian faith," almost every time they're going to tell me it's the Bible.

No, it's not. Christ is the foundation of the Christian faith. Paul says, "If Christ isn't raised, you're -- then your preaching is in vain. You're all still dead in your sins."

Christianity is about God supernaturally wove his hand into history to roll the stone away and bring a dead man back to life. Did that fact happen or not? If it did, then the Bible is the clarification of how we are -- how we are then to live in light of that fact.

If it didn't happen, then we're free agents to make this up as we go along.

The -- Christianity's foundation is Christ. The clarification is the Bible. That is the relationship, I believe, between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The Declaration of Independence is the foundation of America. There is a God. Our rights come from him. Government's only responsible is to protect and preserve those rights so we can reach our God-given potential. And that's it. That's all there is. There isn't anymore. That's it.

And then the inevitable questions that come along when we have conflicts: How do we resolve those things? The Constitution clarifies those conflicts, but the Declaration is the foundation. How often is that foundation ever uttered ever by any conservative?

GLENN: You would have loved -- I just gave this speech Sunday. I wish you would have been there, because it was that -- there's six points in the Declaration. And the Declaration of Independence has those six points, and that's all you need to know. That is the spirit of America. The Constitution is the framework on how to protect that idea.

And we missed that. And progressives have tried to destroy the Declaration. And we don't have a Declaration.

The conservatives are supposed to be saying -- what is a conservative? Well, we hold these truths to be self-evident.

DOM: Right.

GLENN: That all men are created. They're endowed by creator with certain rights that are unchangeable. Those rights come from God. The government is established to be able to protect those rights. That is their main duty: Protect those rights.

STEVE: Uh-huh.

GLENN: That the laws are all based in natural law and -- the laws of nature and nature's God. So the laws out of the Bible. The Ten Commandments.

STEVE: Uh-huh.

GLENN: And what you witness in nature. You can protect yourself because -- a bear can protect itself, so why can't I?

Nature's laws. Nature's God. And the last one is, if a government becomes hostile to that, you have the right to abolish it and reestablish a new government that will protect those rights.

STEVE: Right. That's it.

GLENN: That's the whole idea of America in a nutshell.

STEVE: I know it sounds like we're having a Cleon Skousen class in here. But that's what it is. That's supposed to be what we're conserving. I don't know -- I don't know what most of conservatism is. And it's easy for me to say -- I don't have, you know, one of the ten biggest shows in the country. I haven't written five New York Times best-sellers. But it seems to me that most of conservatism is selling out conferences and selling widgets.

GLENN: Yes.

STEVE: And it's not an advancement of a set of principles, let alone policy.

Does anybody know what the Sam Hill conservative policy actually would be? Forget even defining our principles. Let's see we define those. How would we go about governing accordingly? Has anybody even seen in their lifetime -- except for maybe the first half of Ronald Reagan's first term, before the rigor mortis of Washington set in -- has anybody ever actually seen what governing along those lines would look like, beyond just framing the principles?

GLENN: No. No. No.

And you ask a conservative, "What does it mean to be a conservative?"

Well, I believe in God. And I believe in traditional marriage. And I believe that people should work hard and we should have less, you know, welfare or whatever they want to say.

They make it about the policies.

What does it mean to be a conservative?

STEVE: Uh-huh.

GLENN: There are certain ideas that are universal and everybody knows: That we were created. We were created by a God. That God gave us rights. We've established government to protect those rights. And the minute those rights -- the government starts to abuse those rights, we have a right to abolish it. That is the conservative idea.

And if we can all start to say those things -- because, you know, I was looking -- if you look at the Bill of Rights. Everybody is looking for a place where we can come together now.

Well, what are we going to do on global warming? What are we going to do on Planned Parenthood? What are we going to do about -- we're so far beyond that. We are so -- we have no cornerstone anymore. We have no baseline anymore. So we're just winging it on all of those. There's nothing to be able to say, "Well, our polar star says that we have to do X, Y, and Z --

STEVE: Right. What is the plumb-line of American culture? What is that? --

GLENN: There is none. There is none.

STEVE: There is none. Yeah.

GLENN: And it is the idea of the Declaration of Independence and the framework of the Constitution -- and I know I could go to any college campus -- I could go to Berkeley and say, "Do you believe in freedom of press? That the press shouldn't be restrained?"

Now, this is changing, but right now he with still have, "Yeah, press -- there's a freedom of the press. Yes, there's a freedom to assemble peacefully. Yes, there's a freedom to question the government. Yes, there's freedom of religion." That one is beginning to change too. Because we have abused both the press and religion.

