GLENN: President Trump may just be the master media manipulator he is after all. I have to tell you, I'm watching this in awe and sometimes aghast from both sides. I'm just watching this as a casual observer of history, and I can't believe what I'm seeing.
And I haven't figured it out yet. It could be that Donald Trump is the -- is the best watch the other hand guy I've ever seen. Remember, we used to say that about Barack Obama. Right, right, right. Stop arguing about that. What is the other hand doing?
We'll see. But also, he is overwhelming the system. Exactly what happened last time with Barack Obama, to the -- to the right, Donald Trump is doing to the left. There's no way you can keep up with all of this.
Tonight, at 8 o'clock, he's announcing his SCOTUS pick. In typical Trump fashion, don't miss must-see TV, Wednesday night. Is it Wednesday today? Or is it Tuesday?
STU: Tuesday. It is Tuesday. At least for the whole day.
GLENN: It's Tuesday? Wow. Wow. It's only been -- really? Yesterday was only 24 hours. It seemed like 48.
So tonight, don't miss. Ensuring as many eyeballs are possible on him tomorrow night, according to the sources close to our program, out of the 21 candidates that Trump has released prior to the election, it's down to three, and more likely, it's between two of the three men.
But here are the three finalists and what their nominations could mean to the future of the Supreme Court. Coming three at number three is William Pryor, the partisan, if you will. He is right of Alito and left of Clarence Thomas. And Pryor is the judge from the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta. He's the oldest of the possible choices, but he's still only 54. He still has a long career ahead of him on the bench.
However, he is by far the most outspoken of the three and the -- and definitely the least liked by the Democrats. Choosing Pryor would fit the mold of Trump about not caring about what anybody says, but the president would be in for a fight, if he was going to get him confirmed.
Chances are, he'll get him three, but he would spend an awful lot of political capital, which remains to be seen, if that even matters for this administration.
One sticking point for the evangelicals was when he, as attorney general of Alabama, had judge Roy Moore ousted for refusing to obey a federal court order and removed the Ten Commandments from the state judicial building.
Pryor said at the time, I'm just following the court's order. But this was a knock on him for the far right, and they have held on to that. As well as his recent support for transgendered rights.
He is not afraid to say what he believes, which is why the left calls him a bomb-thrower and considers him a cultural warrior. Many on the right see him as a rising conservative star, and he is a fierce critic of Roe vs. Wade. He has upheld the Georgia voter ID law and has called for sectarian prayers for opening a local commission meeting constitutional. He's probably not Scalia in waiting, but who is?
He is more in the mold of Alito, but all of this may be moot if the reports are correct, because he is, out of the three, the one who is really on the outside looking in.
Second one, the centrist, Thomas Hardiman. He is left of Roberts. Wow. Let's think about that one for a second, Stu. Left of Roberts.
STU: Yeah, I've been thinking about it.
GLENN: And right of Kennedy.
STU: And you might say to yourself, why the heck would Donald Trump appoint a centrist? Well, you know, there's a lot of reasons for it. But the one they're talking about now, as far as the way these games work is the rest of the court, they believe, will take a signal by -- as to who Trump nominates here as to how Trump is going to treat this situation. So if he goes for someone who is really right-wing and crazy, then people like Kennedy might say, "Well, I don't want to retire and let him name another crazy person to the bench."
So they're thinking -- the thought is -- and, again, this is all crazy inside-the-Beltway speculation, but the thought is, if he were to name a centrist, then Kennedy would feel more comfortable in his departure. And then if he departed, they could name a conservative to replace him.
I know that's a lot of --
GLENN: You know what that sound like? Honestly, you know what that sounds like to me? If I were sitting in the seat of the Oval Office, I would say, "Progressive BSer, get behind me."
STU: Uh-huh.
GLENN: That sounds like something that a progressive would say to an incoming president who is really trying to get the president to pick a centrist.
STU: Right.
GLENN: Look, I'm telling you, if you do this, this time, what will happen next time -- I mean, that just sounds like bullcrap.
