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Autism isn’t a superpower — or a dead-end: A story of tough love
In the modern world, a diagnosis is often worn as if it’s a badge of honor.
But not everyone sees it that way. And Leland Vittert, an American journalist and anchor for NewsNation, certainly doesn’t.
Vittert, who is diagnosed with autism, tells BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey that the adversity his diagnosis caused him did not hold him back, but rather helped him become the successful journalist and reporter he is today.
Vittert didn’t speak until he was “well past 3,” and he had “lots and lots of problems in typical school.”
“If a kid touched me or looked at me the wrong way or whatever, I’d turn around and slug them,” he tells Stuckey, explaining he was “pretty aggressive” and had “big sensory issues.”
“Dad’s idea was to hold my hand through the adversity. And I think what he realized was that I was going to face that adversity later in life, which I did. … I had to learn how to adapt and how to interact with the world as the way the world interacted, not as the way I wanted to interact with it,” he explains.
And it was a struggle, he tells Stuckey, noting that he “couldn’t figure out how to relate to people emotionally the way they were emotionally.”
“I couldn’t figure out how to, you know, read a room, when to stop talking. All of these things I was going to have to learn,” he says. “And if you’re put in bubble wrap and told how wonderful you are all the time, you’re never going to learn that, right?”
That’s when Vittert’s father decided to prioritize self-esteem.
“So, when I was 5 or 6 years old, I was doing 200 push-ups a night. And after a couple months of doing that, you get some kind of reward. But my dad wanted to teach me that self-esteem is earned, not given, which is a very different philosophy, I think, than what we see now,” he tells Stuckey.
After self-esteem, Vittert’s father prioritized teaching him “how the world works socially.”
“So, my dad started spending hundreds of hours with me. Thousands of hours. Still is my best friend. … We’re recording this a little before noon, and I’ve already talked to him, I think, three times today,” he tells Stuckey.
“So, he would then take me out to lunch, and we’d go out to lunch with any of his friends. And because I spent so much time with him, I could sort of talk about business and politics and news and those kinds of topics,” he recalls.
“But as soon as we’d sit down at some diner for cheeseburgers and milkshakes, as soon as his friend sat down, I would either start blasting him with questions or blasting him with stories about my push-ups. And my dad would tap his watch. And that was my dad’s way of saying, ‘OK, be quiet,’” he explains.
“And the idea was, later on, as we were driving home, it was like, ‘OK, when Mr. so-and-so was talking about his weekend and you interrupted it to talk about your push-ups, why did you think he would be interested in that?’” he continues, telling Stuckey that he and his father would then role-play how Vittert could have asked the friend more questions about himself.
“It was this very minute-by-minute teaching of the emotional and human dynamic,” he adds.
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The demographic CLIFF: The fertility CRISIS no one is ready for
America is approaching a civilizational breaking point as young men abandon the left to move right, while young women drift further left. This has left a massive gap that’s not only threatening the future of marriage and family formation, but even basic population replacement.
“This has come to a head to some degree. Now, I will say this, if you are a conservative young woman entering into marriage years, it is a good time to be you. … The market is very much in your favor,” BlazeTV host Steve Deace explains at AmFest.
“Countrywide, you’re unicorns,” he says, noting that despite their existence, “all these things eventually have to come to a head somewhere.”
“Someone is going to have to change, right?” he asks.
BlazeTV contributor Todd Erzen believes that there will need to be “incentivizations.”
“I just don’t think the mere biological cliff we are falling off, that realization is enough because that’s baked into the cake. That was the point all along. That is the dark success story of all of this,” Erzen says.
“I think there may ultimately need to be incentivizations that are kind of like a steroid that wake enough of the culture up to keep things going,” he continues.
However, “Steve Deace Show” executive producer Aaron McIntire disagrees.
“The bad news is, you look at countries like Japan, South Korea, they have faced the same sorts of demographic cliffs that we’re about to maybe go over. They have done all of these technocratic policies, you know, trying to actually animate, trying to just get people in the frame of mind of, ‘Hey, this is going to have a tax benefit for you. This is going to have some economic benefit for you if you have more children,’” McIntire says.
“They’re trying to encourage this, and it really hasn’t had much of a difference,” he says, adding, “So, I don’t think there’s any sort of technocratic solution that you can put in place.”
