WATCH: Glenn's full interview with Senator Rand Paul

Sen. Rand Paul gave his first interview since ending his nearly 13 hour filibuster to Glenn Beck and TheBlaze. You can read the full transcript from the interview below:

GLENN: A man who is I believe going to be the logical choice for president of the United States because he is reasonable, polite, and a ‑‑ I believe in a teaching mode right now, teaching the American people, not throwing around firebombs, not calling anybody names but speaking about principles, and the principles are those basic human rights that we all know naturally we're born with. One that he spoke about last night, the right to live and to have a trial and to have a warrant, not just be killed, gunned down in the streets, or in this case killed by a drone because this president or any president says, "Yeah, take him out." Here in the United States he held his filibuster last night and his first interview, Rand Paul, welcome, sir.

RAND PAUL: Good morning, Glenn. I was thinking about you. About four or five hours into it I was thinking, gosh, Glenn Beck can sit and talk for four or five hours every day, but it's really not that easy to talk for that long.

GLENN: I can go to the bathroom.

RAND PAUL: And you get commercial breaks.

GLENN: I know. I was a little disappointed, quite honestly, Senator. I mean, you're a doctor. Did you ‑‑ did you think about giving yourself a catheter at any point? I know you're an eye doctor, but ‑‑

RAND PAUL: Yeah. Well, see, the thing is I did think about it. I put them in before and I really decided against it.

GLENN: (Laughing.)

RAND PAUL: But ‑‑

GLENN: Tell me what your ‑‑ tell me what your thoughts were last night on who joined you, who didn't join you, the success that you had or where you felt it fell short.

RAND PAUL: Well, you know, I was pretty amazed by the outpouring of support just up here. I mean, we probably had 15 congressmen come over to the Senate floor, and congressmen are allowed to come to the Senate floor but not allowed to speak or to come forward. I've never seen that happen before. And they came spontaneously. Nobody called them. They just showed up. And so one by one 15 people came in through the door which is ‑‑ you know, that to me is pretty amazing because we've all got, you know, busy careers and speaking engagements, and for 15 people to show up in support from the other House was amazing. And then really most of the senators came spontaneously too. We called one or two that do a lot with us to help us early on and then ‑‑ but gradually I'm not sure how many we had, but I'll bet you we had 15 finally show up to be supportive.

And the interesting thing is we may not be all be on the same page on drone strikes here, there and hither and yon, but on American soil we came together and said, you know what? We're not going to do targeted strikes of people not engaged in combat in America.

GLENN: Explain this to people because I know I have friends who I will talk to about this story this weekend and they will say to me, "The president is not going to do that." I mean, that's pretty much what Eric Holder was hoping people would buy into when he didn't ‑‑ wouldn't deny that it's unconstitutional or, you know, he was sitting there and I think he was just hoping that people would say, "Well, they're reasonable and so they will never do that."

RAND PAUL: Well, you know, I just recite back to them the Federalist Paper by Madison when he says, you know, if government were comprised of angels, we wouldn't need rules. And so I try to make it less about President Obama and more about what if someday we elect someone who wouldn't ‑‑ who would abuse this power. And I think when you make it in those generic terms, people can be concerned with it. And it's dangerous anytime you use an example of Hitler because everybody thinks you're overexaggerating. But Hitler was elected democratically. So democracies can make mistakes and that's why you want the rule of law to restrain them and not let them do that. And it's really an important principle, and it's difficult sometimes for people because I want to kill terrorists too, and I think if you're in a battlefield fighting us, you don't get due process. You don't get lawyers. You can be killed. If you attack us in a plane, all of those things can be rejected with any kind of lethal force. But I'm concerned about people who are sitting and eating in a diner and you might think they're associated with terrorism because they've sent an e‑mail to somebody. But really that needs to be adjudicated in the courts. And even many other people made the point that if you're sitting eating in a diner in America and you really are a terrorist, we probably get a lot more information out of you by capturing you and going ahead and interrogating you than we would by killing you.

GLENN: I can't think of any reason, any reason with perhaps the idea that you know, you have a live shot of somebody wiring up the Empire State building and there happens to be no police officers, no FBI, strangely the only thing you have ‑‑ because he's going for the red button and pushing it ‑‑ possibly at that time but not, not for any other reason can I think of.

RAND PAUL: Right. And if those instances there's really not any disagreement. Like Eric Holder brings up, you know, planes attacking the Twin Towers like they did on 9/11.

