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Glenn's Show Prep

Witch Hunt: Bill O'Reilly Deserves the Benefit of the Doubt

April 06, 2017
Staff

WRITER

Glenn has spent a fair amount of time --- in studio and on tour --- with Bill O'Reilly, host of The O'Reilly Factor on Fox News. Not once did he or his staff see anything resembling the accusations being levied at the host of cable news' number one show.

"Not only did we not smell smoke, we never saw smoke. And, quite honestly, when you're out with somebody as famous as Bill O'Reilly, you watch. You want to see their character. Bill O'Reilly was always professional," Glenn said. "[He] deserves the benefit of the doubt."

Listen to this segment from The Glenn Beck Program:

GLENN: Somebody that I have known for years and has -- and have really grown to really, truly respect is being raked over the coals in the press right now. People are trying to destroy him by getting his advertisers to run for the hills. Guess who is involved in this, Stu?

STU: I don't know.

GLENN: Color of Change.

STU: Oh, the same Van Jones organization.

GLENN: Yeah, how do we know about Color of Change?

STU: They were trying to lead a boycott against you.

GLENN: Yeah, and how did that boycott work?

STU: Well, they tried to intimidate -- you know, their 14 social media followers would continually tweet, call, and intimidate companies. Companies not wanting to deal with it would just make -- move their advertising from our show on to another show and still pay the same exact amount. And it wouldn't affect the business at all.

GLENN: But that really -- that really was the -- that was the worst of the worst. And there was very little of that, that actually went on.

STU: Yeah. A lot of it -- yeah, that was the most extreme part. Most of it was advertisers that never advertised on the program. They would try to make announcements that they had dropped our show, when they were never on the show.

GLENN: For instance, can you think of a cheese company?

STU: I can think of a cheese company.

GLENN: Would you like to talk about that cheese company?

STU: I can if you want me to talk about the cheese company.

GLENN: That's fine. I just know that Stu has harbored some very deep feelings about --

STU: A particular cheese company.

GLENN: -- a particular cheese company that never advertised on our show.

STU: Yeah. Because I could actually -- and these things are weird. Because companies don't want to be involved in controversies.

GLENN: Yes.

STU: Even if they don't believe the controversy is real, they just don't want to deal with it. They make cheese, for example. So I understand sometimes these companies will be like, just don't put me on that show right now. I don't want to be in the news. I get that.

To make public statements in which you are -- well, we cannot be associated with hate, or that type of stuff, which they were doing to us. Many companies are doing the same thing today. That's just infuriating, especially when they know it's not true.

You know, these --

GLENN: No, but -- you didn't know that it wasn't true. Some people still think that I am the reason for all of the hate in the country.

STU: You seem to be leading that brigade lately. But --

GLENN: No, no.

STU: Yeah, I know.

GLENN: So, anyway, what when I worked at Fox News -- when I worked at Fox News, this is what the left did to me. They tried really hard.

It actually didn't work. Unfortunately, Fox News tried to make the case after I left that it did. And that's going to come and bite them in the ass now.

But it actually didn't work. When I was there -- and I've said this many times. Bill O'Reilly was the -- it was the most honest, fair, most intelligent and intellectually curious guy in the media I have ever met.

I don't agree with everything that Bill O'Reilly says. I don't agree with some of his stances. He always seems to be behind because he's not willing to predict or project. He's willing to look at what's a fact today. That's what -- I mean, we've had this argument. I'm like, "Bill, come on, man. Look. Here's history. Here are the facts. Where do you think --

He's like, that's not my job, Glenn.

So I don't necessarily agree with him on things. And, quite honestly, I remember the first time I met him and I was on his show. I was just starting Fox. And, you know, he has quite the reputation of being a bulldog. And he is a -- I think he's 6-5 or 6-6. And he's at this little teeny desk. Those studios -- studios and television look a lot bigger. Objects in the mirror appear to be bigger than they are -- or bigger than they are. They're really small. And you're in O'Reilly's face sitting at that table.

