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Rand Paul pushes to defund Planned Parenthood after 'incredibly disturbing' videos

August 05, 2015
Staff

WRITER

Although the attempt to defund Planned Parenthood failed in the Senate, Glenn gave credit to Senator Rand Paul for actively trying to do something about the destruction of innocent life.

The senator had some strong words to say about the “callous disregard of the doctors” as well as suggestions on how the American people can help.

"One idea I’ve had is that everybody should send a copy of the ultrasound of their baby. You know, most parents are proud of the first ultrasound of their baby. They ought to send that to their legislator and say you know what, ultrasound has been used for such good," he said.

Watch the full interview in the video below.

Below is a rush transcript of this segment:

Glenn: Although the attempt to defund Planned Parenthood failed in the Senate yesterday, Senator Rand Paul deserves credit for actively trying to do something about the destruction of innocent life. Senator Paul joins me from the Capitol now. Senator, how are you, sir?

Sen. Paul: Very good, Glenn. Thanks for having me.

Glenn: It is extraordinarily disturbing to me that we couldn’t muster up enough even Republicans to stop this. For some reason, the people in Congress or in the Senate don’t see this as baby harvesting like I do and like you do.

Sen. Paul: Well, I think the videos are incredibly disturbing, and when I heard about them using ultrasound to manipulate the baby into a position so it can be removed a little bit at a time so they can get at the baby’s organs, kidneys, livers, and sort of the callous disregard by the doctor sort of saying oh yeah, livers are popular, it’s hard to hear that and for people not to realize these are coming from a fully formed baby. I think we rarely get the debate in such sharp relief. We often have the debate where the other side wants to call it tissue, but when we’re talking about lungs, brains, hearts, livers, I think it’s hard and should make all sort of people shudder that we’re doing this.

Glenn: Can I talk to as a doctor, not as a political guy or a candidate right now? Let me just talk to you and ask two questions as a doctor. First of all, what do you as a doctor say to those doctors that are doing this?

Sen. Paul: You know, we have an ancient oath, the Hippocratic Oath, that says first do no harm. I don’t know how you can be consistent with any kind of oath like that. Years ago they took out some of the specifics towards abortion and sort of somehow in their minds qualify and say abortion is not doing harm. I don’t know how anyone could do that day in and day out knowing that you’re pulling out the pieces of a baby. I mean, I don’t know how they do it and how they live with themselves. I think it’s a good debate for us to be having. Those on the other side of the issue should be ostracized. They should be removed from office.

The vast majority of Republicans did vote for this. Every Republican except for one and then two Democrats did vote with us. The real question as to whether the vote was important will be determined by the electorate when these people go back to the polls, and so we shouldn’t let this die. We also should vote to defund them through the appropriation process.

I’m a believer that thousands of items should be targeted for defunding, not just one or two, not just ObamaCare, not just Planned Parenthood. The power of the purse is Congress to direct funding, and we’ve gotten away from that to where people think oh, it’s extraordinary for us to tell the president. That’s actually our job to do that.

Glenn: Right. The other thing I want to ask you as a doctor is the argument on the other side is this is hurting, you’re going after—Rand Paul, and I heard this specifically, Rand Paul is going after women’s health.

Sen. Paul: Well, it’s absolutely just untrue. There are 9000 community health centers. We have thrown more federal money at healthcare than we ever have in the history of time. You can’t go a block in our country and not find something for free, and so we have 9000 community health centers funded by the government, $5 billion. We’ve doubled it in recent years, and there’s 700 Planned Parenthood clinics. So, 9000 free government clinics, 700 Planned Parenthood, the only difference is Planned Parenthood offers abortion. The other difference is Planned Parenthood doesn’t offer most of the women’s health items they say they offer. They don’t offer mammograms. The exams are not done by doctors for breast exams. You’re typically referred somewhere else. So, it’s been a crock for a long time. It’s been a front for abortion, and let’s have this debate.

They’re also huge funders of the Democrat party and huge funders of liberals, and so I guarantee they’re going to come after me and target me. They’ve also targeted Joni Ernst as well.

Glenn: I heard Hillary Clinton in a statement she recorded recently where she said I am proud to stand with Planned Parenthood, and I was struck—because I’ve seen the video, I was struck on how evil that is. I said today that I don’t think I’ve seen anything in America that is this close to Josef Mengele. Is that hyperbole?

