Could Democratic Leaders’ Choice for SOTU Rebuttal Be More out of Touch?

Why can’t the Democratic Party let go of the past?

Rep. Joe Kennedy III (D-Mass.) was chosen to give the Democrats’ response to President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address on Tuesday night, a puzzling decision that shows a toxic attachment to political dynasties.

“If you’re going after white, wealthy and privilege, you don’t pick a Kennedy to deliver the message,” Glenn said on today’s show. “Democrats continue to claim that they are the party of diversity and the poor, but last night, the grandson of Robert Kennedy was hand-picked of course by Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi.”

This article provided courtesy of TheBlaze.

GLENN: So I just -- I -- we assigned this out. We assigned this out.

STU: Full disclosure here.

GLENN: To watch Kennedy last night.

Did you notice, there was something wrong with -- maybe it was just the way the lights were on him, I don't know.

So Joe Kennedy last night delivered the address. And, you know, it -- I don't think anybody was watching by that time. And here to talk about it, the man we assigned is Jeff Fisher. Hello, Jeffy, how are you?

JEFFY: I'm fine. Thank you. And, you know, hey, this country from textiles to robots is a place that knows how to make great things. I mean, he told us that.

GLENN: Yeah.

JEFFY: And, you know, we believe that.

STU: It's amazing to have someone actually watch the -- the -- to watch this and not have to actually deal with viewing it myself. Because I did not -- I did not want to hear any of the content of it. I kind of figured it would be, oh, textiles.

GLENN: I'm kind of disappointed because -- you know, because it was Kennedy. It was -- at least was he any good at it, Jeffy?

JEFFY: Look, it would be easy to dismiss the past year as chaos, Glenn. Partisan politics. But for them, dignity isn't something you're born with, but something you measure by your net worth, your celebrity, your headlines, your crowd size.

GLENN: Wow.

STU: Because the Democrats have not played any identity politics when it comes to celebrity. They didn't have the first celebrity president or anything.

That's not how they promoted Barack Obama with his giant rallies or anything like that. No, this is all new. This is only -- only Donald Trump, a brand-new for Republicans.

GLENN: Right. So what else did he talk about?

JEFFY: Look, they're turning American life into a zero sum game, Glenn, where in order to win, another must lose. Where we can guarantee America's safety, if we slash our safety net. Coal miners, our single moms --

GLENN: Uh-huh. You know, can I just ask a question? Is it like Jeffy even watched this, or is he just quoting everything?

STU: It does sort of feel like potentially Jeffy -- well, he certainly is -- he definitely -- he definitely -- I could say this --

GLENN: Yeah.

STU: He definitely saw the video of it. I'm sensing from -- as we talk to him, I'm getting -- he definitely saw the video.

GLENN: I didn't see the video.

JEFFY: Well, look, we choose an economy strong enough to boast record stock prices and brave enough to admit the top CEO is making 300 times the average worker is not right, Glenn. You know that.

GLENN: Right. Right.

JEFFY: And I would just like to say to all the dreamers, let me be clear --

GLENN: Look in the camera when you say that, will you? This camera over here.

JEFFY: This camera here?

GLENN: Yeah. Yeah.

JEFFY: I'd like to just say to all the Dreamers, (foreign language).

GLENN: Oh, he did not.

STU: No, he did not.

GLENN: No, he did not. No, he did not.

STU: Oh, you want to talk about pandering.

GLENN: No! He did not.

STU: He actually went to -- so you're saying he -- this is amazing, he actually broke into the Spanish to pander even more to the Dreamers. Which, again, we already found out in the Trump part of the speech, that saying that Americans can be dreamers too is incredibly offensive. And now apparently so offensive, that they had to double pander to the Hispanic audience by actually breaking into -- I just --

GLENN: I do have to -- I do have to point out. I do have to point out that last night -- I mean, I -- I saw a little bit of it this morning. I didn't watch the whole thing. But it was like -- it was like Joe Kennedy had a Chapstick accident.