And I remember they were counting him down, five, four -- and I reached over and I grabbed his hand and said, "Please don't kill me." Because you don't go into a room with Bill O'Reilly knowing.

And we became friends, but we became friends because we were both intellectually honest with each other. When we were flying on a plane -- and he probably -- well, no, I think he would be fine with this.

STU: These stories always work out well. I don't see why they would have any problem with this. This is a private story that was told in confidence, but let me just say it right now on the air.

GLENN: So we were on a plane, and I said, "Bill, thank you for being so kind to me. There's no reason you need to be kind to me." And he looked at me and he said, "Stop it." And I said, "What?" And he said, "Glenn, you're jet fuel. You're hot right now. That helps me. By having you on the show, it helps me, you know, continue to expand and boost my ratings and expand my audience."

STU: Right. Makes for interesting, compelling content.

GLENN: Right. And he said, "And it's compelling. It's good stuff. I'm not doing you any favor." And I thought -- because I knew that to be true, but I didn't think anyone would ever admit that.

That's the kind of guy I know in Bill O'Reilly. I know he is intellectually honest. And so buttoned up.

PAT: Tough, but fair.

GLENN: Yeah. He does not --

PAT: That's Bill.

GLENN: He gets the reputation of being tough because if you're not cutting it, he is. He's writing every word he says.

PAT: Yeah. Yeah.

GLENN: He's doing all the hard lifting on his own show.

STU: It's almost when you talk to him, you're in a zone where there's not spin occurring.

GLENN: Shut up.

So he's doing all the hard work himself that he's supposed to do. If you are not bringing your full game, he's not a fan of yours.

PAT: And we've spent a lot of time with him. We went on tour with him several times. We toured the country with him. Bill O'Reilly never gave any indication that --

GLENN: That there's any of this stuff.

PAT: This kind of behavior.

GLENN: Never. Not only did we not smell smoke, we never saw smoke. And, quite honestly, when you're out with somebody as famous as Bill O'Reilly, you watch. You want to see their character. Bill O'Reilly was always professional.

We talked about this yesterday in a meeting. With everybody -- we have a large team. We did our tours. When Bill and I went out, it was my company that produced those tours. So it was everybody, from the people that took him to the airport, to the people that took him home, to the people that tucked him into bed at night. It was all my people.

Not one person said anything about Bill O'Reilly, other than, that guy is a professional.

STU: To be clear, none of our people tucked him into bed at night.

GLENN: That was probably a poor choice of words there. But we were with him. Somebody from my staff was with him the entire time.

STU: Well --

GLENN: And no one said anything, but, "Wow, he's buttoned up."

STU: And we've seen -- you hang out with -- we're doing business with a lot of different people. I mean, think of one recent example that we all dredged through of one particular person on a bus with Billy Bush. And that sort of commentary, that --

PAT: That kidding around kind of -- blue humor.

STU: Yeah, we never saw anything like that. Not even jokes. Not even passing comments.

PAT: No.

STU: Nothing like that at all.

PAT: Uh-uh.

GLENN: You notice that I never said anything in defense of Roger Ailes. I never made the statement about Roger Ailes.

STU: Roger Ailes, yeah.

GLENN: Because, A, I never saw it, but it did not surprise me. Let's just put it that way. Because there was enough joking and conversations that I thought, eh, that one kind of made me a little uncomfortable. It did not surprise me.

Bill O'Reilly, I will be shocked, of course, disappointed, but shocked if he was engaged in any of the kind of monstrous stuff that he is being accused of.

PAT: Uh-huh.

GLENN: I know what it's like to be attacked. And I am not doing this as a favor to him. I'm not doing this because I'm a friend of his. I believe he's a good man who is being attacked.

I could be wrong. But never an indication from us. Settling a lawsuit is not an admission of guilt. Let's make that one really clear.

Because you settle a lawsuit -- for instance, I can tell you I was in a lawsuit recently. How hard did I fight not to settle that, Stu?

