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The next great American leader? Glenn interviews him on radio today...

June 28, 2013
Wilson

Writer

Glenn interviewed pastor and former NFL player Ken Hutcherson on radio today, a man Glenn feels will be (and already is) one of the great American leaders. He understands the time in which we live and speaks with authority, profound logic and reason.

Full transcript of interview below:

Ken, welcome to the program. How are you, sir?

PASTOR HUTCHERSON: Good morning, guys. You-guys work awful early.

GLENN: I know. I'm sorry. Well, you're in Seattle. You get up at, like, what? Noon? Ken, I wrote you last night and I said, I've been saying this stuff for a long time and they've never attacked me before. I think they're starting to be afraid. I think this is starting to connect and make sense to people, that civil rights are the rights that are outlined in the Bill of Rights and they are violating the First Amendment, the Second Amendment. They're violating the Fifth Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, the Tenth Amendment. They're violating those civil rights.

PASTOR HUTCHERSON: You've got to understand pressure always determines the true character of any person. Good pressure, bad pressure, opposite pressure, but on this earth, Glenn, everyone better understand one thing: You won't feel pressure like you're going to feel　-- can you imagine any nonbeliever, any atheist, standing in front of Christ, trying to explain why they rejected him? Now, that's pressure, my brother. And as a Christian, I don't have that. I　-- Hey, I walk into a Ku Klux Klan meeting with gasoline unwound. That's just me, because I've got the greatest and the baddest one in the valley on my side. That's Jesus Christ. And Sharpton? Come on, guys. What a joke. He's turned into a joke.

GLENN: You have　-- you were there　-- you hated Martin Luther King while　-- while Al Sharpton says he started the, you know, youth movement for Martin Luther King. When you were 12, you were trying to break the bone of every body of every white concern you could. You were more of a panther person. You changed, but I really, truly believe that you have　-- Pat and I were talking about this the other day. We are not in the civil rights movement that you went through. I mean, I hope to God no man of any color or any religion or nonreligion ever in this country has to go through what African-Americans went through and, really, in some places, are still going　-- going through.

PASTOR HUTCHERSON: Yep, uh-huh.

GLENN: But this is　-- this is the same path and the time so to stop it is before it gets to the dogs. Am I not right on that?

PASTOR HUTCHERSON: The main problem that we have is there's a lot of people, Glenn, in our society that is being discriminated against. Now, they don't mind throwing other groups in called the civil rights movement and the lawyers and the land group that they are fighting for is homosexuals and I don't like to call them gay because they have taken that word. Gay means you're happy, you're frolicking around, enjoying life, and they have stole that word and we need to take it back because when you allow those that are in opposition of you to take and determine what definitions are, then you will lose. We can't let Al Sharpton and others take the definition of what civil rights is. Civil rights is　--

GLENN: So what is the civil rights movement?

PASTOR HUTCHERSON: 　-- you should the Constitution.

GLENN: Say it again. What is the civil rights movement? What is it really?

PASTOR HUTCHERSON: The civil rights movement is understanding your freedom under the Constitution of these United States and if anyone tries to take those freedoms from you, you better rise up and fight and that's what we're doing together.

GLENN: You said to me on the plane, I've struggled too long as a black man to be an equal member of this society. Do you remember?

PASTOR HUTCHERSON: Oh, exactly. I said, Glenn, I fought for years and years and years as a black man to become equal. We're still fighting, but we won that fight, even in the courts, years ago, and I have felt that freedom and I'm going to use that freedom. I did not become a Christian, Glenn, to fight that same fight again as they look at me as a second class citizen.

GLENN: So help Al Sharpton out here, Glenn, on　-- I mean, he doesn't　-- because his religion, whatever his religion is, I believe it's a religion of collectivism in the state. I don't know how he　-- I don't know how he says he believes in the salvation of Jesus Christ but then talks about collective salvation. I don't understand that, but explain to him, just on the religious front, how this is a civil rights movement.

