Santorum speaks to Glenn about his surge in Iowa

One man who has experienced a sudden surge in Iowa the past few days has been Rick Santorum, a candidate that Glenn has praised in the past. In fact, Glenn said that the two candidates he would vote for today would be Santorum and Bachmann, with Bachmann narrowly ahead of Santorum. Apparently others are realizing the value of a Rick Santorum as he is currently in the top three contenders in the polls alongside Mitt Romney and Ron Paul.

Read the transcript below:

GLENN: Today live from Dallas, Texas, the Lone Star state, tonight we begin our broadcast from GBTV on our brand new sound stage. We will show it to you. But today all eyes are on Iowa. That's why new frontrunner or the guy surging, Rick Santorum is on with us, now.

VOICE: Things are going back in a very healthy direction.

GLENN: Rick Santorum in Iowa, I think he could win tonight. I think it's because we didn't endorse him.

STU: (Laughing).

GLENN: Whenever that happens, they surge ahead. It is Rick Santorum, a good friend, a good friend of the program and a guy who is probably the strongest on the Middle East out there. Rick, how are you, sir?

SANTORUM: I'm doing great, Glenn. Thanks so much for having me on and thanks for all of the help that you've given me by giving me the opportunity to come on your program and for saying the kind things you have about me. I appreciate it very much.

GLENN: I will tell you this: We gave the opportunity to Newt Gingrich and it's really what you do with the time.

PAT: (Laughing).

GLENN: Rick, I want to ask

SANTORUM: Okay. I'll leave it at that.

GLENN: Yeah. I want to ask you a couple of a couple of tough questions because and you know that I'm your friend and I hope we're friends forever, but we're not electing a friend. We're electing the president of the United States and if you can't handle the Glenn Beck program, you know, what are you going to do. You shouldn't be the president of the United States. So let me ask you some tough questions. You supported Pat Toomey

PAT: No. Other way around.

GLENN: No, no.

SANTORUM: No. Other way around.

GLENN: Yeah, Arlen Specter over Pat Toomey. What the hell is wrong with you?

PAT: (Laughing.) That's about as direct as it gets right there.

SANTORUM: I like you know, when I was right after that happened in Pennsylvania, the question I got more than "how are you today" was "Why are you support Specter." And the answer to that question is it's a little complex but it's I did it because I thought it was in the best interest of the cause I believed in. As you know, Glenn, the most powerful branch of government unfortunately today is the is the judiciary and the Supreme Court and we were the 51/49 majority at the time in the United States Senate and President Bush was running for reelection and we believed there would be two and maybe even three Supreme Court nominees and Arlen Specter was slated to be chairman of the judiciary committee. Specter as you know from the days of Bork and Thomas was really the decider. If Specter supported the candidate for the court, he would pass. If he didn't, they wouldn't. That's because moderate Republicans and conservative Democrats basically followed his lead. And he came to me at the end of the campaign and asked for help. I had not been active in the campaign at all and he asked for help and I said, you know, Arlen, I've got concerns. I said, you're going to be chairman of the judiciary committee. He said I said, I'm not comfortable. He said, well, he says, I'll support whatever nominee the president puts up as long as I'm properly consulted as chairman of the committee and I'll make sure those nominations get through. And for me two to three Supreme Court justices for 30 years on the court was probably the most important thing we could have gotten out of that election. We had a 51 49 majority. Specter would hold onto the seat and guarantee the Supreme Court. We got Roberts, and I all the folks listening, go and read the reports. Read the news stories when Justice Alito's confirmation. There were repeated series of attacks on Alito. Every single time those attacks were waged, Arlen Specter was the first guy to jump up and knock them down. And I can say without question that Alito would not be on the court. It was a close vote. He would not have been on the court and we would not have a 5 4, well well, at least four and a half strong conservatives on that court right now and Alito being one of the best of them. So I

GLENN: Okay. All right. You're pissing me off because I really

SANTORUM: I made a decision which I felt was best. And let me just say this, Glenn. I knew it would cost I knew people would question me saying, oh, you're selling out, you're being for the liberal guy. No, I was being for what I thought was in the best interest of our country and I was willing to take the heat and continue to take the heat for doing so.

GLENN: Okay.

PAT: But it was based solely on Supreme Court decisions? Because the guy is not a conservative like you are.

SANTORUM: No, he's no, look, he's not a conservative.

PAT: No.

