Catholics React To Trump's IVF Expansion, John Bolton Indicted, and Muslim Prayer Room

And we're live. Welcome back to the LOOPcast. It's Tom, Erika, and Josh. We've got a great Friday show for you today. The LOOPcast brought to you by The Loop, every American Catholic's favorite morning newsletter. So, if you're not subscribed, head over there and do it now.

Really excited to do today's show. We have, well, actually, excited and not excited. We had an IVF expansion, and there's a lot of layers to this, and we had a great statement from Catholic President Kelsey. We're going to hit on that, but we just got to break it down here. What's going on? Why are we expanding IVF? Trump's a pro-life president, yada, yada, yada. We're going to get into all that. Don't you worry. Second part, we had gerrymandering. Josh put us onto the origins of the word gerrymandering.

The fight continues, and we had a huge Supreme Court case, and one of my favorite things to make Erika do is just be like, hey, Erika, I know that you're obsessively watching this really obscure Supreme Court case. I guess it's not Supreme Court. I am. Accurate. Obscure. And just give us a summary. What's going on? So, we're going to get the breakdown there, what implications that have. For midterms coming up here, or 2028 even potentially, so really interesting stuff there.

We got emails about a Muslim prayer room in the Vatican. We will address that, don't you worry. We have good news. We have Twilight Zone. I'm actually going to give you guys the gambling secrets of J.B. Pritzker, because he is the greatest gambler of all time, according to his tax filings. Stay tuned for that. But before we get into all that, how we can do the show today, shout out to Life on Belay, today's sponsor, an organization doing really meaningful work.

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We're also taking historic steps to vastly expand access to insurance coverage for fertility care, including IVF, something that, as you know, was not covered. Effective immediately, for the first time ever, we will make it legal for companies to offer.

Supplemental insurance plans specifically for fertility has never been done before. We're signing it in today with what we signed. Americans will be able to opt in to specialized coverage just as they get vision and dental insurance. They're going to get fertility insurance for the first time. So, I don't know. You know, I don't know how well these things are covered. I, you know, I see the Democrats like to take. We do the things and they take the credit, but I figure if you do enough of these, eventually people are going to figure it out.

Here we have it. Erika, can you get into some details here? What exactly was announced? Yeah, so he unveiled a public-private partnership with a pharmaceutical company, EMD Sirono, which is a maker of the fertility drug Gonal-F. This was made as an announcement in conjunction with them. EMD Sirono, as part of this deal, is promising massive discounts, so 84% discount to American... Buyers of the drugs through this TrumpRx.gov site, which is the new, you know, Trump pharmacy that's set to launch next year.

So, this is part of his overall attempt to bring down healthcare costs, but this announcement in particular centered on what you could call reproductive healthcare, because it's actually looking to make babies, unfortunately. They're trying to, the primary front and center effort here in order to increase the birth rate and get families reproductive care is through IVF. So, yes, he announced a new employee benefit option, as you heard in the clip. This is going to be optional, according to this action. It's going to be optional for employers to sign on to, but it's going to make it.

So that the coverage is similar to what you would get for an add-on plan, like your dental. Or your vision. And then, of course, workers themselves can opt in if it is covered through the employers. So, it was said multiple times. I watched the press conference. Multiple people got up. We had Senator Britt stand up from Alabama, correct? And we had Dr. Oz, RFK Jr. made statements. And the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, Treasury, they all had a joint statement following this.

that confirmed the plans that will, one, propose new rules to expand how fertility benefits may qualify as limited accepted benefits and review regulations on supplemental health plans to accommodate the new coverage type. So my reaction was... It could have been a lot worse. It was still really bad, and that is what a lot of people are saying this morning.

What could have been worse, the policy, there is no mandate to employer participation in the way that we saw mandates under Obama for coverage of things like contraception or abortifacients. So, thank God for that small nursing, right, and that, and sterilization, and also there aren't federal subsidies going into this. So, tax. The taxpayer dollars are not part of the plan. I will take the crumbs from the table, but at the same time, the pro-life movement needs to be done taking crumbs from the table of the largesse of non-pro-life movements like this.

This was, IVF is... And again, this whole conference touted it as Republicans being now the party of parents. We are now the pro-life party. This is so pro-life. Whereas, in actuality, and what most of you listening know, is that IVF is a reproductive technology predicated upon the creation and intentional destruction or freezing of human embryos. For every live birth resulting from IVF, We have between 5 and 10 frozen or dead other human children. So, those 3% of children who survive the IVF process, who are conceived and survive and are born, I am glad they are here, but the pro-life movement does not forget that other 97%.

And it is hard to sit there and watch while... You know, person after person gets to get up and say that somehow IVF is the pro-baby. It's solving the nation's birth dearth. And you're like, actually, IVF is destroying almost as many embryos every year in our country as abortion is, right? We're in the million range here, yearly and annually. It's a lot. Yeah.

I mean, the thing is... Yeah. Oh, can I just do one more thing? So, Emily Jasinski, God bless her, she posed a question to the president here, and if we could just pull that up and play it, because here is where Trump is at in terms of understanding what is going on here. I think it is very telling.

I don't know about the views of that. I'm just looking to do something, because, you know, pro-life, I think this is very pro-life. This is, you can't get more pro-life than this. Please. Yeah, I mean, it is a surface-level non-answer. I mean, the question is, is nobody there on his team offering any suggestions to it? Actually, I do not think that is the case. I think he just tried to misdirect, and he did not want to answer the question, because I know that there are people, there are lots of personnel inside the Trump administration, both in the Department of Health and Human Services, as well as in the administration.

Vince Haley is a really good, solid Catholic, and I am sure... He is Vice President. J.D. Vance. Marco Rubio. As well as J.D. Vance, right. There are plenty of Catholics that should understand this. Well, I think Marco Rubio is doing about 100 different things. I am sure he did well on this one, particularly, given the Middle East stuff. Maybe he needs another job. Maybe he can be the pro-life correspondent to the President. So, I mean, you know, I would like to basically echo everything that Eric is saying.

I mean, obviously, we consider IVF to be evil and immoral. The reason is, at its first, you are creating new human life. In a laboratory outside of the male-female union, that is, right from the start, illicit and immoral in our minds. And then, of course, The greater problem here is that you are creating lots of new human babies, and you are implanting a whole bunch, and then there is oftentimes what they call euphemistically selective reduction, where they just abort some of the children that do not make it, and then there are other children that just end up in a freezer for the rest of their lives.

All of that is morally abhorrent, and we have said that from the get-go. Donald Trump, there are a lot of Republicans that are freaking out. Over a court case in Alabama or last summer. Yeah, I was going to say, that one is going to pull out. That is where this all really stems from, and my good friend and a co-worker, Tom McCluskey, said Republicans that were so petrified and scared about the implications of this started losing their minds, and they wanted to rush, and they said, how can we make sure that we People do not accuse us of trying to use the court system to completely, radically...

I mean, here is what has happened, obviously. We have had a system over the last 60 years where the left has... I've been on the march on the sexual revolution, and for the most part, Republicans are like, what? We just want to cut taxes. We want to deregulate the economy. Bomb foreign countries. Bomb foreign countries. And so, like, oh, what? You're against killing babies? Okay, so we'll be against abortion. Fine, or whatever. But when it comes to IVF, when it comes to pornography, when it comes to marriage, when it comes to LGBT, all that kind of stuff, for the most part, Republicans have not wanted to weigh in on most of these social issues other than a few Teppan words here or there.