STU: Right. But the question is, which progressive are you talking about? If that progressive happens to be Anthony Kennedy, then it might be a viable thing. I would not risk it.
GLENN: I wouldn't either.
STU: If you lose a Scalia and replace him with someone who as this article talks about, left of Roberts, you're in -- you're in for some trouble there. That's not a good sign. And if Kennedy doesn't step down, you have no conservative rulings potentially --
GLENN: Yeah, you have nothing. You have nothing.
STU: That's a huge problem. You think with Trump too, all his progressive sort of things with executive orders and all these big changes he wants to make, the last thing he wants to do is put the Supreme Court up to risk. There was obviously a reason that a lot of people who were very skeptical of him voted for him anyway. So, I mean, going for a centrist here is risky.
The one thing about this, which is -- we mentioned it I think yesterday is that he works with Trump's sister. Trump's sister knows him very well, and --
GLENN: I bet you this is the guy. I bet you this is the guy.
JEFFY: That's a big in. That's a big in.
GLENN: Yeah, that's a huge in.
STU: Because that was his initial reaction, right? I would name my sister. She would be a great judge.
And then obviously, over time, he kind of realized that that was just reactionary.
GLENN: Yeah.
STU: But here's a kind of way you can do it. He's got to have inside information on this person from his sister.
GLENN: Yep.
STU: He's going to know -- now, assuming his sister likes him. Maybe his sister hates him. But he's lasted this long on this list. You think he's got to be fairly well liked. They sided together on a lot of major decisions. So, you know, this one is -- it's interesting. He was not really one of the ones talked about, up until the last couple of weeks.
GLENN: I bet you it's him.
STU: It could be.
JEFFY: That's a good bet.
GLENN: This is exactly the kind of guy that every Republican president always nominates.
STU: I know, but that's not supposed to be what Trump does. Right? So maybe he won't.
GLENN: I know. I know. All right.
So the name again is Thomas Hardiman. I hope this isn't the guy. More moderate than the other choices. He's left of Roberts. Right of Kennedy.
Many conservatives are wary, after Kennedy and Roberts haven't turned out the way they hoped. He is only one of the candidates or sitting members of the bench without an Ivy League pedigree. He grew up in public schools, blue-collar family. Went to Notre Dame -- or, Notre Dame. And put himself through law school at Georgetown by driving a cab.
Is he the Catholic of the group? Can you find out if he's Catholic?
STU: Sure.
GLENN: He fits the bill with pro-life stance. He's strong on the Second Amendment. But he is seen as government-friendly. He has sided with Big Brother on censorship issues. He's 51 and would have influence for decades to come. He might be the most confirmable of the three, having been confirmed 95 to zero on the appellate court, receiving votes from Chuck Schumer and Dianne Feinstein. Feinstein. Stein. Stein.
Former -- he's a former trial judge who has been serving on the Third Court of Appeals in Philadelphia. Happens to be the same court as President Trump's sister. He receives a glowing recommendation from her, and he is thought to have -- and she is thought to have significant influence on her brother.
This may be the nominee.
The number one pick, according to GlennBeck.com, is Neil Gorsuch. He's a Libertarian. He is -- listen to this -- right of Scalia and left of Clarence Thomas.
STU: I'm comfortable with that. If that description is accurate, I am comfortable with that.
GLENN: I am so comfortable with this. This would be the guy. Out of these three, this would be the guy.
Gorsuch is not a name that many people know outside of political junky circles. He has quickly risen to the top of the list over the past couple of weeks. He's 49 years old. So he has the best chance theoretically of having the longest lasting influence. He is pro-life. He has sided against assisted suicide, but he has yet to rule on an abortion case. But they believe because he has stated pro-life and he has gone against assisted suicide -- which I don't understand how a Libertarian does that. A Libertarian should be for -- should be pro-life, if they think it's murder. Which I do. So it should be protecting -- the rights of the unborn child. But then to protect the rights of the living, should be able to say, "What you do with your own life is your business."