GLENN: Right.

RAND PAUL: Or attacking on Pearl Harbor. Those are attacks that obviously are repulsed but see, those aren't even targeted drone attacks. We might use drones but that's not what we're talking about when we're talking about targeted drone attacks to individuals. And none of us really are arguing against repulsing any attack or anybody anywhere near a bomb. I mean, if you're just carrying a bomb into a building, I think you can be, you know, you're bringing lethal force. You don't even have to have your finger on the button. You can eliminate someone who's carrying a bomb, carrying a weapon. You know, there's all kinds of things that can be done.

GLENN: Hang on a second. We found out yesterday through a Freedom of Information Act that the drones from the Department of Homeland Security can see if you are carrying a gun in day or night with their new drones.

RAND PAUL: Yeah, I'm not going after people necessarily caring a rifle around. That would be half of the South, and myself included. So ‑‑ and half of my staff. So now I am not talking about that but I am talking about if you've been investigating a group and obviously you see them going into the World Trade Center basement with a bomb, you know, lethal force can be used at many stages and always has been. Same with police. Police use lethal force all the time. If someone's robbing a liquor store, you don't get a warrant and you call out "stop" and if they don't stop, you get shot if you've got a weapon and you're a threat to people.

So but what's interesting is the president wants to answer the question we are not asking: Can you use lethal force when someone is imminently using lethal force. And the reason we worry about this is his drone strike program overseas, he says that you have to be an imminent threat but you don't have to be immediate. So if that standard's going to be used in the United States, we're concerned that that could be somebody sitting in a diner.

GLENN: The ‑‑ Van Jones came out and supported you.

RAND PAUL: Hey, we got Code Pink too.

GLENN: I know. I'm not sure I believe either of them but I'll ‑‑ you know, that's fine if ‑‑ I mean, I don't know why all of a sudden the Bill of Rights means something.

RAND PAUL: Here's the thing, Glenn: This is an issue that does get people who believe in liberty on the left and right, and there are people who do have consistent, sincere beliefs. Like Ron Wyden I think's a good man. I don't agree with him on most economic liberty issues, but on civil liberties he and I have a lot of agreement.

The other thing about this is if we're ever to grow as a party, the Republican Party to grow, we need to interest young people who are interested in civil liberties who may not be quite with us on the economic issues yet.

GLENN: No, no, no, no. Hang on just a second.

RAND PAUL: As they get holder, they come towards us.

GLENN: Yeah, I'm not talking about economic issues. When somebody is an avowed Communist, you know, then I don't understand your civil liberties thing. However, we can disagree on a lot of things and that's why I've been saying I really, truly believe ‑‑ and this is why I think you are the guy that could make the impact that will take us away from these two parties, you are the guy who could hold up the Bill of Rights and say, "Look, we can disagree on economic issues. We can disagree on a lot of stuff. But these, these ten ideas we should have no disagreement on. These ten ideas are what keeps the individual to be able to disagree with each other. And that's important.

RAND PAUL: Well, and that's sort of the point we were trying to make yesterday is that, you know, Eric Holder has said that the Fifth Amendment they are trying to apply in the Oval Office when they talk about drone strikes. That's debatable overseas because I think a lot of areas overseas in war you don't necessarily get the Fifth Amendment anyway. But the problem is they now say that these drone strikes are not ruling them out in America, but the Fifth Amendment being discussed privately as part of some kind of PowerPoint presentation in the Oval Office isn't really what most people conceive of when they think of due process and a jury and an accusation. So really what's applicable overseas in a drone program and some of us might debate and we might actually accept a lot of what goes on overseas, we can't accept that at home because it's different when we're talking about people who we think might be associated with terrorism. There really needs to be an accusation. There needs to be an adjudication of whether you really are or aren't. You need to be able to stand up and say, "No, no, I didn't really mean what I sent in that e‑mail" and there needs to be some discussion.

GLENN: There needs to be a trial.

RAND PAUL: Exactly.

GLENN: There's no reason why the FBI cannot go and arrest that person and have a trial. No man, no man should ever be in the position of judge, jury and executioner, ever.

RAND PAUL: Well, and see, this went on with the indefinite detention, too. See, about a year ago they passed legislation that allows them to detain citizens without a trial, and you can actually, an American can be sent to Guantanamo Bay from here without a trial. And the president at that time said, "Well, I have no intention of doing that," but he signed the legislation. Which is sort of what he's saying now: Trust me, I'm a good man, you can trust me, I will not kill Americans who are sitting in a restaurant. And, you know, I want to take him at his word, but intent isn't really what I'm looking for. And so I mentioned several times yesterday the oath of office says "I will protect, preserve and defend the Constitution." It doesn't say "I intend to when it's convenient."