STEVE: Right. There is -- there's a fascinating article at FiveThirtyEight today, which is Nate Silver's site.

GLENN: Yep.

STEVE: And it talks about how Americans may be too religious to accept socialism. And if I wasn't down here hanging out with you all today, here's what I would do on my show, if I was on the air on my show today: I would go on the air and ask my audience, "Why is this true? Why is America -- how come if a people are religious, they will reject socialism?" And I will guarantee you, most of my audience, until I explain it to them won't know.

GLENN: Won't know.

STEVE: And it's because, obviously if the state's going to be God, there can't already be a God. That's why socialism either proceeds secularism every single time.

GLENN: Yes. I don't believe we are too religious for socialism.

STEVE: I don't think we are either. But here's what's fascinating -- my point is, how often we had to see because Fox, Infowars, and Drudge wouldn't do it, and so we saw the mainstream media vetting Trump during the primary, according to his lack of conservative orthodoxy. The liberals were doing it.

Now, FiveThirtyEight, a liberal analytical site is now explaining to us essentially conservative apologetics, why we won't accept socialism because we're still too religious. They're making our arguments for us better than we currently make them. By the way, that's not good, guys.

GLENN: No. Because they're making those arguments so they can understand it and dismantle it.

STEVE: Yes. Yeah, they're deconstructing us better than we are constructing ourselves.

PAT: And the fact is I think that most people have been convinced by the left now that socialism and Christianity are one and the same.

GLENN: Yes. This is what the socialist --

PAT: Way too many people believe that Jesus was a socialist. I just read another article about that.

GLENN: Yeah. Yeah. Easy. And the rest of the people think that socialism -- and I'm not making this up -- think socialism has something to do with social media.

PAT: Yes.

GLENN: Socialism just means the promotion of Facebook and Twitter.

STEVE: There was a poll a few years ago that found something like six out of ten people that had held elected office felt the electoral college was a place that you went to get trained on how to get elected. So there you go.

[break]

GLENN: Steve Deace is with us. The talk show host and also author of the new book Nefarious Plot, which I can't recommend highly enough. Just a great book.

Steve, so where do we go from here? What happens now?

Because people are hurting. And they are looking for somebody, and they are dismissing people like -- I mean, even those in the conservative movement are dismissing people like Steve Bannon. The media is now saying Steve Bannon is a bad guy. They're absolutely right on this. But the media has such a bad relationship with the American people. By them saying, "He's a bad guy," only makes -- only makes people say, "Well, he must be a good guy."

STEVE: Yeah, I mean, they're doing their best to inoculate Steve Bannon from criticism at this point. And I said this -- PBS called me the day after the election, asked me to come on the round table and discuss from a conservative viewpoint how they missed the Trump phenomenon. And I pointed out to them, "You know, you guys are disconnected from America." And I asked them, "How many people in your newsroom at PBS are pro-life? How many of them go to mass once a week? How many of them go to church? How many of them even considered for voting for Donald Trump? Like a single person. You guys define diversity by external identity. Most of America doesn't. Most of America defines their identity by their value system or what they think they need or want at the time. And so you are literally not talking to most of this country. And that's why you missed that."

And I think -- I think -- I told them, "I think people got the rise of Fox News wrong, that it wasn't that it was G.O.P. TV. That's kind of what it is now. But that they -- they -- they talked about our values without suspicion. You guys do."

GLENN: Yes. Yes. Back in just a second.

[break]

GLENN: The fed is hinting that there might be a rate increase when they meet in December. Stock market looked like it was going to tank when Trump was winning Tuesday night. But after his speech, it rebounded in a uge way. Bigger than Jina. And we're going to talk a little bit about that coming up in a second.

Steve Deace is with us. Steve, what -- tell me, is there the possibility -- because I think we should consider this, that we have been completely wrong. Is there the possibility that Donald Trump becomes Ronald Reagan?

STEVE: I think we should absolutely consider the possibility we've been completely wrong.

Now, I will be -- I will be surprised if we are wrong, and I think what we're seeing in the transition team indicates we're not, that this is --

GLENN: Why?

STEVE: Because it's inconsistent. There is no consistent strain in who is surrounding him, other than, did you help me get to where I'm at?

And if you're a progressive Rudy Giuliani over here and if you're an evangelical pastor's kid Mike Pence over here, you help me get to where I'm at, so find a way to kind of work together.

