GLENN: Yaron Brook, friend of ours and the head of the Ayn Rand Society here in America, welcome to the program.
YARON: Thank you.
GLENN: He's got a book called Equal Is Unfair. He was here a couple weeks ago, and I said, "My fault. I'm sorry. I didn't even know you had a book out. Come back and talk about the book." So we want to talk about it because it's really an important thing because people -- we're now talking about a universal minimum living wage. Giving everybody, you know, a stipend to live on. And I want to talk about that. I also want to talk -- because you just got back from Europe.
YARON: Yep.
GLENN: And there is something happening in Europe. It's eastern Europe. But they are more free market than probably anybody in the world right now.
YARON: Well, what I'm finding is places in the world that have experienced communism, have experienced some form of fascism, and are so poor and are oppressed, the young people are rising up. They want something different. They want something new. They want -- they're willing to be radical. They're willing to consider new ideas, whereas you find in western Europe and even in the United States, young people -- as long as the new i Phone comes out on time, right? Life is good. Why challenge myself? Why push myself? Radical and upset a lot of people when life is comfortable.
So Brazil -- Brazil is fascinating. Thousands of kids out in the streets demonstrating for freedom. For freedom.
GLENN: Like real freedom.
YARON: Like real freedom. I'm not saying all of them get it. But more of them get it than I think -- as a percentage than anything we see in the West.
Again, Brazil, they've lived under all these different regimes. They were promised that they would be middle class. Remember the Bricks (phonetic) -- Bricks were going to take over the world: Brazil, Russia, China, India. It hasn't happened, which is no surprise, really. But it hasn't happened. And they're upset.
GLENN: Because everything is so corrupt.
YARON: Yeah, they're poor. They want to be middle class. They want to be rich. And they're saying, "Nothing we've been promised is happening." And they're willing to look at ideas that I think Americans and others have forgotten, take for granted, ignore, because they want to be mainstream. They want to be cool. They want to be part of -- they want to be -- they want to be what their professors want them to be.
GLENN: Can I -- because you're probably one of the few in the world that we can actually talk to about this, who has probably thought this through.
You know, we're looking at a disruption of about 50 percent of all jobs in the next 20 to 30 years. Technology is going to disrupt absolutely everything.
YARON: Sure.
GLENN: So there -- so the amount of unemployment is going to be outrageous. And I shouldn't say that. The amount of displacement is going to be outrageous. Not necessarily unemployment.
YARON: Yep. Yep.
GLENN: And people are thinking now -- and I think all governments need to think, what do you do in this period of great change so you don't have revolution in the street?
Now, one of the solutions is this minimum living wage.
YARON: Yeah. Sure. This is the easiest solution. And this is a government solution. I would say the last people in the world you want thinking about this problem is anybody in government.
GLENN: Government.
YARON: This is not a government problem. I strongly believe in a separation of state from economics. If I had the opportunity to rewrite the Constitution -- if I could be that arrogant -- I would include a separation of state from economic -- they have no business in it. Central planning cannot solve this issue. The market will solve it. How? I don't know. We have today tens of millions -- globally hundreds of millions of jobs that 50 years ago you could not have imagined would exist.
GLENN: So do you think if we had a separation of education and state, we probably would have would be safer than we are now?
YARON: Well, I have four separations that I would put into the Constitution: Separation of state from ideas. I don't think government should be in the business of ideas. Religion is one set of ideas. I think it should be separate. But I think generally the government is there to protect our rights. Period. Full stop. That's it.
If you want to be a communist under a free society, that's okay. Get your friends together, go start a commune, be pathetic and miserable in that commune, to each according to his -- from each according to his ability, each according to his means. As long as you're not opposing it on people, you can do your own thing in a free society. That's the beauty of freedom.
Separation of state from economics. The government has no economic policy. There shouldn't be a Treasury Department, in the sense that there is today. Economic advisers. Central planning doesn't work. It doesn't work big. It doesn't work small. It just doesn't work, and it's immoral. It's wrong for the government to impose their values on us as individuals. So it's morally offensive, and it's economically stupid.
