Is Norquist an 'agent of influence'? Here's what the experts have to say

On radio this morning, Glenn welcomed Patrick Poole, national security expert for PJ Media, and Joseph Scmitz, former Inspector General for the Department of Defense, onto the radio show to discuss the connections between Grover Norquist and the Muslim Brotherhood. Grover's on the board of the NRA and has his hand in a number of conservative groups. At the same time, he's got all kinds of questionable connections to radical Islamists and convicted terrorists. What do the experts have to say?

Watch a complimentary highlight below, scroll down for audio of the full hour and a rush transcript of this segment. Don't miss Grover Norquist's response tonight on TheBlaze TV.

The full interview begins 38 minutes into the audio below:

Below is a rush transcript.

GLENN: We're talking a little about Grover Norquist. He is going to be my guest tonight. I'm making this episode free. So you can watch it. Last night, I kind of did the Fox thing. And pulled out my chalkboards and dusted them off and tried to show you the connections and how disturbing these connections really are and how they're all connected to the Muslim Brotherhood. And if you are familiar -- if you buy the line, the Muslim Brotherhood is largely secular, they have Muslim in their name, they're largely secular, and they're a peace group, well, then you're too far gone to save anyway.

If you know who the Muslim Brotherhood is, you know how dangerous these connections are. Grover canceled yesterday. I got a note during the show that he was not going to be on the show. Then he wrote this morning and said, no, I didn't mean that. I meant I wanted to be on the show. So he'll be on tonight. And I will tell you, it will be one of those shows like we've had in the past. I think I know his answers and I think he'll try to make this into race-baiting or smearing other people. This is not about other people. It's not about his family. It's not about him personally. This is about his connections. And I want to get the straight answers on the connections. Period. I have very little tolerance for people that try to grandstand or change the subject. And I'm just not going to play any games. So he'll be on with us at 5 o'clock. It is free. You'll be able to watch it. You'll be able to blog with us during the episode. We will make that available and explain that to you later on in the program today.

But I brought in Joe Schmitz, he is the former Inspector General of the Department of Defense and the guy who literally wrote the textbook on inspector generals. The handbook for inspector generals. A very reasoned and rational guy whose voice needs to be heard more and more. Also, Patrick Poole. National security and terrorism correspondent for PJMedia.com. And a guy who has really helped us over the years. Works closely with For the Record. And tries to get to the bottom of all the connections of Islamic terror.

Patrick, I want to talk to you about where I left off. I'm concerned that Grover is on all these boards. The National Rifle Association is one of them. Because if you know what the Muslim Brotherhood project is, you know their goal was to get agents of influence into the boardrooms of America. Into our culture. Mainstream them and then slowly exert their influence.

This is why we can't say anything anymore. This is why we're so politically correct. Because these agents of influence have tremendous power at the highest levels.

We were talking a little about Grover when he was on the board of directors of CPAC. And he was -- well, you tell the story. Because you know it firsthand. Tell me what his influence on a board means.

PATRICK: One of the reasons he is there is because of the money he brings to the table. That's why he's on all these boards. And that's why largely he was on the board of the American Conservative Union. Both he and his pal, Suhail Khan, was the money that they were helping to keep ACU afloat and CPAC. And not just Grover, but particularly Suhail made a big thing about the fact that the people that were now excluded from speaking at CPAC because they had fallen out of favor and were raising these concerns about the Muslim Brotherhood. You know, we see how well that foreign policy worked out in the Middle East over the past couple of years. Embracing the so-called moderate Muslim Brotherhood. And for -- I've been to the CPAC for the past eight years. I think. And national security was -- was absent for a number of years. I mean, there weren't any panels about the collapse of our foreign policy. And Grover and Suhail were architects of that. Keeping the people out who were raising concerns about our engaging the moderate Islamists, like the Muslim Brotherhood, or us partnering with Abdul Helkein Belhaj (phonetic), the Libyan al-Qaeda figure who we have pictures with, not just Democrats, but with John McCain and Lindsey Graham. The CIA renditioned him back to Libya, and this is the guy we backed to overthrow Muammar Gadhafi. People who were raising concerns about the time, and there was nothing said about it at CPAC.

GLENN: And you believe it's because of Grover's influence?

PATRICK: Well, certainly Suhail went out publicly.

GLENN: Explain the connection to Suhail and who Suhail is.

PATRICK: Well, Suhail is a very close associate of Grover. I mean, there are pictures of -- there was a picture I remember from the National Journal of Grover at one of his Wednesday morning meetings. And you can see Suhail sitting directly behind him. And Grover helped get Suhail his position as the lobbyist for Microsoft. That's currently his position. And, you know, got him the position on the American Conservative Union board. The group that runs CPAC.

GLENN: This is what is so disturbing. These guys have been white-washed so much that they can go work for Microsoft at the highest levels. They can go into these boardrooms. Who is on the board of Seagrams?

GLENN: Certainly, Seagrams was a long-time client of Grover's and sponsored a lot of his events. I think that's part of the question when you raise the topics of these boards and he brings money to the table to these organizations is, where is that money coming from?

GLENN: Correct. This has all been done in the name of tolerance. We're being taught to be tolerant. And that is a good thing. To a point. Isn't it, Joe?

JOE: You know, if you ask any group of people typically if you're in favor of tolerance. Most of the hands will go up. Instinctively we like tolerance. But there's a famous noble laureate by the name of Thomas Mann who escaped Germany in 1928 and became an American. And in one of his books he said, tolerance becomes a crime when applied to evil. And if you really think about it. When people who will say instinctively, I'm in favor of tolerance. Then you ask them, do you tolerate human slavery? Well, no, we don't tolerate that.