I mean, Reince Priebus, when he opens his mouth, the Republican machine we all hate comes out in every last syllable. So you're going to go on camera and eat the crap sandwich on TV, and Bannon's going to be my Rasputin in the dark room over calling the Svengali shots. I mean, these two guys have literally nothing in common, other than they both helped Donald Trump get to where he's at.

GLENN: Do you believe that Bannon -- talk radio is saying Bannon is okay.

STEVE: You know, I think I met him once briefly. Been interviewed by him twice on Breitbart radio. All I know is what I've heard from other people. And all I've seen is what I've watched and witnessed Breitbart news become since it essentially become symbiotic with Trump -- and I don't think -- and I'm someone that used to be a regular reader. I don't think I've shared a link or clicked on a link at Breitbart in like nine months. I just got so disgusted by what I saw, that it just -- it literally became dead to me. Same with Drudge. I can't remember the last time I visited Drudge as a website. I just can't handle it. To me, I just look for news in other sources.

PAT: Yeah. That's where we are.

GLENN: So you just don't think there's a chance --

STEVE: I think there's a chance. Listen, my worldview starts with, God raises dead people to life.

GLENN: Right.

STEVE: So to quote the great prophets of Dumb and Dumber, I'm saying there's a chance. There is a chance. But this is why I think we should step back and let it play out. Now, I think the early returns are mixed at best. And the pressures -- the real pressures --

GLENN: What do you disagree with, on his appointments?

STEVE: First of all, I wouldn't have Rudy Giuliani anywhere near my administration.

GLENN: Why is that?

STEVE: Because he's the ultimate progressive Republican. That's why.

GLENN: Well, no, I think Chris Christie is. But he's a close second.

STEVE: He's a close second.

GLENN: Yes.

STEVE: I think that the dynamic between Reince and Bannon is terrible. It strikes me as trying to split the baby in half. And this is often -- as someone that's worked on a lot of campaigns, this is why businessmen are often the worst candidates. Because they think it is like running a company. And it is not.

You know, a CEO can't coin money. A CEO can't command an Army. A CEO can't compel you to do something lawfully or unlawfully against your will. A president can.

And I think that is where -- it's not -- it's not the same. Just because Steve Kerr is a great coach of the Golden State Warriors doesn't mean he can coach the Dallas Cowboys, guys. There's some skills that transcend, but they're totally different pursuits, different personalities, different activities.

You know, and not to mention Trump hasn't always been successful as a manager. He's filed multiple bankruptcies. He's had several failures. It's not the same at all.

And so when I see the Priebus/Bannon thing, this is what it looks like to me: Hey Reince, your reward is you get to go out there and be the guy on camera, and you're going to speak to McConnell and Ryan down there on Capitol Hill. And I'll be Nicholas II over here in a corner dark room while Rasputin is whispering sweet nothings in my ear. And we'll essentially have our own little management team over here, deciding which of your ideas we'll veto and which we won't.

Who is actually in charge? The last thing someone with Donald Trump's temperament needs is to have the people facilitating him in an uncertain chain of command. I mean, when you are as mercurial and capricious as he is, then the people around you have to be ironclad certain.

You know, it's a little like in football. If the head coach is not Mr. Game Manager, then the assistant coaches need to be real X's and O's people. And if the head coach is an X's and O's guy but not Mr. Light You Up In the Room, when he's recruiting athletes, that means the assistant coaches have got to be in there and woo mom and the young -- and her baby boy on the recruiting trip.

Trump is not Mr. X's and O's guy. He's not. So someone else has got to do that. Well, who is that right now? I mean, you kind of have these two towers of Mordor here between -- with Reince -- Reince is Isengard and Bannon is Mordor. They have literally nothing in common, other than they have a common sentiment with Donald Trump.

But you can't run a government that way. Government is not like a business. It's not.

GLENN: But he's going to try to run it -- I mean, one of the most amazing things I saw yesterday -- and I said this wouldn't happen. This couldn't happen. And it's happening. For him to ask for top secret clearance of his children --

STU: They are denying that, by the way, I believe, for what it's worth.

GLENN: Well, that's good. Do you believe it?

STU: Yeah. I don't know.

GLENN: Yeah. I mean, it sounds --

JEFFY: I believe it. I don't know that it will last.

STU: The initial source was an unnamed source. There's some reason to doubt it.

STEVE: I think with stories like this, guys, we're going to have to -- I think we're not dealing with a level of, shall we say, prudent communication we've ever seen from people in power before. I think we're going to have to really sit back and wait until the final deed is done. Because if we react to everything these people say, we're all going to have coronaries. We're going to be like, "This is the big one, Alice, by the time we get to 2017."