Sen. Paul: Now Glenn, that would be the first time you had hyperbole—

Glenn: I know.

Sen. Paul: What I would say is that if you ask the general public about removing a fully formed baby and harvesting its organs, I think you’re probably going to get a 70%, 80% issue. There are some hardcore people who don’t care, but like I say, I know a lot of people from all walks of life, not just conservatives, I know pro-choice women, and you know what, they’re horrified by this. So, when we’re talking about a fully formed baby, the numbers go lopsided in our direction. It’s a rare person who thinks fully formed babies ought to be taken out.

The whole idea of third trimester abortion is kind of crazy because at that point if it’s a risk to the mother, try to save the baby, remove the baby through C-section if it’s a risk to the mother. Most third trimester babies can actually have a chance of surviving.

Glenn: I have to tell you, after I saw Cecil the lion and the outcry from the left on Cecil the lion and the silence or the acceptance of baby harvesting, am I wrong to say this is baby harvesting?

Sen. Paul: No, I think it is. It’s harvesting of baby organs, and there seems to be a neglect on their part.

Glenn: Yeah. I see this, I don’t think this, Rand, and maybe this is a new understanding for me and maybe it goes much further than just this one issue, but I don’t think this is a problem with Washington. I think this is a problem with the American people. The American people, when we care more about Cecil the lion than we care about baby harvesting, I’m afraid for our country. I really am truly afraid of what we’re becoming.

Sen. Paul: Well, what I’ve always told people is I’m known for someone standing up for individual rights, the right to be left alone, and most choices in life you should get. The thing is all those rights derive from a right to your life and to have no one physically aggress against your life. We really need to have this debate in our country when does life begin? When they had the debate a few years ago over partial-birth abortion, at least one of the Democrats was honest enough to say that if the baby did come out, was still alive, and you weren’t able to kill the baby before it came out, that really the baby wasn’t a baby until you take the baby home.

I’ve worked in a neonatal nursery. I’ve worked with babies that are a pound, pound and a half that survive and end up doing fine. We examine their eyes to make sure they don’t go blind from being born so early, but to think that that baby doesn’t really have rights until you take them home, it’s absurd, and I think most people don’t believe that. If this radical notion from these people were well known, I think we begin to win the argument a little more, and I think actually we are, but we aren’t yet there. Washington is always a decade behind the people, and people need to do a better job of hurrying up and replacing some of these legislators so we could actually get to the will of the people.

Glenn: I mean, I’ve never been a guy who—I don’t go in front of abortion clinics and protest. I don’t protest anything. I’m a slug of an American. This one so deeply bothers me, Rand. I mean, we’re doing something in Birmingham on August 28th where the slogan is all lives matter, and it’s true—black lives matter, white lives matter, baby lives matter, old people’s lives matter. What can the average person do who has never really protested and don’t see themselves standing in front of an abortion clinic? How can we help?

Sen. Paul: You know, one idea I’ve had is that everybody should send a copy of the ultrasound of their baby. You know, most parents are proud of the first ultrasound of their baby. They ought to send that to their legislator and say you know what, ultrasound has been used for such good. You can actually save babies in the womb through surgery now. Send that ultrasound and say you know what, our taxpayer dollars shouldn’t be getting ultrasounds of babies so we can manipulate them around to harvest their organs. That was one of the things that upset me about it is they talk about doing abortion under ultrasound so they can actually use this great technology not to save a baby but to actually manipulate the baby into a position so you can harvest the organs.

Glenn: Can I look at this a different way? I was talking about this on the air today on radio, and I said if I had an abortion and I didn’t have a problem with abortion, I think I would be a little upset that I didn’t get a kickback in this. How dare you take my baby from me, what is mine? I’m paying you $1000 to do it, and then you’re selling the baby?

Sen. Paul: Well, the investigation ought to be what kind of consent is actually being obtained. I’m guessing when this consent is being obtained that no one is telling them we are going to harvest your baby’s organs. And actually they might say tissue, but they’re not going to admit that the procedure you’re going to get is going to have a baby with arms, legs, kidneys, livers, lungs, and that there’s a different price for each organ. I don’t think that’s being discussed. I would very much imagine that that is glossed over and that people are being run through, and it’s just a little extra money making to make expenses for Planned Parenthood.