STU: Very hard.

GLENN: Yeah.

STU: Knowing everyone around you.

GLENN: And who was I fighting against?

STU: Your own companies and people that were associated with you. Because they all wanted to --

GLENN: Right. I have several contracts with several big companies, and they were like, just settle the damn thing. Make it go away. The main argument came from the insurance company.

JEFFY: Yeah.

GLENN: Just settle it. Just settle it. We can settle it for a fraction of the cost.

But it's wrong. Just settle it.

So because you settle does not make -- is not an admission of guilt. It's usually a way to just spend less time and money.

Just move on with your -- with your life.

Now, as a guy who drives about $100 million in revenue every year, that makes you a target. I know it. Because people do not understand that -- when they come to work for us at TheBlaze. They'll be like, oh, no. It's easy. You just do this. No, no. We call it jokingly the Glenn Beck tax. No, you don't understand. You're working with Glenn Beck. There's no -- there's no, like, oh, no, we can do this. No, no. Because we're a massive target.

And people don't understand that until they work here for a while. As a guy who has been number one for 20 years on cable news, do you think some people are going to try to take him down? Especially on the Fox News network. Especially that he is viewed as if he leaves, Fox is destroyed? Without Roger Ailes, who was the bulldog at the door -- like him, hate him, whatever. He was effective. And he kept the vampires at the door, sucking the blood out of -- the lifeblood out of Fox News. How it survives without Roger Ailes is beyond me. How it survives without Bill O'Reilly -- and you don't think the left understands this? The media is never going to give Bill O'Reilly or anyone with his effectiveness and his point of view a fair shake.

I would like one from time to time. I am being accused now that I am stomping on people's freedom of speech. That is so far out of every reality, and my -- and some, very few, claim -- listeners, people that claim to be my listeners believe that. Well, you were never my listener if you believe that. Because you cannot doubt -- you knew nothing about me.

PAT: Why don't you ask Amy Holmes about that?

GLENN: Yeah. But that's the way the world works. That's the way this press works. That's the way the left works. And, quite frankly, that's the way the right works when they want to destroy somebody, but the left is very, very good at it.

STU: And you're not -- this is not you taking -- you know, going after people who are making accusations.

GLENN: No.

STU: This is -- this is just you talking about someone you know. You don't know everything about every person and every interaction obviously. And it's not to -- it's not to go out --

GLENN: Bill O'Reilly deserves the benefit of the doubt.

STU: He gets it from me, surely.

PAT: Yeah, innocent until proven guilty.

GLENN: Yes. Until it has been proven guilty.

PAT: That's certainly not the assumption here by many.

GLENN: No.

STU: Well, and to be fair, it's because --

PAT: Maxine Waters said last night he should go to jail.

GLENN: To go to jail.

PAT: Are you kidding me?

GLENN: To go to jail.

STU: And a lot of this has to do with the stuff that happened with Roger. Because people now see Fox as anything you say about them and that atmosphere will be believed. And that's not fair. You have to look at it honestly.

GLENN: There are things that I saw and I witnessed. And things that happened at Fox that truly turned my stomach. Truly almost destroyed my hope in people. But I will tell you, if it wasn't for Bill O'Reilly, I think it would have been destroyed.

I walked in hearing all these stories about Bill O'Reilly. Bill O'Reilly is none of those things. Bill O'Reilly was buttoned up and professional every step of the way. He is uber, uber smart. Now, maybe again -- I don't know. I'm not with him every second of the day. I have no idea. But, boy, the Bill O'Reilly that I know and that I saw working, side by side for a long time, there is no doubt in my mind that he's just smarter than that.

And I would hope that even though I disagree with Bill O'Reilly, particularly on Donald Trump -- and he has said things about, you know, Never Trumpers, or whatever the category he might put me in, and he has not even had me on his show since the Trump thing began. I don't care. I don't care. I know who he is.

He did not ask me. I did not engage with him. So, Bill -- it doesn't matter.