SANTORUM: That, you know, he did support some things and changed his opinion. He supported the partial birth abortion ban which he know he hadn't in the past and, you know, I will say that when I asked him for his help and support on key issues, most of the time he did help us out. But look, I understand this was going to be a he's not a conservative. I mean, I agree with that. I mean, he eventually switched to become a Democrat.

GLENN: He was a Democrat in the beginning.

PAT: But

PAT: I didn't leave the Republican Party, Glenn. The Republican Party left me.

STU: Rick, this is interesting because I think I understand your point on the Supreme Court and I think it's valid and Bush was fantastic

GLENN: It is.

STU: with Supreme Court justices. But isn't the point that isn't your point for endorsing Specter there because you believe he was more electable than Toomey who is the conservative, which is the same point people make against you with Romney now?

GLENN: No. No, he's not making that.

SANTORUM: No, I'm not saying that. Look, I don't know, Pat Toomey might have been able to won, he might not have been. Certainly would have been harder. You know, Bush lost the State of Pennsylvania that year in 2004. He lost it by 2 or 3 points. You know, Pat Toomey didn't get elected to the Senate. But I was got elected in the Senate, a pretty good year for Republican which 2004 was not. And the gubernatorial candidates for Pennsylvania, our candidate for governor who led the ticket like Bush would have won by 10 and Pat won by 1. So, you know, I don't know whether he would have won or not but it would have been certainly a much harder race. I don't think there's any question about that. And with a one seat majority, I was looking for something where I could, if I could say, look, by supporting Specter, we could guarantee Supreme Court nominees, that's a pretty good that's a pretty good reason to support someone in my opinion.

GLENN: Okay. Rick, earmarks.

SANTORUM: Yeah.

GLENN: You've defended Rick Perry brought this up and you defended earmarks. How can you possibly

SANTORUM: Yeah, what I said was that for 200 plus years in American history, if you look at the Constitution, Glenn, the Constitution says that the congress shall appropriate money. The congress is supposed to spend money, not the president. The congress spends this money. What happened was there was abuse. And there was abuse that led to higher spending. And when and people justifiably got upset. But the idea that congress shouldn't allocate money is against what the Constitution, in fact, requires the congress to do. What happened is that congress were using earmarks to get folks to vote for higher spending, which is what exploded this deficit in the last few years after I left the United States Senate. And so what I've said is

GLENN: No, no, no, no. No, no, no.

SANTORUM: That when that happened and Pat Toomey tied together what?

GLENN: No, no. No, no. I'm not going to let you get away I'm not going to let you get away with, "And then I left the Senate and spending was..." spending has been out of control for 20, 30 years.

SANTORUM: I would agree, but it's look at the rates of spending in discretionary accounts in Washington over the past 15 years and you will see, you know, low single digit increases in discretionary spending up until the time Obama came in and they exploded. And that's when people got all bent out of shape about earmarks and there was a rally, legitimately so to end it because they were being used to get people to vote for that higher spending. So look, I've said I'll support a ban of earmarks, and I do support a ban of earmarks. I will say that Jim DeMint who led this charge also supported earmarks. Ron Paul supported earmarks. Because, in fact, I don't know of too many people who didn't do earmarks because all of us thought it was our responsibility under the Constitution and representing our several states to make sure that when federal dollars were spent, they were allocated equally among the states as our job was to do.

GLENN: All right. You are and I've said this for years. You're probably the only guy that really I can't say that. You're one of the leaders on really understanding what is happening in the Middle East, what we face, the threat from Iran. We've talked about this, Rick, for what? Five years, seven years?

SANTORUM: Oh, more than that, Glenn. We've been talking about it since, I remember at least 2005 and maybe before.

GLENN: Yeah. So we I mean, we've been talking about this for a very long time. You knew who the twelfth imam was before anybody knew who it was. However, let me go here: I saw that you which I agree with. I saw that you said this weekend that you would launch a strike against Iran if they have nuclear weapons. They're in the straits of

SANTORUM: Well, no, I said I would launch a

GLENN: Make sure they don't.

SANTORUM: Look, I laid out a variety of things that I would do. And I said if all those things failed, then you have to set an ultimatum and say that, you know, we can't have a policy, Glenn, that says Iran shouldn't get a nuclear weapon and then don't do anything to stop them from getting it.

GLENN: Correct.

SANTORUM: That is the paper tiger and weakness because as you know, as you know the Middle East, the weak course is not one that's particularly well respected.

GLENN: No.