STU: It did --

GLENN: Did you notice that, Jeffy? Do you think people --

JEFFY: I don't think anybody noticed. I think everybody heard the words that he said about proudly marching together.

GLENN: Uh-huh.

JEFFY: Thousands deep in the streets of Vegas, Philadelphia, Nashville. I think they all heard that. They paid -- I mean, looks, you're not supposed to pay attention to that.

STU: When people quote Joe Kennedy's words, they tend to have -- they tend to have a little bit of a -- I don't know if I would call it an accident. But they seem to have an issue with Chapstick when they quote his --

GLENN: Jeffy, did you see any of that?

JEFFY: I did not. Look, politicians can be cheered for the promises they make. Our country will be judged by the promises we keep.

GLENN: All right. Jeffy, thank you so much. It's been --

JEFFY: You build a wall. We'll tear it down.

GLENN: All right. Thank you.

STU: I will say this, I wouldn't normally recommend people view a Jeffy segment, instead of just listening. But --

(laughter)

GLENN: But this is -- yeah, thank you for the update. I appreciate it.

JEFFY: You're welcome. I'm happy to do it. I'm happy to do it.

STU: Joe Kennedy.

GLENN: If you think you may have missed some of that, we just gave you the information, so we've fulfilled our obligation here.

But there might have been a little mocking going on visually.

STU: Possibly.

GLENN: Visually, a little bit of mocking.

STU: You look great though, Jeffy. You look great.

GLENN: So seriously, the Chapstick thing, what happened? It just started spreading all over his face. Almost like in clumps.

STU: It made it actually worse in a way.

GLENN: It did. It did.

First, I thought, is he drooling? Is it spital? No.

JEFFY: No one heard a word he said. The entire country just --

STU: That is what happened. Because this happened once to Ted Cruz.

You remember this? During one of the debates, he had a little bit of spittle on his lips. And he was having a great debate at the time --

GLENN: He had that little white spittle. And you remember, what was his name?

STU: And that was it.

JEFFY: Bobby Jindal.

GLENN: Bobby Jindal, he had a drink of water.

JEFFY: He was sweating and stumbling. And, oh, man.

GLENN: Yeah. That's right. I minimized the Bobby Jindal.

(laughter)

Thank you, Jeffy. I appreciate it.

Hey, by the way, what did you think of this -- did you watch the speech?

JEFFY: I did.

GLENN: What did you think?

JEFFY: I thought it was pretty darn good. He pulled it off. He stayed strong. Focused through it. You know, he slowed down a little bit.

GLENN: I thought that was the best speech I've ever heard him give.

JEFFY: You know, one person called last night. We were broadcasting it on TheBlaze radio network. And they reminded us that it was, you know, pretty humble for Trump. There wasn't a lot of eyes. It was all about the country. It was all about us. It was pretty strong.

STU: Yeah.

GLENN: He hit exactly the right tone.

JEFFY: Look, if you're for a job, the African caucus, the African-American caucus gave him no credit. Nothing.

GLENN: Oh, my gosh. They looked like radicals.

JEFFY: No credit. Nothing. The other Democrats of the other caucuses gave him nothing. It was terrible.

GLENN: Yeah.

STU: I'm not saying I'm having a difficult time taking it seriously right now. But there's a little -- there's a small part of me that's having --

GLENN: That's funny. I could talk to him like this. I've never taken him seriously. So it doesn't change.

JEFFY: Wait.

GLENN: Thanks, Jeffy. I appreciate it.

STU: That was awesome.

(music)

STU: Sorry.

(laughter)

GLENN: Yeah. There was --

STU: Jeffy is just like -- he goes all in on that stuff, man. Jeffy is the man.

GLENN: He has about 6 inches of Vaseline on his face now.

STU: Very similar to Joe Kennedy.

GLENN: Yeah.

Oil prices are going up from the amount of Vaseline used in the last few minutes.

STU: We have to put that on Facebook and Twitter today. You'll need to see that one. We also have a bunch of audio that we need to get to at some point, from the actual speech.