PASTOR HUTCHERSON: I think he has to understand that he has to open his eyes and open his heart because, for example, let me give you a good example. The President of the United States, if you remove his blackness, then just ask the question, is he a good President or is he a bad President for the United States? Just remove the blackness and make that decision. When it comes to Al Sharpton, Glenn, you've got to understand something. If you remove Al Sharpton's blackness, he disappears. He's transparent. There's nothing there because he bases his whole life on his blackness. Me, I'm a black man; but my blackness has submission to my Christianity. I am an American, proud to be an American, proud to be a black American. I'm not African-American. I've never been to Africa. I'm an American that is black and my　-- and I'm proud to be a black that submits to my Christianity. I am proud to be just a man. I mean a man's man, not a metro sexual, not one that gets his nails done. I mean a man that used to get out there and knock heads and get his fingernails dirty. I'm proud of being a man, but my manhood submits to my Christianity, but I don't see that in Al Sharpton. Any time anything happens that attacks his blackness, he fears it and　-- because he has nothing else to stand on. Thus, when the real civil rights movement of everyone steps up, when we're saying the Tea Party, don't take being discriminated against. If a black person was kicked out of a hotel for being black down in Florida, it would be an uproar, but since the Tea Party was kicked out because of their political views, that's going against America. That's why we're here going against the Constitution, with certain unalienable rights. That is the true fight we must start and we must fight today like never before.

GLENN: Here's the thing, Ken: Most of　-- most Americans have not been discriminated against. We have been　--

PASTOR HUTCHERSON: Oh, woe, woe.

GLENN: No, no. I'm saying growing up　--

PASTOR HUTCHERSON: 　-- that's why we don't fight.

GLENN: Well, I know growing up, I grew up in Mount Vernon. You live in Seattle now. You know Mount Vernon. And Mount Vernon back in the Sixties and Seventies, I don't think I was discriminated against at all

PASTOR HUTCHERSON: Not compared to what I went through.

GLENN: Exactly right.

PASTOR HUTCHERSON: But are we going to go with the greed or are we going to go with right and wrong?

GLENN: Where was I discriminated against as a　-- I mean, I don't want to be a victim. Let me just say -- let me just start there. I don't want to be a victim. I don't want　-- what did you say?

PASTOR HUTCHERSON: I said, please don't go there with me.

GLENN: Right. So when you're talking about, you know, the Sixties and Seventies, I guess if you go back and look at it -- and I just asked you to show me where I was a victim.

PASTOR HUTCHERSON: There you go.

GLENN: I don't care what happened in my past. I care what's happening right now.

PASTOR HUTCHERSON: Absolutely. And you better stand like we're going to and get ready for the shots. Get ready to be disliked. You know, the greatest　-- do you know what the greatest blessing in the world is, Glenn?

GLENN: The greatest blessing in the world, let me see if I can answer this, at least for me. The greatest blessing　--

PASTOR HUTCHERSON: Outside of Jesus Christ being your savior, do you know what the greatest blessing in the world is?

GLENN: Yeah. The greatest blessing in the world is for me to have him as my constant companion.

PASTOR HUTCHERSON: The greatest blessing outside of Jesus Christ, my brother, is to have　--

GLENN: Oh. Outside of　--

PASTOR HUTCHERSON: -- is to have people dislike you.

GLENN: Oh, okay. Yeah. I'm glad to say I think we have all of the right people hate us. I mean, I　-- you know, when George Soros threatened us and when the administration doesn't like us, when the GOP doesn't like us, I wear that as a badge of honor. I really do.

PASTOR HUTCHERSON: Please, Hey, can you get two badges? Let's wear them together.

GLENN: Ken, thank you. I appreciate it, man. Thank you so much and --

PASTOR HUTCHERSON: My pleasure, my brother. Let's go get them.