Separation of state from education. State has no role in education. And the reason our educational system is breaking down is, as corrupt and awful as it is, particularly in the inner cities, particularly for poor people -- everybody is always concerned. When they say privatize education, what will happen with the poor kids? Well, it can't be worse than it is today with these poor kids, right? Think about the educational quality they're getting from a public educational system. So I'd like to privatize the whole system and get the government out of it. One of my disagreements with Thomas Jefferson is over the University of Virginia and the idea that the state should be involved in education.
And fourth is separation of state from science. Let's get the state out of science so that we can have scientists unincentivized by government grants and politics and all of that, decide about global warming, about stem cells. Left and right, when government intervenes in science, it corrupts the science.
GLENN: Yeah. Isn't it -- does it amaze you that the scientists don't realize that the government -- which is not controlled by religion this time, is doing the same thing that they were doing to the scientists when it was controlled by religion?
YARON: I think the scientists to some extent recognize that. But what option do they have? If you're dependent -- as our scientific world has evolved to a position to where if you're not getting grants from the government, how are you going to continue doing the science or some of the science that you want to do?
Now, some people have integrity. But the fact is, most people just go with the flow. And if the government is giving them money to do X, they're going to do X. And if you do a government study and at the end of the government study, you discover that everything is great. Life's good. No problems. Nobody is going to renew your grant. Nobody wants to hear that.
But if you say, "The end of the world might be near. I'm not sure. I'm not convinced, but there's a possibility that we are heading towards a catastrophe. I need to study this further." Guess what, you're going to get tons of more money flowing your way, particularly if the end of the world is being caused by something like industry, progress, capitalism, which certain people in the intelligentsia and the government would like to believe are the cause of all our problems.
GLENN: How do you get the youth away from the word progressives and progress, when progressivism is the exact opposite of progress?
YARON: Yeah. Well, the left is being very clever about this. I mean, they have managed to take words, take concepts and adapt them to their use, and pervert them. Liberal -- liberal used to mean free market, free thinking.
GLENN: Classic liberalism.
YARON: Classic liberalism. And to some extent, when you go to a place like Georgia or Ukraine and so on and you talk about liberal ideas, they understand them to mean in eastern Europe and in the West, to some extent, as pro-capitalist ideas, pro-freedom ideas. So they've done that to the word "liberal." They've done it to the word "progressive." These are anti-progress ideas. And, you know, part of it is -- you know, and the same is true on the other side, right?
Are we really -- does anybody really want to be a conservative? What are we conserving? Aren't we really -- those of us who believe in free markets and freedom, we're the real progressives and liberals. We're not trying to conserve. We're trying to push forward. We're trying to grow and develop.
GLENN: Well, you know the person who named us conservatives. Do you know where that came from?
YARON: No, no, I'm not sure.
GLENN: FDR. FDR was the one who said, "This group of people, they are conservatives. And they're trying to conserve these ideas, and it won't work." And we just embraced it. We just allowed him to label us.
YARON: Well, partially it came from way back from really the French Revolution, where the French Revolution was deemed to be the progressives.
GLENN: Yeah, yeah.
YARON: You know, where the real action was. This was the good guys. And the British looking at that said, "Oh, wait a minute. That's a bad idea. We need to conserve our institutions and --
GLENN: Sure. Sure.
YARON: So the conservative movement really starts in England as a rebellion in a sense the French Revolution. And nobody saw -- and this was one of the great tragedies of history -- nobody saw that there was a third alternative that was a revolution, but not the French Revolution. And that was the American Revolution. The real revolution. Because everybody was so Europe-centric, that they viewed anything that happened in Europe as important. And what happened to those 13 colonies, that's the margin. That's not as significant. So the American Revolution was what is really meaningful historically. The French Revolution is a footnote at the end of the day. It's America that moved the world forward, that progressed us.
GLENN: So do you see -- we're talking to Yaron Brook. He's the author of Equal Is Unfair: America's Misguided Fight Against Income Inequality.
Do you see, with the fight over facts today, the war with the media, the war with the White House, the war against left and right -- I mean, it's getting insane. We're all living in a movie that none of us would believe, if we were sitting around the script-writing table, we'd all say, "Nobody is going to buy this movie."