So I think we need to just sit back. I think we have to wait for them to actually sign the waiver before we react to the story, like this. Because I think they will seriously just throw crap out there all the time, see if they can get away with it, see what the backlash is. And then say, "We never really meant it."

It's been my experience -- again, I've had a lot of experience in politics. I've never seen anybody govern differently than they campaign. Ever. Ever.

GLENN: It is who they are. That's what my problem was with Donald Trump.

He would say, "I'm not this guy." But your whole life shows that you are.

STEVE: Right.

GLENN: You don't generally change.

STEVE: Right. Not unless something transcended.

GLENN: Yeah. Unless there is a pivot point.

STEVE: Yes.

GLENN: Something big happens in your life, and then you're like, "I'm not that guy anymore."

STU: Is there any chance, you know, becoming president of the United States is that moment?

(laughter)

GLENN: It is a possibility.

STEVE: It is.

STU: Right. Unlikely, but possible.

GLENN: There is a possibility. No, I have to tell you -- I think -- you know, I was thinking about that when -- you know, the next morning Donald Trump woke up. And I thought about it, that next morning. What must that be like, to wake up -- and it's one thing to have your wife roll over and say, "Well, good morning, Mr. President-elect." It's another to then have the Secret Service, the apparatus, the -- everything start to change around you. The weight -- I mean, Truman said he felt like the earth -- I'm sorry. That the moon, the sun, and the stars fell on his shoulders when he found out he was president.

There is a chance that that changes you. A big chance.

STEVE: I think there's also a difference, gentlemen, between winning the presidency and being the president. When your life is defined by Maslow's hierarchy of needs, as Trump's entire existence has been -- he has received now the ultimate self-actualization, right?

GLENN: Yes, yes. Yes.

STEVE: But here's the question: Next May, when the headlines are done and the parades are over and the Organization of American States wants a nine-hour meeting with their emissaries in the White House, does he really want to do that?

JEFFY: Not a chance. Not a chance.

STEVE: Or does he want to be down -- does he want to be teeing it high and watching it fly at the Mar-a-Lago with some Hollywood starlet? What would you rather be doing? I think that's -- you know, I had somebody offer me a job in New York City a few years ago. And I tried really hard for it. I really wanted it. It was dry time in New York. I thought it would be the greatest thing for my career.

And then when I got back home and waited for them to make the decision, I recognized that what the commute would be like, the changes would be like, moving my family to New York City, how different the values were.

And then I realized, "You know what, I think I wanted to win this job more than I wanted to do the job. I wanted someone to come to me as a guy and give me that helmet sticker and say, "Yeah, you got this accomplishment." But did I really want to do this? When all the trades (phonetic) wrote about it and all the accomplishment stuff was done, did I want to do that job?

And I wonder if Donald Trump has truly considered, does he actually want to be the president? Does he want to do it? And that's why the people around him will I think really run the show. That's why it's so important.

GLENN: That's why -- I have a guy who works here now, John Schreiber, who is brilliant. He runs my company. And he said -- he's been asking people as we restructure everything, "What do you want to do every day?" And people will say, oh -- like me. He asked me. "Well, you know, I want to do the radio show. I want to, you know, be able to talk and make a difference and everything else." He said, "No, no, no. What do you actually want to do every day?"

STEVE: Uh-huh.

GLENN: That's very different. And people don't ask themselves that question. They think of the accomplishment. I want to go and do this. I want to be here. That I want job. But they don't necessarily match it with what they actually physically think, "Oh, I'd love to just do this every day."

STEVE: Uh-huh.

GLENN: And they're very different things. And I think Donald Trump in May, may find that. He may not. He may love this. But he doesn't strike me as the guy that does like to be sitting in the office at the late-night meetings.

JEFFY: No.

STEVE: Uh-huh.

GLENN: But I think that's why people like Bannon are so critical to make sure, good guy, bad guy? Because if indeed Donald Trump is the guy who says, "I don't want to be there all the time," he will put it on the shoulders of Rasputin.

STEVE: Well, and this is why, what is the value system? This goes right back to where we started in the conversation, guys.

I mean, this is not a company. You're not selling widgets. The goal is not to end up in the black on a P&L statement. You are governing a free people, and sometimes that means you're going to make decisions that are unpopular. And so is everybody in on advancing that value system?

