GLENN: I am honored to bring on the chairman of CPAC. Matt Schlapp. Matt is a guy who I think I told you a year or two ago, I had a kind of falling out with CPAC because it'll they were welcoming in a lot of people that were not necessarily good for the Constitution and didn't really like to have voices that pointed out that progressives can be Republicans as well.
Matt took over, I don't know, a couple of years ago and has really done a great job with CPAC. He invited me to speak last year. And they invited me to speak again this year. This year, I can't make it because of a prior commitment. We're on our way to Bangkok, the night that CPAC starts. Otherwise, I would be there. Because this is a really important CPAC.
The conservative movement has to really come together and decide who they are, what are the principles. What are our founding principles? And do they still mean anything?
Ted Cruz is going to be there. Sheriff David Clarke is going to be there. Matt Bevin. Oh, man. Jim DeMint. Mike Pence. Don't know if President Trump is going to be there yet. Matt Schlapp is joining us now. Hello, Matt, how are you?
MATT: Glenn, great to be with you?
GLENN: Good to be with you. Is President Trump coming?
MATT: You know, I'm hopeful that he'll come, but I can't say that we have confirmation yet.
GLENN: Okay. The theme -- you and I talked about a few weeks ago about the theme. Explain the theme of this year's CPAC.
MATT: We, the people, reclaiming America's promise. We feel like two things, number one, like you throughout the last decade, we've lost so much of what we want America to be and what America is supposed to be. And number two, we think that activists need to be reminded of the principles of our founding. And our executive director Dave Schneider makes every intern memorize the definition of what conservatism is from -- from a wide variety of viewpoints. And that definition, he believes is best said that conservatism is the philosophy that sovereignty resides in the individual.
It's amazing, such a basic term -- or basic concept, how far our government gets from that.
And so I know CPAC is fun. And I know people come to hear from great leaders like yourself, Glenn. And we were so pleased you could be there last year. And, you know, we were disappointed that the scheduling doesn't allow you to be here this year, but we want you to know we want you back. We want you back as often as you can. Because you have an important voice. People want to listen to those voices. But they also need to learn, and they also need to be sometimes reeducated, re-indoctrinated about why we were founded because so many of our institutions and, you know, mainstream leaders don't do that well.
GLENN: So, Matt, there is a -- there is a disturbing trend around the world towards nationalism. Can you explain the difference between nationalism and conservatism?
MATT: Yeah. Yeah. You know, conservative -- one of the things I thought you said great leading up to CPAC last year and in your remarks is, you know, you talked about this idea that there had been a pledge amongst the different Republican candidates. And you'll say it more eloquently than I will, Glenn, but you talked about the fact that we still pledge ourselves to a party, right? We pledge ourselves to our ideals. We make a commitment to our ideals.
And I think conservatism obviously is something innate in the human being. And so if sovereignty resides in the individual, I think it's important for people to understand who gave us that sovereignty, and that's our creator, obviously.
And so when people get pumped up on Americanism or nationalism -- I'm okay with those terms, as long as it means sovereignty and the understanding that we did come together to create a government and allow the government to have authority over us in certain areas because we've given it to them. I'm great with that concept of sovereignty.
GLENN: Yeah, if America doesn't mean the place -- you know, being pro-American doesn't mean the place. You know, I love the American flag.
Well, you know, I think it's nice. But I love what the flag stands for. I mean, America is an idea. And it's the idea that we should be holding high, not the things that represent the idea, but the actual idea.
MATT: Yeah, I completely agree with that. And, look, and I think we are trying to reacquaint ourselves politically with what these terms mean. Because I feel like there are so many Americans that feel abandoned. And that can lead to good things and bad things.
When you feel abandoned, it can have you reevaluate what you think and strengthen you and those things that are important. And it can also lead you to bad places. And, you know, our country is searching. And I'm confident that we're going to end up in the right place.
GLENN: So the Obamacare repeal. The -- I had a senator write me yesterday and say -- and he sent me a Politico article, and he said, "My gosh, this is frightening." And it was how the G.O.P. is turning on itself. And starting to eat its -- you know, eat its own. But there are real issues that are at stake here. You know, what -- are we playing -- are we playing games?