Glenn:: I’m not a lawyer, and I’m not a law man. I’m not in your position. I’m just an average American who sits here and looks at this stuff, and I think these people should go to jail. Do you think they’ve crossed the line of jail time possibly?

Sen. Paul: There are laws about already from the partial-birth abortion. There are laws saying you’re not supposed to manipulate the baby in order to harvest organs, and so that’s a question. The woman online when they ask her about it, she says oh yeah, there’s some laws, but that’s just for lawyers to figure it out that there are some laws. She doesn’t say partial-birth abortion, I think, in the video, but she admits that there are some laws. Yeah, that’s why it should be investigated. Really the question ought to be whether or not real consent is being obtained or is this occurring, the sale of the body organs occurring without really an adequate consent.

Glenn: Rand Paul, thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Sen. Paul: Thanks, Glenn.

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?

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

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

The drone footage out of Gaza isn’t just war propaganda — it’s a glimpse of the same darkness that once convinced men they were righteous for killing innocents.

Evil introduces itself subtly. It doesn’t announce, “Hi, I’m here to destroy you.” It whispers. It flatters. It borrows the language of justice, empathy, and freedom, twisting them until hatred sounds righteous and violence sounds brave.

We are watching that same deception unfold again — in the streets, on college campuses, and in the rhetoric of people who should know better. It’s the oldest story in the world, retold with new slogans.

Evil wins when good people mirror its rage.

A drone video surfaced this week showing Hamas terrorists staging the “discovery” of a hostage’s body. They pushed a corpse out of a window, dragged it into a hole, buried it, and then called in aid workers to “find” what they themselves had planted. It was theater — evil, disguised as victimhood. And it was caught entirely on camera.

That’s how evil operates. It never comes in through the front door. It sneaks in, often through manipulative pity. The same spirit animates the moral rot spreading through our institutions — from the halls of universities to the chambers of government.

Take Zohran Mamdani, a New York assemblyman who has praised jihadists and defended pro-Hamas agitators. His father, a Columbia University professor, wrote that America and al-Qaeda are morally equivalent — that suicide bombings shouldn’t be viewed as barbaric. Imagine thinking that way after watching 3,000 Americans die on 9/11. That’s not intellectualism. That’s indoctrination.

Often, that indoctrination comes from hostile foreign actors, peddled by complicit pawns on our own soil. The pro-Hamas protests that erupted across campuses last year, for example, were funded by Iran — a regime that murders its own citizens for speaking freely.

Ancient evil, new clothes

But the deeper danger isn’t foreign money. It’s the spiritual blindness that lets good people believe resentment is justice and envy is discernment. Scripture talks about the spirit of Amalek — the eternal enemy of God’s people, who attacks the weak from behind while the strong look away. Amalek never dies; it just changes its vocabulary and form with the times.

Today, Amalek tweets. He speaks through professors who defend terrorism as “anti-colonial resistance.” He preaches from pulpits that call violence “solidarity.” And he recruits through algorithms, whispering that the Jews control everything, that America had it coming, that chaos is freedom. Those are ancient lies wearing new clothes.

When nations embrace those lies, it’s not the Jews who perish first. It’s the nations themselves. The soul dies long before the body. The ovens of Auschwitz didn’t start with smoke; they started with silence and slogans.

Andrew Harnik / Staff | Getty Images

A time for choosing

So what do we do? We speak truth — calmly, firmly, without venom. Because hatred can’t kill hatred; it only feeds it. Truth, compassion, and courage starve it to death.

Evil wins when good people mirror its rage. That’s how Amalek survives — by making you fight him with his own weapons. The only victory that lasts is moral clarity without malice, courage without cruelty.

The war we’re fighting isn’t new. It’s the same battle between remembrance and amnesia, covenant and chaos, humility and pride. The same spirit that whispered to Pharaoh, to Hitler, and to every mob that thought hatred could heal the world is whispering again now — on your screens, in your classrooms, in your churches.

Will you join it, or will you stand against it?

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Bill Gates ends climate fear campaign, declares AI the future ruler

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.

Why the White House restoration sent the left Into panic mode

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

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.