Do you see enough people saying, kind of like we are, of I'm just tired of all the labels, I'm tired of all of it, none of this stuff works, I want to find reason and find the way out through this?
YARON: You know, I can't be optimistic here. No, I'm not seeing enough people doing this. I mean, I don't consider myself right or left anymore.
You know, I'm done with those labels because they're so perverted, so distorted, they're meaningless. I view everything in a sense and in terms of what America is, what it represents, and what is going on today. So I believe America is individualism. That's the essential characteristic of what America is. The American Revolution is about the individual first, placing the individual at the core. Everything is about protecting that individual and his freedom.
Everybody today on the political map -- everybody on the political map is a collectivist of one sort or another. On the right, they're collectivists. On the left, they're collectivists. America first is an awful slogan. I couldn't vote for John McCain when he came out of the Republican Convention with the term "country first." It's not about country. It's not about America as a geographic place.
GLENN: It's about the idea.
YARON: It's about the idea. But the idea is the individual first.
GLENN: Yes.
YARON: The state is there. The only purpose of the American state -- and should be the only purpose of every state -- is to protect us.
It's a policeman. It is a judge when there are disputes between us, and a policeman and a military. And other than that, it's supposed to leave us alone to live our lives as we see fit. That's what the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness means. It means you have the freedom to act in pursuit of the values necessary for your life, free of coercion. And the government is there to protect you from people who would coerce you. And, of course, the biggest violator, as the Founders knew and warned us, the biggest violator is government.
GLENN: Is government.
YARON: And today, left and right, they want to violate our rights.
GLENN: Let me take a quick break. Back in just a second.
[break]
GLENN: Yaron Brook is here. Name of his book is equal is unfair. America's misguided fight against income inequality. And you think this fight is the revolution.
YARON: It really is the core fight. This is -- this is the intellectuals in America trying to make us like Europe.
PAT: Man, I believe that.
YARON: Think about America. America was founded on the idea that all men are created equal, right? It's in our Declaration of Independence. But what did the Founders mean?
GLENN: Right. Right.
YARON: The Founders knew that we're all different. We're all unequal. In a fundamental metaphysical sense, we are unequal. If you put us out there and you free us, we're all going to have unequal outcomes. So what did they mean when they said all men are created equal? They meant we're all equally free. We all equally have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We all have equality before the law. The law -- the government should not treat us differently. It should treat us all the same.
But once you free us up, we are all going to produce different amounts. We're all going to do different things with our lives. We're all going to, you know, express who we are, and we're all genetically different, environmentally different, and you know what, we make different choices in our lives because free will does exist. And we choose different things.
So in my view, inequality of outcome is a feature of freedom. It's not a bug. It's not a distortion. It's a feature. It's part of what freedom is about.
Because freedom allows us to express who we are and what we are. And we're all different. And isn't that beautiful? Isn't that amazing that we're all different? Isn't that --
GLENN: But that's easy for you to say who is successful. What about those people who are going to be hungry and won't be able to make it?
YARON: Well, this is the thing about freedom is that under freedom, those people have a chance not to be hungry anymore. Under freedom, those people have a chance to get a job and to rise up, to whatever level they can. And some of them won't -- you know, I'm never going to be super rich. And some people will never be as wealthy as I am. That's just reality. Right?
But the beauty is that under freedom, they can rise and they can live a good life. And all of history, of capitalism and freedom, shows that, that the poor do very well, when they are free.
What is the alternative? The alternative is no freedom, where all of us are poor. Yes, there's equality. But equality of poverty. Two hundred fifty years ago -- people don't know this because they don't study history -- 250 years ago, all of us were poor. People blame the Industrial Revolution for child labor. Well, what were children doing before the Industrial Revolution? They were dying and working.
STU: Yeah.
YARON: But 50 percent of kids didn't make it to age ten. And those that did make it to age 10 kept on working on the farm, and life expectancy generally was 39. All of us in this room, with the exception maybe of Stu, would be dead by now.
PAT: No, Stu would be dead too.
YARON: Okay. Stu would be dead. He just looks young. He looks young.
People have no concept of what life before the Industrial Revolution -- before capitalism, before freedom, before America --
GLENN: I know. But now think about how great it will be after America.
