Rumors Fly Following Sudden Departure of Two Trump Team Members

Filling in for Glenn on radio, former New York City police officer John Cardillo offered his commentary on the controvertial departure of two Trump transition team members A.J. Delgado and Jason Miller.

"This situation seems to have sorted itself out the way it ought to have sorted itself out," Cardillo said. "It's going to be very, very interesting to see how this plays out."

Listen to the segment or read the transcript below.

JOHN: Good morning. Welcome to the Glenn Beck Program. I'm John Cardillo. Sitting in for Glenn Beck while he's on a well deserved vacation. And if you're just tuning in, I'll tell you a little bit about myself. So I got my start in media with Glenn. But I am not a media guy by training. I was a New York City cop, and I was an entrepreneur. Started a company where we provided security services to large online communities and wound up spending more time in the legislative arena and really got a front row seat at how law enforcement and our legislative process worked and realized our country was kind of a mess.

And so when I was in a position to do so, needed to expand my platform -- decided to expand my platform so I could get some of this information out to you.

And, luckily, Glenn Beck found me about three -- three and a half years ago. I was like a little shelter dog, but Glenn found me. We had a great conversation on air. We did a segment -- we did a political analysis segment.

We went on to profile some of the radical groups in the US and created a very nice relationship. And I went on to host my own show, down here in Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, and was so flattered, when I was asked to stand in for Glenn today and tomorrow on the Glenn Beck Show.

And being a guy who was pro-Trump -- and Glenn was so anti-Trump. It was even better. It was even better. Because it proved to me there are still some great people in this industry who want their audiences to hear all sides. And it also showed me how we can be friends and disagree on an issue. Isn't that a novel concept?

We don't have to get into these knockdown drag-out grudge matches where we lose friendships over political candidates. We lose colleagues. We lose professional relationships. It's silly. Don't do it. Don't do it.

But there is a bit of turmoil in the Trump campaign right now. I don't know if you've seen the stories on this. But a couple of days ago, the Trump communication director Jason Miller resigned to spend more time with family.

Now, I've got an unfair advantage on this one because one of the players in this little drama is A.J. Delgado -- and you've probably seen A.J. out there. She's -- she was a South Florida -- and then a national surrogate for the Trump campaign.

And prior to that, A.J. was a conservative pundit. You would see her frequently on Fox News, many, many radio and television programs. And she wrote a column.

But I had a front row seat to many of the goings on with the Trump campaign in South Florida, as a member of the media. I was at every rally. And what this is shaking out to be -- and I've got impeccable sources still inside the transition.

And what's happening here -- and you're getting pieces of this in the print media. But I was on the phone all last night, and this might be the first place right here on the Glenn Beck Program that you're going to hear what's really happening from sources inside the transition.

It looks as if -- and now what it's shaking out to be that A.J. Delgado and comes director Jason Miller were having an affair. And it makes it all the more troubling in that Miller is married with children, a child or children. And I believe his wife is also expecting.

Now, I will tell you, from personal experience, I had been at two rallies where A.J. Delgado was present. And I am not a moralist. I'm not a moral cop. I really don't care. But I go to political rallies. I go to events. I don't care who the candidate is. I go to business functions. There's an appropriate way to look, act, and dress. And I will say, that A.J. Delgado was dressed, in my opinion, highly inappropriately for these events. It was a skin, skin, skintight dresses, six-inch heels.

No other women, even the young attractive women were not dressed the same way. But even worse, it was -- and I was with an adviser, very close adviser to the Trump campaign. He was a friend of mine. And he and I were sitting during one of the rallies -- the rally in Miami, down in the Brickell area of Miami at the night center.

I think it was the last rally that Donald Trump held in South Florida before the election. And he and I were sitting there. And people were leaving the VIP, the closed area where the candidate was, where Donald Trump was.

And about 15 people who had come out complained about the way A.J. Delgado was acting. And no one understood why. No one understood how this girl who was picked up as a surrogate and was supposed to just be out there, doing her part in the media, when -- when she was asked to, was all of a sudden acting like she was senior campaign staff.

And I saw it, as an on-air guy down in South Florida and as somebody that was working with the RNC coms people and the Trump coms people, as a conservative radio host, I could not guests booked. We couldn't get guests booked. When Miller was running coms, it became nearly impossible.

Now, the people that were running coms prior to Miller and that team, it was very easy to get good guests booked. So I started seeing a difficulty in getting guests booked.

And then every time I turned on the television, turned on radio, or read something in print, A.J. Delgado had apparently replaced everyone else on the campaign as the premier spokesperson, spokeswoman. It was very weird to me.

Quite candidly, I never saw this coming. We thought maybe she had a relationship with one of the daughters or one of the daughters-in-law, or maybe she had done some legal work for some people previously or she had a patron that was a donor.