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A supernatural encounter with Jesus saved his life — now he’s reaching a generation
Bryce Crawford is an evangelist whose supernatural encounter with Jesus not only stopped him from taking his own life, but has catapulted him into a position where he’s helping transform a generation.
“I became a Christian when I was 17. I had depression and anxiety for years. Grew up in a Christian environment, went to a Christian school, but I had a supernatural encounter with Jesus when I was 17. Stopped me from taking my life,” Crawford tells BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey at AmFest.
This happened in 2020, when Crawford had gone to Waffle House for his “death row meal” on Christmas Day.
“I went to Waffle House, and I was at this table. No one preached to me. No one shared the gospel with me. The total opposite happened actually. This grown man dumped his life issues on me, and he said, ‘I’m losing my wife. She’s divorcing me and taking my kids,’” he explains.
“And then he said, ‘There’s no growth in a relationship if the love isn’t mutual.’ And when he said that, time stopped. And I had learned about Jesus all my life. … And for the first time, I thought to myself, maybe I don’t know God loves me because I haven’t given myself a chance to love him back,” he says.
“And so I prayed a crazy prayer. I said, ‘Jesus, if you’re real, take away my anxiety and depression because this is the reason why I want to take my life,’ and I haven’t had that crippling anxiety or depression since that day. It’s been almost five years,” he continues.
This was what led Crawford to Christianity and ultimately where he is now — preaching the gospel.
“The Bible says we plant seeds and water seeds. It’s not my job to save anyone. It’s not your job to save anyone. And so I found listening and being intentional with people is the greatest tool of evangelism,” he says. “It’s not love-bombing. It’s just caring about people.”
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Honor Charlie and put America first at the ballot box in 2026
As debates over America First, Islam’s compatibility with the West, and the future of the conservative movement continue to intensify, Jack Posobiec tells BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales that Republicans need to step up across the board.
“It’s America first,” Posobiec tells Gonzales. “It’s literally America first. … Any policy that America should have going forward should be a policy that says what is the best way forward in the best interest of the American people, right here, right now.”
And Posobiec explains that there’s one way to ensure Americans are put first — and the late Charlie Kirk knew it well.
“Charlie was totally committed to victory, and that obviously meant victory at the ballot box,” he tells Gonzales.
“We’re up against a lot of headwinds in 2026. And to put my analyst hat on, you know, if I were to sit here and say that everything’s hunky-dory and that we’re, you know, we’re wading into safe waters, I wouldn’t be a good sailor if I did that,” he says.
“I was in the Navy, and so, look, you’ve got to tell the captain that the ship is headed toward some rocky waters. And that’s just the truth of the matter,” he continues, pointing out that the Republican House is currently “hanging by a thread.”
“You see people resigning, you see people walking away, quitters, and that only reduces the majority from four to three to, it might even be two by the time we’re done with this conversation. That’s not a large majority,” he says.
“So, you’re defending all of that territory, and all they have to do is pick up a couple,” he adds.
And despite the left’s claims that President Trump is a dictator, he’s not even close — which means that the left does stand a chance.
“He is not Mussolini. He is not General Franco. He can’t just pass these edicts and they immediately become law. … And so, that’s why you need the Republicans in Congress to step up,” Posobiec tells Gonzales.
“You have a majority right now, Republicans, and it is incumbent upon you to use it while you have it,” he adds.
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‘Nations were God’s idea’: Why Christians must support strong borders
Former President Barack Obama may have deported more immigrants than President Trump, but that isn’t stopping the left from accusing supporters of Trump’s immigration policy of being heartless and cruel.
“Biden also deported over a million people,” BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey says on “Relatable.” “Did you hear about ICE raids under Biden? Did you hear about ICE raids under Obama? Did you hear about kids in cages under any of these administrations, even though that was happening, if you want to call these detention centers cages?”
“Did you hear about all of the lost children who were abandoned and not accounted for under these administrations? Did you hear about the sex trafficking, the human trafficking, the drug and weaponry trafficking that was happening under these administrations?” she asks.
“No, it’s not because it wasn’t happening. It’s because the media is in bed with the Democrats, and they don’t want you to see the Democrats doing things that they are criticizing Donald Trump for,” she adds.
Stuckey calls this a “weaponization of empathy.”
