You're Going to Like This Guy: Chris Herrod Looks Like a Good Replacement for Jason Chaffetz

Chris Herrod, a congressional candidate vying to fill Jason Chaffetz’s seat in Utah, joined Glenn on radio Tuesday to share how he and his wife experienced socialism in Ukraine --- and to warn people never to let it come here.

Herrod, who is running against Provo Mayor John Curtis and businessman Tanner Ainge in the Republican primary, met his wife in Ukraine, and they both know that socialism hurts people instead of helping.

“All that system does is lower the care for everybody,” Herrod said, describing the “horrors” of a system that provided mediocre care without other options. “For me, it’s not theoretical.”

Republicans who are hesitating to repeal the Affordable Care Act need to realize the dangers of socialized medicine and remember the promises they made to Americans. In the 2016 election, GOP candidates up and down the ballot vowed to repeal Obamacare and stop health care costs from rising.

On a personal note, Glenn recounted a touching story about a chance meeting he had with Herrod's young son Dale at a rally in Provo, UT on the presidential campaign trail.

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"That's amazing, you know, how life works. Because I just pulled him out of the crowd, and he was just a great, great kid. You could see it in him, he's an amazing kid," Glenn said.

Herrod has been endorsed by both Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Rand Paul (R-KY).

GLENN: Oh, you're going to like this guy. Chris is running for the vacated seat of representative Jason Chaffetz. Early voting begins today and continues until Election Day, which is August 15th. The winner of this GOP primary will face off against the Democrat on November 7th. I have very little trust in anybody going to Washington, but I want you to know this. He is one of the founders of the Patrick Henry caucus. His main mission is to restore the intent of the constitution. And here's my favorite. He spent extensive time in Europe and the Middle East. He taught at two universities in the Ukraine where his wife grew up. He has seen the evils of socialism firsthand and vows that it is not going to happen here.

Chris Herrod, welcome to the program. How are you, sir?

Chris: Very good. Thank you for having me on. It's an honor.

GLENN: So tell me about your experience in Ukraine and how you can combat socialism when we're headed down that road fast.

Chris: Well, you know, it's one of those things. Unfortunately, I think there's a lot of Republicans that don't even understand that that system doesn't work. And, for me, it's not theoretical. I mean, my wife has a seven-inch scar that should have been a quarter inch scar. One of the times balk she had a pregnancy and just the horrors of walking into this room with nine women on dingy, gray sheets. And I have horror story after horror story about that system. So it does not work. It is not more compassionate. Everybody will say, well, what about these 22 million that aren't going to be covered?

Well, all that system does is lower the care for everybody. And so, again, for me, it's not theoretical. That's one of the things about my experience in life is I was there when the Soviet Union collapsed and Communism and socialism robbing the individual of full potential. It weakens the family and eventually morally bankrupt.

GLENN: So your wife is over from the Ukraine. Was she a Soviet Union transplant family in the '40s, '50s, '60s? Or is she really Ukrainian?

Chris: Well, no, actually, I finished in 1992, I finished my masters at BYU and didn't want to go to corporate America, so I found a teaching job and stepped off the plane and there was a beautiful woman holding up a sign with my name on it, a sign for the university, and I married her four months later. So --

GLENN: But is she really Ukrainian, or is she a former Soviet Union family? Do you know?

Chris: Her family -- her father is left over from when Genghis Khan came across and then her mother is Ukrainian.

GLENN: Okay. So she must have strong feelings on what is happening in Ukraine, as do you.

Where do you stand on Russia and Putin? Friend or foe?

Chris: Well, actually, my in-laws had their windows blown out two years ago from a bomb. So we're no fans of Putin and the leasts of it. Ronald Reagan said best. The only thing the Soviets understand is brute force, so you have to stand up to them. But you do have to realize that some of the stuff, as long as we're talking about collusion. We're not really talking about Russia has invaded Ukraine. We're not talking about health care or tax reform. So Putin is a chess player. And he outplayed the Obama administration, and he's outplaying the press and the Democrats, some Republicans right now as well. We need to talk about the real issues.