The change has been. Actually, welcome on the trans stuff, where Republicans started realizing, wait a minute, we can actually win elections by standing on the right side of this issue. Yeah, by actually working towards the truth. Right. Imagine that in politics. On the issue of IVF, this is a case where pro-life Catholics are not just in a minority position in the country. We are a minority country, even within, not even just the Republican Party, but even within amongst. Conservatives. Yeah. And so, this is a difficult thing, and we have to be clear about this.

So, when Donald Trump made this big announcement after the whole freakout about this court case in Alabama last summer, Donald Trump got out there and goes, I'm going to be more IVF than anyone. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that. I'm going to increase the access. I'm going to make it easier for parents to do it. This, obviously, announcement is him delivering on his campaign promise. And again, Donald Trump is a guy who delivers on his campaign promises.

People aren't used to this. Well. The fact of the matter is, when he announced this, we at CatholicVote, privately and publicly, told the Trump campaign, listen, we are going to vote for you and campaign for you absolutely despite this thing, and we will try to do everything we can to stop it. And we have lobbied the campaign and also the administration. This could have been massively worse. Yes. But here is the problem. It may not be as worse right now, and it was worse.

I mean, obviously, you make a drug, use the most favored nation status. It is a very populist thing that Trump has done. Which I am in favor of, largely, for most drugs. Whatever the prescription drug is, if they are selling it in Canada for super cheap, well then, why don't we get it for 40% off? We are Americans, darn it. So, he is applying that same rubric to this. I get it. It just needs to be clear on a few things.

You mentioned the Alabama Supreme Court decision. I think it is kind of instructive. We did not go into the context there. Basically, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that the destruction of living human embryos Could be subject to prosecution under the state's wrongful death of minor statute, and the reason being was there was a fire in this fertility lab and a ton of these embryos.

Like, died in the fire. Perished. And so, all the people that... And the parents are like, hey. Hey, you know, what happened to these? We killed our kids, right? Which, of course, like, I mean, it is like a hundred moral quandaries going on at one time, which is, I think, unfortunately, the problem with the IVF industry. The second being that the IVF procedures, in my mind, are predatory for a few reasons, and by changing one of the reasons that it is predatory, which would be the price point, does not take away from the predatory nature of the...

The facility itself. 100% agree. Because the first thing that people bring up is, oh my gosh, it costs $40,000, and it's the first and only thing my doctor recommends when I go in and say, hey, I can't have a baby. And that's why largely, you mentioned this is somewhat of a, it's not popular yet. I hope one day it may be within the conservative coalition being like, what? You're not IVF? Because most people have never, they don't understand IVF at all.

They're just prescribed it immediately when they can't have children, when they want to have children. And so, I've actually had a personal experience sitting down with people that are like, oh, you're Catholic. I've heard IVF. It'll come up, and I'm like, well, do you actually know what IVF entails, like what the process is? What it does, right. And as soon as you talk about it, they're like, oh, that is a little Star Trek. That is kind of crazy. And it costs $40,000 or it costs $60,000.

It's not covered by insurance, and it's a multibillion-dollar industry that profits off of this kind of treatment with a notably low success rate in many cases. And no ethical way to handle what they have done. And, I may add, also adds to child trafficking, potentially, because what does this open up? This technology opens up being able to create babies outside of the union of a man and woman. Therefore, you can just create children and put them in surrogate mothers, right? I mean, the UN has come out and said surrogacy is a huge problem.

So, by writing one element of the predatory nature, namely the cost and insurance, it does not nullify the entire process itself. So, I'd be curious, Josh, for you, I think we've made all of our statements clear, and unfortunately, all Catholics don't even know about this, which is sad to me. Catholics, at a minimum, should understand what's going on and forcefully protest. But how do you recommend any success here? Because it just feels like we mentioned the political optics of it. It's going to go forward.

I guess it's not as bad as it could be, but how do you even recommend Catholics go forward that feel convicted about the IVF issue? Yeah, I mean, again, this is one of those things where we fought for 50 years, 49 years, right, to get...

We had a situation for 49 years in our country where the federal judiciary would refuse to allow states to protect unborn human life, really, in any meaningful way, right? We had to fight so long and so hard, protracted battle, just to win the right for the court to go, okay, fine, the states can protect unborn human life again. Oh, awesome. That didn't mean we started prosecuting abortionists in Los Angeles. You know what I'm saying? It didn't mean that we were abortion-free from coast to coast.

We just won the right to actually start passing state laws to protect people. To have the debate, even. Right, really. And so, on this, it might be easier even to talk about pornography. The production and consumption of pornography is morally wrong, okay?

We are so awash in it in today's society. It floods everywhere. It is available at the fingertips of even children. We have books that are pornographic that we have in libraries. We have to go so far. The Overton window on this one is so wackadoodle that we are like, you know, online websites that will distribute pornography for free, we should just make sure that the end user is actually over 18. And people are like, oh my gosh, that is crazy. Wait, what?

I mean, you have to be 16 years old and have a proof of ID to drive a car, but like, you know, hardcore BDSM, sure, whatever. Walk up to the computer, you are eight years old, you should be able to access whatever you want. Like, are you out of your mind? And so, like, I just tell people, like, you know, and what's funny to me about this is that I get a lot of pro-lifers who are upset about Donald Trump. They're like, see?

Thanks, buddy. This is what you gave us. And I'm like, um. Hello? Am I pro-IVF? Are you out of your mind? No, of course. When he announced this, we denounced it. In fact, I had one of these guys on Twitter last night, and he was just ripping on Catholic book. I can't believe Catholic book. Where are they? And I'm like, I was about to hit reply, because he accused us of not doing anything about this Trump book. Oh, my gosh. He accused us of not doing anything about it for personal.

I have no idea. So, I'm like, I'm ready to go. I'm, you know, both barrels ready, and I'm about to hit send on the link. So, the article we published two weeks ago on Mifepristone, in which he denounced it, you know, making the cheap drug, and then I'm like, and then all of a sudden he starts deleting his tweets. He realized that, you know. Good man, good man. Josh didn't care. I was right, man. I was right. But this, again, so the hope is.

The hope is, by also promulgating what RFK did talk about well in his press conference, was he was talking about there are, you know, Maha-style treatments that can, you know, try to get to the underlying cause here and help people get true fertility and understand the root causes of their infertility, and to the extent that that happens, I hope we can breathe life. into that, and try to convince more couples of that, and if all that he does with this announcement is Do a lot more spending and educating of the American public on that.

Then, maybe we can start to build the framework where people go, oh, wow, maybe this is the better option. Yes. Instead of, you know, I would love to, I mean, we don't sort of live in a kingdom. Real quick on this, and I just want to make sure, because Erika's here, and Erika's the only one, I guess, that's. We just can't slam the door and just wish, la, la, la, IBS over. It's just not going to happen like that. Yeah, for sure.

Erika, is it, was it the Omaha Institute? I just want to, so. I guess what I hope to provide here is, like, we've been through the process, I've been through the process personally, where we've gotten in touch with pro-life doctors that, you know, would never prescribe IVF, but if you're struggling with infertility, these are really good people to go see because they're going to try to address the root issues. Like, who would people go to? Yeah, this would be, you'd want to go to the Creighton Institute for sure.

You can just Google NAPRO technology, N-A-P-R-O technology, and it It's just mind-blowing, the success rates with the Maha, and I think, Josh, that really is the hook into starting to turn this around. I think we're looking at 50, 100 years to turn this really around and to get out of the IVF thing, but you're looking with IVF cycles, you're looking at three, I think three IVF cycles have a success rate of like 42%. So, it's not even the most successful way.