And Democrats weaponize your empathy to make you feel like the well-being of a stranger who lives a world away should be a priority in your own life — but Stuckey couldn’t disagree more.
“Countries are like families, just on a bigger scale. You put the safety and security of your people first. Not because you hate people from other countries, but because you love people in your country. It is not possible for us to equally prioritize all of the interests of everyone in the world and all of their safety and security,” she says.
“I believe we see that principle in Romans 13, that governments were instituted by God to punish the wrongdoer and reward the good,” she continues, adding, “You take care of your people. Nations were God’s idea. Borders were God’s idea. Government, laws, all God’s idea, and they are good.”
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Glenn Beck sounds the alarm on Apple’s digital ID: ‘Control of absolutely everything’
Apple has introduced its own digital ID, which is connected to Apple Wallet — but Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck is not thrilled to hear about the company’s latest advancement, calling it a “very bad idea.”
“Digital ID is the first thing. Then it includes your medical records. It includes all your health — everything. It will give you access to the hospitals or not access to the hospitals. It will allow you to buy things or not buy things,” Glenn explains.
“It’ll allow you to access online or not access online. It is control of absolutely everything. And that’s in the design, and they talk about it openly,” he adds.
After the tyranny displayed during COVID, Glenn is among those most skeptical of advancements like digital ID.
“Presenting the new Apple digital ID,” Glenn says sarcastically. “Now at the TSA checkpoints in more than 250 airports all across the U.S., you can present your digital ID at TSA checkpoints and get right onto that plane.”
While Apple claims the digital ID is “not a replacement” for a physical passport, it does add an official government ID to a user’s Apple wallet.
“It does sort of sound appealing, doesn’t it? I mean, just speaking frankly for a moment,” BlazeTV host Stu Burguiere chimes in.
While Glenn agrees that it does “sound appealing,” he points out that the end result would be anything but.
“I have to tell you, when you start putting everything, all records, all passports — it is your one universal key, and it’s tied directly to online, where it’s tracking everything, everywhere you go, every dollar you spend,” he says. “This is just a very bad idea.”
“There’s a story … it’s called the book of Revelation. I mean, how much clearer do you have to be, where you can’t go anywhere, you can’t buy anything, unless you have the mark. I’m not saying Apple is coming up with the mark of the beast, but this is the technology that sure kind of fits it,” he adds.
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Digital NECROMANCY? This new AI tech crossed a spiritual line.
AI company 2wai may have taken its latest commercial a bit too far — as it presents the idea that your loved ones could live forever, as AI avatars, of course.
In the commercial, a pregnant mother speaks to her passed loved one via the phone app, showing the avatar her stomach.
“Oh, honey, that’s wonderful,” the AI responds. “He’s listening. Put your hand on your tummy and hum to him. You used to love that.”
The deceased avatar is 2wai’s core product, a HoloAvatar — which is an AI rendition of a real person, brought to life by a large language model.
“The question on the table, based on what you just saw: ‘Is this idolatry or not?’” BlazeTV host Steve Deace asks BlazeTV contributor Todd Erzen on the “Steve Deace Show.”
“To quote Gandalf, ‘Run, you fools,’” Erzen responds. “This is grotesque idolatry. This is emotional pornography of the highest order.”
“I lost my mother three months before I got married. She never got to meet my four daughters. She was the finest human being I ever met. She was truly good. I would never dishonor her memory with this. I’m utterly disgusted by the perpetual childish neediness of grown-ups who would bow at this altar,” he continues.
“It is profoundly wicked and evil to normalize this in any way, shape, or form. May God have mercy on our souls, quite frankly,” he adds.
“Steve Deace Show” executive producer Aaron McIntire is on the same page as Erzen, telling Deace the product should be burned “with fire.”
“It’s possible that this might not be idolatry if we were all robots, but we’re not robots. Something like this is just not fit for human nature,” he adds.
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The DEI era is ending — and America’s elite institutions may be dying with it
The reign of diversity, equity, and inclusion over America’s elite institutions is coming to an end — and BlazeTV hosts Christopher Rufo and Jonathan “Lomez” Keeperman believe those institutions may be coming to an end as a result.
But it’s not necessarily not a bad thing.
“That 10-year period … the BLM era, let’s call it. Did any of these institutions get better? … Did the journalism at the Times and the Post and the Atlantic improve? Were there sparkling, important, seismic essays that emerged in this 10-year period? … Did Hollywood produce better movies?” Rufo asks.