For instance, the G.O.P. that is turning against, you know, building the wall saying, "Look, we'll build the wall, but you got to pay for it first." How do you see this coming together, Matt?
MATT: Well, the legislative. Standing for borders, standing for Obamacare repeal, standing for free market health care in a rhetorical sense is the easy part, Glenn. You know that, right?
GLENN: Yeah.
MATT: The hard part is: How do you bring this together practically?
GLENN: And doing it constitutionally.
MATT: Right. Right. Whatever that means anymore.
GLENN: Right.
MATT: When the Constitution can mean almost anything. You know, it's almost like a throwaway line, when people say "constitutionally." But I know you don't mean that. But, I mean, in our society today, it's like we literally have to go back and read it to people and say, "And here's what those words mean." Right?
As you did last year in your speech at CPAC which was great. Because we have to make the old fresh again by reminding folks that all of these controversies actually surround the concepts that we're the reason that we disagreed to a Constitution. And so when you look at the practical nature of all of the things Donald Trump and the Republican candidates who ran for president and all those senators and congressmen ran on, now they're demonstrating, yes, we know as conservatives that they were right in what they said in eliminating -- in repealing Obamacare. Cutting taxes and getting rid of the regulatory state and appointing constitutionalists to the bench. But now we have to be practical and actually do it in a way that works.
We're not good at that, Glenn. So I don't want to be -- tell you that I think we have it licked and it's going to be easy. I think it's going to be really tough. And you get down to the point where, do you get 100 percent of what you want? Do you get 91 percent of what you want? Does the practical get you too far away from the principles that you are trying to uphold?
GLENN: Talking to Matt Schlapp. He's the head of CPAC. Which CPAC happens -- it's starting next Thursday, right?
MATT: Yeah, it's actually a week from today. Which, for those of us organizing, it is always a little scary, as you can imagine.
A week from today, Wednesday -- next Wednesday, we start with our boot camp, which is training for our activists. We always have about over 1,000 activists that come together on the first day of CPAC, that just simply learn to be better activists.
But you're right, the main program starts a week from tomorrow, the 23rd, and runs through Saturday, the 25th.
GLENN: Okay. So, Matt, have you noticed -- I've really tried to take a page from Milton Friedman who did this so well, where he would sit down and talk to anyone. I mean, he was a regular guest on The Phil Donahue Show for a while.
MATT: He was.
GLENN: And he could talk to anybody. And he was just this reasonable guy who stood by what he believed. I think there's a real opportunity now for conservatives to take this approach and ratchet things down because I'm shocked at the number of people on the left that are suddenly finding federalism as a really good idea.
(laughter)
MATT: You're right because they're seeing so much failure around them. Epic failure. And even they might be saying, "Hey, you know, maybe -- you know, most mayors in this country are Democrats now." You know, that's a real shift over the last 20 years. So maybe they like the idea that some of these mayors get to make some of these decisions.
Now, maybe that's not the way you or I or your listeners would view federalism. But anything we can do to get power and influence and money out of DC is a good thing. That being said, there's a lot of bad things that happen at state capitols.
GLENN: Yeah. What I'm looking at is this weird opportunity that I've never seen coming, where we have a lot in common with some not necessarily leftists, but Democrats, to where -- and, again, not the party. But people in the middle of the country are starting to say, look, I don't want to be afraid of the president. Right. Right. We should rebalance back to the Constitution.
MATT: That's right. Yeah, and separation of powers is the first doctrine, which talks more about the federal government.
GLENN: Right.
MATT: But also the concept of the Tenth Amendment, where so many of these authorities don't even belong here. How did they even get here? How did they get to DC? They don't belong here. And one of the things we're working on at ACU, is we love our conference, CPAC, but we're operational 365 days a year, and we have this great project called the Family Prosperity Index, which is run out of our C3. It's completely nonpartisan. And we're looking at the health of families in all 50 states. We rank all 50 states on the health of families.
And you know what we do, Glenn? We don't moralize or try to implement sermons into the public policy? We simply look at all the government data that comes out -- by the way, the government tracks us, as you know, in every conceivable way.