Out of the majority of the time. It's not even a majority success rate. But if you look at NAPRO technology, reports, depending on what condition you're looking at, endometriosis, PCOS, delayed fertility, delayed marriage, delayed attempts, you're looking at a 50% to 80% success rate with NAPRO. And so, I hope that reality will win out, and like you said, Josh, RFK did mention that his hope is with this renewed attention on the fertility crisis. Which is a real crisis.

That we will start to find ways to prevent people from even getting to the point of needing IVF and to address root causes, and that is, of course, the answer, but the problem is the medical establishment for so long has been educated to and focused on just, okay, what's the easiest thing? We can inject you. You can go masturbate. We can inject the baby into you, and that's your go-to, and we're talking about a billion-dollar. Industry, right, when you're talking about IVF at this point.

And behind the scenes, Erika, we were talking about that article from the Celebrity Doctor, like the concerning trend among Gen Z women. What is it? And the Celebrity Doctor is like- Yes, there's an organic interest in this. There is an organic interest in younger generations to start to question the birth control regimen, to start to question things like IVF and making babies in labs. I think there is- The pendulum's swinging, the tide is turning, and as Catholics, we need to ride that all the way.

Yeah, if I could be clear about that trend, the trend that she was concerned about was that Gen Z women are getting off of birth control and never starting, and she didn't like that fact. She's like, oh, there's this misinformation online that it's linked to these problems, and I'm like, oh, you mean reputable studies? I'm down that rabbit hole, Tom. You're down the rabbit hole. Yeah, the deep next week is going to be all this rabbit hole. Awesome. Because I would just like to even just stop on a philosophical note, and like, what are we doing to the daughters of this country when we're getting them on hormonal drugs at age 13, 12 sometimes?

Before their brains are fully developed. That's what's killing me right now with the research. Erika, that's 12 years, 13 years before their brains are fully developed, and you think that somehow this is going to have no adverse effects, which they do know that there is because there's a long list of all the problems that you could be on that they give you with birth control. So, they've already admitted it. I have their receipts, guys. Right, and so, like, this is kind of...

I do have hope in that regard. I will say just based on anecdotal conversations I've had myself, there is this mass scale questioning of the medical orthodoxy. I think it really started with COVID, and I think now people are going down the rabbit hole on our food, on drugs that you're taking on a daily basis, and I just think that if nothing else, that's just a huge win because these are obviously causes to why we are more obese than ever, why we're more infertile than ever.

You would think we're in the most advanced country of all time. We'd have some of these things figured out. We don't because they're under control. And I would give credit to... I want to thank our former president, Brian Birch, for understanding this. He understood that RFK was getting onto something here with the Maha movement. Now, that does not mean that RFK is with us 100% on everything, but we can lean into the things that he is talking about with this Maha movement, and just to say, yes, let us talk about our holistic body.

Let us talk about the chemicals we are putting in here. So, I would just encourage people. Isn't it the St. Paul VI Institute? Yeah, St. Paul VI is another great... resource for this. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, so have those on hand for when you have these inevitable conversations, because people are going to be like, isn't this so great, IVF? Or you're going to meet people that are trying to have kids, like if you're my age, you're meeting people in that stage right now, and they just are only told that's the only option, and it's super expensive, it's super predatory, and it's super invasive.

So, there's better options for you that are going to be better for your soul and your body, and hopefully your family. Hopefully, you'll be able to have kids after this. And I just want to end this with. One of the things that, in terms of the pro-life movement, when I feel like we made a lot of substantial ground in the pro-life movement, is when we moved... Attention away from only the baby, which we still care, obviously, about the baby, but when we started to show compassionate care for the mother herself as well and emphasize that language a lot, then I think people started to realize these guys are not just fanatically concerned about the baby.

They do care about the women, and that is what the Maha thing on this could be. It is like, actually, we want better results for you and your husband. I know you want a child. We also care about what is being put into your body, the chemicals and that kind of stuff, and I think leaning into that kind of stuff. You know, it's very helpful, because, you know, you're like, wait a minute, now, all these children are in a freezer, and, like, they just kind of glaze your eyes open.

Right. It's too hard to think about. Right. It's going to take a while. I mean, and again, you've got to play the long game on this stuff, but, you know, that doesn't mean we're... I'm here for it. I'm all about the long game. And, I mean, the reason I made this top story is, like, we need to so forcefully, every time that this is even whispered by the administration or by someone else, to forcefully come out against it. And to provide that there's other options, better options, because if we just roll over on this, it's like there's just too much at stake.

Well, and Erika, to her credit, you've done such a great job on this. She's done lots of articles against IVF over a CatholicVote, so, I mean, you can look at that information. It's all right there. We've been very clear from this from day one. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, before the next section, Erika. All right. Did you know that American homeowners have over $32 trillion in equity? And criminals are targeting it with a growing scam the FBI calls house stealing. Scammers can transfer your title.

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Erika, Supreme Court arguments. What are we talking about here? Okay. We might be seeing little regrets on the Democrat side, that they even brought this up. Are we having gerrymandering regrets? So, these oral arguments were held for the case Louisiana v. Calais this week, October 15th and 16th, and it's a case about race and voting and how we will draw political maps in America.

So, this was a challenge from non-Black voters, and yes, sadly, that's an important. Descriptor, non-Black voters in Louisiana to Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Also an important date to keep in mind. So, the VRA, the Voting Rights Act, aims to stop racial discrimination in voting, especially in the South. One effect of it was the creation of these majority-minority districts, where racial minorities, mostly Black Americans, could elect candidates of their choice because representation. That's sort of like the AP explanation of this.

I mean, not for nothing. Not for nothing. Not yet. Yeah, we can get into all that, but I'll just give the context. So, we get multiple Supreme Court decisions, 1986, another case supported the approach, but then in the 1990s, the court started saying things like, well, race can figure into your districting, but not if it's the primary factor. So, you can do race, but not a lot of race, or something like that. 1993.

Another ruling also even floated the possibility that race-based redistricting was totally in violation of the Constitution. Could, could be. Could be totally in violation, maybe. What you get is sort of this legal catch-22, right, for the states. And if states don't use race in redistricting, they can get sued for not complying with the Voting Rights Act. But if they do use race, they could be sued for racial gerrymandering and violation of the 14th and 15th Amendments, equal protection clauses, okay? So, what happened in Louisiana?

In 2022, Black voters in Louisiana, yes, they sued the state because of the congressional map, and they said it deliberately diluted Black voting power. So, a federal court They agreed, and they ordered Louisiana to create a second majority black district. So, they would create a voting district based on race, a second one. In response, we get Senate Bill 8 in Louisiana, which had that second majority district in 2024. So, now a group of non-black Louisianians, that's how you call them, is suing, and we get this case at the Supreme Court, because they say the new map is unconstitutional.

...racial gerrymandering. They argue that race was used as the main factor, so we're violating multiple Supreme Court precedents in drawing the district lines, and that's the argument. So, we get the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. They're arguing in front of the court that this is undermining hard-won protections for minority voters. The VRA, on the other hand... It says Louisiana was never meant to force states to draw maps based on race, and that we've moved beyond these injustices, so it's time to end it.

And just asking a simple question, so we're all talking about gerrymandering, redistricting. It would be a map drawn around a certain geographic location, and they would vote for someone to represent them in Congress. Yes. Yeah, this is the drawing of the congressional districts for these states.

And just to understand that the Voting Rights Act covers certain states, that they actually need to get preclearance from the Department of Justice to do their maps. Now, you know, I live in Michigan. Detroit is the largest city in Michigan. It has a very large African-American population, but there's no Voting Rights Act concerns. The state of Michigan doesn't have to get its maps approved, and if Republicans completely ran Michigan, they could slice Detroit into five pieces and put each piece into a different congressional district and dilute the power of the Democrats that are in Detroit, who are obviously mostly Black.