I know that we look back now on the Obama years, and we look at over 900 Democrats in the legislative branches across the country who lost their jobs under his presidency because of the voter backlash. I will guarantee you though, almost none of them would ever publicly say they regret it, because even though he did it, by hook or by crook, he did more to advance a progressive worldview into our government than any human being has in the last century.

And so, therefore, that's why they got into government, to advance that value system. They're on board with that. That's why they never ever fought back against him, even though it was costing them seats in their own legislatures.

What is the endgame of the Trump presidency? What is making America great again, what is the vision of what that would be?

GLENN: You think it might be -- you think it might be fascism.

STEVE: I think that -- my fear is that our side is going to embrace authoritarianism. Because they saw Obama get away with it. I think there were -- and I hate to say this, but I think there were a lot of older white people that stayed home and watched Fox News all day, that got really justifiably angry at the last four years and what they saw Obama do. And they said, "You know what, we need to go get our own version of that."

GLENN: Well, then did I help cause this?

STEVE: You know, I think we all have, to some extent, played a role in this.

GLENN: I think so too.

STEVE: We're a self-governing people. So there's no one -- you know, nobody is absolved from it.

I think that -- I've looked at some of the rhetoric I've used, that we have to win right now, or we're on the precipice of history.

And I've wondered, what is a sense of urgency? And when am I actually feeding into the sort of panic that causes people to embrace authoritarianism?

GLENN: Do you think anybody on the left is starting to feel this way? Do you think they're self-examining like we are on the right?

STEVE: They soon will. First, they got to do their fake Tea Party Astroturf, get rid of the electoral college crap, which is just clickbait to raise money basically. When they get done with that here in about six to eight months, we get into year two or three of a Trump presidency, I bet you they'll have a newfound respect for separation of powers and limited governments in some way, yes, I do.

GLENN: It's interesting to me, because the New York Times came out this weekend -- and this is what they expressed to me -- when they invited me up, 19 editors from the New York Times editorial board were there. And they wanted to know who we were, what is really happening, what's caused this. What their role was. They were very, I thought, introspective. And they said at the time, we know we have a problem. We're not connecting with the American people. And we need to change that. They came out this weekend and said that.

I think there is some -- there is some movement in trying to be better.

STEVE: I said to Judy Woodrow on PBS, on the panel I was on this week. I said, "Judy, where I come from, a dad who thinks it's a bad idea to have another creepy dude go into the bathroom next to his young daughter in the women's bathroom, that's called a parent. Not a bigot. There's a whole other country out there. You guys don't even interact to it. You lecture to it."

GLENN: Yes. You look down to it.

STEVE: And so as a result, they said, "Let's go find our own person that can smash these people so that we can at least get our side of the story out there." And I think Trump wisely capitalized on that.

GLENN: Thank you so much, Steve. Steve Deace.

Featured Image: Steve Deace on The Glenn Beck Program.

EXCLUSIVE: Tech Ethicist reveals 5 ways to control AI NOW

MANAURE QUINTERO / Contributor | Getty Images

By now, many of us are familiar with AI and its potential benefits and threats. However, unless you're a tech tycoon, it can feel like you have little influence over the future of artificial intelligence.

For years, Glenn has warned about the dangers of rapidly developing AI technologies that have taken the world by storm.

He acknowledges their significant benefits but emphasizes the need to establish proper boundaries and ethics now, while we still have control. But since most people aren’t Silicon Valley tech leaders making the decisions, how can they help keep AI in check?

Recently, Glenn interviewed Tristan Harris, a tech ethicist deeply concerned about the potential harm of unchecked AI, to discuss its societal implications. Harris highlighted a concerning new piece of legislation proposed by Texas Senator Ted Cruz. This legislation proposes a state-level moratorium on AI regulation, meaning only the federal government could regulate AI. Harris noted that there’s currently no Federal plan for regulating AI. Until the federal government establishes a plan, tech companies would have nearly free rein with their AI. And we all know how slowly the federal government moves.

This is where you come in. Tristan Harris shared with Glenn the top five actions you should urge your representatives to take regarding AI, including opposing the moratorium until a concrete plan is in place. Now is your chance to influence the future of AI. Contact your senator and congressman today and share these five crucial steps they must take to keep AI in check:

Ban engagement-optimized AI companions for kids

Create legislation that will prevent AI from being designed to maximize addiction, sexualization, flattery, and attachment disorders, and to protect young people’s mental health and ability to form real-life friendships.

Establish basic liability laws

Companies need to be held accountable when their products cause real-world harm.

Pass increased whistleblower protections

Protect concerned technologists working inside the AI labs from facing untenable pressures and threats that prevent them from warning the public when the AI rollout is unsafe or crosses dangerous red lines.