And we take in all that data and put it into an index so we can actually tell states, you know, if they're doing a good job with their families or not doing a good job with their families when it comes to public policy. And we've actually went to Rhode Island and talked to liberals who showed up. And they were shocked to know in Rhode Island, they spend about the most on their safety net programs, and the health of their families is about at the bottom of the pack. And even they were like, "Well, this is not what we want. We don't want unhealthy families in Rhode Island."
GLENN: Uh-huh.
MATT: So you're right. There's a huge opportunity to kind of break down these barriers.
GLENN: Matt Schlapp. CPAC, which begins next week, February 22nd through the 25th in Washington, DC.
MATT: That's right.
GLENN: You can get tickets at CPAC.org. I urge you to go. They have a great lineup this year. And I so appreciate, Matt, the invitation to join next year. If you have the dates, I'll put it on my calendar for next year.
MATT: Really -- we really want you there. We're sorry you can't be there this year, but you're a busy guy. We're all busy. You can't be at something every year. But we want you back next year.
GLENN: You got it.
MATT: We appreciate your voice. It's an important voice for the movement.
GLENN: Thank you very much, Matt. I appreciate it.
MATT: Thank you, Glenn.
GLENN: Grab your tickets at CPAC.org. And we'll be telling you beginning next week why we're going to Bangkok. But I'm going to Bangkok and the whole show is going. And we have something pretty aggressive that we want to announce. And we would ask for your help with. And we'll tell you more about that beginning next week. And then we leave for Bangkok -- is it Thursday we leave? I think we leave for Bangkok Thursday and we arrive maybe Tuesday. I mean, it's --
STU: It's actually --
GLENN: I've never gone to the other side of the earth.
STU: Yeah, that's really far. Really far.
JEFFY: Really far.
GLENN: Yeah, it's a long -- satellite is a lot easier.
STU: I was looking at one of the flights. I sorted for shortest time on Orbitz just to see what it was. It was 14 hours to Tokyo, then another seven hours to Bangkok.
PAT: That's only 21 hours.
STU: That's long.
PAT: It's not even a full day when you think about it.
GLENN: Right! Oh -- oh, cry me a river. You don't want to sit in the chair and watch TV for 21 hours. Actually, no, I don't.
PAT: No. But...
GLENN: No, I don't.
The search for truth has always required something very much in short supply these days: honesty. Not performative questions, not scripted outrage, not whatever happens to be trending on TikTok, but real curiosity.
Some issues, often focused on foreign aid, AIPAC, or Israel, have become hotbeds of debate and disagreement. Before we jump into those debates, however, we must return to a simpler, more important issue: honest questioning. Without it, nothing in these debates matters.
The phrase “just asking questions” has re-entered the zeitgeist, and that’s fine. We should always question power. But too many of those questions feel preloaded with someone else’s answer. If the goal is truth, then the questions should come from a sincere desire to understand, not from a hunt for a villain.
Honest desire for truth is the only foundation that can support a real conversation about these issues.
Right now, plenty of people are not seeking the truth at all. They are repeating something they heard from a politician on cable news or from a stranger on TikTok who has never opened a history book. That is not a search for answers. That is simply outsourcing your own thought.
If you want the truth, you need to work for it. You cannot treat the world like a Marvel movie where the good guy appears in a cape and the villain hisses on command. Real life does not give you a neat script with the moral wrapped up in two hours.
But that is how people are approaching politics now. They want the oppressed and the oppressor, the heroic underdog and the cartoon villain. They embrace this fantastical framing because it is easier than wrestling with reality.
This framing took root in the 1960s when the left rebuilt its worldview around colonizers and the colonized. Overnight, Zionism was recast as imperialism. Suddenly, every conflict had to fit the same script. Today’s young activists are just recycling the same narrative with updated graphics. Everything becomes a morality play. No nuance, no context, just the comforting clarity of heroes and villains.
This same mindset is fueling the sudden obsession with Israel, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in particular. You hear it from members of Congress and activists alike: AIPAC pulls the strings, AIPAC controls the government, AIPAC should register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The questions are dramatic, but are they being asked in good faith?