GLENN: You got it. Thank you. Pastor Ken Hutcherson, he is, I warn you, a lightning rod, a lightning rod, but he has Stage 4 cancer and is not afraid, is not afraid, and I　-- and I　-- you have to experience him. He's actually coming down to Salt Lake City next week and he's going to be speaking at a couple of places and one of those we added a couple of days ago and I don't even know if there is any tickets left. What is the name of that event for Hutcherson and David Barton in the speaker series? Do you know what the name of that particular one is? Go to mercuryone.org -- somebody do that for me. Would you do that for me real quick, Alex? Go to mercuryone.org and look in the speaker series and most of these are sold out, but you can still get tickets. They are　-- by the way, I think they're, like, $15 a seat but all of the money goes to Mercury One and that pays for the infrastructure of Mercury One. We do this event every year so we can pay for the administration of it and we give you something in exchange. So I'm not asking you for on a donation. We pay for the administration, so then all of the rest of the years　-- the year when there's a tragedy or there's something, I can say to you 100% of that goes to pay for　-- goes to this particular cause and we don't take any money. So that's why we're charging for the speaker series, but I want to give you something in return. But there's one in the speaker series that we just added a couple of days ago. I don't know if there's tickets left, but it is with David Barton, Rabbi Lapin, myself, and Ken Hutcherson and I said I think there's only about 2000 tickets to that and I said to somebody the other day, I said, I think this is the one　-- there are 2000 people, 20000 people coming to the Man in the Moon. I think this is the one that those　-- the people are going to　-- this and Pat's education seminar that people are going to say holy cow, holy cow, they're coming, they're coming and I want to be a part of that because we are　-- we're going to take the bull by the horns and I beg you, be prepared. Prepare any way that you　-- you would do that in your faith, but get the bad things out of your life, clean up your life, make amends for those things, ask forgiveness for those things. If you're an alcoholic, do the 12 steps. Do it all over again. Do it in the next couple of months. Get it all out of your life. If you're a Christian, renew your baptismal covenants. Understand the atonement. Get it out of your life, clean it up so you have nothing to fear, because if you are hiding from yourself, you're never going to be able to stand what's coming and we'll give you more on that. And you can get the tickets at mercuryone.org.

Shocking: Chart-topping ‘singer’ has no soul at all

VCG / Contributor | Getty Images

A machine can imitate heartbreak well enough to top the charts, but it cannot carry grief, choose courage, or hear the whisper that calls human beings to something higher.

The No. 1 country song in America right now was not written in Nashville or Texas or even L.A. It came from code. “Walk My Walk,” the AI-generated single by the AI artist Breaking Rust, hit the top spot on Billboard’s Country Digital Song Sales chart, and if you listen to it without knowing that fact, you would swear a real singer lived the pain he is describing.

Except there is no “he.” There is no lived experience. There is no soul behind the voice dominating the country music charts.

If a machine can imitate the soul, then what is the soul?

I will admit it: I enjoy some AI music. Some of it is very good. And that leaves us with a question that is no longer science fiction. If a machine can fake being human this well, what does it mean to be human?

A new world of artificial experience

This is not just about one song. We are walking straight into a technological moment that will reshape everyday life.

Elon Musk said recently that we may not even have phones in five years. Instead, we will carry a small device that listens, anticipates, and creates — a personal AI agent that knows what we want to hear before we ask. It will make the music, the news, the podcasts, the stories. We already live in digital bubbles. Soon, those bubbles might become our own private worlds.

If an algorithm can write a hit country song about hardship and perseverance without a shred of actual experience, then the deeper question becomes unavoidable: If a machine can imitate the soul, then what is the soul?

What machines can never do

A machine can produce, and soon it may produce better than we can. It can calculate faster than any human mind. It can rearrange the notes and words of a thousand human songs into something that sounds real enough to fool millions.

But it cannot care. It cannot love. It cannot choose right and wrong. It cannot forgive because it cannot be hurt. It cannot stand between a child and danger. It cannot walk through sorrow.

A machine can imitate the sound of suffering. It cannot suffer.

The difference is the soul. The divine spark. The thing God breathed into man that no code will ever have. Only humans can take pain and let it grow into compassion. Only humans can take fear and turn it into courage. Only humans can rebuild their lives after losing everything. Only humans hear the whisper inside, the divine voice that says, “Live for something greater.”

We are building artificial minds. We are not building artificial life.

Questions that define us

And as these artificial minds grow sharper, as their tools become more convincing, the right response is not panic. It is to ask the oldest and most important questions.

Who am I? Why am I here? What is the meaning of freedom? What is worth defending? What is worth sacrificing for?

That answer is not found in a lab or a server rack. It is found in that mysterious place inside each of us where reason meets faith, where suffering becomes wisdom, where God reminds us we are more than flesh and more than thought. We are not accidents. We are not circuits. We are not replaceable.

Europa Press News / Contributor | Getty Images

The miracle machines can never copy

Being human is not about what we can produce. Machines will outproduce us. That is not the question. Being human is about what we can choose. We can choose to love even when it costs us something. We can choose to sacrifice when it is not easy. We can choose to tell the truth when the world rewards lies. We can choose to stand when everyone else bows. We can create because something inside us will not rest until we do.