YARON: Yes, after America, we'll all revert back to what it was.
PAT: Yeah.
YARON: Look, as late as the 1960s, in China, because of communism, because of an attempt to make us all equal in outcome, somewhere between 40 to 60 million people died of starvation in one of the most fertile countries in the world. They died of starvation. That's what equality of outcome means.
Now, no American intellectual is going to say that's what they actually want. Oh, no. We don't believe in complete equality. We just believe in more equality than we have right now.
And I always ask them: Give me a number. How much is the right number?
PAT: Yeah, they can't.
YARON: And they can't. Oh, we'll decide when we get there. That's what democracy is about.
No, the whole point is you don't get to decide whether I pursue a financial career and make a lot of money or go and become a teacher and not make a lot of money. That's my decision.
And, you know what, many of us choose not to make a lot of money because life, in spite of what the left says, is not only about money. It's about the pursuit of happiness, it's about the pursuit of flourishing, of human fulfillment. Sometimes that involves money. It certainly involves a certain amount of money. But it's not just about money. So leave people free to make decisions about how far they want to go in life financially, in terms of other things, and the poor -- again, the poor, the people who get a bad education -- and some people, through no fault of their own, are going to be -- it's going to be hard for them. They're going to do better under a free system than any other system possible.
GLENN: Equal Is Unfair is the name of the book by Yaron Brook and Don Watkins. Yaron is joining us. The argument you have to make and the best argument to win this case of freedom, coming up.
President Trump promised that we would get a peek inside Fort Knox, but are we ready for what we might find?
In this new era of radical transparency, the possibility that the Deep State's darkest secrets could be exposed has many desperate for answers to old questions. Recently, Glenn has zeroed in on gold, specifically America's gold reserves, which are supposed to be locked away inside the vaults of Fort Knox. According to the government, there are 147.3 million ounces of gold stored within several small secured rooms that are themselves locked behind a massive 22 ton vault door, but the truth is that no one has officially seen this gold since 1953. An audit is long overdue, and President Trump has already shown interest in the idea.
America's gold reserve has been surrounded by suspicion for the better part of a hundred years. It all started in 1933, when FDR effectivelynationalized the United States's private gold stores, forcing Americans to sell their gold to the government. This gold was melted down, forged into bars, and stored in the newly constructed U.S. Bullion Depository building at Fort Knox. By 1941, Fort Knox had held 649.6 million ounces of gold—which, you may have noticed, was 502.3 million ounces more than today. We'll come back to that.
By 1944, World War II was ending, and the Allies began planning how to rebuild Europe. The U.N. held a conference in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, where the USD was established as the world's reserve currency. This meant that any country (though not U.S. citizens) could exchange the USD for gold at the fixed rate of $35 per ounce. Already, you can see where our gold might have gone.
Jump to the 1960s, where Lyndon B. Johnson was busy digging America into a massive debt hole. Between the Vietnam War and Johnson's "Great Society" project, the U.S. was bleeding cash and printing money to keep up. But now Fort Knox no longer held enough physical gold to cover the $35 an ounce rate promised by the Bretton Woods agreement. France took notice of this weakness and began to redeem hundreds of millions of dollars. In the 70s Nixon staunched this gushing wound by halting foreign nations from redeeming dollars for gold, but this had the adverse effect of ending the gold standard.
This brings us to the present, where inflation is through the roof, no one knows how much gold is actually inside Fort Knox, and someone in America has been buying a LOT of gold. Who is buying this gold? Where is it going and for what purpose? Glenn has a few ideas, and one of them is MUCH better than the other:
Mario Tama / Staff | Getty Images
One possibility is that all of this gold that has been flooding into America is in preparation for a shift back to a gold-backed, or partial-gold-backed system. The influx of gold corresponds with a comment recently made by Trump's new Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, who said he was going to:
“Monetize the asset side of the U.S. balance sheet for the American people.”
Glenn pointed out that per a 1972 law, the gold in Fort Knox is currently set at a fixed value of $42 an ounce. At the time of this writing, gold was valued at $2,912.09 an ounce, which is more than a 6,800 percent increase. If the U.S. stockpile was revalued to reflect current market prices, it could be used to stabilize the dollar. This could even mean a full, or partial return to the gold standard, depending on the amount of gold currently being imported.