FARA is clear. The standard is whether an individual or group acts under the direction or control of a foreign government. AIPAC simply does not qualify.
Here is a detail conveniently left out of these arguments: Dozens of domestic organizations — Armenian, Cuban, Irish, Turkish — lobby Congress on behalf of other countries. None of them registers under FARA because — like AIPAC — they are independent, domestic organizations.
If someone has a sincere problem with the structure of foreign lobbying, fair enough. Let us have that conversation. But singling out AIPAC alone is not a search for truth. It is bias dressed up as bravery.
Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images
If someone wants to question foreign aid to Israel, fine. Let’s have that debate. But let’s ask the right questions. The issue is not the size of the package but whether the aid advances our interests. What does the United States gain? Does the investment strengthen our position in the region? How does it compare to what we give other nations? And do we examine those countries with the same intensity?
These questions reflect good-faith scrutiny. But narrowing the entire argument to one country or one dollar amount misses the larger problem. If someone objects to the way America handles foreign aid, the target is not Israel. The target is the system itself — an entrenched bureaucracy, poor transparency, and decades-old commitments that have never been re-examined. Those problems run through programs around the world.
If you want answers, you need to broaden the lens. You have to be willing to put aside the movie script and confront reality. You have to hold yourself to a simple rule: Ask questions because you want the truth, not because you want a target.
That is the only way this country ever gets clarity on foreign aid, influence, alliances, and our place in the world. Questioning is not just allowed. It is essential. But only if it is honest.
This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.
It is time to talk honestly about what is happening inside America’s rapidly growing Muslim communities. In city after city, large pockets of newcomers are choosing to build insulated enclaves rather than enter the broader American culture.
That trend is accelerating, and the longer we ignore it, the harder it becomes to address.
America has always welcomed people of every faith and people from every corner of the world, but the deal has never changed: You come here and you join the American family. You are free to honor your traditions, keep your faith, but you must embrace the Constitution as the supreme law of the land. You melt into the shared culture that allows all of us to live side by side.
Across the country, this bargain is being rejected by Islamist communities that insist on building a parallel society with its own rules, its own boundaries, and its own vision for how life should be lived.
Texas illustrates the trend. The state now has roughly 330 mosques. At least 48 of them were built in just the last 24 months. The Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex alone has around 200 Islamic centers. Houston has another hundred or so. Many of these communities have no interest in blending into American life.
This is not the same as past waves of immigration. Irish, Italian, Korean, Mexican, and every other group arrived with pride in their heritage. Still, they also raised American flags and wanted their children to be part of the country’s future. They became doctors, small-business owners, teachers, and soldiers. They wanted to be Americans.
What we are watching now is not the melting pot. It is isolation by design.
More than 300 fundamentalist Islamic schools now operate full-time across the country. Many use Quran-first curricula that require students to spend hours memorizing religious texts before they ever reach math or science. In Dallas, Brighter Horizons Academy enrolls more than 1,700 students and draws federal support while operating on a social model that keeps children culturally isolated.
Then there is the Epic City project in Collin and Hunt counties — 402 acres originally designated only for Muslim buyers, with Sharia-compliant financing and a mega-mosque at the center. After public outcry and state investigations, the developers renamed it “The Meadows,” but a new sign does not erase the original intent. It is not a neighborhood. It is a parallel society.
Americans should not hesitate to say that parallel societies are dangerous. Europe tried this experiment, and the results could not be clearer. In Germany, France, and the United Kingdom, entire neighborhoods now operate under their own cultural rules, some openly hostile to Western norms. When citizens speak up, they are branded bigots for asserting a basic right: the ability to live safely in their own communities.
While this separation widens, another crisis is unfolding at home. A recent Gallup survey shows that about 40% of American women ages 18 to 39 would leave the country permanently if given the chance. Nearly half of a rising generation — daughters, sisters, soon-to-be mothers — no longer believe this nation is worth building a future in.
And who shapes the worldview of young boys? Their mothers. If a mother no longer believes America is home, why would her child grow up ready to defend it?