We have to stand up for what we believe is right, and we have to stand up for people who are coming under fire, until they prove otherwise.

By the way, for the record, there are far more facts and witnesses and issues about Bill Clinton, who seems to get the benefit of the doubt all the time.

STU: Hmm.

GLENN: Good luck, Bill. Stay strong.

Rage isn’t conservatism — THIS is what true patriots stand for

Gary Hershorn / Contributor | Getty Images

Conservatism is not about rage or nostalgia. It’s about moral clarity, national renewal, and guarding the principles that built America’s freedom.

Our movement is at a crossroads, and the question before us is simple: What does it mean to be a conservative in America today?

For years, we have been told what we are against — against the left, against wokeism, against decline. But opposition alone does not define a movement, and it certainly does not define a moral vision.

We are not here to cling to the past or wallow in grievance. We are not the movement of rage. We are the movement of reason and hope.

The media, as usual, are eager to supply their own answer. The New York Times recently suggested that Nick Fuentes represents the “future” of conservatism. That’s nonsense — a distortion of both truth and tradition. Fuentes and those like him do not represent American conservatism. They represent its counterfeit.

Real conservatism is not rage. It is reverence. It does not treat the past as a museum, but as a teacher. America’s founders asked us to preserve their principles and improve upon their practice. That means understanding what we are conserving — a living covenant, not a relic.

Conservatism as stewardship

In 2025, conservatism means stewardship — of a nation, a culture, and a moral inheritance too precious to abandon. To conserve is not to freeze history. It is to stand guard over what is essential. We are custodians of an experiment in liberty that rests on the belief that rights come not from kings or Congress, but from the Creator.

That belief built this country. It will be what saves it. The Constitution is a covenant between generations. Conservatism is the duty to keep that covenant alive — to preserve what works, correct what fails, and pass on both wisdom and freedom to those who come next.

Economics, culture, and morality are inseparable. Debt is not only fiscal; it is moral. Spending what belongs to the unborn is theft. Dependence is not compassion; it is weakness parading as virtue. A society that trades responsibility for comfort teaches citizens how to live as slaves.

Freedom without virtue is not freedom; it is chaos. A culture that mocks faith cannot defend liberty, and a nation that rejects truth cannot sustain justice. Conservatism must again become the moral compass of a disoriented people, reminding America that liberty survives only when anchored to virtue.

Rebuilding what is broken

We cannot define ourselves by what we oppose. We must build families, communities, and institutions that endure. Government is broken because education is broken, and education is broken because we abandoned the formation of the mind and the soul. The work ahead is competence, not cynicism.

Conservatives should embrace innovation and technology while rejecting the chaos of Silicon Valley. Progress must not come at the expense of principle. Technology must strengthen people, not replace them. Artificial intelligence should remain a servant, never a master. The true strength of a nation is not measured by data or bureaucracy, but by the quiet webs of family, faith, and service that hold communities together. When Washington falters — and it will — those neighborhoods must stand.

Eric Lee / Stringer | Getty Images

This is the real work of conservatism: to conserve what is good and true and to reform what has decayed. It is not about slogans; it is about stewardship — the patient labor of building a civilization that remembers what it stands for.

A creed for the rising generation

We are not here to cling to the past or wallow in grievance. We are not the movement of rage. We are the movement of reason and hope.

For the rising generation, conservatism cannot be nostalgia. It must be more than a memory of 9/11 or admiration for a Reagan era they never lived through. Many young Americans did not experience those moments — and they should not have to in order to grasp the lessons they taught and the truths they embodied. The next chapter is not about preserving relics but renewing purpose. It must speak to conviction, not cynicism; to moral clarity, not despair.

Young people are searching for meaning in a culture that mocks truth and empties life of purpose. Conservatism should be the moral compass that reminds them freedom is responsibility and that faith, family, and moral courage remain the surest rebellions against hopelessness.