STU: And I don't know that he's -- I think they're describing him as a Libertarian. I don't know that he's stated that I am a Libertarian. You know --
GLENN: Well, I doubt he's stated he's a Libertarian. You're not going to get elected.
STU: Right.
GLENN: This might help win some votes from the Democrats, while conservatives can still feel relatively comfortable on where he stands. His lack of record makes him less likely to be borked than the Pryor nomination could.
I will tell you that where we get in trouble is people saying, "Hey, he doesn't have a record on these things," and so we guess on what their record is going to be.
STU: Yeah, that is an issue. And, by the way, also, a big issue with Hardiman -- I mean, I think his record is even thinner than Gorsuch. You know, they're both on the younger side, as far as justices go. They don't necessarily have the really long record of an older judge. But, I mean, you look at the -- there's a sentence in the longer profile of Hardiman, which says he's never had any abortion rulings either. So the only one -- you can be pretty darn sure that Pryor is going to be on the right side of that one, of these three.
And I think Gorsuch, reading in context, I mean, he has ruled in cases that would -- you know, one of the big things about Gorsuch, which I liked was, this was the guy we talked about who is -- he doesn't seem to be friendly to things that aren't in the Constitution.
GLENN: Yes.
STU: The Dormant Clauses, like the Dormant Privacy Clause, which leads to abortion or the Dormant Commerce Clause. And that's why there's a large indication that he would be pro-life. But it's true. The record is not extensive on the topic.
GLENN: If you look at his record that we know -- and there are some disturbing things in there, but if you look at the record of the things that we know, he has the best chance I think of being game-changing for the Supreme Court.
STU: Uh-huh.
GLENN: Let me finish.
Let's see: He has sided with Hobby Lobby. He also sided with Little Sisters of the Poor, in upholding their right to follow their religious belief when it came to mandatory birth control for the nuns. And he's believed to have the Libertarian streak of Scalia and the style of Roberts. He has stated that he's an originalist, meaning he believes in the interpretation of the Constitution as written, rather than pronouncing the law as they might wish it to be in light of their own political views.
STU: It's amazing that there's another side to that argument: Have a written or how you might think it might be because of your political views -- which one do you think? How should we rule on this? Ugh.
GLENN: I know. Right.
So we don't know. You know, there's speculation that Justice Roberts was blackmailed at the last hour. That is something that I would really like to hear some -- if there are any good facts on that one. Because that ruling from Justice Roberts was just bizarre.
STU: Bizarre.
GLENN: Bizarre. And the fact that he showed up with puffy red eyes -- it was obvious that he rewrote it in the middle of the night because of the way it was written. It shows that he was actually on the other side and then just changed things. But it was rushed so quickly, he didn't change all of it. It was just bizarre.
But, anyway, he is a champion of small government conservatism like Antonin Scalia. Chances are the nominee will stand in the vast shadow of his legacy and never eclipse the works that he was able to accomplish. That being said, there will be a nominee, and it appears to be one of these three.
According to conservative circles, Hardiman is the least liked. Pryor is beloved by some, questioned by others.
And when the dust settles, Donald Trump lands on Neil Gorsuch. Conservatives could do much worse. But let's see what happens.
STU: Yeah, that's all up on GlennBeck.com, by the way. You can read that whole analysis.
GLENN: Right.
STU: And this is assuming, by the way, the purports are right. Who knows? Maybe Trump goes a totally different direction.
GLENN: Yeah. And it will be interesting because this is the one the religious community said, "This is the most important." And they put all of their eggs in this basket and had been telling him, "We want our pick." And it is not Hardiman. Let's see if it's paid off.
Something ugly is unfolding on social media, and most people aren’t seeing it clearly. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) — one of the most constitutionally grounded conservatives in Washington — is under fire for a housing provision he first proposed in 2022.
