Rumors Fly Following Sudden Departure of Two Trump Team Members

Filling in for Glenn on radio, former New York City police officer John Cardillo offered his commentary on the controvertial departure of two Trump transition team members A.J. Delgado and Jason Miller.

"This situation seems to have sorted itself out the way it ought to have sorted itself out," Cardillo said. "It's going to be very, very interesting to see how this plays out."

Listen to the segment or read the transcript below.

JOHN: Good morning. Welcome to the Glenn Beck Program. I'm John Cardillo. Sitting in for Glenn Beck while he's on a well deserved vacation. And if you're just tuning in, I'll tell you a little bit about myself. So I got my start in media with Glenn. But I am not a media guy by training. I was a New York City cop, and I was an entrepreneur. Started a company where we provided security services to large online communities and wound up spending more time in the legislative arena and really got a front row seat at how law enforcement and our legislative process worked and realized our country was kind of a mess.

And so when I was in a position to do so, needed to expand my platform -- decided to expand my platform so I could get some of this information out to you.

And, luckily, Glenn Beck found me about three -- three and a half years ago. I was like a little shelter dog, but Glenn found me. We had a great conversation on air. We did a segment -- we did a political analysis segment.

We went on to profile some of the radical groups in the US and created a very nice relationship. And I went on to host my own show, down here in Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, and was so flattered, when I was asked to stand in for Glenn today and tomorrow on the Glenn Beck Show.

And being a guy who was pro-Trump -- and Glenn was so anti-Trump. It was even better. It was even better. Because it proved to me there are still some great people in this industry who want their audiences to hear all sides. And it also showed me how we can be friends and disagree on an issue. Isn't that a novel concept?

We don't have to get into these knockdown drag-out grudge matches where we lose friendships over political candidates. We lose colleagues. We lose professional relationships. It's silly. Don't do it. Don't do it.

But there is a bit of turmoil in the Trump campaign right now. I don't know if you've seen the stories on this. But a couple of days ago, the Trump communication director Jason Miller resigned to spend more time with family.

Now, I've got an unfair advantage on this one because one of the players in this little drama is A.J. Delgado -- and you've probably seen A.J. out there. She's -- she was a South Florida -- and then a national surrogate for the Trump campaign.

And prior to that, A.J. was a conservative pundit. You would see her frequently on Fox News, many, many radio and television programs. And she wrote a column.

But I had a front row seat to many of the goings on with the Trump campaign in South Florida, as a member of the media. I was at every rally. And what this is shaking out to be -- and I've got impeccable sources still inside the transition.

And what's happening here -- and you're getting pieces of this in the print media. But I was on the phone all last night, and this might be the first place right here on the Glenn Beck Program that you're going to hear what's really happening from sources inside the transition.

It looks as if -- and now what it's shaking out to be that A.J. Delgado and comes director Jason Miller were having an affair. And it makes it all the more troubling in that Miller is married with children, a child or children. And I believe his wife is also expecting.

Now, I will tell you, from personal experience, I had been at two rallies where A.J. Delgado was present. And I am not a moralist. I'm not a moral cop. I really don't care. But I go to political rallies. I go to events. I don't care who the candidate is. I go to business functions. There's an appropriate way to look, act, and dress. And I will say, that A.J. Delgado was dressed, in my opinion, highly inappropriately for these events. It was a skin, skin, skintight dresses, six-inch heels.

No other women, even the young attractive women were not dressed the same way. But even worse, it was -- and I was with an adviser, very close adviser to the Trump campaign. He was a friend of mine. And he and I were sitting during one of the rallies -- the rally in Miami, down in the Brickell area of Miami at the night center.

I think it was the last rally that Donald Trump held in South Florida before the election. And he and I were sitting there. And people were leaving the VIP, the closed area where the candidate was, where Donald Trump was.

And about 15 people who had come out complained about the way A.J. Delgado was acting. And no one understood why. No one understood how this girl who was picked up as a surrogate and was supposed to just be out there, doing her part in the media, when -- when she was asked to, was all of a sudden acting like she was senior campaign staff.

And I saw it, as an on-air guy down in South Florida and as somebody that was working with the RNC coms people and the Trump coms people, as a conservative radio host, I could not guests booked. We couldn't get guests booked. When Miller was running coms, it became nearly impossible.

Now, the people that were running coms prior to Miller and that team, it was very easy to get good guests booked. So I started seeing a difficulty in getting guests booked.

And then every time I turned on the television, turned on radio, or read something in print, A.J. Delgado had apparently replaced everyone else on the campaign as the premier spokesperson, spokeswoman. It was very weird to me.

Quite candidly, I never saw this coming. We thought maybe she had a relationship with one of the daughters or one of the daughters-in-law, or maybe she had done some legal work for some people previously or she had a patron that was a donor.