GLENN: Let's go through it now. Tonight at 5 o'clock, we'll go through a few things. One, were you -- am I alone in the way I felt -- I mean, don't get me wrong. I loved the speech.

I was -- I was blown away by it. I thought it was the best speech he's ever given.

I think it's one of the best speeches politically I've heard in a long time.

He hit Barack Obama -- I think Barack Obama will feel like he hit him in the face for 45 minutes. But I don't -- that wasn't his intent.

It was just the opposite of Barack Obama.

STU: Yeah. So much more effective than, you know, calling Barack Obama a name or saying he was a disaster.

GLENN: Yeah, there was nothing of that. It was just a repudiation of everything he did.

STU: Of everything he did.

GLENN: And it was amazingly satisfying. He got into spending which is, you know, over $2 trillion of spending. Which I am absolutely not for.

However, what was amazing to me was the Democrats. They were given everything they say they want. I mean, the only thing he didn't say was, and, you know what, free universal education.

STU: And they wouldn't have clapped for that either.

GLENN: And they wouldn't have clapped.

It made them look so radical, I think to the average person. 46 percent of Democrats thought this was a really good speech. Approved of it.

STU: Yeah, 43, I believe it was. But that's incredibly high for something like this. For Trump especially.

GLENN: For him. For Trump, oh, my gosh, yes.

STU: Ninety-seven percent of Republicans. But overall, was 75 percent approval for a speech like that is incredibly high.

GLENN: That's big. That's big. For this guy, that's huge.

STU: It's really big for anybody though.

GLENN: Yes.

STU: I mean, even the highly praised by the media Barack Obama speeches didn't have 75 percent approval ratings, typically.

GLENN: So I really liked the speech all the way through. I liked the way he handled it. And I can praise him, not for the policies, but for what he was trying to do in reaching out to the left.

But they wanted no part of it. It was remarkable. But am I the only one -- because I haven't heard anybody say this today. I was really freaked out by the war thing.

STU: Yeah, you brought that up. I know you wanted to go over this today at 5:00 p.m., really dissecting it.

GLENN: Yeah. It's kind of like new war and classic war. You don't want classic war coming back.

STU: No. No.

GLENN: Like New Coke, Classic Coke. Yeah, yeah. Let's say with the new war. And I'm going to compare. Because this is not the same.

This is not what people my age have lived through. If we go to war with North Korea, it will probably be much more like World War II. Don't want to do it.

And it's really concerning. You didn't pick up that vibe?

STU: You know, I was not surprised to see him hit North Korea. Obviously, it's been a big topic. And it was right after the ISIS section. So it felt like there was a natural flow to it.

You know, if you think about it, I didn't pick it up at the time. As you laid out the case, and I know you'll do it again tonight at 5:00 on TheBlaze. Not only did he focus on it, he used very I think precise language.

GLENN: Precise.

STU: And then he illustrated it emotionally with multiple guests to show you how bad North Korea really is.

GLENN: Yep. Yep. It's one thing to do the -- the guy on the crutches. Because that was -- that was emotional. And it was really powerful. And if you're my age, it reminds you of the Cold War. And he was sending a message to the people who lived through the Cold War, this hasn't stopped. This evil is still here.

And then with the -- the family of -- you know, the Warmbier family, whose son went over, was arrested on a stupid charge of taking something off of a bulletin board that he wanted to keep as a souvenir, they charged him as an enemy of the state. They tortured him for a year. Dumped his body over here in the United States. And he died a few days later.

That one -- quite honestly, that is act of war stuff.

STU: Yeah.

GLENN: And the way it was presented last night was, look, here's the evil. And here's what they did to us.

It was -- I'm hoping that --

STU: Powerful.

GLENN: -- it is posturing for North Korea, but it is also historically speaking, that feels like laying the foundation of, we're going for these guys. We're going for war.