It's like a 90% Black City. You can't do that. In Alabama, because Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, Arizona, these states have to go, and their maps have to get approved by the Department of Justice because they've had a legacy of disenfranchising Black voters, which is true. But what the justices were talking about in these, you know, you can see from their line of questioning here, it's like, well, they would think A race-based remedy to try to fix this disenfranchisement that they had for generations going up until 1965.

They would consider race-based districting to allow them to be represented in Congress as a perfectly legitimate response on a temporary basis. They just don't think that that response should be permanent. And so the question for the majority, I think, is whether or not...

60 years later, do we still need these temporary protections, or have we kind of moved past this? Here is the interesting thing to think about. In 1965, in Alabama, like, everyone is Democrats. It is white racist Democrats trying to dilute the power of black Democrats in Birmingham. And so, you take the state, and you draw these lines, and they would do things like... The courts would say, wait a minute now, every district has to have the same number of voters, because they would just draw districts in such a way, and this district wouldn't have as many, and so the court kept adding to these things, and then said, now listen, if you have 600,000 people in Birmingham, and it's 90% black, they should have their own district.

Don't just try to slice it up like a pizza pie into all these other districts as a way to dilute- Pizza's generous. The maps that get drawn look like my three-year-old drawing- picture for me, you know what I mean? Like, they look really bizarre, on purpose. Now, here is the interesting thing about this. Democrats were kind of conflicted on this, okay? So, after a while, the Democratic Party kind of liked this race-based stuff, because it guaranteed that they would have certain Democratic, Black Democrats who were very liberal, would get seats all throughout the South.

North Carolina, Florida, you know, Georgia, all this kind of stuff. And for a while, Republicans really liked this, actually, in the 80s, 90s, and 2000s, because basically, if you'll remember, Nixon started winning states in the South, but for the longest time, white Democrats were dominant.

And by isolating all the blacks into these hyper-democratic districts, then the outlying rural areas were slowly turning Republican all through the 80s, 90s, and 2000s. So now, you have a situation where you have the white Republicans, and then you have these black Democrats. Now, here is the thing. Here is what I want to try to help you understand and illustrate this, okay?

Imagine a scenario. This is kind of crazy, right? But, like, the Democrats are saying, oh, you're trying to carve up these districts to eliminate, you know, black districts, like in Birmingham or whatever, and you're just doing it because you're racist. And my point is, you're half right. They are trying to redistrict it to try to maximize the Republican Party's strength in Alabama and all these other states. That's true, but it's not because of racism. Honestly, if you took like 500,000 Black Democrats from Birmingham, Alabama, and moved them into Ann Arbor, Michigan, and took 500,000 white liberals from Detroit area and switched their seats and put them in Birmingham, then what would happen?

Republicans would slice up the whole thing, and they would have all seven seats in Alabama be Republican, and no one would say anything, because you would not be able to accuse them of racism. They are wanting to redistrict the lines to maximize their party strength. It is not about race at this point. It is 60 years later. That is the kind of point that… At this point, Erika, can you kind of signal what the different justices were signaling on that very question?

Like, have we moved past the time necessary for this? Yeah, and that was Justice Kavanaugh raised that point first, and the Solicitor General who was arguing for the plaintiffs, Hashim Mupan, he was great. He wanted to point out to the justices that the problem before the court, from Louisianians' point of view, is that it's not the mere...

Consideration of race in redistricting. The problem is that race has come to subordinate what he called traditional neutral principles, and that's the factor that can't be compromised. This set off the KBJ. KBJ was not happy with this. Figured this was coming. And this was probably the greatest. So, I'm not going to play the clip, but this is what she said word for word. I transcribed it myself. These folks, meaning the disabled people, these folks don't have access to these buildings. The facilities must be made equally open to people with disabilities.

So, she's talking about laws saying that buildings where we go to vote. Have to have ramps for people with wheelchairs. There needs to be accessibility. ADA compliant. Yeah, ADA compliant. And she says, they don't have equal access to the voting system. They are disabled. My kind of paradigmatic example of this is something like the ADA.

Congress passed the ADA against the backdrop of a world generally not accessible to people with disabilities. Why is that not happening here? Black people. Well, there was a systemic disenfranchisement of Black voters, and so you could say the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was a remedy to help fix this. The question is, is it still needed 60 years later? And that is, I guess, what Kavanaugh is getting at.

Like, to me, it's not like we're going, you know, jumping in a DeLorean and going back to 1965 and saying whether or not it's, you know, there's any merit to passing that bill. Like, there was merit to the bill. Maybe the remedy could have been a little bit different or whatever. We can argue about that. But there, I mean, there absolutely was a need to do this, you know. Yeah. The question is, 60 years later, do you still need that? I mean.

Well, and the question also is that if the court has set the precedent in multiple cases saying that race at this point, the court, where we get it, what the signals we're getting from like Barrett and Thomas are that, in fact, the court has spoken on this, and they have said that while race, they have said, acknowledging what was before, right, in the 60s, but that at this point, race cannot be the primary consideration. So then, this was another GOAT moment from Clarence Thomas.

He just turned to the Solicitor General, Mupon, and he said, actually, this was Aguinaga, and he said, you know, what role did that case, the Robinson case, which was the one that forced Louisiana to draw a second black majority district, what role did that play in your drawing of the district and passing the law, SB8, that this is all about? This whole new map, right? Yeah, and Aguinaga said, he said, look. We drew it because the courts told us to. We would never have passed SB8 without that court case.

They said a majority black district was required. A second one, right? A second one, and our legislature saw that marching order. This was a 100% race-based only redistricting decision, and in which case Thomas and, again, Amy Coney Barrett Gorsuch, their line of questioning was kind of pushing this in the direction of, at this point, that kind of practice from the courts saying you have to draw an entirely race-based district, that seems to be in violation of the Civil Rights Act. So, it seems like we're in a sort of situation where if Democrats want to uphold the VRA, the Voting Rights Act, they're going to have to repeal the Civil Rights Act, which we really know they don't want to do either.

And that was definitely where the justices were going. A bit of a quandary. Yeah, after the questioning, do I think they're going to overturn the Voting Rights Act? I don't think that's going to happen here. Probably what we're going to see is that one section, section two.

That says you can't have race as the primary driver in drawing your lines. That's probably going to get beefed up and adjusted a little bit, and there'll be some new precedents set to be clearer about it. But yeah, Tom has up on the screen right now. And I also think that the court is going to say that 60 years later, we don't need these states to have to go to the Justice Department to get pre-clined these maps. Yes. That thing is going to die, too.

That would be simpler. This one went viral. I think it was like... 13.4 million views. So, what can happen without Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act? This was done by the New York Times. Yeah, it was the New York Times. So, is this true? Like, Josh? Political wonk. Yeah, no, absolutely. This is a very plausible scenario. Just for the audio, give a description of what you see on this. Yeah, so, I mean, the current map right now, you know, in the South, you have states like Alabama that have two black Democrats districts, and then like, what is it, like four others that are, or five others.

And so, after, if this Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act gets thrown out, and these states don't have to worry about... Racial gerrymandering and creating these majority Black districts because of longstanding injustices that had happened for generations before 1965. If these states are allowed to just pass maps as if they are just a normal state, Then Alabama would, you know, could draw a map where all six or seven of their districts are held by Republicans. Georgia, you know, goes from having like five or six Democrats to having like about three, you know, so all across the, from Louisiana, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, you're talking about Democrats losing 12 seats in Congress because of this.

So, that is massive. That's already larger than the margin right now, but the House of Representatives is at. What will happen is, I mean, there is a chance that they could release this verdict in January. That's highly unlikely.