As Texas goes, so goes America. And as America goes, so goes the free world. If we lose confidence in our own national identity at the same time that we allow separatist enclaves to spread unchecked, the outcome is predictable. Europe is already showing us what comes next: cultural fracture, political radicalization, and the slow death of national unity.
Brandon Bell / Staff | Getty Images
America welcomes Muslims. America defends their right to worship freely. A Muslim who loves the Constitution, respects the rule of law, and wants to raise a family in peace is more than welcome in America.
But an Islamist movement that rejects assimilation, builds enclaves governed by its own religious framework, and treats American law as optional is not simply another participant in our melting pot. It is a direct challenge to it. If we refuse to call this problem out out of fear of being called names, we will bear the consequences.
Europe is already feeling those consequences — rising conflict and a political class too paralyzed to admit the obvious. When people feel their culture, safety, and freedoms slipping away, they will follow anyone who promises to defend them. History has shown that over and over again.
Stand up. Speak plainly. Be unafraid. You can practice any faith in this country, but the supremacy of the Constitution and the Judeo-Christian moral framework that shaped it is non-negotiable. It is what guarantees your freedom in the first place.
If you come here and honor that foundation, welcome. If you come here to undermine it, you do not belong here.
Wake up to what is unfolding before the consequences arrive. Because when a nation refuses to say what is true, the truth eventually forces its way in — and by then, it is always too late.
This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.
The No. 1 country song in America right now was not written in Nashville or Texas or even L.A. It came from code. “Walk My Walk,” the AI-generated single by the AI artist Breaking Rust, hit the top spot on Billboard’s Country Digital Song Sales chart, and if you listen to it without knowing that fact, you would swear a real singer lived the pain he is describing.
Except there is no “he.” There is no lived experience. There is no soul behind the voice dominating the country music charts.
I will admit it: I enjoy some AI music. Some of it is very good. And that leaves us with a question that is no longer science fiction. If a machine can fake being human this well, what does it mean to be human?
This is not just about one song. We are walking straight into a technological moment that will reshape everyday life.
Elon Musk said recently that we may not even have phones in five years. Instead, we will carry a small device that listens, anticipates, and creates — a personal AI agent that knows what we want to hear before we ask. It will make the music, the news, the podcasts, the stories. We already live in digital bubbles. Soon, those bubbles might become our own private worlds.
If an algorithm can write a hit country song about hardship and perseverance without a shred of actual experience, then the deeper question becomes unavoidable: If a machine can imitate the soul, then what is the soul?
A machine can produce, and soon it may produce better than we can. It can calculate faster than any human mind. It can rearrange the notes and words of a thousand human songs into something that sounds real enough to fool millions.
But it cannot care. It cannot love. It cannot choose right and wrong. It cannot forgive because it cannot be hurt. It cannot stand between a child and danger. It cannot walk through sorrow.
A machine can imitate the sound of suffering. It cannot suffer.
The difference is the soul. The divine spark. The thing God breathed into man that no code will ever have. Only humans can take pain and let it grow into compassion. Only humans can take fear and turn it into courage. Only humans can rebuild their lives after losing everything. Only humans hear the whisper inside, the divine voice that says, “Live for something greater.”
We are building artificial minds. We are not building artificial life.
And as these artificial minds grow sharper, as their tools become more convincing, the right response is not panic. It is to ask the oldest and most important questions.
Who am I? Why am I here? What is the meaning of freedom? What is worth defending? What is worth sacrificing for?
That answer is not found in a lab or a server rack. It is found in that mysterious place inside each of us where reason meets faith, where suffering becomes wisdom, where God reminds us we are more than flesh and more than thought. We are not accidents. We are not circuits. We are not replaceable.
Europa Press News / Contributor | Getty Images
Being human is not about what we can produce. Machines will outproduce us. That is not the question. Being human is about what we can choose. We can choose to love even when it costs us something. We can choose to sacrifice when it is not easy. We can choose to tell the truth when the world rewards lies. We can choose to stand when everyone else bows. We can create because something inside us will not rest until we do.