Prevent AI from having legal rights

Enact laws so AIs don’t have protected speech or have their own bank accounts, making sure our legal system works for human interests over AI interests.

Oppose the state moratorium on AI 

Call your congressman or Senator Cruz’s office, and demand they oppose the state moratorium on AI without a plan for how we will set guardrails for this technology.

Glenn: Only Trump dared to deliver on decades of empty promises

Tasos Katopodis / Stringer | Getty Images

The Islamic regime has been killing Americans since 1979. Now Trump’s response proves we’re no longer playing defense — we’re finally hitting back.

The United States has taken direct military action against Iran’s nuclear program. Whatever you think of the strike, it’s over. It’s happened. And now, we have to predict what happens next. I want to help you understand the gravity of this situation: what happened, what it means, and what might come next. To that end, we need to begin with a little history.

Since 1979, Iran has been at war with us — even if we refused to call it that.

We are either on the verge of a remarkable strategic victory or a devastating global escalation. Time will tell.

It began with the hostage crisis, when 66 Americans were seized and 52 were held for over a year by the radical Islamic regime. Four years later, 17 more Americans were murdered in the U.S. Embassy bombing in Beirut, followed by 241 Marines in the Beirut barracks bombing.

Then came the Khobar Towers bombing in 1996, which killed 19 more U.S. airmen. Iran had its fingerprints all over it.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, Iranian-backed proxies killed hundreds of American soldiers. From 2001 to 2020 in Afghanistan and 2003 to 2011 in Iraq, Iran supplied IEDs and tactical support.

The Iranians have plotted assassinations and kidnappings on U.S. soil — in 2011, 2021, and again in 2024 — and yet we’ve never really responded.

The precedent for U.S. retaliation has always been present, but no president has chosen to pull the trigger until this past weekend. President Donald Trump struck decisively. And what our military pulled off this weekend was nothing short of extraordinary.

Operation Midnight Hammer

The strike was reportedly called Operation Midnight Hammer. It involved as many as 175 U.S. aircraft, including 12 B-2 stealth bombers — out of just 19 in our entire arsenal. Those bombers are among the most complex machines in the world, and they were kept mission-ready by some of the finest mechanics on the planet.

USAF / Handout | Getty Images

To throw off Iranian radar and intelligence, some bombers flew west toward Guam — classic misdirection. The rest flew east, toward the real targets.

As the B-2s approached Iranian airspace, U.S. submarines launched dozens of Tomahawk missiles at Iran’s fortified nuclear facilities. Minutes later, the bombers dropped 14 MOPs — massive ordnance penetrators — each designed to drill deep into the earth and destroy underground bunkers. These bombs are the size of an F-16 and cost millions of dollars apiece. They are so accurate, I’ve been told they can hit the top of a soda can from 15,000 feet.

They were built for this mission — and we’ve been rehearsing this run for 15 years.

If the satellite imagery is accurate — and if what my sources tell me is true — the targeted nuclear sites were utterly destroyed. We’ll likely rely on the Israelis to confirm that on the ground.

This was a master class in strategy, execution, and deterrence. And it proved that only the United States could carry out a strike like this. I am very proud of our military, what we are capable of doing, and what we can accomplish.

What comes next

We don’t yet know how Iran will respond, but many of the possibilities are troubling. The Iranians could target U.S. forces across the Middle East. On Monday, Tehran launched 20 missiles at U.S. bases in Qatar, Syria, and Kuwait, to no effect. God forbid, they could also unleash Hezbollah or other terrorist proxies to strike here at home — and they just might.

Iran has also threatened to shut down the Strait of Hormuz — the artery through which nearly a fifth of the world’s oil flows. On Sunday, Iran’s parliament voted to begin the process. If the Supreme Council and the ayatollah give the go-ahead, we could see oil prices spike to $150 or even $200 a barrel.

That would be catastrophic.

The 2008 financial collapse was pushed over the edge when oil hit $130. Western economies — including ours — simply cannot sustain oil above $120 for long. If this conflict escalates and the Strait is closed, the global economy could unravel.

The strike also raises questions about regime stability. Will it spark an uprising, or will the Islamic regime respond with a brutal crackdown on dissidents?

Early signs aren’t hopeful. Reports suggest hundreds of arrests over the weekend and at least one dissident executed on charges of spying for Israel. The regime’s infamous morality police, the Gasht-e Ershad, are back on the streets. Every phone, every vehicle — monitored. The U.S. embassy in Qatar issued a shelter-in-place warning for Americans.