STU: You felt like it was an axis of evil type of case, right? He's laying out exactly --

GLENN: Yeah, not even an axis of evil. This was, this is an evil empire. It was Reagan's evil empire speech. Which I support. And I support what Donald Trump did.

You know, I've always said I want a president with a twitchy eye. Which means I want somebody that the foes don't know. This guy could do it. The problem is that Donald Trump has like two twitchy eyes and like a -- and a twitchy leg. I think he has restless leg syndrome too. So nobody knows exactly what he's going to do. So it makes me a little nervous.

If he's just doing this to scare North Korea -- which is the case I'm going to lay out tonight, that's good. And he's -- he does that really well.

But there is also a chance that we are preparing for war. And I'm also going to lay out the case tonight, that is an entirely different thing than the wars we have seen in the last 30 or 40 years.

Glenn's daughter honors Charlie Kirk with emotional tribute song

MELISSA MAJCHRZAK / Contributor | Getty Images

On September 17th, Glenn commemorated his late friend Charlie Kirk by hosting The Charlie Kirk Show Podcast, where he celebrated and remembered the life of a remarkable young man.

During the broadcast, Glenn shared an emotional new song performed by his daughter, Cheyenne, who was standing only feet away from Charlie when he was assassinated. The song, titled "We Are One," has been dedicated to Charlie Kirk as a tribute and was written and co-performed by David Osmond, son of Alan Osmond, founding member of The Osmonds.

Glenn first asked David Osmond to write "We Are One" in 2018, as he predicted that dark days were on the horizon, but he never imagined that it would be sung by his daughter in honor of Charlie Kirk. The Lord works in mysterious ways; could there have been a more fitting song to honor such a brave man?

"We Are One" is available for download or listening on Spotify HERE


Murder is NOT debate: The line America cannot cross

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Celebrating murder is not speech. It is a revelation of the heart. America must distinguish between debate and the glorification of evil.

Over the weekend, the world mourned the murder of Charlie Kirk. In London, crowds filled the streets, chanting “Charlie! Charlie! Charlie!” and holding up pictures of the fallen conservative giant. Protests in his honor spread as far away as South Korea. This wasn’t just admiration for one man; it was a global acknowledgment that courage and conviction — the kind embodied by Kirk during his lifetime — still matter. But it was also a warning. This is a test for our society, our morality, and our willingness to defend truth.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni recently delivered a speech that struck at the heart of this crisis. She praised Kirk as a man who welcomed debate, who smiled while defending his ideas, and who faced opposition with respect. That courage is frightening to those who have no arguments. When reason fails, the weapons left are insults, criminalization, and sometimes violence. We see it again today, in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination.

Charlie Kirk’s life was a challenge. His death is a call.

Some professors and public intellectuals have written things that should chill every American soul. They argue that shooting a right-wing figure is somehow less serious than murdering others. They suggest it could be mitigated because of political disagreement. These aren’t careless words — they are a rationalization for murder.

Some will argue that holding such figures accountable is “cancel culture.” They will say that we are silencing debate. They are wrong. Accountability is not cancel culture. A critical difference lies between debating ideas and celebrating death. Debate challenges minds. Celebrating murder abandons humanity. Charlie Kirk’s death draws that line sharply.

History offers us lessons. In France, mobs cheered executions as the guillotine claimed the heads of their enemies — and their own heads soon rolled. Cicero begged his countrymen to reason, yet the mob chose blood over law, and liberty was lost. Charlie Kirk’s assassination reminds us that violence ensues when virtue is abandoned.

We must also distinguish between debates over policy and attacks on life itself. A teacher who argues that children should not undergo gender-transition procedures before adulthood participates in a policy debate. A person who says Charlie Kirk’s death is a victory rejoices in violence. That person has no place shaping minds or guiding children.

PATRICK T. FALLON / Contributor | Getty Images

For liberty and virtue

Liberty without virtue is national suicide. The Constitution protects speech — even dangerous ideas — but it cannot shield those who glorify murder. Society has the right to demand virtue from its leaders, educators, and public figures. Charlie Kirk’s life was a challenge. His death is a call. It is a call to defend our children, our communities, and the principles that make America free.