GLENN: Good for you. So let's talk about ObamaCare. It is -- it looks like they're going for the simple repeal, the clean repeal they proposed in 2015. Is that a fix for you? Would you be okay with a simple repair like that? What has to be done?

Chris: Well, you know, I think the confidence in congress has been lost. And 61 times -- over 60 times repeal when it doesn't matter. I'm not for -- get people on record. If they voted for it before now, and then we can start and look at things that we can do to bring the free market back into the system. But, again, that system does not work. Socialized medicine just pushes everybody, the quality down. So, for me, you know, let's have some conversations. But I'm a big believer. You know, I served six years in the Utah legislature. States handle those issues much better than the Federal Government. So, you know, let us have high risk pools here in the state. And, you know, just block grant that money to the states and let the states stick to that problem as well.

GLENN: Ted Cruz and Rand Paul endorsed you. Has Mike Lee endorsed you yet?

Chris: Well, Mike has a strict policy of not endorsing in the primary. But Mike's been very helpful to me.

GLENN: Oh, my gosh. That weasel. He asked me for my endorsement. Oh, my gosh.

Chris: Don't be too hard on Mike.

GLENN: I won't.

Chris: But senator Cruz will be here on Saturday for a rally for me, so he's been really great. I met you at the Ted Cruz rally here in Provo.

GLENN: I think I met your son Dale; right? He was the kid that just pulled up out of the crowd, unbeknownst to you or me or him; right?

Chris: Yeah, that was -- that's kind of the highlight of his life so far and his political career. So thank you very much for that.

GLENN: That's amazing, you know, how life works. Because I just pulled him out of the crowd, and he was just a great, great kid. You could see it in him. He's an amazing kid.

Chris: Well, you know, I -- because we're fighting for them, I've tried to involve, you know, my kids in the process to let them know what we're fighting for. And I do. This isn't cliché. I truly fear what they're going to face between the debt and our younger generation isn't being taught how great this country was and the founding principles that made it great. And they're taught to hate this country and then hate -- they think that the new socialism is not that bad. But it's never worked anywhere else in the world and, unfortunately, people don't seem willing to call it out saying that it's not compassionate.

GLENN: Chris, can I speak real Frank to you for just a second and just get your response. I have good friends who have gone to Washington. I have some who succeeded and some who have failed miserably. Some who have failed miserably is because they had a moment of weakness or they had something to hide. Or they just really for a second just thought you know what? If I help them, then they'll help me. I have not met a person that has gone to Washington and left a better man. Are you prepared for what is coming your way much faster than what is coming your children's way in society.

Chris: You know, I mean, it's one of those things here. I've taken a difficult stance. I mean, here in Utah, you know, I wrote a book called the forgotten immigrant and how tolerated illegal immigration hurts immigrants. I was attacked, called all sorts of names, I even had my faith questioned. And so I -- it hasn't been easy for me to get to this point. But I am very firm in the positions. And it's one of those things I want to go back and make a difference. And if I don't last long, that's okay. Too. I think that's one of the things that helps you being willing if you're not -- I know my core principles. I know what's true. And like I said, it's not -- I don't need to be there for decades or anything like that. And so I believe -- it's always harder than what it is. But I have endured serious criticism and the establishment's coming after me now. And so, you know, it hasn't been an easy ten years, you know, here in Utah for my political career. So I -- you know, I'm not afraid to call a spade a spade, and that sometimes gets you in trouble, as you well know.

GLENN: And your soul is intact.

Chris: Yes, it is. It still is.

PAT: Chris, at one point, there were 22 people. Is it still that crowded of a field? Like, 15 Republicans or something.

Chris: Yeah, well, I won the convention route, so I took on ten other people, so I'm one of the 11 there. Two other people gathered signatures. We have, you know, people are trying to get rid of the caucus convention system. We call it weighted vote. So I just have the two Republicans now, and then I have one Democrat. And I think there's a Libertarian party and American new party or a couple other minor parties like that.