GLENN: Correct.

JOE: Do you tolerate child abuse? No, we don't tolerate that. So tolerance has its limits. And, you know, the idea of agents of influence in our society is not new. We had British agents of influence literally spying on our forefathers during the American Revolutionary War. During the second war, leading up, literally at the same time when Thomas Mann was escaping what became Nazi Germany, we had the Bruderbund (phonetic). Which was very active in trying to influence American public policy.

GLENN: Right.

JOE: You know, during the Cold War, we have documented time after time agents of influence from the Soviet Communist Party trying to influence American foreign policy.

GLENN: You have Alger Hiss. What's fascinating about Alger Hiss. It's so striking with agents of influence. And the way Grover Norquist -- Alger Hiss, when another -- another guy who knew said, no, no, let me tell you who he is. I know because I'm on that side. He is a bad, bad guy. Everybody laughed it off because Alger Hiss had so much power and influence. The State Department continued to laugh it off up until Alger Hiss' death. And even when he died, NBC reported, not the facts, because we did prove later in life -- he was convicted, went to prison and proved, went to prison. And even after death, that's the only time that the State Department came out and said, yes, and we knew at the time. But NBC, when they reported his death, Tom Brokaw came on and said, a guy who a lot of people believed was an agent for the Soviet Union. He went to prison for it. And they're still trying to cover those tracks. So those agents of influence have been with us forever. It's not a new deal.

JOE: We know from the Venona transcripts, released in the '90s, how deep the US intelligence agencies knew the penetration was. And we know from some of the terrorism trials like the Holy Land Foundation trial, the United States government knows how deep the penetration of these Islamist organizations are into our own government right now. I mean, we have the absolutely bizarre situation of the Department of Justice going into federal court saying these organizations and individuals are bad guys, leaving federal court, going to an outreach meeting. Putting their arms around the same organizations and individuals and saying, these are our outreach partners. That's how utterly insane it is.

PAT: That's what's disturbing about this whole thing is, because we know the Democrats are lost to us. I mean, they've been radicalized infiltrated. Who knows what all has happened in the Democrat Party. But here we have a guy, a big-time conservative operative who everybody thinks is just this small government, lower tax guy. Bouncing around in conservative circles and really influencing people all over the place who also then influenced other people and have influence at the highest levels of government. How do you get the American people to understand who he is? Because we've known a lot of these connections for a long time. And nothing ever sticks to them.

GLENN: They're always just dismissed.

PAT: How do you get the American people to stand up and recognize what's going on here?

JOE: Well, what I try to do when I talk around the country. Is I try to -- what resonates with the American people. In my experience is sort of American first things. You know, you talk about the Constitution. You talk about the first amendment. You talk about the fact that Americans will literally die for religious liberty. So that's -- we're not -- we're not out to get some religious sect. That's exactly the opposite of what we're out to.

PAT: Yeah.

JOE: And you just try to bring home the issues. The facts. I think the American people are frankly very good at recognizing facts when they see them.

GLENN: Yes.

JOE: The problem is -- and this is classic military strategy, if you were trying to engage in a civilization jihad as the North American Muslim Brotherhood Explanatory Memorandum says that is what their plan. Is. You would want to infiltrate the Republicans at this time more than you would want to infiltrate the Democrats because that's how you're more affected.

GLENN: Yes. How is -- and I only have about two minutes. How is Karl Rove connected to this? I mean, $26 million from Crossroads going to the American Tax Reform. Karl Rove was there the whole time. He had to know -- these guys aren't stupid. So they know who is being brought into the White House.

PATRICK: We have pictures of Karl Rove at the Texas governor's mansion with some of these characters.

GLENN: Right. After they were giving the speech. Who is with Hamas, who is with Hezbollah. And it has been exposed. They all know. What role does Karl Rove play in this? How much does the G.O.P. know?

PATRICK: I think the establishment G.O.P. doesn't want to know. Because they -- they know -- they lift up that lid and then suddenly --

PAT: Does that include Karl Rove or is he a knowing participant in this?

PATRICK: Well, I don't know. But certainly we know he's participated in it. It's been reported a number of times that Rove took these meetings with these extremists --

GLENN: So it's a convenient lie to themselves. That if they don't know, they have every reason to know, it's all around them. It's not like we're informing them. They're just dismissing it because they get a lot of money from these guys.

PATRICK: And it's precisely that attitude that has us in the position we are with respect to our foreign policy where we are --

GLENN: Yeah, it's interest over principles. Their interest is the money and a win. Their principles would say, no, you can't do this with these guys.

JOE: Well, stated differently, it's very, very important second things over first things. CS Lewis coined this principle, says if you're always focusing on second things. Classic second things are money and survival. But if that's what you're always focusing on and you're ignoring those first things, the core values that you would literally die for, in the end, you don't achieve your second things. You don't get your money and you lose the first things in the process.

GLENN: That's where we are.

JOE: So Karl Rove may be a great money guy. That's very important in the overall equation. But we have to focus on things other than money if in the end we'll succeed.

GLENN: And, boy, that explains everything in the G.O.P. They're only concerned about second things. They're concerned about winning and money and power. And the American people are. The American people are concerned about first things because we know we're about to lose everything. And it's the first things that made us who we are. And if we lose the first things, we're done. We're done.

How America’s elites fell for the same lie that fueled Auschwitz

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

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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.