They could do it January, they could do it March, in which case, then Republicans would go into overdrive and change their maps this year, this next year. I don't think that is going to happen. I think it will probably get released at the end of June, and there will not be enough time for it to be remedied in time for the 2026 campaign, but that means 2028, Republicans will, you know, I think the court is pretty clear that they are going to vote.

Yeah. And I just want to be super clear, Josh. Like, the reason why the rest of the country does not look like this is because the rest of the country doesn't have to go to the Department of Justice to get their maps approved. So, they look how they look now because they've been able to basically operate normally. But because of these artificial provisions with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, this is why the South looks like this now and would look like this without it.

Yeah. I mean, and again, you know. I actually am very sympathetic to the arguments that Kavanaugh was making, and that, like, there was a time where this kind of stuff was needed, because you did have gross disenfranchisement of Blacks for generations, and, like, that was absolutely immoral. The question is, in the year 2025, do we really think that there is any kind of widespread racism that is preventing, you know, is... KBJ does. I mean, wouldn't this kind of follow, too? This would kind of follow the decision that they made about affirmative action not too long ago as well.

Like, there may have been a time where that was necessary for a little bit, but in the year of our Lord, 2025, like, is it actually doing more harm than it is good? And I think people really convincingly made the argument, yes, it's doing a lot more harm than it actually is good, to the people, to some of the people it purportedly was sent out to help. A hundred percent. So, the Democratic Party, you know, has been gifted. An additional at least 12 House seats for the last several decades because of this.

That is a lot. That's a lot, and you know what? That shouldn't be in perpetuity. It shouldn't be forever. Okay, that's interesting. I'm glad we got into the guts of that one, because that is not the discussion I see being had online from legacy outlets or by Twitter itself. I feel like there's both extremes, but that made a lot of sense after the breakdown. I appreciate it, gang. There's also, I mean, the redistricting stuff, and I'll just take just one minute on this.

Texas did the redistricting, and they redo their whole lines. And so, they're going to probably add five Republican seats out of Texas coming up for the 2026 cycle. So, Gavin Newsom and the California Democrats are spending $50 million to put something on the ballot this November.

Obama's doing that for him, Josh. Yeah, so is AOC, and it's like, let's just have the breaks on our independent commission, and let us have politically charged gerrymandering maps to try to squeeze more seats out of California. So, then it is just asymmetrical warfare. Now, Indiana, North Carolina, states that are dominated by Republicans, and it is funny, too, because in North Carolina, you have a Democratic governor, but the Democratic governor has no veto authority over the drawing of gerrymandering and districting maps because former State Senator Roy Cooper Who then became governor was the one that said, no, the governor should never have that power.

Interesting. I feel like this is where the game is being played. I saw, was it Scott Pressler said he's coming to Indiana, and he's going to primary anyone that doesn't sign up for gerrymandering. It's been interesting to see people kind of present, oh, I would never do that, like gerrymandering. I think Obama was actually famously really anti-gerrymandering. And is now literally doing ads for Gavin Newsom in California. Illinois is the worst. I mean, just looking at the maps, actually, the thing is, based on the population of Massachusetts, there's so many Democrats that live in Massachusetts.

There are Republicans, like 40%, but they're scattered in so different ways that you would actually need a hyper-political nerd like me to carve two Republican districts, you know what I'm saying? Like, any random pattern of 10 districts based on where people live. And it is very likely in Massachusetts you get 10 Democrats, but that is not the case like in Illinois. I mean, these districts... No, not at all. Illinois... Dude, anyone from Illinois, their main frustration is, why is our state in the dumpster because of Chicago?

No one can get any representation outside of Chicago, and it is like everywhere else is red. I mean, Illinois is essentially Kansas without Chicago. Like, they are conservative. I mean, the real radical plan would be to say, let us let Cook County become a state. Literally. Yeah, seriously. Can we secede Cook County? Do we really want to add two more Democrats to the Senate? I don't know. We'll see. Yeah, good point. All right, Erika, what's your good news? Okay, this is just an interesting one.

So, the pillar, the guys over at the pillar, we're going to give them a little shout out. You know, I rag on them sometimes for being boring, but I love you, J.D. Flynn. Love you, Ed. And they had a really great response to the IVF thing. They came out and they were like, look, the pillar is never going to cover IVF. We're never going to opt into this. Obviously. But today, they made a moral commitment for the gospel of life. And look at this cute baby.

Oh, my gosh. I'm just dying. Well played, JD. You put up a cute baby. My milk just let down. I'm not even nursing. That's such a cute baby. Okay. However big the Pillars newsroom gets, and however many employees we have, we commit today to paying 75% of all employee family adoption costs. And the costs for all fertility treatment undertaken in accordance with the doctrine of the church.

And then they challenged, they said, if you are a diocesan bishop, a pastor or apostolate leader or a Catholic leading a business, we want to encourage you strongly to do the same thing. Challenge laid down. I just thought, yes, this is what family policy would look like, like covering that 75% of adoption costs. Are you serious? It is amazing. That is pretty cool, and also just putting the priority of like... You know, maternity and paternity care, there is no actual incentive in the tax code for non-profits to be generous with those kind of benefits because there is no tax being paid anyway by non-profit corporations, and yet, CatholicVote, we made sure to have maternity care and paternity care only after my wife gave birth to the last child, but, you know, whatever.

It is the hazards of being a founder, Josh. I tell you. I got to go to Spain and Poland, so I guess I will call it off. Yeah, it is paying off. It is paying off. You cannot complain too much, buddy.

All right, Josh, what do you got? I said that one for you, bro. Okay, so a little palate cleanser. Yeah. Who is the most prominent guest performer at the Opry? Oh. Guest? The hillbilly Thomas. No, I mean, I'm looking at it, so I would cheat. Oh, okay. I give up. Did you know that a United States president once visited the Grand Ole Opry? Josh's favorite question mark? Oh, I did not. Nixon? Oh, yes. And he performed. No way. What does he do?

Sing? Okay. All right, I'm going to mute for the ads. When I start playing it, but that, I think they'll know it when I start playing it, but anyway. You remember on that Prisoners of War affair, that dinner, one of the highlights was on Irving Berlin, who had been very ill and came down and brought the original score of the great song that he wrote that everybody sings since then. Yes, I remember. God bless America. Yes, I remember. And I thought possibly we'd try that one.

Oh, do. That would be great. God bless America. The host is nice. Well, Is this even the same country? I love that song so much. That's crazy. God bless America. And look at his pound in the 80s. The people do want you to make a video on why you like Nixon. They want a Nixon report from you, so we'll see if we can get that one done.

I could do a deep and just interview Josh about Nixon. True. Christian Ruffo would be good to interview on. Ruffo, big Nixon guy. He does love Nixon. All right. I got a fun one. The Pope knows ball. Some of the audio is posted in the Popemobile. Someone yells, go Cubs, at him. He says, ah, Perdido, they lost.

He's watching. He knows his snack in two languages about the crosstown rival. Yep, Brian was, you know, I'm telling you, Brian and him are probably having a good old time. The Cubs are out, right? They lost. Oh, yeah, they're out.

So, I mean, tough. So are my tigers as well. So, we all are in misery together, but Pope knows ball. My takeaway from that, Pope knows ball. My takeaway from that is like, oh my gosh, someone who's relatable. Like, he's one of us. The one of us chant. Totally. Okay, I'll rip this one quick. I had to C-block. So, I just had an update on John Bolton, the famous mustache.