Raymond Boyd / Contributor | Getty Images
Unfortunately, Glenn suspects there is another, darker purpose behind the recent gold hubbub.
As mentioned before, the last realaudit of Fort Knox was done under President Eisenhower, in 1953. While the audit passed, a report from the Secretary of the Treasury revealed that a mere 13.6 percent was checked. For the better part of a century, we've had no idea how much gold is present under Fort Knox. After the gold hemorrhage in the 60s, many were suspicious of the status of our gold supply. In the 80s, a wealthy businessman named Edward Durell released over a decade's worth of research that led him to conclude that Fort Knox was all but empty. In short, he claimed that the Federal Reserve had siphoned off all the gold and sold it to Europe.
What would it mean if America's coffers are empty? According to a post by X user Matt Smith that Glenn shared, empty coffers combined with an influx of foreign gold could represent the beginning of a new, controlled economy. We couldstill be headed towards a future where you'll ownnothing.
Artificial intelligence isn’t coming. It’s here. The future we once speculated about is no longer science fiction—it’s reality. Every aspect of our lives, from how we work to how we think, is about to change forever. And if you’re not ready for it, you’re already behind. This isn’t just another technological leap. This is the biggest shift humanity has ever faced.
I've been ringing this bell for 30 years. Thirty years warning you about what’s coming. And now, here we are. This isn’t a drill. This isn’t some distant future. It’s happening now. If you don’t understand what’s at stake, you need to wake up—because we have officially crossed the event horizon of artificial intelligence.
What’s an event horizon? It’s the edge of a black hole—the point where you can’t escape, no matter how hard you try. AI is that black hole. The current is too strong. The waterfall is too close. If you haven’t been paying attention, you need to start right now. Because once we reach Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI), there is no turning back.
You’ve heard me talk about this for decades. AI isn’t just a fancy Siri. It isn’t just ChatGPT. We are on the verge of machines that will outthink every human who has ever lived—combined. ASI won’t just process information—it will anticipate, decide, and act faster than any of us can comprehend. It will change everything about our world, about our lives.
And yet, the conversation around AI has been wrong. People think the real dangers are coming later—some distant dystopian nightmare. But we are already in it. We’ve passed the point where AI is just a tool. It’s becoming the master. And the people who don’t learn to use it now—who don’t understand it, who don’t prepare for it—are going to be swallowed whole.
I know what some of you are thinking: "Glenn, you’ve spent years warning us about AI, about how dangerous it is. And now you’re telling us to embrace it?" Yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying. Because if you don’t use this tool—if you don’t learn to master it—then you will be at its mercy.
This is not an option anymore. This is survival.
I need you to take AI seriously—right now. Not next year, not five years from now. This weekend.
Here’s what I want you to do: Open up one of these AI tools—Grok 3, ChatGPT, anything advanced—and start using it. If you’re a CEO, have it analyze your competitors. If you’re an artist, let it critique your work. If you’re a stay-at-home parent, have it optimize your budget. Ask it questions. Push it to its limits. Learn what it can do—because if you don’t, you will be left behind.
Let me be crystal clear: AI is not your friend. It’s not your partner. It’s not something to trust. AI is a shovel—an extremely powerful shovel, but still just a tool. And if you don’t understand that, you’re in trouble.
We’ve already seen what happens when we surrender to technology without thinking. Social media rewired our brains. Smartphones reshaped our culture. AI will do all that—and more. If you don’t take control now, AI will control you.
Ask yourself: When AI makes decisions for you—when it anticipates your needs before you even know them—at what point do you stop being the one in charge? At what point does AI stop being a tool and start being your master?
And that’s not even the worst of it. The next step—transhumanism—is coming. It will start with good intentions. Elon Musk is already developing implants to help people walk again. And that’s great. But where does it stop? What happens when people start “upgrading” themselves? What happens when people choose to merge with AI?
I know my answer. I won’t cross that line. But you’re going to have to decide for yourself. And if you don’t start preparing now, that decision will be made for you.
I need you to hear me. This is not optional. This is not something you can ignore. AI is here. And if you don’t act now, you will be lost.