SANTORUM: And so when you say that you have a policy, which we do, which every presidential candidate does except Ron Paul that says that Iran should not get a nuclear weapon, then you better have a policy that, you know, actually tactical things that you're going to do to make sure that doesn't happen.

GLENN: Okay.

SANTORUM: And I laid them out in sequence. The last of the sequence was if all else fails, then we have to be very public that we will work with the State of Israel and that we will use whatever force is necessary, air strikes, to degrade those facilities.

GLENN: Okay.

SANTORUM: Before they get a nuclear weapon.

GLENN: Here's the here's the thing. We are stretched so thin financially.

SANTORUM: We will be stretched even more thin if Iran has a nuclear weapon, Glenn, and starts launching attacks in the Middle East, against the State of Israel, in this country. You think the economy's struggling now, just wait until we have a series of terrorist attacks because Iran will feel impervious to being attacked because they have a nuclear weapon.

GLENN: I know.

SANTORUM: That is something that

GLENN: You and I, Rick, I'm playing devil's advocate here. I cannot there is a strong part of me that says enough of the wars. Enough of the wars. What are we fighting? Five wars right now?

SANTORUM: We're trying to prevent a war here. We're trying to prevent one of the most nefarious the most nefarious regime in the entire world from you know, this is the equivalent as you know, Glenn, you know this. This is the equivalent of Al Qaeda or maybe even worse than Al Qaeda being in control of a country with enormous resources and capability.

GLENN: No, this is Hitler.

SANTORUM: We're trying to prevent them from having the failsafe so they can go out and reign terror around the world.

GLENN: The the idea that Iran is in the Straits of Hormuz right now firing missiles

SANTORUM: They think we're weak. They think we won't do anything. They're testing. They continue to prod, poke and test the will of the American president and he continues to show that he is going to be complacent and allow them to have their way. That's what this president has shown from the attempted attacks here in this country on a Saudi ambassador, the improvised explosive devices that have been used for years now to kill our troops that are manufactured in Iran. Iran as you saw on the front page of the Washington Post yesterday with and you've talked about this on your program with its influence now growing in Central and South America, we can sit on the sidelines and say, well, we'll just, you know, we'll let them go ahead and do this because we're tired of war. And then we will really be tired of war because it will be on our shores.

PAT: For so long now we've been asking you how you turn this thing around from the 1 to 2% that you were receiving and now here you are suddenly surging. This has got to feel pretty good. You are at 15% according to the latest poll. You have a real legitimate shot at winning this. This would really give you a shot in the arm if you finish in, I'd say the top three, wouldn't it?

SANTORUM: Yeah, I think the top three is what we're shooting for. I mean, obviously 10, 12 days ago we were in last place and we were getting the question that we got here on the program last time I was on: What's wrong with you, Rick? I mean, you're not doing anything, it's not happening. I'd like to support you, but... and I've always said, you know, I'm going to go out and do what I've done here, Glenn. I mean, I love you, I really do. I love you as a brother and I agree with you on 90 plus percent of the things but, you know, what, Glenn, when we disagree, I'm not going to sugar coat it to you. I'm going to tell you exactly what I believe and I respect the fact that, you know, you have a different opinion on things but I also respect you enough to be able to tell you, you know, that I what I think and lay it all out there. And the people of Iowa, I've heard this repeatedly. They said, you know what, I don't agree with you on everything but I think you are an honest guy, you actually are saying what you believe is the right thing to do, and I trust you. And nobody I mean, we can't all run for president. Therefore there's no perfect candidate. And so you take what you think is the best and when you disagree, you at least understand that they are doing it for the reasons they believe in their heart is the right thing to do. And that's what I'm trying to lay out here in Iowa, and the people of Iowa have responded to it.

GLENN: Good luck tonight, Rick. Good luck.

SANTORUM: Thank you, my friend, and I really appreciate it. By the way, I do appreciate, I mean this all sincerity. I appreciate you asking me the tough questions and the things that we disagree on because, you know, if you don't put those out there, then people can go and think what they want. And there are disagreements but I hope you believe as I hope you know this

GLENN: I wouldn't

SANTORUM: I'm doing it because I do believe it's the best thing for the country.

GLENN: I wouldn't lose a second of time worrying about what you were doing behind anybody's back or behind closed doors. Not one second of time would I worry about that.

SANTORUM: Thank you, my friend.

GLENN: God bless you.

SANTORUM: And if you go to RickSantorum.com and help us out, I'd appreciate it. Thank you.

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.