Cancel culture silences debate. But accountability preserves it. A society that distinguishes between debating ideas and celebrating death still has a moral compass. It still has hope. It still has us.

Are Gen Z's socialist sympathies a threat to America's future?

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In a republic forged on the anvil of liberty and self-reliance, where generations have fought to preserve free markets against the siren song of tyranny, Gen Z's alarming embrace of socialism amid housing crises and economic despair has sparked urgent alarm. But in a recent poll, Glenn asked the tough questions: Where do Gen Z's socialist sympathies come from—and what does it mean for America's future? Glenn asked, and you answered—hundreds weighed in on this volatile mix of youthful frustration and ideological peril.

The results paint a stark picture of distrust in the system. A whopping 79% of you affirm that Gen Z's socialist sympathies stem from real economic gripes, like sky-high housing costs and a rigged game tilted toward the elite and corporations—defying the argument that it's just youthful naivety. Even more telling, 97% believe this trend arises from a glaring educational void on socialism's bloody historical track record, where failed regimes have crushed freedoms under the boot of big government. And 97% see these poll findings as a harbinger of deepening generational rifts, potentially fueling political chaos and authoritarian overreach if left unchecked.

Your verdict underscores a moral imperative: America's soul hangs on reclaiming timeless values like self-reliance and liberty. This feedback amplifies your concerns, sending a clear message to the powers that be.

Want to make your voice heard? Check out more polls HERE.

Civics isn’t optional—America's survival depends on it

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Every vote, jury duty, and act of engagement is civics in action, not theory. The republic survives only when citizens embrace responsibility.

I slept through high school civics class. I memorized the three branches of government, promptly forgot them, and never thought of that word again. Civics seemed abstract, disconnected from real life. And yet, it is critical to maintaining our republic.

Civics is not a class. It is a responsibility. A set of habits, disciplines, and values that make a country possible. Without it, no country survives.

We assume America will survive automatically, but every generation must learn to carry the weight of freedom.

Civics happens every time you speak freely, worship openly, question your government, serve on a jury, or cast a ballot. It’s not a theory or just another entry in a textbook. It’s action — the acts we perform every day to be a positive force in society.

Many of us recoil at “civic responsibility.” “I pay my taxes. I follow the law. I do my civic duty.” That’s not civics. That’s a scam, in my opinion.

Taking up the torch

The founders knew a republic could never run on autopilot. And yet, that’s exactly what we do now. We assume it will work, then complain when it doesn’t. Meanwhile, the people steering the country are driving it straight into a mountain — and they know it.

Our founders gave us tools: separation of powers, checks and balances, federalism, elections. But they also warned us: It won’t work unless we are educated, engaged, and moral.

Are we educated, engaged, and moral? Most Americans cannot even define a republic, never mind “keep one,” as Benjamin Franklin urged us to do after the Constitutional Convention.

We fought and died for the republic. Gaining it was the easy part. Keeping it is hard. And keeping it is done through civics.

Start small and local

In our homes, civics means teaching our children the Constitution, our history, and that liberty is not license — it is the space to do what is right. In our communities, civics means volunteering, showing up, knowing your sheriff, attending school board meetings, and understanding the laws you live under. When necessary, it means challenging them.

How involved are you in your local community? Most people would admit: not really.

Civics is learned in practice. And it starts small. Be honest in your business dealings. Speak respectfully in disagreement. Vote in every election, not just the presidential ones. Model citizenship for your children. Liberty is passed down by teaching and example.

Samuel Corum / Stringer | Getty Images

We assume America will survive automatically, but every generation must learn to carry the weight of freedom.

Start with yourself. Study the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and state laws. Study, act, serve, question, and teach. Only then can we hope to save the republic. The next election will not fix us. The nation will rise or fall based on how each of us lives civics every day.

Civics isn’t a class. It’s the way we protect freedom, empower our communities, and pass down liberty to the next generation.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.