But so for the most part, I've kind of got through the heavy lifting and this is kind of the big name, you know, the chamber is back. One of the other candidates. But this is the primary. So I've already kind of gone through the caucus convention system, which that's where they truly vet you, and you can't get away with sound byte answers.

GLENN: And that's actually the -- I think it was Orrin Hatch who tried to change that recently.

Chris: Well, the Romneys have basically -- when Mike Lee got elected, I was heavily involved in helping get Mike Lee, and they did not like that.

PAT: No, they don't.

Chris: And, you know, what's the worst thing that we got after Bennett? It was Mike Lee. Republicans won one, conservatives won one, and it's a few money brokers who are going to choose.

GLENN: Is there somebody else in hit of. Not Jesus. Is there somebody in history that you look to and say I would like to be remembered as. I would like to try to pattern myself after him.

Chris: Well, obviously, you look at George Washington. For me, that experience he could have been king, and he resisted that. There's a number of people. You look at, for me, Poland who paid a high price for, you know, freedom. I sponsor and professor when I was in the former Soviet Union, she at the age of 21, she spoke English very well. And the KGB asked her to sleep with foreigners, and she refused. And her -- she was personned for a year. Her husband lost both parents. I am surrounded by a lot of people who paid a high price for freedom. So, for me, the sacrifice of being called names, you know, it is tough. My wife is just wonderful. She has been very supportive of me. I served in office. But, you know, they paid the great prices. Being attacked is a relatively minor sacrifice compared to what many of my friends have sacrificed around the world.

GLENN: Chris, I wish I could tell you that I thought that being called names would be the worst that you and your family would face, but we are in perilous times, unless more people like you get in. Hold to principles and never let go. Chris Harrod is his name. Early voting begins in Utah today. It continues until Election Day, which is August 15th. The winner of the primary will face off against the Democrat on November 7th, and we wish you the best of luck, Chris.

Chris: Well, we have a website Harris for congress.com. I love donations or additional support. But thank you very much. And, Glenn, thank you very much for what you have done. I know you paid a high price. I really appreciate the perspective you've given on Islam. I would love to have some time a further conversation of that. But thank you for everything that you have done.

GLENN: Thank you very much, Chris. I appreciate it. Bye-bye. Chris Herrod. If you're in Utah, please consider him to replace Jason Chaffetz. He has been endorsed by Ted Cruz and . . .

PAT: Rand Paul.

GLENN: Rand Paul. And, you know, working behind the scenes is Mike Lee.

The great switch: Gates trades climate control for digital dominion

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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.

Why the White House restoration sent the left Into panic mode

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Presidents have altered the White House for decades, yet only Donald Trump is treated as a vandal for privately funding the East Wing’s restoration.

Every time a president so much as changes the color of the White House drapes, the press clutches its pearls. Unless the name on the stationery is Barack Obama’s, even routine restoration becomes a national outrage.

President Donald Trump’s decision to privately fund upgrades to the White House — including a new state ballroom — has been met with the usual chorus of gasps and sneers. You’d think he bulldozed Monticello.

If a Republican preserves beauty, it’s vandalism. If a Democrat does the same, it’s ‘visionary.’

The irony is that presidents have altered and expanded the White House for more than a century. President Franklin D. Roosevelt added the East and West Wings in the middle of the Great Depression. Newspapers accused him of building a palace while Americans stood in breadlines. History now calls it “vision.”

First lady Nancy Reagan faced the same hysteria. Headlines accused her of spending taxpayer money on new china “while Americans starved.” In truth, she raised private funds after learning that the White House didn’t have enough matching plates for state dinners. She took the ridicule and refused to pass blame.

“I’m a big girl,” she told her staff. “This comes with the job.” That was dignity — something the press no longer recognizes.

A restoration, not a renovation

Trump’s project is different in every way that should matter. It costs taxpayers nothing. Not a cent. The president and a few friends privately fund the work. There’s no private pool or tennis court, no personal perks. The additions won’t even be completed until after he leaves office.