“The answer is absolutely not,” Lomez answers. “This isn’t even debatable. It is self-evidently the case that everything has gotten worse that these institutions were responsible for producing, and you can measure this along any metric you want.”
“Those things are dying, dead, in decline. What is doing better?” Lomez asks. “Well, all the places that these white men fled to. Crypto, you know, the frontiers of AI and tech, where they could find places to still ply their talents.”
“What happens to these institutions?” he asks. “I think we just let them — they sort of have to die.”
However, Lomez does believe there will be a “silver lining.”
“There has to be some reason this is happening and some way to make it better. And the answer I’ve come up with … these institutions actually needed to decline. They were already potentially in a sort of moment of secular decline anyway, and that this has freed a bunch of talent to go do other things,” he explains.
“I do believe these people and these impulses are going to find their way toward something productive,” he says. “And this is what’s going to arise out of this moment.”
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Glenn Beck: Why Biden’s corrupt ‘pardons’ cannot stand
A new wave of sweeping “pardons” has triggered one of the most urgent constitutional alarms Glenn Beck has ever raised — not because the individuals involved are controversial, but because the actions themselves may not even qualify as pardons at all.
These “pardons” rewrite laws and push executive power into territory the founders explicitly warned against.
“This has gotten out of control. These pardons are out of control. Out of control,” Glenn says on “The Glenn Beck Program.” “It’s something constitutional; it’s been there since George Washington. The president has always had this right, and it is a privilege of his.”
However, under Biden, the privilege was wildly misused.
“All you have to do then is say, ‘I pardon everyone in my administration for anything that they might have done wrong. That can’t stand,” Glenn says.
“And you have the immunity deal, which again, I don’t see how a pre-pardon is even possibly covered. Like, it’s just such an insane concept. … Hunter Biden actually committed a crime, and pardoning him from that is, in theory, obviously outside of the family interest, was the way that was supposed to work,” BlazeTV host Stu Burguiere agrees.
“But they also pardoned him for multiple years of question marks, whether he committed crimes or not, right? That was all included in that. And to go a step farther on this, because I am on a bit of a personal jihad against the pardon, I’m done with it,” Burguiere continues.
While Stu notes that the “founders were very smart,” they also created a process for constitutional amendments.
“I would support one getting rid of the pardon power completely. I’m done with it,” he tells Glenn.
“It’s the most king-like power that the president has, and it doesn’t make any sense to me,” he adds.
Glenn notes that former President Barack Obama also took advantage of presidential pardons, as he “gave clemency for anybody who was convicted of a non-violent federal drug crime with no significant criminal history while serving extraordinarily long sentences, and anybody who was a violent offender was not eligible.”
“I think there were, like, 2,000 people that he pardoned on that,” he says.
“That’s creating a new law,” Stu adds.
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Surveillance everywhere, justice nowhere: Brown University shooting exposes the illusion of safety
A dystopian surveillance state is what so many Americans fear their country is becoming, while some have just accepted that a surveillance state is our past, present, and future.
“There comes a point where, as a society, we just end up getting used to the massive surveillance state that we live in,” Glenn Beck’s head researcher and former DOD intelligence analyst Jason Buttrill tells Glenn.
However, while we’re used to the surveillance state, it doesn’t appear to be doing its job — especially when you look at the response to the recent shooting at Brown University.
On Saturday, Dec. 13, a gunman opened fire inside a first-floor classroom at the Barus and Holley building on Brown’s campus — and the gunman remains elusive.
“If you go back to around 2021, there were people writing about how Brown University was one of the most surveilled campuses in the United States,” Buttrill explains.
“How is it we only have one picture of this guy from the back?” Glenn interjects, adding, “Apparently the one thing that will help you get away with any crime is a hoodie.”
“Yeah, wear something over your head and a coat. Apparently that foils the entire surveillance state, y’all,” Buttrill agrees. “So I guess we have nothing to worry about with surveillance.”
“And on top of that, Kash Patel, the FBI director, said that, you know, they sprung into action and they activated their cellular monitoring system to help identify the person that has now been let go,” he continues.
“Again, that’s another layer of this surveillance state that I think a lot of us should be worried about, and that didn’t do anything either,” he says, adding, “That helped give us the wrong suspect.”
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