Russia and China both condemned the strike. On Monday, a senior Iranian official flew to Moscow to meet with Vladimir Putin. That meeting should alarm anyone paying attention. Their alliance continues to deepen — and that’s a serious concern.

Now we pray

We are either on the verge of a remarkable strategic victory or a devastating global escalation. Time will tell. But either way, President Trump didn’t start this. He inherited it — and he took decisive action.

The difference is, he did what they all said they would do. He didn’t send pallets of cash in the dead of night. He didn’t sign another failed treaty.

He acted. Now, we pray. For peace, for wisdom, and for the strength to meet whatever comes next.


This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Globalize the Intifada? Why Mamdani’s plan spells DOOM for America

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

If New Yorkers hand City Hall to Zohran Mamdani, they’re not voting for change. They’re opening the door to an alliance of socialism, Islamism, and chaos.

It only took 25 years for New York City to go from the resilient, flag-waving pride following the 9/11 attacks to a political fever dream. To quote Michael Malice, “I'm old enough to remember when New Yorkers endured 9/11 instead of voting for it.”

Malice is talking about Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist assemblyman from Queens now eyeing the mayor’s office. Mamdani, a 33-year-old state representative emerging from relative political obscurity, is now receiving substantial funding for his mayoral campaign from the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

CAIR has a long and concerning history, including being born out of the Muslim Brotherhood and named an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror funding case. Why would the group have dropped $100,000 into a PAC backing Mamdani’s campaign?

Mamdani blends political Islam with Marxist economics — two ideologies that have left tens of millions dead in the 20th century alone.

Perhaps CAIR has a vested interest in Mamdani’s call to “globalize the intifada.” That’s not a call for peaceful protest. Intifada refers to historic uprisings of Muslims against what they call the “Israeli occupation of Palestine.” Suicide bombings and street violence are part of the playbook. So when Mamdani says he wants to “globalize” that, who exactly is the enemy in this global scenario? Because it sure sounds like he's saying America is the new Israel, and anyone who supports Western democracy is the new Zionist.

Mamdani tried to clean up his language by citing the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, which once used “intifada” in an Arabic-language article to describe the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. So now he’s comparing Palestinians to Jewish victims of the Nazis? If that doesn’t twist your stomach into knots, you’re not paying attention.

If you’re “globalizing” an intifada, and positioning Israel — and now America — as the Nazis, that’s not a cry for human rights. That’s a call for chaos and violence.

Rising Islamism

But hey, this is New York. Faculty members at Columbia University — where Mamdani’s own father once worked — signed a letter defending students who supported Hamas after October 7. They also contributed to Mamdani’s mayoral campaign. And his father? He blamed Ronald Reagan and the religious right for inspiring Islamic terrorism, as if the roots of 9/11 grew in Washington, not the caves of Tora Bora.

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

This isn’t about Islam as a faith. We should distinguish between Islam and Islamism. Islam is a religion followed peacefully by millions. Islamism is something entirely different — an ideology that seeks to merge mosque and state, impose Sharia law, and destroy secular liberal democracies from within. Islamism isn’t about prayer and fasting. It’s about power.

Criticizing Islamism is not Islamophobia. It is not an attack on peaceful Muslims. In fact, Muslims are often its first victims.

Islamism is misogynistic, theocratic, violent, and supremacist. It’s hostile to free speech, religious pluralism, gay rights, secularism — even to moderate Muslims. Yet somehow, the progressive left — the same left that claims to fight for feminism, LGBTQ rights, and free expression — finds itself defending candidates like Mamdani. You can’t make this stuff up.

Blending the worst ideologies

And if that weren’t enough, Mamdani also identifies as a Democratic Socialist. He blends political Islam with Marxist economics — two ideologies that have left tens of millions dead in the 20th century alone. But don’t worry, New York. I’m sure this time socialism will totally work. Just like it always didn’t.

If you’re a business owner, a parent, a person who’s saved anything, or just someone who values sanity: Get out. I’m serious. If Mamdani becomes mayor, as seems likely, then New York City will become a case study in what happens when you marry ideological extremism with political power. And it won’t be pretty.

This is about more than one mayoral race. It’s about the future of Western liberalism. It’s about drawing a bright line between faith and fanaticism, between healthy pluralism and authoritarian dogma.

Call out radicalism

We must call out political Islam the same way we call out white nationalism or any other supremacist ideology. When someone chants “globalize the intifada,” that should send a chill down your spine — whether you’re Jewish, Christian, Muslim, atheist, or anything in between.