You wouldn’t know that from scrolling through X. According to the latest online frenzy, Lee wants to sell off national parks, bulldoze public lands, gut hunting and fishing rights, and hand America’s wilderness to Amazon, BlackRock, and the Chinese Communist Party. None of that is true.
I covered this last month. Since then, the backlash has grown into something like a political witch hunt — not just from the left but from the right. Even Donald Trump Jr., someone I typically agree with, has attacked Lee’s proposal. He’s not alone.
Time to look at the facts the media refuses to cover about Lee’s federal land plan.
Over the weekend, Lee announced that he would withdraw the federal land sale provision from his housing bill. He said the decision was in response to “a tremendous amount of misinformation — and in some cases, outright lies,” but also acknowledged that many Americans brought forward sincere, thoughtful concerns.
Because of the strict rules surrounding the budget reconciliation process, Lee couldn’t secure legally enforceable protections to ensure that the land would be made available “only to American families — not to China, not to BlackRock, and not to any foreign interests.” Without those safeguards, he chose to walk it back.
That’s not selling out. That’s leadership.
It's what the legislative process is supposed to look like: A senator proposes a bill, the people respond, and the lawmaker listens. That was once known as representative democracy. These days, it gets you labeled a globalist sellout.
To many Americans, “public land” brings to mind open spaces for hunting, fishing, hiking, and recreation. But that’s not what Sen. Mike Lee’s bill targeted.
His proposal would have protected against the real land-grab already under way — the one pushed by the Biden administration.
In 2021, Biden launched a plan to “conserve” 30% of America’s lands and waters by 2030. This effort follows the United Nations-backed “30 by 30” initiative, which seeks to place one-third of all land and water under government control.
Ask yourself: Is the U.N. focused on preserving your right to hunt and fish? Or are radical environmentalists exploiting climate fears to restrict your access to American land?
Smith Collection/Gado / Contributor | Getty Images
As it stands, the federal government already owns 640 million acres — nearly one-third of the entire country. At this rate, the government will hit that 30% benchmark with ease. But it doesn’t end there. The next phase is already in play: the “50 by 50” agenda.
That brings me to a piece of legislation most Americans haven’t even heard of: the Sustains Act.
Passed in 2023, the law allows the federal government to accept private funding from organizations, such as BlackRock or the Bill Gates Foundation, to support “conservation programs.” In practice, the law enables wealthy elites to buy influence over how American land is used and managed.
Moreover, the government doesn’t even need the landowner’s permission to declare that your property contributes to “pollination,” or “photosynthesis,” or “air quality” — and then regulate it accordingly. You could wake up one morning and find out that the land you own no longer belongs to you in any meaningful sense.
Where was the outrage then? Where were the online crusaders when private capital and federal bureaucrats teamed up to quietly erode private property rights across America?
The real danger isn’t in Mike Lee’s attempt to offer more housing near population centers — land that would be limited, clarified, and safeguarded in the final bill. The real threat is the creeping partnership between unelected global elites and our own government, a partnership designed to consolidate land, control rural development, and keep Americans penned in so-called “15-minute cities.”
BlackRock buying entire neighborhoods and pricing out regular families isn’t by accident. It’s part of a larger strategy to centralize populations into manageable zones, where cars are unnecessary, rural living is unaffordable, and every facet of life is tracked, regulated, and optimized.
That’s the real agenda. And it’s already happening , and Mike Lee’s bill would have been an effort to ensure that you — not BlackRock, not China — get first dibs.
I live in a town of 451 people. Even here, in the middle of nowhere, housing is unaffordable. The American dream of owning a patch of land is slipping away, not because of one proposal from a constitutional conservative, but because global powers and their political allies are already devouring it.
This controversy isn’t really about Mike Lee. It’s about whether we, as a nation, are still capable of having honest debates about public policy — or whether the online mob now controls the narrative. It’s about whether conservatives will focus on facts or fall into the trap of friendly fire and circular firing squads.
More importantly, it’s about whether we’ll recognize the real land-grab happening in our country — and have the courage to fight back before it’s too late.
This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