What’s being built is not indulgence — it’s stewardship. A restoration of aging rooms, worn fixtures, and century-old bathrooms that no longer function properly in the people’s house. Trump has paid for cast brass doorknobs engraved with the presidential seal, restored the carpets and moldings, and ensured that the architecture remains faithful to history.

The media’s response was mockery and accusations of vanity. They call it “grotesque excess,” while celebrating billion-dollar “climate art” projects and funneling hundreds of millions into activist causes like the No Kings movement. They lecture America on restraint while living off the largesse of billionaires.

The selective guardians of history

Where was this sudden reverence for history when rioters torched St. John’s Church — the same church where every president since James Madison has worshipped? The press called it an “expression of grief.”

Where was that reverence when mobs toppled statues of Washington, Jefferson, and Grant? Or when first lady Melania Trump replaced the Rose Garden’s lawn with a patio but otherwise followed Jackie Kennedy’s original 1962 plans in the garden’s restoration? They called that “desecration.”

If a Republican preserves beauty, it’s vandalism. If a Democrat does the same, it’s “visionary.”

The real desecration

The people shrieking about “historic preservation” care nothing for history. They hate the idea that something lasting and beautiful might be built by hands they despise. They mock craftsmanship because it exposes their own cultural decay.

The White House ballroom is not a scandal — it’s a mirror. And what it reflects is the media’s own pettiness. The ruling class that ridicules restoration is the same class that cheered as America’s monuments fell. Its members sneer at permanence because permanence condemns them.

Julia Beverly / Contributor | Getty Images

Trump’s improvements are an act of faith — in the nation’s symbols, its endurance, and its worth. The outrage over a privately funded renovation says less about him than it does about the journalists who mistake destruction for progress.

The real desecration isn’t happening in the East Wing. It’s happening in the newsrooms that long ago tore up their own foundation — truth — and never bothered to rebuild it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Trump’s secret war in the Caribbean EXPOSED — It’s not about drugs

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The president’s moves in Venezuela, Guyana, and Colombia aren’t about drugs. They’re about re-establishing America’s sovereignty across the Western Hemisphere.

For decades, we’ve been told America’s wars are about drugs, democracy, or “defending freedom.” But look closer at what’s unfolding off the coast of Venezuela, and you’ll see something far more strategic taking shape. Donald Trump’s so-called drug war isn’t about fentanyl or cocaine. It’s about control — and a rebirth of American sovereignty.

The aim of Trump’s ‘drug war’ is to keep the hemisphere’s oil, minerals, and manufacturing within the Western family and out of Beijing’s hands.

The president understands something the foreign policy class forgot long ago: The world doesn’t respect apologies. It respects strength.

While the global elites in Davos tout the Great Reset, Trump is building something entirely different — a new architecture of power based on regional independence, not global dependence. His quiet campaign in the Western Hemisphere may one day be remembered as the second Monroe Doctrine.

Venezuela sits at the center of it all. It holds the world’s largest crude oil reserves — oil perfectly suited for America’s Gulf refineries. For years, China and Russia have treated Venezuela like a pawn on their chessboard, offering predatory loans in exchange for control of those resources. The result has been a corrupt, communist state sitting in our own back yard. For too long, Washington shrugged. Not any more.The naval exercises in the Caribbean, the sanctions, the patrols — they’re not about drug smugglers. They’re about evicting China from our hemisphere.

Trump is using the old “drug war” playbook to wage a new kind of war — an economic and strategic one — without firing a shot at our actual enemies. The goal is simple: Keep the hemisphere’s oil, minerals, and manufacturing within the Western family and out of Beijing’s hands.

Beyond Venezuela

Just east of Venezuela lies Guyana, a country most Americans couldn’t find on a map a year ago. Then ExxonMobil struck oil, and suddenly Guyana became the newest front in a quiet geopolitical contest. Washington is helping defend those offshore platforms, build radar systems, and secure undersea cables — not for charity, but for strategy. Control energy, data, and shipping lanes, and you control the future.