He was indicted, and I remember at the time... Oh, Walrus. I remember at the time, everyone was like, wow, political persecution, can't believe it. They got nothing on him. This is just like Trump. I will just read some of the samples, and it was way worse than I thought. Way worse. So, grand jury in Maryland indicted Bolton on 18 felony counts under the Espionage Act, which is serious, by the way. Espionage Act is super serious.

Eight counts unlawful transmission of national defense information, 10 counts of unlawful retention of NDI, national defense information. So, he was the national security advisor under Trump, just for people that didn't know. From 2018 to 2019, Trump hated him. These guys hate each other. And it was a mutual feeling. Yeah, these guys hate each other. It went both ways. Yeah. So, the charges stem from alleged mishandling of classified materials from his time as the national security advisor. Here are some key allegations, and again, I can't even believe that I'm about to read this.

Bolton reportedly shared over 1,000 pages of diary-like entries, detailed notes from intelligence briefings, situation room discussions, and meetings with foreign leaders via personal email and private messaging app, a group chat labeled For Diary in the Future. ...with two relatives who lacked security clearances. These notes contained information classified up to top secret level, including intelligence on future attacks by adversarial groups, foreign partners sensitive sharing with US intelligence, missile launch plans of US adversary, details on leaders of adversarial nations, and US covert action plans.

That sounds bad, Dom. That's not good. That kind of makes Hillary Clinton's emails look like... Bolton allegedly kept classified documents, writings, and notes in his home, including items labeled confidential related to weapons of mass destruction, UN missions, and strategic communications. I have a quote from one of his indictments. If anyone wants to have a good time, I mean a good time, bad time, depending on what you call, it's all in the indictment, and it's horrible. I mean, it's way worse than I thought.

Here's an example. I'll share the screen. Seriously, I read this, and I'm like, this is the guy that's in charge of shooting bombs overseas, and he's just sending stuff for his diary? First off, you can't call it your diary, brother. You can't just say that.

All right, so July 23, 2018, Bolton sent individuals one and two a message stated, more stuff coming! A few minutes later, Bolton sent individuals one and two a 24-page document which described information that Bolton learned while a national security advisor. Less than three hours later, Bolton sent individuals one and two a follow-up message that stated, none of which we talk about! In response, individual one sent a message that stated, shh.

Probably jokingly. Individual 2 then sent a message that stated, the only interesting thing is what senior U.S. government official might have said from foreign language interpreter, which you didn't tell us. And then he sent back, more to come with cloak and dagger or something, so he says. Oh, my gosh. This is, that's not good.

And the kicker on all this, if you remember, remember the Iran hack where they got all these emails? Iran hacked his personal email account, that he was sending stuff to the diary and the future writers of his book. That's how they got it. It wasn't like they got into official systems. They got it from his personal email. Which was an AOL account, which is another reason he should be in jail. Yeah, no one should use AOL. What is this, 1998?

I was going back, well, thank you, but I was going back through what he said about Trump on handling classified documents and Edward Snowden. Direct quote John Bolton, he should be hanging from a tree, Edward Snowden. What's with wishing death on people? Well, it's a spiritual disease in which I feel like many neocons and foreign policy hawks possess. It's an insane spiritual disease that comes with the power of being able to take people's lives all over the world. Jesus Christ, talk about that.

That desire to want someone to die that you're thinking about inside is actually illicit. It's wrong. And for those that weren't even aware of this, too, the Biden administration was actually working on prosecuting John Bolton. It wasn't just. Trump, but I think they liked him because he was able to get on screen and attack Trump and make him sound bad. Right. But, like, everyone knew this guy was bad. I mean, I can't even, this level of...

I don't even know where to start. I wouldn't do this at a local non-profit, let alone the federal government in charge of people's lives, Americans' lives. Information on covert operations, like the boys actually sacrificing their lives, and you've got mustache John Bolton just putting it in my diary. I'm going to write it in my book one day. It's going to be so great when I attack Trump. I hope this guy goes to jail for the rest of his life. What kind of precedent could we see?

What precedent are we setting that you can just serve an office, gather a sense of information to then write in your book one day to make money and profit off this, like this is all some type of cash cow for you?

I was even looking at comparisons. Obviously, the Hillary Clinton email investigation comes to mind, and which she was not punished for, by the way, by James Comey. David Petraeus did it back in former CIA director, four-star general, but one misdemeanor count of mishandling classified information for sharing classified black books. All he got was two years probation and a $100,000 fine. He avoided the Espionage Act charges. Then, of course, Donald Trump himself with... His seemed more negligent and stupid rather than malicious.

Rather than malicious. Well, because Petraeus, I mean, he did it for his book as well. Like, who are these guys who are like, well, while I am, you know, I have my finger on the red button and I could start World War III in the drop of a hat, I have this power. I'm also thinking about my memoir that I'm going to write once I'm out of here. Well, part of it is that you've got somebody that he hires somebody to write the book for him.

You've got to be careful about the information you're sharing with this person. That you're getting them to write the book, so that's part of the problem. Yeah. It would be nice if they actually would just, you know, have people on staff that are good writers. Like, have somebody who already has clearance to write the book, so we can look at the information, you know, but no. Yeah, or maybe we just shouldn't be drafting our memoirs while we're actually doing the job that justifies the existence of Seth.

Well, I thought Petraeus was already, maybe he wasn't out, but Bolton certainly is out. See you. Good riddance. Bye, Z-Boom. Yeah, I hope he spends some time in jail, at minimum. Okay, so we got some emails about this. I thought we'd address it briefly. So, headline from the Catholic Herald. I can share the screen here. Vatican Library grants Muslim scholars a prayer room. So, we got some emails about it. I thought it was time to address that. Muslim scholars visiting the Vatican Apostolic Library are being accommodated with prayer spaces.

It's vice-prefect has confirmed. So, I think there's a couple things going on here. I think that most people don't really know what the Vatican Library is. Well, before we get into that, let's just address the obvious negative reaction that people have, because a lot of Catholics look at what's going on around the world. They see Muslims that are in Africa that are slaughtering and murdering Christians, like in Nigeria.

You know, there's obvious frustration with that, and we're like, why aren't we doing more about that injustice? And then, even in our own Vatican Library, we're giving them a prayer room. And so, like, there's this natural gut reaction that some people have. It's like, this just seems so wrong. I can't believe it. Sure. I think that's going to be true. I think we have to acknowledge that I get that gut reaction. I feel like... You know what? Let us dive in a little bit deeper, though.

I think there is more to this story. Yeah, I just want to be nuanced, and I also think that there is plenty of peaceful Muslims all over the world that we have coexisted with. I think part of the point, too, with the Vatican Library is – and Father Joe Krupp had probably the best answer in this. I think I might even just read verbatim. I would say go for it. It gives a lot of context. Shout out, Father Joe. I am going to do this as quick as possible in the knowledge that some people just need to be – Just need to be offended and indignant.

The Vatican Library is a building within Vatican City. In that library, there are all kinds of texts, both ancient and more modern. You simply would not believe the incredible things in there. The world's smallest Koran and the world's largest Koran are in there. One of the only books of Muslim poetry that survived the Mongol invasion is in there. To get in is a very involved process. Only between 2,000 and 3,000 humans a year are allowed in. Going in and out of the library, even After having been accepted is quite the process.

They do this to protect the building and the things in it. Many parts of the Vatican library are sealed because even air can corrupt these texts. Muslim scholars have gone there to study for a very long time. Devout Muslim scholars are required to pray five times a day at fairly specific times. Each time, they would need to leave and go through the whole process of departing the building to do the five to seven minute prayer that they are required to do, and then go through the process of re-entering.

The process for getting in and out is longer than the prayer time their faith requires them to have. At some point, someone opened a small room and told them they could pray in there. It's basic good hospitality. And yeah, basically just address that people have been kind of freaking out about it without actually knowing the context.