An AI content generator can borrow our melodies, echo our stories, and dress itself up like a human soul, but it cannot carry grief across a lifetime. It cannot forgive an enemy. It cannot experience wonder. It cannot look at a broken world and say, “I am going to build again.”
The age of machines is rising. And if we do not know who we are, we will shrink. But if we use this moment to remember what makes us human, it will help us to become better, because the one thing no algorithm will ever recreate is the miracle that we exist at all — the miracle of the human soul.
This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.
Something is breaking in America’s young people. You can feel it in every headline, every grocery bill, every young voice quietly asking if the American dream still means anything at all.
For many, the promise of America — work hard, build something that lasts, and give the next generation a better start — feels like it no longer exists. Home ownership and stability have become luxuries for a fortunate few.
Capitalism is not a perfect system. It is flawed because people are flawed, but it remains the only system that rewards creativity and effort rather than punishing them.
In that vacuum of hope, a new promise has begun to rise — one that sounds compassionate, equal, and fair. The promise of socialism.
When the American dream becomes a checklist of things few can afford — a home, a car, two children, even a little peace — disappointment quickly turns to resentment. The average first-time homebuyer is now 40 years old. Debt lasts longer than marriages. The cost of living rises faster than opportunity.
For a generation that has never seen the system truly work, capitalism feels like a rigged game built to protect those already at the top.
That is where socialism finds its audience. It presents itself as fairness for the forgotten and justice for the disillusioned. It speaks softly at first, offering equality, compassion, and control disguised as care.
We are seeing that illusion play out now in New York City, where Zohran Mamdani — an open socialist — has won a major political victory. The same ideology that once hid behind euphemisms now campaigns openly throughout America’s once-great cities. And for many who feel left behind, it sounds like salvation.
But what socialism calls fairness is submission dressed as virtue. What it calls order is obedience. Once the system begins to replace personal responsibility with collective dependence, the erosion of liberty is only a matter of time.
Socialism is not a destination; it is a bridge. Karl Marx described it as the necessary transition to communism — the scaffolding that builds the total state. Under socialism, people are taught to obey. Under communism, they forget that any other options exist.
History tells the story clearly. Russia, China, Cambodia, Cuba — each promised equality and delivered misery. One hundred million lives were lost, not because socialism failed, but because it succeeded at what it was designed to do: make the state supreme and the individual expendable.
Today’s advocates insist their version will be different — democratic, modern, and kind. They often cite Sweden as an example, but Sweden’s prosperity was never born of socialism. It grew out of capitalism, self-reliance, and a shared moral culture. Now that system is cracking under the weight of bureaucracy and division.
ANGELA WEISS / Contributor | Getty Images
The real issue is not economic but moral. Socialism begins with a lie about human nature — that people exist for the collective and that the collective knows better than the individual.
This lie is contrary to the truths on which America was founded — that rights come not from government’s authority, but from God’s. Once government replaces that authority, compassion becomes control, and freedom becomes permission.
Young Americans have many reasons to be frustrated. They were told to study, work hard, and follow the rules — and many did, only to find the goalposts moved again and again. But tearing down the entire house does not make it fairer; it only leaves everyone standing in the rubble.
Capitalism is not a perfect system. It is flawed because people are flawed, but it remains the only system that rewards creativity and effort rather than punishing them. The answer is not revolution but renewal — moral, cultural, and spiritual.
It means restoring honesty to markets, integrity to government, and faith to the heart of our nation. A people who forsake God will always turn to government for salvation, and that road always ends in dependency and decay.
Freedom demands something of us. It requires faith, discipline, and courage. It expects citizens to govern themselves before others govern them. That is the truth this generation deserves to hear again — that liberty is not a gift from the state but a calling from God.
Socialism always begins with promises and ends with permission. It tells you what to drive, what to say, what to believe, all in the name of fairness. But real fairness is not everyone sharing the same chains — it is everyone having the same chance.
The American dream was never about guarantees. It was about the right to try, to fail, and try again. That freedom built the most prosperous nation in history, and it can do so again if we remember that liberty is not a handout but a duty.
Socialism does not offer salvation. It requires subservience.
This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.