Moreover, Colombia — a country once defined by cartels — is now positioned as the hinge between two oceans and two continents. It guards the Panama Canal and sits atop rare-earth minerals every modern economy needs. Decades of American presence there weren’t just about cocaine interdiction; they were about maintaining leverage over the arteries of global trade. Trump sees that clearly.

PEDRO MATTEY / Contributor | Getty Images

All of these recent news items — from the military drills in the Caribbean to the trade negotiations — reflect a new vision of American power. Not global policing. Not endless nation-building. It’s about strategic sovereignty.

It’s the same philosophy driving Trump’s approach to NATO, the Middle East, and Asia. We’ll stand with you — but you’ll stand on your own two feet. The days of American taxpayers funding global security while our own borders collapse are over.

Trump’s Monroe Doctrine

Critics will call it “isolationism.” It isn’t. It’s realism. It’s recognizing that America’s strength comes not from fighting other people’s wars but from securing our own energy, our own supply lines, our own hemisphere. The first Monroe Doctrine warned foreign powers to stay out of the Americas. The second one — Trump’s — says we’ll defend them, but we’ll no longer be their bank or their babysitter.

Historians may one day mark this moment as the start of a new era — when America stopped apologizing for its own interests and started rebuilding its sovereignty, one barrel, one chip, and one border at a time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Antifa isn’t “leaderless” — It’s an organized machine of violence

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The mob rises where men of courage fall silent. The lesson from Portland, Chicago, and other blue cities is simple: Appeasing radicals doesn’t buy peace — it only rents humiliation.

Parts of America, like Portland and Chicago, now resemble occupied territory. Progressive city governments have surrendered control to street militias, leaving citizens, journalists, and even federal officers to face violent anarchists without protection.

Take Portland, where Antifa has terrorized the city for more than 100 consecutive nights. Federal officers trying to keep order face nightly assaults while local officials do nothing. Independent journalists, such as Nick Sortor, have even been arrested for documenting the chaos. Sortor and Blaze News reporter Julio Rosas later testified at the White House about Antifa’s violence — testimony that corporate media outlets buried.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened.

Chicago offers the same grim picture. Federal agents have been stalked, ambushed, and denied backup from local police while under siege from mobs. Calls for help went unanswered, putting lives in danger. This is more than disorder; it is open defiance of federal authority and a violation of the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause.

A history of violence

For years, the legacy media and left-wing think tanks have portrayed Antifa as “decentralized” and “leaderless.” The opposite is true. Antifa is organized, disciplined, and well-funded. Groups like Rose City Antifa in Oregon, the Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club in Texas, and Jane’s Revenge operate as coordinated street militias. Legal fronts such as the National Lawyers Guild provide protection, while crowdfunding networks and international supporters funnel money directly to the movement.

The claim that Antifa lacks structure is a convenient myth — one that’s cost Americans dearly.

History reminds us what happens when mobs go unchecked. The French Revolution, Weimar Germany, Mao’s Red Guards — every one began with chaos on the streets. But it wasn’t random. Today’s radicals follow the same playbook: Exploit disorder, intimidate opponents, and seize moral power while the state looks away.

Dismember the dragon

The Trump administration’s decision to designate Antifa a domestic terrorist organization was long overdue. The label finally acknowledged what citizens already knew: Antifa functions as a militant enterprise, recruiting and radicalizing youth for coordinated violence nationwide.

But naming the threat isn’t enough. The movement’s financiers, organizers, and enablers must also face justice. Every dollar that funds Antifa’s destruction should be traced, seized, and exposed.

AFP Contributor / Contributor | Getty Images

This fight transcends party lines. It’s not about left versus right; it’s about civilization versus anarchy. When politicians and judges excuse or ignore mob violence, they imperil the republic itself. Americans must reject silence and cowardice while street militias operate with impunity.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened. The violence in Portland and Chicago is deliberate, not spontaneous. If America fails to confront it decisively, the price won’t just be broken cities — it will be the erosion of the republic itself.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.