To be a conservative in 2025 is to defend the enduring principles of American liberty while stewarding the culture, the economy, and the spirit of a free people. It is to stand for truth when truth is unfashionable and to guard moral order when the world celebrates chaos.

We are not merely holding the torch. We are relighting it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Glenn Beck: Here's what's WRONG with conservatism today

Getty Images / Handout | Getty Images

What does it mean to be a conservative in 2025? Glenn offers guidance on what conservatives need to do to ensure the conservative movement doesn't fade into oblivion. We have to get back to PRINCIPLES, not policies.

To be a conservative in 2025 means to STAND

  • for Stewardship, protecting the wisdom of our Founders;
  • for Truth, defending objective reality in an age of illusion;
  • for Accountability, living within our means as individuals and as a nation;
  • for Neighborhood, rebuilding family, faith, and local community;
  • and for Duty, carrying freedom forward to the next generation.

A conservative doesn’t cling to the past — he stands guard over the principles that make the future possible.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: You know, I'm so tired of being against everything. Saying what we're not.

It's time that we start saying what we are. And it's hard, because we're changing. It's different to be a conservative, today, than it was, you know, years ago.

And part of that is just coming from hard knocks. School of hard knocks. We've learned a lot of lessons on things we thought we were for. No, no, no.

But conservatives. To be a conservative, it shouldn't be about policies. It's really about principles. And that's why we've lost our way. Because we've lost our principles. And it's easy. Because the world got easy. And now the world is changing so rapidly. The boundaries between truth and illusion are blurred second by second. Machines now think. Currencies falter. Families fractured. And nations, all over the world, have forgotten who they are.

So what does it mean to be a conservative now, in 2025, '26. For a lot of people, it means opposing the left. That's -- that's a reaction. That's not renewal.

That's a reaction. It can't mean also worshiping the past, as if the past were perfect. The founders never asked for that.

They asked that we would preserve the principles and perfect their practice. They knew it was imperfect. To make a more perfect nation.

Is what we're supposed to be doing.

2025, '26 being a conservative has to mean stewardship.

The stewardship of a nation, of a civilization.

Of a moral inheritance. That is too precious to abandon.

What does it mean to conserve? To conserve something doesn't mean to stand still.

It means to stand guard. It means to defend what the Founders designed. The separation of powers. The rule of law.

The belief that our rights come not from kings or from Congress, but from the creator himself.
This is a system that was not built for ease. It was built for endurance, and it will endure if we only teach it again!

The problem is, we only teach it like it's a museum piece. You know, it's not a museum piece. It's not an old dusty document. It's a living covenant between the dead, the living and the unborn.

So this chapter of -- of conservatism. Must confront reality. Economic reality.

Global reality.

And moral reality.

It's not enough just to be against something. Or chant tax cuts or free markets.

We have to ask -- we have to start with simple questions like freedom, yes. But freedom for what?

Freedom for economic sovereignty. Your right to produce and to innovate. To build without asking Beijing's permission. That's a moral issue now.

Another moral issue: Debt! It's -- it's generational theft. We're spending money from generations we won't even meet.

And dependence. Another moral issue. It's a national weakness.

People cannot stand up for themselves. They can't make it themselves. And we're encouraging them to sit down, shut up, and don't think.

And the conservative who can't connect with fiscal prudence, and connect fiscal prudence to moral duty, you're not a conservative at all.

Being a conservative today, means you have to rebuild an economy that serves liberty, not one that serves -- survives by debt, and then there's the soul of the nation.

We are living through a time period. An age of dislocation. Where our families are fractured.

Our faith is almost gone.

Meaning is evaporating so fast. Nobody knows what meaning of life is. That's why everybody is killing themselves. They have no meaning in life. And why they don't have any meaning, is truth itself is mocked and blurred and replaced by nothing, but lies and noise.

If you want to be a conservative, then you have to be to become the moral compass that reminds a lost people, liberty cannot survive without virtue.

That freedom untethered from moral order is nothing, but chaos!

And that no app, no algorithm, no ideology is ever going to fill the void, where meaning used to live!