STU: Senator, there has been some criticism over your filibuster last night including apparently from Lindsey Graham saying the idea that we're going to ‑‑

GLENN: Wear it as a badge of honor.

STU: The idea that we're going to use a drone to kill a citizen in a cafe in America is ridiculous.

RAND PAUL: Well, I agree it's a ridiculous idea but then why wouldn't the president say he won't.

PAT: That's exactly right.

GLENN: That's really it.

PAT: That's exactly why you do it.

STU: Here's another from the Wall Street Journal editorial: Calm down, Senator, meaning you.

GLENN: Oh, my gosh.

STU: Mr. Holder is right. This is supposedly a conservative paper. Even if he doesn't explain the law very well, the U.S. Government cannot randomly target American citizens on U.S. soil or anywhere else. What it can do under the laws of war is target an enemy combatant anywhere at any time including on U.S. soil.

RAND PAUL: Yeah, here's the problem, this idea of laws of war. And I agree with some of this aspect of laws of war. If you're in Afghanistan or if you're in a battle zone, you get no due process. You don't get a lawyer, you don't get Miranda rights. You get killed. If you are shooting American soldiers, we can use drones, bombs, we have no limit to what kind of force we will use against you.

The difference is, is that if you bring ‑‑ if you say America's part of the battlefield and you want the laws of war to apply over here, just describing someone as an enemy combatant ‑‑ see, a year or two ago, they described people who are pro life, people who are for strong immigration and strong secure borders, people who believe in third parties. I think Glenn Beck was on the list, Ron Paul was on the list. They described these people as potential terrorists and they sent out a statement to all the police in Missouri.

GLENN: Yeah.

RAND PAUL: So we have to be concerned about just saying someone's a dangerous person or enemy combatant, you have to prove that. You can't just accuse someone and then they get killed.

GLENN: Yeah. The Southern Poverty Law Center just came out with a new study. Shows that these, quote, patriot groups are a danger and pose a terrorist threat, an increasing terrorist threat. That's their language. So you've got to be really careful.

One last question, Senator, and we'll let you go: Are you going to vote for Brennan?

RAND PAUL: We're hoping to get an announcement from the White House this morning, and I don't intend to. We're trying to get a statement this morning that confirms that they are not going to target com ‑‑ not going to target Americans who are not engaged in combat in America for targeted killing. And my argument really still is mainly with that ‑‑ with the idea, not the person. I'm concerned, though, that Brennan really, it's been like pulling teeth to get him to say he'll support the Constitution and so my inclination is still to vote, you know, not letting end debate if I don't get the information. If I get the information, you know, you and I have had this discussion before. My opinion a lot of times has been to give deference even to people I disagree with, but I won't vote for him on any of the votes if I don't get information from the White House saying they are going to adhere to the Constitution. I hate doing that. ‑‑

GLENN: Senator ‑‑

RAND PAUL: I know I lost a little bit there, but ‑‑

GLENN: You're not ‑‑ at least you're clear, you're not waffling, you're not saying the popular thing, and I appreciate that. We just disagree on this. I think the man is a real danger to the United States, and putting him into that position is really quite dangerous. But I respect you.

RAND PAUL: I think you're right and, you know, the question always is, is what rises to that level. I think the constitutional question and the idea of killing citizens obviously rises to that level. The question is I'm still leaving somewhat of an opening in the sense that I want to get an honest answer from the White House. We're using the leverage of holding up the vote, and I can make them stay here through Saturday, and they hate to work on weekends. So we'll see what happens and hopefully they'll agree to give us a statement saying they're going to support the Constitution.

GLENN: Senator, thank you very much. And very proud of the stand you made yesterday. Very proud the way you handled it, and I'm just, I'm glad you're in Washington, sir. Thank you.

RAND PAUL: Thanks, Glenn.

GLENN: God bless.

More in a second. Our sponsor this half hour is Carbonite. I'm not sure how he ‑‑ we have to discuss next hour, I'm not sure what he just said.

STU: This is a positive day for Rand Paul though.

GLENN: It is, very.

STU: I don't agree with that stance. I agree with Mike Lee's stance, but still.

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

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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

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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.