The left may try to shame you into silence with words like “Islamophobia,” but the record is worn out. The grooves are shallow. The American people see what’s happening. And we’re not buying it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Could China OWN our National Parks?

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The left’s idea of stewardship involves bulldozing bison and barring access. Lee’s vision puts conservation back in the hands of the people.

The media wants you to believe that Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) is trying to bulldoze Yellowstone and turn national parks into strip malls — that he’s calling for a reckless fire sale of America’s natural beauty to line developers’ pockets. That narrative is dishonest. It’s fearmongering, and, by the way, it’s wrong.

Here’s what’s really happening.

Private stewardship works. It’s local. It’s accountable. It’s incentivized.

The federal government currently owns 640 million acres of land — nearly 28% of all land in the United States. To put that into perspective, that’s more territory than France, Germany, Poland, and the United Kingdom combined.

Most of this land is west of the Mississippi River. That’s not a coincidence. In the American West, federal ownership isn’t just a bureaucratic technicality — it’s a stranglehold. States are suffocated. Locals are treated as tenants. Opportunities are choked off.

Meanwhile, people living east of the Mississippi — in places like Kentucky, Georgia, or Pennsylvania — might not even realize how little land their own states truly control. But the same policies that are plaguing the West could come for them next.

Lee isn’t proposing to auction off Yellowstone or pave over Yosemite. He’s talking about 3 million acres — that’s less than half of 1% of the federal estate. And this land isn’t your family’s favorite hiking trail. It’s remote, hard to access, and often mismanaged.

Failed management

Why was it mismanaged in the first place? Because the federal government is a terrible landlord.

Consider Yellowstone again. It’s home to the last remaining herd of genetically pure American bison — animals that haven’t been crossbred with cattle. Ranchers, myself included, would love the chance to help restore these majestic creatures on private land. But the federal government won’t allow it.

So what do they do when the herd gets too big?

They kill them. Bulldoze them into mass graves. That’s not conservation. That’s bureaucratic malpractice.

And don’t even get me started on bald eagles — majestic symbols of American freedom and a federally protected endangered species, now regularly slaughtered by wind turbines. I have pictures of piles of dead bald eagles. Where’s the outrage?

Biden’s federal land-grab

Some argue that states can’t afford to manage this land themselves. But if the states can’t afford it, how can Washington? We’re $35 trillion in debt. Entitlements are strained, infrastructure is crumbling, and the Bureau of Land Management, Forest Service, and National Park Service are billions of dollars behind in basic maintenance. Roads, firebreaks, and trails are falling apart.

The Biden administration quietly embraced something called the “30 by 30” initiative, a plan to lock up 30% of all U.S. land and water under federal “conservation” by 2030. The real goal is 50% by 2050.

That entails half of the country being taken away from you, controlled not by the people who live there but by technocrats in D.C.

You think that won’t affect your ability to hunt, fish, graze cattle, or cut timber? Think again. It won’t be conservatives who stop you from building a cabin, raising cattle, or teaching your grandkids how to shoot a rifle. It’ll be the same radical environmentalists who treat land as sacred — unless it’s your truck, your deer stand, or your back yard.

Land as collateral

Moreover, the U.S. Treasury is considering putting federally owned land on the national balance sheet, listing your parks, forests, and hunting grounds as collateral.

What happens if America defaults on its debt?

David McNew / Stringer | Getty Images

Do you think our creditors won’t come calling? Imagine explaining to your kids that the lake you used to fish in is now under foreign ownership, that the forest you hunted in belongs to China.

This is not hypothetical. This is the logical conclusion of treating land like a piggy bank.

The American way

There’s a better way — and it’s the American way.

Let the people who live near the land steward it. Let ranchers, farmers, sportsmen, and local conservationists do what they’ve done for generations.

Did you know that 75% of America’s wetlands are on private land? Or that the most successful wildlife recoveries — whitetail deer, ducks, wild turkeys — didn’t come from Washington but from partnerships between private landowners and groups like Ducks Unlimited?

Private stewardship works. It’s local. It’s accountable. It’s incentivized. When you break it, you fix it. When you profit from the land, you protect it.

This is not about selling out. It’s about buying in — to freedom, to responsibility, to the principle of constitutional self-governance.

So when you hear the pundits cry foul over 3 million acres of federal land, remember: We don’t need Washington to protect our land. We need Washington to get out of the way.

Because this isn’t just about land. It’s about liberty. And once liberty is lost, it doesn’t come back easily.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.