The next 18 months will change everything. People who don’t prepare—who don’t learn to use AI—will be scrambling to catch up. And they won’t catch up. The gap will be too wide. You’ll either be leading, or you’ll be swallowed whole.
So start this weekend. Learn it. Test it. Push it. Master it. Because the people who don’t? They will be the tools.
The decision is yours. But time is running out.
Think back to past technological revolutions. The industrial revolution put countless blacksmiths, carriage makers, and farmhands out of business. The internet wiped out entire industries, from travel agencies to brick-and-mortar retail. AI is bigger than all of those combined. This isn’t just about job automation—it’s about job obliteration.
Doctors, lawyers, engineers—people who thought their jobs were untouchable—will find themselves replaced by AI. A machine that can diagnose disease with greater accuracy, draft legal documents in seconds, or design infrastructure faster than an entire team of engineers will be cheaper, faster, and better than human labor. If you’re not preparing for that reality, you’re already falling behind.
What does this mean for you? It means constant adaptation. Every three to five years, you will need to redefine your role, retrain, and retool. The only people who survive this AI revolution will be the ones who understand its capabilities and learn to work with it, not against it.
The real danger of AI isn’t just economic—it’s existential. When AI merges with humans, we will face an unprecedented question: At what point do we stop being human?
Think about it. If you implant a neural chip that gives you access to the entire internet in your mind, are you still the same person? If your thoughts are intertwined with AI-generated responses, where do you end and AI begins? This is the future we are hurtling toward, and few people are even asking the right questions.
I’m asking them now. And you should be too. Because that line—between human and machine—is coming fast. You need to decide now where you stand. Because once we cross it, there is no going back.
AI isn’t a passing trend. It’s not a gadget or a convenience. It is the most powerful force humanity has ever created. And if you don’t take the time to understand it now, you will be at its mercy.
This is the defining moment of our time. Will you be a master of AI? Or will you be mastered by it? The choice is yours. But if you wait too long, you won’t have a choice at all.
Editor's Note: This article was originally published on TheBlaze.com.
Trump offered Zelenskyy a deal he couldn’t refuse—but Zelenskyy rejected it outright.
Last Friday, President Donald Trump welcomed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Washington to sign a historic agreement aimed at ending the brutal war ravaging Ukraine. Joined by Vice President J.D. Vance, Trump met with Zelenskyy and the press before the leaders were set to retreat behind closed doors to finalize the deal. Acting as a gracious host, Trump opened the meeting by praising Zelenskyy and the bravery of Ukrainian soldiers. He expressed enthusiasm for the proposed agreement, emphasizing its benefits—such as access to Ukraine’s rare earth minerals for the U.S.—and publicly pledged continued American aid in exchange.
Zelenskyy, however, didn’t share Trump’s optimism. Throughout the meeting, he interrupted repeatedly and openly criticized both Trump and Vance in front of reporters. Tensions escalated until Vance, visibly frustrated, fired back. The exchange turned the meeting hostile, and by its conclusion, Trump withdrew his offer. Rather than staying in Washington to resolve the conflict, Zelenskyy promptly left for Europe to seek support from the European Union.
As Glenn pointed out, Trump had carefully crafted this deal to benefit all parties, including Russia. Zelenskyy’s rejection was a major misstep.
I believe Trump is playing 4-D chess with Zelenskyy. pic.twitter.com/L19RtQdCF6
— Glenn Beck (@glennbeck) March 3, 2025
Glenn took to his whiteboard—swapping out his usual chalkboard—to break down Trump’s remarkable deal for Zelenskyy. He explained how it aligned with several of Trump’s goals: cutting spending, advancing technology and AI, and restoring America’s position as the dominant world power without military action. The deal would have also benefited the EU by preventing another war, revitalizing their economy, and restoring Europe’s global relevance. Ukraine and Russia would have gained as well, with the war—already claiming over 250,000 lives—finally coming to an end.
The media has portrayed last week’s fiasco as an ambush orchestrated by Trump to humiliate Zelenskyy, but that’s far from the truth. Zelenskyy was only in Washington because he had already rejected the deal twice—first refusing Vice President Vance and then Secretary of State Marco Rubio. It was Zelenskyy who insisted on traveling to America to sign the deal at the White House. If anyone set an ambush, it was him.