To be a conservative, moving forward, we cannot just be about policies.

We have to defend the sacred, the unseen, the moral architecture, that gives people an identity. So how do you do that? Well, we have to rebuild competence. We have to restore institutions that actually work. Just in the last hour, this monologue on what we're facing now, because we can't open the government.

Why can't we open the government?

Because government is broken. Why does nobody care? Because education is broken.

We have to reclaim education, not as propaganda, but as the formation of the mind and the soul. Conservatives have to champion innovation.

Not to imitate Silicon Valley's chaos, but to harness technology in defense of human dignity. Don't be afraid of AI.

Know what it is. Know it's a tool. It's a tool to strengthen people. As long as you always remember it's a tool. Otherwise, you will lose your humanity to it!

That's a conservative principle. To be a conservative, we have to restore local strength. Our families are the basic building blocks, our schools, our churches, and our charities. Not some big, distant NGO that was started by the Tides Foundation, but actual local charities, where you see people working. A web of voluntary institutions that held us together at one point. Because when Washington fails, and it will, it already has, the neighborhood has to stand.

Charlie Kirk was doing one thing that people on our side were not doing. Speaking to the young.

But not in nostalgia.

Not in -- you know, Reagan, Reagan, Reagan.

In purpose. They don't remember. They don't remember who Dick Cheney was.

I was listening to Fox news this morning, talking about Dick Cheney. And there was somebody there that I know was not even born when Dick Cheney. When the World Trade Center came down.

They weren't even born. They were telling me about Dick Cheney.

And I was like, come on. Come on. Come on.

If you don't remember who Dick Cheney was, how are you going to remember 9/11. How will you remember who Reagan was.

That just says, that's an old man's creed. No, it's not.

It's the ultimate timeless rebellion against tyranny in all of its forms. Yes, and even the tyranny of despair, which is eating people alive!

We need to redefine ourselves. Because we have changed, and that's a good thing. The creed for a generation, that will decide the fate of the republic, is what we need to find.

A conservative in 2025, '26.

Is somebody who protects the enduring principles of American liberty and self-government.

While actively stewarding the institutions. The culture. The economy of this nation!

For those who are alive and yet to be unborn.

We have to be a group of people that we're not anchored in the past. Or in rage! But in reason. And morality. Realism. And hope for the future.

We're the stewards! We're the ones that have to relight the torch, not just hold it. We didn't -- we didn't build this Torch. We didn't make this Torch. We're the keepers of the flame, but we are honor-bound to pass that forward, and conservatives are viewed as people who just live in the past. We're not here to merely conserve the past, but to renew it. To sort it. What worked, what didn't work. We're the ones to say to the world, there's still such a thing as truth. There's still such a thing as virtue. You can deny it all you want.

But the pain will only get worse. There's still such a thing as America!

And if now is not the time to renew America. When is that time?

If you're not the person. If we're not the generation to actively stand and redefine and defend, then who is that person?

We are -- we are supposed to preserve what works.

That -- you know, I was writing something this morning.

I was making notes on this. A constitutionalist is for restraint. A progressive, if you will, for lack of a better term, is for more power.

Progressives want the government to have more power.

Conservatives are for more restraint.

But the -- for the American eagle to fly, we must have both wings.

And one can't be stronger than the other.

We as a conservative, are supposed to look and say, no. Don't look at that. The past teaches us this, this, and this. So don't do that.

We can't do that. But there are these things that we were doing in the past, that we have to jettison. And maybe the other side has a good idea on what should replace that. But we're the ones who are supposed to say, no, but remember the framework.

They're -- they can dream all they want.
They can come up with all these utopias and everything else, and we can go, "That's a great idea."

But how do we make it work with this framework? Because that's our job. The point of this is, it takes both. It takes both.

We have to have the customs and the moral order. And the practices that have stood the test of time, in trial.

We -- we're in an amazing, amazing time. Amazing time.

We live at a time now, where anything -- literally anything is possible!