An AI content generator can borrow our melodies, echo our stories, and dress itself up like a human soul, but it cannot carry grief across a lifetime. It cannot forgive an enemy. It cannot experience wonder. It cannot look at a broken world and say, “I am going to build again.”

The age of machines is rising. And if we do not know who we are, we will shrink. But if we use this moment to remember what makes us human, it will help us to become better, because the one thing no algorithm will ever recreate is the miracle that we exist at all — the miracle of the human soul.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Is Socialism seducing a lost generation?

Jeremy Weine / Stringer | Getty Images

A generation that’s lost faith in capitalism is turning to the oldest lie on earth: equality through control.

Something is breaking in America’s young people. You can feel it in every headline, every grocery bill, every young voice quietly asking if the American dream still means anything at all.

For many, the promise of America — work hard, build something that lasts, and give the next generation a better start — feels like it no longer exists. Home ownership and stability have become luxuries for a fortunate few.

Capitalism is not a perfect system. It is flawed because people are flawed, but it remains the only system that rewards creativity and effort rather than punishing them.

In that vacuum of hope, a new promise has begun to rise — one that sounds compassionate, equal, and fair. The promise of socialism.

The appeal of a broken dream

When the American dream becomes a checklist of things few can afford — a home, a car, two children, even a little peace — disappointment quickly turns to resentment. The average first-time homebuyer is now 40 years old. Debt lasts longer than marriages. The cost of living rises faster than opportunity.

For a generation that has never seen the system truly work, capitalism feels like a rigged game built to protect those already at the top.

That is where socialism finds its audience. It presents itself as fairness for the forgotten and justice for the disillusioned. It speaks softly at first, offering equality, compassion, and control disguised as care.

We are seeing that illusion play out now in New York City, where Zohran Mamdani — an open socialist — has won a major political victory. The same ideology that once hid behind euphemisms now campaigns openly throughout America’s once-great cities. And for many who feel left behind, it sounds like salvation.

But what socialism calls fairness is submission dressed as virtue. What it calls order is obedience. Once the system begins to replace personal responsibility with collective dependence, the erosion of liberty is only a matter of time.

The bridge that never ends

Socialism is not a destination; it is a bridge. Karl Marx described it as the necessary transition to communism — the scaffolding that builds the total state. Under socialism, people are taught to obey. Under communism, they forget that any other options exist.

History tells the story clearly. Russia, China, Cambodia, Cuba — each promised equality and delivered misery. One hundred million lives were lost, not because socialism failed, but because it succeeded at what it was designed to do: make the state supreme and the individual expendable.

Today’s advocates insist their version will be different — democratic, modern, and kind. They often cite Sweden as an example, but Sweden’s prosperity was never born of socialism. It grew out of capitalism, self-reliance, and a shared moral culture. Now that system is cracking under the weight of bureaucracy and division.

ANGELA WEISS / Contributor | Getty Images

The real issue is not economic but moral. Socialism begins with a lie about human nature — that people exist for the collective and that the collective knows better than the individual.

This lie is contrary to the truths on which America was founded — that rights come not from government’s authority, but from God’s. Once government replaces that authority, compassion becomes control, and freedom becomes permission.

What young America deserves

Young Americans have many reasons to be frustrated. They were told to study, work hard, and follow the rules — and many did, only to find the goalposts moved again and again. But tearing down the entire house does not make it fairer; it only leaves everyone standing in the rubble.

Capitalism is not a perfect system. It is flawed because people are flawed, but it remains the only system that rewards creativity and effort rather than punishing them. The answer is not revolution but renewal — moral, cultural, and spiritual.

It means restoring honesty to markets, integrity to government, and faith to the heart of our nation. A people who forsake God will always turn to government for salvation, and that road always ends in dependency and decay.

Freedom demands something of us. It requires faith, discipline, and courage. It expects citizens to govern themselves before others govern them. That is the truth this generation deserves to hear again — that liberty is not a gift from the state but a calling from God.

Socialism always begins with promises and ends with permission. It tells you what to drive, what to say, what to believe, all in the name of fairness. But real fairness is not everyone sharing the same chains — it is everyone having the same chance.

The American dream was never about guarantees. It was about the right to try, to fail, and try again. That freedom built the most prosperous nation in history, and it can do so again if we remember that liberty is not a handout but a duty.

Socialism does not offer salvation. It requires subservience.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Faith, family, and freedom—The forgotten core of conservatism

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?