But what really crystallized for me that there was something else going on, was when she became the representative to the Cuban American community, which is a very important, very significant voting bloc in South Florida.

And when I was interfacing with some of the old guard -- and these were the solid conservatives. They go to Versailles Restaurant, and they hold court there. And if you don't know what Versailles is -- if you're ever in Miami and you watch any political campaign, whether it be presidential, gubinatorial, congressional, senatorial -- when you want the Cuban vote -- and believe me, you need it if you're going to win Florida. You go to Versailles. It's a restaurant down in Little Havana. That really is the kingdom. That's where you need to hold court and meet with the old guard.

And when I started talking to those guys and those women, they didn't know who she was. They said, who? Huh?

There were so many prominent Cuban Americans that should have had that role, and many of them were dismayed that A.J. Delgado, a young girl in her 30s, who really came out of nowhere, who was a columnist and, you know, commentator, pundit about the media, took a role that many, many other people were better suited for. Well, now it all makes sense.

Now, look, I'm not the moral police. So I'm not here to judge anybody. But campaign affairs happen. And people who work on campaigns know they happen. And typically, both sides are smart enough to know that that affair ends when the campaign is over. People go back to their life.

They take jobs in the administration. There's more -- there's more scrutiny on the players at that point, on the ancillary staff. During the campaign, it's all on the candidates. There's limited airtime. The candidates are dueling it out. They're duking it out. But when the campaign is over, they start looking at staff, right?

Because if you're the left-wing media and you want to hurt a candidate, well, you have vetted that candidate to hell and back during the campaign. So barring them doing something really stupid or really egregious, there's not much more to report, other than your normal hit pieces and attacking their policy positions. And in the case -- Donald Trump, they beat him up on his tweets, which I happened to like, but I'll tell you why later.

But you look at the staff. And so Miller was a smart enough guy to realize, "Hey, they're going to be looking at me. This was a fun fling. Now it's time for real work. Now we are the candidate. Now we've got to go govern. Okay. Playtime is over. Let's get back to work."

Well, apparently this didn't set too well with Ms. Delgado. Now, what I've been told is an email went out to all of the major players on the transition team, depicting and detailing the affair.

Hell hath no fury like a Cubana scorned. I mean, from what I'm hearing, it was pretty bad.

She then took to Twitter with a series of tweets. And one of them referenced a -- and it's almost embarrassing for me, as a grown man, to say this on air, a baby daddy, which seemed to imply there was a little more to this affair and she had directed this at Jason Miller.

Well, her whole Twitter feed gets deleted. And I was told yesterday that both she and Miller were fired. Miller was allowed to quietly resign and save face. And A.J.'s face was quietly killed and she was made a pariah. And I was told she is on the, quote, unquote, warpath by someone very senior on the campaign.

But my point of bringing this to light, we have a duty -- right? Whether we're in the conservative media, the liberal media, when we get information like this, we've got a duty to let you know who the players are.

And I think -- I personally -- Donald Trump is going to be a very good president. And I'm going to tell you why in the next hour. I'm going to explain to you why his rhetoric and his style never scared me. It didn't bother me, as much as it did to other people. But I'll explain why I understand that it did bother and offend and scare some people.

But when -- when I looked at people that worked around this campaign -- and let me tell you, there was some of the hardest working, most honest, most diligent people, working on this campaign. And I knew them. And in the south Florida region -- and Florida on the whole, many of them were friends of mine.

It was very disappointing to me to see people taking the limelight. A.J. Delgado was one of those people. And A.J. Delgado and I haven't -- don't really know each other. She blocked me on Twitter a couple of years ago. I think I disagreed with her on -- she was pro Common Core, because she was a moderate. A center moderate. Quote, unquote, conservative. And then she became this newly minted conservative. I just think it was -- she's replaced Chuck Schumer as the person that is most dangerous between them and a camera.

But I -- I need to bring this out because a lot of good people were hurt by these grandstanders. Hard-working people. And I don't care where you stand politically. People that do work, people that are the grinders that have the ethic, that are doing the work and that don't want the thanks shouldn't be treated poorly by those who seek glory.

And karma is an interesting thing. Divine intervention is a really interesting thing. And all I'll say -- and I'll leave you with, this situation seems to have sorted itself out the way it ought to have sorted itself out. It -- it's going to be very, very interesting to see how this plays out.

But progressives also don't live by this standard. They think they're impervious to any critique. To all the rules. And can act in any way they want. And that was really -- really made evident when two gay men attacked a mom and her children on a JetBlue flight a couple of days before Christmas.

Featured Image: Julie Dermansky/Getty Images

Without civic action, America faces collapse

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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.