Probably good to always remember, too. Wait, wait, wait. Josh, important. Focus on your own sin. I can assure you that you have plenty if you're anything like me. You should fight that battle because— At least, in that case, you will have some sense of what you're talking about. He was angry about that, but I do think it's a good reminder, like, you know, let's keep everything in balance here, you know, always turn inward, but go ahead, Josh. Well, part of it, too, is like when it comes to the press, you have an obligation.

We write a lot of articles, obviously, CatholicVote, and this article published by the Catholic Herald, I think it would have been more helpful if they would have just, rather than just say, hey, by the way, there's this prayer room for Muslims inside the Vatican Library, and then just, bloop, that was pretty much all the article was, and you're like. Yeah, and they knew they were throwing a bomb out there. Like, what are you doing here? Like, are you intentionally going for clickbait headlines that blow things up?

Like, I can tell you as the editor of The Loop, like, there's no way I'm going to just publish that article without saying, okay, is this a longstanding policy, you know, or was there a recent change? Why is the change? Why do they have this policy? And then all you have to do is, you know, find somebody like Father Joe Krupp and say, well, here's why. And you're like, oh. Oh, that's actually understandable, right?

Yeah, and as someone in the chat is like, any downplaying of this is an issue. Being nice to these folks is not the objective of our faith. Actually, the objective of our faith is for everyone's salvation. So, just because they're Muslim or they're from a certain part of the world, it does not mean we can hate them. If I saw a Muslim on the street, I wouldn't just throw hands with them. So, I don't know. I get a little bit frustrated with the attitude towards global Muslims, lumping them all in with a small Boko Haram and the people that are doing terrible to Nigeria.

Yeah, we need to confront that. But the fact is, it's like, what is it, the second, third largest religion? I think, theologically, we have much more in common with them than, say, we do with the Church of Latter-day Saints, as Catholics.

Possibly. No, we do, Josh. Yeah, no, I mean. But does that mean I'm, like, mean to, uh. To Muslims, or mean to people that are Mormon? Or shutting, the church has a long history of not only the Battle of Lepanto, which you rightly point out, cigar mode, that is, yes, that is a big part, and like Josh is saying, absolutely resisting, even to the point of shedding our blood with Boko Haram and extremist Muslims. But the church also has a history of intellectual exchange.

With the Arab world, with scholars of Islam, Thomas Aquinas, most famously, right? Some of his central ideas of God as the supreme being came about for him because they were articulated first by these medieval Muslim philosophers who had access to Aristotle and Plato texts, right? So, Avicenna and Averroes. So, that is also part, and that is what is happening at the Vatican Library, is that In the tradition of Thomas Aquinas, in the tradition of Averroes and Avicenna, that we are allowing Muslim scholars to come to really the world's greatest archaeological cache of the great texts that have shaped our thinking, both as Catholics and for Muslims, and allowing them, with hospitality, to come and study those original documents.

And then, giving them a room so that they can practice their faith while they're there, to me, acknowledging that part of our faith is as important as the battles that, yes, we are raging in Nigeria, right, for the soul of Muslims to convert them. So, this is part of that. Just trying not to be an e-jerk when it comes to social media and all this kind of stuff. Yeah, and again, this also isn't a sacred space. This is a library. Right, that is another element of it.

And also, like, I mean, I... 20 years, 25 years ago, I was at the United Nations, and I was working alongside, you know, Muslims to try to fight back against this so-called international rights for abortion. So, like, hey, like, you know, let's work together where we can. Strange bedfellows. Strange bedfellows, and who joined in on that case in Maryland over the pride stuff in the English curriculum? It was actually a Muslim. I believe it was Muslim families joined, and then they sued.

So, like, there's actually more in common, I think. So, I think just, like, in this case, understanding the true context. This is just a pure extension of hospitality into an academic space. Actually, I think the real takeaway from this is how sick the Vatican Library actually is. Oh my gosh, it's so freaking cool. They have the oldest medieval Japanese archive outside of Japan in the Vatican. Yes. Maybe the real takeaway is, I'm trying to go to the Vatican Library someday, be one of those 3,000 trying to get in there.

You need to write a couple of dissertations before you go. Yeah, I got my work cut out in front of me, for sure. But yeah, anyway, that's my take on that, at least, that we address. Josh, you are up.

Yeah, so, I mean, again, you know, I want to be very clear. We talked about it in a previous episode about the, I thought it was a very politically charged protest where the priest brought the Eucharist to that ICE facility in Illinois.

I want to, you know, I echo our president, Kelsey Reinhart. I want to bring Jesus to everyone, into every prison, to every facility, but you cannot just show up on a weekend and expect to be able to be let in, and so I just, even though the Department of Homeland Security, you know, there is the whole government shutdown, they still manage to put this together, and just to let people know, like, I hope these guys, these guys do need Jesus. But you do not just knock on the door and come running in.

We are talking about some of the worst of the worst, like Jose Patino Juarez, a criminal illegal alien from Mexico, convicted of disorderly conduct, arrested for assault, and two pending charges of assault and obstructing justice. We have another, Isaiah Quintanilla Guzman, a criminal alien from El Salvador, convicted of two counts of felony robbery.

Martin Guiquera Martinez, criminal illegal alien from Mexico, convicted of assault and three pending charges of aggravated assault with a weapon, assault, and damage to property. And we got both genders covered. Yuliana Gonzalez Landeras, a criminal illegal alien from Mexico, convicted of theft in a business of greater than $10,000.

So, again, another one who is convicted of two counts of drug possession. Another one was assault, driving under the influence of liquor. So, these are some pretty bad people, and it is good that they get off the streets. The way the media makes it, try to pretend that these are just, the ICE is just ripping people from their house. They are just people who are paying taxes, they are going to school, and they are part of your community. The people inside this facility were some really horrible people.

Do they need Jesus? They do. Just don't show up with the Eucharist as if it's just a political postcard or placard. Don't just expect, all right, let me in. Yeah, it is crazy, Hal. I even saw some comments on our social media how that was misconstrued or whatever. Like, isn't this exactly what Jesus would do? You're missing the fundamental point for people that actually believe that that is Jesus Christ. That is the biggest takeaway. I'm like, yeah, there's not choir kids in there.

I hated that situation on a spiritual level. It was disgusting to me. Thanks, Josh. Erika? All right. So, this is Lois McClatch, who I follow her because she's the senior communications officer for ADF International, right? Alliance Defending Freedom International. They do great work here. Shout out ADF, and they have a... ...section out in the UK, where it's even more needed, and so she was invited on a British news show. She thought she was invited on to talk about the UK's crackdown on free speech, which, in fact, ADF International is heavily involved in pushing back on, and instead...

The interviewer sort of sabotaged her with this question. I thought she did a great job, so here we go. You're also an advocate of celibacy before marriage, are you not? No sex before marriage. I'm sure you adhere to that, Greg Swenson. Of course. You had no idea this was coming. You are, aren't you? The normalizing of that. Sure, yeah. Just talk to me a little bit about that, because that is so unusual, Lois, in 2025. I don't know if it's as unusual amongst the younger generation.

Yeah. I mean, we know the younger generation are not having sex. Well, I suppose this view became less popular because of the sex revolution in the 70s, but a Yale study about the paradox of happiness shows that women's happiness since the 1970s has declined in both absolute and relative terms to men since then up until today, and so women are more dissatisfied with life than ever before. Although... It doesn't make sense. Don't we have the most freedom we've ever had? Haven't we been given sexual emancipation?