But what really crystallized for me that there was something else going on, was when she became the representative to the Cuban American community, which is a very important, very significant voting bloc in South Florida.

And when I was interfacing with some of the old guard -- and these were the solid conservatives. They go to Versailles Restaurant, and they hold court there. And if you don't know what Versailles is -- if you're ever in Miami and you watch any political campaign, whether it be presidential, gubinatorial, congressional, senatorial -- when you want the Cuban vote -- and believe me, you need it if you're going to win Florida. You go to Versailles. It's a restaurant down in Little Havana. That really is the kingdom. That's where you need to hold court and meet with the old guard.

And when I started talking to those guys and those women, they didn't know who she was. They said, who? Huh?

There were so many prominent Cuban Americans that should have had that role, and many of them were dismayed that A.J. Delgado, a young girl in her 30s, who really came out of nowhere, who was a columnist and, you know, commentator, pundit about the media, took a role that many, many other people were better suited for. Well, now it all makes sense.

Now, look, I'm not the moral police. So I'm not here to judge anybody. But campaign affairs happen. And people who work on campaigns know they happen. And typically, both sides are smart enough to know that that affair ends when the campaign is over. People go back to their life.

They take jobs in the administration. There's more -- there's more scrutiny on the players at that point, on the ancillary staff. During the campaign, it's all on the candidates. There's limited airtime. The candidates are dueling it out. They're duking it out. But when the campaign is over, they start looking at staff, right?

Because if you're the left-wing media and you want to hurt a candidate, well, you have vetted that candidate to hell and back during the campaign. So barring them doing something really stupid or really egregious, there's not much more to report, other than your normal hit pieces and attacking their policy positions. And in the case -- Donald Trump, they beat him up on his tweets, which I happened to like, but I'll tell you why later.

But you look at the staff. And so Miller was a smart enough guy to realize, "Hey, they're going to be looking at me. This was a fun fling. Now it's time for real work. Now we are the candidate. Now we've got to go govern. Okay. Playtime is over. Let's get back to work."

Well, apparently this didn't set too well with Ms. Delgado. Now, what I've been told is an email went out to all of the major players on the transition team, depicting and detailing the affair.

Hell hath no fury like a Cubana scorned. I mean, from what I'm hearing, it was pretty bad.

She then took to Twitter with a series of tweets. And one of them referenced a -- and it's almost embarrassing for me, as a grown man, to say this on air, a baby daddy, which seemed to imply there was a little more to this affair and she had directed this at Jason Miller.

Well, her whole Twitter feed gets deleted. And I was told yesterday that both she and Miller were fired. Miller was allowed to quietly resign and save face. And A.J.'s face was quietly killed and she was made a pariah. And I was told she is on the, quote, unquote, warpath by someone very senior on the campaign.

But my point of bringing this to light, we have a duty -- right? Whether we're in the conservative media, the liberal media, when we get information like this, we've got a duty to let you know who the players are.

And I think -- I personally -- Donald Trump is going to be a very good president. And I'm going to tell you why in the next hour. I'm going to explain to you why his rhetoric and his style never scared me. It didn't bother me, as much as it did to other people. But I'll explain why I understand that it did bother and offend and scare some people.

But when -- when I looked at people that worked around this campaign -- and let me tell you, there was some of the hardest working, most honest, most diligent people, working on this campaign. And I knew them. And in the south Florida region -- and Florida on the whole, many of them were friends of mine.

It was very disappointing to me to see people taking the limelight. A.J. Delgado was one of those people. And A.J. Delgado and I haven't -- don't really know each other. She blocked me on Twitter a couple of years ago. I think I disagreed with her on -- she was pro Common Core, because she was a moderate. A center moderate. Quote, unquote, conservative. And then she became this newly minted conservative. I just think it was -- she's replaced Chuck Schumer as the person that is most dangerous between them and a camera.

But I -- I need to bring this out because a lot of good people were hurt by these grandstanders. Hard-working people. And I don't care where you stand politically. People that do work, people that are the grinders that have the ethic, that are doing the work and that don't want the thanks shouldn't be treated poorly by those who seek glory.

And karma is an interesting thing. Divine intervention is a really interesting thing. And all I'll say -- and I'll leave you with, this situation seems to have sorted itself out the way it ought to have sorted itself out. It -- it's going to be very, very interesting to see how this plays out.

But progressives also don't live by this standard. They think they're impervious to any critique. To all the rules. And can act in any way they want. And that was really -- really made evident when two gay men attacked a mom and her children on a JetBlue flight a couple of days before Christmas.

Featured Image: Julie Dermansky/Getty Images

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.