JUSTIN TALLIS / Contributor | Getty Images
After clashing with Trump and Vance, Zelenskyy wasted no time leaving D.C. The Ukrainian president should have stayed, apologized to Trump, and signed the deal. Given Trump’s enthusiasm and a later comment on Truth Social—where he wrote, “Zelenskyy can come back when he is ready for peace”—the deal could likely have been revived.
Meanwhile, in London, over a dozen European leaders, joined by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, convened an emergency meeting dubbed the “coalition of the willing” to ensure peace in Ukraine. This coalition emerged as Europe’s response to Trump’s withdrawal from the deal. By the meeting’s end, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced a four-point plan to secure Ukrainian independence.
Zelenskyy, however, appears less than confident in the coalition’s plan. Recently, he has shifted his stance toward the U.S., apologizing to Trump and Vance and expressing gratitude for the generous military support America has already provided. Zelenskyy now says he wants to sign Trump’s deal and work under his leadership.
This is shaping up to be another Trump victory.
Senator McConnell, your call for more Pentagon spending is as tone-deaf as it is reckless. The United States already spends more on its military than the next nine countries combined — over $877 billion in 2023 alone, dwarfing China ($292 billion), Russia ($86 billion), and the entire EU’s collective defense budgets. And yet here you are, clamoring for more, as if throwing cash at an outdated war machine will somehow secure our future.
Aircraft carriers — those floating behemoths you and the Pentagon so dearly love — are relics of the past. In the next real conflict, they’ll be as useless as horses were in World War I. Speaking of which, Europe entered that war with roughly 25 million horses; by 1918, fewer than 10 million remained, slaughtered by machine guns and artillery they couldn’t outrun.
That’s the fate awaiting your precious carriers against modern threats — sunk by hypersonic missiles or swarms of AI-driven drones before they can even launch a jet. The 1950s called, Senator — they want their war plans back.
The future isn’t in steel and jet fuel; it’s in artificial intelligence and artificial superintelligence. Every dollar spent on yesterday’s hardware is a dollar wasted in three years when AI upends everything we know about warfare. Worse, with the Pentagon’s track record, every dollar spent today could balloon into two or three dollars of inflation tomorrow, thanks to the House and Senate’s obscene spending spree.
We’re drowning in $34 trillion of national debt — 128% of GDP, a level unseen since World War II. Annual deficits hit $1.7 trillion in 2023, and interest payments alone are projected to top $1 trillion by 2026.
And yet you want to shovel more taxpayer money into a Pentagon that hasn’t passed a single audit in its history? Six attempts since 2018, six failures — trillions unaccounted for, waste so rampant that it defies comprehension. It’s irresponsible — bordering on criminal — to suggest more spending when the DOD can’t even count the cash it’s got.
The real threat isn’t just from abroad, though those dangers are profound. It’s from within. The call is coming from inside the house, Senator — and not just the House, but the Senate too. Your refusal to adapt is jeopardizing our security more than any foreign adversary.
Look at China’s drone shows — thousands of synchronized lights painting the sky. Now imagine those aren’t fireworks but weaponized drones, each one cheap, precise, and networked by AI. A single swarm could cripple our planes, ships, tanks, and troops before we fire a shot. Ukraine’s drone wars have already shown this reality: $500 drones taking out $10 million tanks. That’s the future staring us down, and we’re still polishing Cold War relics.
Redirect everything — every dime, every mind — toward winning the AI/ASI race. That’s the only battlefield that matters. We’ve got enough stockpiles to handle any foreseeable war in the next three years and a president fighting to end conflicts, not start them. Your plea for more spending isn’t just misguided — it’s a betrayal of the American people sinking under debt and inflation while you chase ghosts of wars past.
Or is it even that senator? Perhaps I have buried the lede, but I am not sure if the following stats will help people understand why this op-ed might have been written by someone in your office.
Your state, Kentucky is:
And 11th in Defense-related defense contract spending
Who are you actually concerned about, Senator? The safety of the American people or your war machine buddies?
Thanks, but no thanks.