And so I think, and it's been interesting to see the discourse around, whether Taylor Swift has been kind of rediscovering this interest in marriage and security and permanence. I think young women are looking to that model, the model that we threw away, and thinking, isn't there something better here? Is commitment not something better than sleeping around? Can we find? Something that improves happiness for ourselves, but also encourages that stable society for children to go up in, and for people to flourish.

Well, it's about self-respect as much as anything, I think. The kind of, you know, the new promiscuity, as you might call it, I think often is about the fact that young people don't necessarily think that their bodies are worth saving for someone.

Whatever Taylor Swift discovered, terrible. That new album was so bad, and my wife made me listen to it. And I could not believe how bad it was. Like, she was writing better stuff when she was 15. Anyway, I got that out of my system. Go ahead, Erika. But anyway, I just wanted to give a shout out to Lois because I thought she handled it pretty well for not having had any warning that they were going to ask her about her views on sex before marriage.

She thought she was going on there to do her job, which was defend the right to free speech, but I thought she did a pretty good job. She was exceptional. Yeah, it was great. So, shout out to Lois. Good job.

In spite of the Taylor fact. Actually, I think she dropped the Taylor Swift reference in order to get that. So bad. That album was so bad. I'll never listen to it again. So bad. Whatever she discovered, I want her to undiscover it. She's not talking about the music of the album. She's talking about... No, I want her to continue breaking up with people so she can keep putting out what she did before, because whatever happened this time, so bad. So bad.

You wouldn't wish that on a girl. That's true. No, no, it's not cool. That was not cool. Listen, listen, listen, listen, listen. Here's the thing. This is like, oh, you know what great artists, like they're addicted to cocaine? And then they get sober, and then their music isn't as good anymore. It's kind of like the same thing. Wait, so you want them to continue in their music? No, no, I'm not saying I want you to be bad addicted to cocaine. No, you said that.

I'm calling you out. This is not good. Not good. Look, you went too far. I publicly retract my statement on breaking up. I'm just saying the magic's gone. The magic's gone. All right, all right. That's all I've got to say on that. That's okay. I never was magic for Taylor Swift. I don't even, okay, see, that's another third level observation I'm not even trying to get into here.

Toby Keith's biggest mistake. Josh, what I wanted to talk about- This wasn't about Taylor Swift. This was about Lois being a boss girl, so she did great. Yeah, I derailed that. But I just wanted to talk about this whole show. J.B. Pritzker is the greatest gambler of all time, and this was one of those things where I was like, I know I got to- ...focus on other things, you know, like IVF and whatnot, but like... He couldn't, guys. He couldn't. I just could not stay away.

I dove so deep... We've only talked about it for 24 hours. Yeah. Yep. I dove so deep into, like, politicians' money laundering through casinos, the history of that, the history of, like, the betting odds of this even to be possible. Like, how much would you have to wager to win 1.4? So, just... I'll get into the story. J.B. Pritzker released partial tax records Wednesday, showing he and his wife reported more than $10.3 million in taxable income. Including more than $1.4 million in income from gambling.

So, immediately this blew up, and everyone was like, who is this degenerate? And how could you have possibly won $1.4 million? So, it turns out he said he went to Vegas and won it on blackjack. And so, immediately, this all blows up, and he said, oh, no, no, no, we're going to donate it now, we're going to donate it now, and he did a press conference where he addressed this directly, so. I've explained this, or at least we did in a statement, you know, that I went on vacation with my wife, with some friends.

I was incredibly lucky. You have to be to end up ahead, frankly, going to a casino anywhere. It was in Las Vegas, and. That doesn't look like the face of someone that got lucky one time in Vegas. I was going into the odds of this. Okay, just stay with me for a second. Basically, in order to win that kind of money, so if you're playing blackjack, the house edge is like 2%. And so, if you're really good at blackjack and you're counting cards, if you're really good, you might get it down to like 1.5%, 1%.

Meaning, even though you're that good, you're still going to lose 2% more times than you would win, and most times, you're like, your odds of winning are like in the 40%, like 42%, like winning a blackjack hand, so in order for him to be able to do this, in one year in Vegas, he would have to raise the table minimum, because the table minimum is usually like $25,000 a hand, and like, look, J.B. Pritzker is a billionaire, right? It's not like he doesn't have this money, but...

You can't, like, for him to have had the chance to win this much money in a year, he would have to ensure that he was doing high roller hands, which maybe he can, he's a billionaire, but he would have to play thousands of hands to accumulate $1.4 million. It could take days or weeks, depending on bet size and win rate, and he would have to, like... Well, it was him and his wife, though, so, like... I guess. He could have just sat there at the table all year.

How many trips does he take to Vegas? He would have to have an insane line of credit. Yes, he is a billionaire, but they have to know about this for sure. I guess he could have been gambling for years and just not been reporting losses, but there is an extensive history of money laundering through casinos because casinos, of course, have mob ties and all that.

Like, there's on-record examples of politicians getting money, getting kickbacks, and like, in this case, couldn't they have just adjusted the odds slightly or like tweaked a little bit so that he could have gotten that? And then I'm also like, well, he's a billionaire. What does he need money for? Like, why is he going, you know, like, that would be the most convincing argument against this being some type of impropriety is that he's already a billionaire. Why would he need this? But I was like, well, this could be someone That wanted like a record and connection of transaction to where they're doing something together?

I don't know, man. He's running for president, so he needs to disclose everything. So, you know, but the thing is, there are, I mean. What is it? Caesar's Palace? You can do a $50,000 bet. So, I mean, $50,000 a pop, I mean, it can happen. I just, the most likely scenario is that he was paid off. It was just, you know, he was given, you know, a million dollars by someone corrupt, and he just declared it, you know, winning it at the casino.

I got it. So, you're not even having as much fun with this as I am. You're just like, this is obviously a payout. This is obviously money laundering. Obviously a payout. Obviously, yeah. And this is just... I mean... As I said, Tom, this is just Chicago politics. This is how it operates. Yeah, the history of Chicago politics. And it's always been thusly. Like, this is Chicago.

And you don't even seem like that scandalized by this. Do you think this is just pretty common? Josh has been around the block with us. He's like, this is just what they do. I mean, the only thing I would say is that if it was any other governor, I would say it was like a 100% chance it was corruption payout. Like, with him, there's actually the 5% chance that it's not because he's a billionaire. What would he need a million dollars for?

He could actually afford to do this. That's the greatest argument in his. Has he published his losses yet? That would be like the time. No, he has not. But if you basically- You don't have to declare your losses. You don't have to, unless you- Right, it's not required. And your losses are not, you don't get a tax deduction. You can't write it off. Yeah, you don't get to write that off. There's no reason for him to do it.

It just sucks. Although, I would love if he came out now after all this, and actually did for sake of getting me out of it, to show how bad of a gambler he is. What if over the last 10 years, he's lost $100 million or something like that? $280 million. He's like, this year, you know, this year I was- Finally lucky. I finally hit the blackjack tables right. So, I think new strategy to pay off debt in Illinois and Chicago is whatever his betting secret is.

What is his secret? Is he cutting at a certain point? Is he doubling down at certain places? I think he should just release the formula. That would get him out of debt. It is called the Al Capone formula. That is what it is called. The most prominent gambler in politics before this was William J. Bennett, who wrote all the books on moral propriety and all that kind of stuff. The media loved it. Here is the guy who is losing 50 grand in Vegas.

He goes, yeah, you know. It's kind of stupid. What was his position? You said he was a politician that gambled? No, I mean, he never was in elective office, but he was secretary of what? Department of Education. He's also secretary of whatever. He was a good conservative. He wrote lots of, I mean, I have several books of his on my shelf. He was a good guy. He was a Catholic guy, you know. And here's another.