I don't want to be against stuff. I want to be for the future. I want to be for a rich, dynamic future. One where we are part of changing the world for the better!

Where more people are lifted out of poverty, more people are given the freedom to choose, whatever it is that they want to choose, as their own government and everything.

I don't want to force it down anybody's throat.

We -- I am so excited to be a shining city on the hill again.

We have that opportunity, right in front of us!

But not in we get bogged down in hatred, in division.

Not if we get bogged down into being against something.

We must be for something!

I know what I'm for.

Do you?

From Pharaoh to Hamas: The same spirit of evil, new disguise

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

The drone footage out of Gaza isn’t just war propaganda — it’s a glimpse of the same darkness that once convinced men they were righteous for killing innocents.

Evil introduces itself subtly. It doesn’t announce, “Hi, I’m here to destroy you.” It whispers. It flatters. It borrows the language of justice, empathy, and freedom, twisting them until hatred sounds righteous and violence sounds brave.

We are watching that same deception unfold again — in the streets, on college campuses, and in the rhetoric of people who should know better. It’s the oldest story in the world, retold with new slogans.

Evil wins when good people mirror its rage.

A drone video surfaced this week showing Hamas terrorists staging the “discovery” of a hostage’s body. They pushed a corpse out of a window, dragged it into a hole, buried it, and then called in aid workers to “find” what they themselves had planted. It was theater — evil, disguised as victimhood. And it was caught entirely on camera.

That’s how evil operates. It never comes in through the front door. It sneaks in, often through manipulative pity. The same spirit animates the moral rot spreading through our institutions — from the halls of universities to the chambers of government.

Take Zohran Mamdani, a New York assemblyman who has praised jihadists and defended pro-Hamas agitators. His father, a Columbia University professor, wrote that America and al-Qaeda are morally equivalent — that suicide bombings shouldn’t be viewed as barbaric. Imagine thinking that way after watching 3,000 Americans die on 9/11. That’s not intellectualism. That’s indoctrination.

Often, that indoctrination comes from hostile foreign actors, peddled by complicit pawns on our own soil. The pro-Hamas protests that erupted across campuses last year, for example, were funded by Iran — a regime that murders its own citizens for speaking freely.

Ancient evil, new clothes

But the deeper danger isn’t foreign money. It’s the spiritual blindness that lets good people believe resentment is justice and envy is discernment. Scripture talks about the spirit of Amalek — the eternal enemy of God’s people, who attacks the weak from behind while the strong look away. Amalek never dies; it just changes its vocabulary and form with the times.

Today, Amalek tweets. He speaks through professors who defend terrorism as “anti-colonial resistance.” He preaches from pulpits that call violence “solidarity.” And he recruits through algorithms, whispering that the Jews control everything, that America had it coming, that chaos is freedom. Those are ancient lies wearing new clothes.

When nations embrace those lies, it’s not the Jews who perish first. It’s the nations themselves. The soul dies long before the body. The ovens of Auschwitz didn’t start with smoke; they started with silence and slogans.

Andrew Harnik / Staff | Getty Images

A time for choosing

So what do we do? We speak truth — calmly, firmly, without venom. Because hatred can’t kill hatred; it only feeds it. Truth, compassion, and courage starve it to death.

Evil wins when good people mirror its rage. That’s how Amalek survives — by making you fight him with his own weapons. The only victory that lasts is moral clarity without malice, courage without cruelty.

The war we’re fighting isn’t new. It’s the same battle between remembrance and amnesia, covenant and chaos, humility and pride. The same spirit that whispered to Pharaoh, to Hitler, and to every mob that thought hatred could heal the world is whispering again now — on your screens, in your classrooms, in your churches.

Will you join it, or will you stand against it?

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

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

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The new currency of power

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

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

Two futures — both ending in tyranny

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

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

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

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

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

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

The forgotten way

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

Hesham Elsherif / Stringer | Getty Images

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

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

Both are traps.

The only way

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

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

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

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.