Democrats win BIG in NYC, VA, and NJ, Gov. Shutdown Hits Record, and Mary Mediatrix Controversy?

We're live. Welcome back to the LOOPcast. It's Tom, Erika, and Josh. Big, big, big night for Democrats last night. I don't think there's any other way to put it. We're here to go through all of those results and get into some implications. Why? What were the exit polls saying? What does it say for the country? Is it just an off year? Is this a mainstay? What's going on? So, we have all the thoughts there. We're still in a government shutdown. Actually, at a record pace now.

I believe it's 36 days. Yay! Good job, guys. Trump has some familiar solutions. It affects a lot of people, obviously. My sister can't work right now. Of course. Yeah, it's affecting everyone. That's why everyone's so focused on it. So, we're going to get into the shutdown, what it's now affecting at this point, is there any path forward? And the Vatican, I think, set a lot of people on the online Catholic World Ablaze with the Mediatrix, Co-Mediatrix conversation. Are they going after my blessed mother?

Are we going after Mary? What's up, guys? Is it a nothing burger? Is it a huge story? We have an internal Mariologist. We have some sources. So, we're here to talk about it all. Erika's going to address that for us, but of course, we have good news, and we have Twilight Zone. It's going to be a fun show. It's not all doom and gloom, and I just want to say I'm so grateful for everyone, especially joining us here live Monday, Wednesday, Friday.

I really enjoy doing this show. Grateful for the support, the ability to do it, and so just really happy to be joined by, of course, my two good friends, Erika and Josh as well, to send you off into it, but before we get into the show today, I have to introduce you to Ave Maria Usual Funds, today's LOOPcast sponsor. Now, more than ever, Catholics want to align their investments with their moral beliefs, and a great way to do that is by investing in the pro-life, pro-family mutual funds from Ave Maria.

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I love them so much. They were our first sponsor. Thank you for supporting the show and allowing us to do this. Okay. I mean, Erika, another way to cut this, right? I mean, Josh, I'm sure you were up following, too. Big night for Democrats. What are we looking at here with the elections last night? Yeah, we are looking at total sweep for Democrats in Democratic states. There's one shining example that I'm going to save for my good news section. We saw high voter turnout, too, for an off-year election, so that was really interesting.

We'll dig into that with the exit polling. Ticket splitting did not happen. We hoped maybe in Virginia we would see Democrat. Governor. A little bit. Yeah. Okay, okay. A little bit of splitting. Not enough. Not enough. No, not enough. And yeah, basically, we'll just go through the list here. We covered what was coming up, but New Jersey, we actually had a blowout. We were hoping it was going to be a little closer than that in the race, but Mickey Sherrill.

We've handily defeated Jack Chiritelli. Is it Mikey? I think it's M-I-K-I-E. It's Mickey, I think. Is it really Mickey? Yeah, because it's a lady. Oh, interesting. It is a woman, yeah. CNN said. I need to check on that.

I think it's Mikey. I think it's Mikey. All right, okay, Mikey. I mean, that's kind of butch, but whatever. To become the next governor of New Jersey, continuing Democratic control in the state long seen as a barometer of national trends, I suppose. I suppose. Virginia, yes, Abigail Spanberger is the first female governor of Virginia, and she won by double digits, again, not a close race at all, over Winsome Earl Sears, and yes. Who is also a woman, but either way, they were getting a woman governor.

Right. Either way, they were getting a woman, you know, if that matters to you. There you go. I am going to revise my great feminization thesis, guys. After last night, I am like, yep, no, it is the women's fault. We are just doing that. Well, I mean, the question would be, if, you know, Abigail Spanberger is a white liberal Democrat woman, and Winston Sears is a black conservative woman, and if it had been the opposite way, What would we hear about Virginia voters?

Oh, they're a racist. They didn't vote for, why couldn't they vote for a black woman? Right, but when some girls use wrong kind of black and wrong kind of woman, so what are you going to do? Although, Josh, you pointed out many times, it didn't seem like she ran the greatest campaign. No, I want to get into that in a second, but I want to tee off what Erika just said.

If you look at young women. So, 81% of young women voted for Mamdami in New York City, the new communist mayor-elect of Gotham there. Amongst this, again, young women, 80% of them voted for Mickey Sherrill in New Jersey, and 78% of them voted for Spanberger in Virginia. And so, these are lopsided margins. Not only are they massively lopsided margins, but they also came out and drove their participation rate. It was also very, very nice. Turnout was amazing. Yeah. Rachel John-Fazza, she writes for The Washington Post and The Free Press.

She put it out of these based on the exit polls from NBC. So, that is a major factor. The other thing to look at, too, I mean, it is not a factor in as much New York City, but suburban voters. It is pretty clear suburban voters have been trending.

A Democrat for the last several election cycles. And so, if you get states like New Jersey and Virginia, which have a lot of Democratic, or have a lot of suburban voters, number one, I mean, New Jersey is practically an entire suburb. The top half, I'm joking, of course, a little bit, but the top half is a suburb of New York City, and the bottom half is a suburb of Philadelphia. It's an exaggeration. And Virginia has a ton of suburban voters. Obviously, Northern Virginia, and a lot of them are disproportionately in favor of big government because they are They work for the bureaucracy, right?

So, those are all factors. You know, the Republican Party from the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s, and 90s, the bulwark of their support came from suburban voters. That has shifted in the Trump era. They're now shifting towards populist, blue-collar voters. You're still getting a lot of suburban voters in total, but like... It is not a majority anymore. It is like 40%. So, it is still a lot of people because a lot of people live in the suburbs, but that would mean then in states like New Jersey and Virginia, which have a lot of suburban voters, and if you have voter turnout extremely high amongst women and suburban voters, yeah, your electorate that actually came out and voted was going to be very blue.

Yeah, before we get into more of the implications, like exit polls and stuff like that, did you hit, we hit Virginia. I mean, I think the biggest takeaway is that Jay Jones won, right? People were wondering, would the controversy get to him? The texting scandal, him wishing death on a colleague's children, would that actually stop him? And it looks like the answer is no. The answer was no. The answer was a resounding no. Wow. Incumbent Jason Meares. It wasn't as, it wasn't as drastic of a, like as.

It was at least a close race, I guess. It was closer. Not much comfort there. No. Jason Meyers is a phenomenal guy. He is a fantastic attorney general, and he has been a great supporter. Even though he is not Catholic himself, he is a Christian. He supported Catholics when the Biden administration was coming after us. He has been an outspoken defender of religious liberty. It is really sad to see him be defeated, and again, by such a reprehensible person, by Jay Johnson.

Here is my quick take on this. I believe Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger is going to basically grab him by the arm and convince him to resign and give him some sort of golden parachute because she'll be able to appoint his successor if he were to step down. So, the Democratic Party is going to look and see if this guy continues to be a liability, and that's definitely a possibility for him. We'll see if that happens. Of course, he could just say, go pound sand.

So, a thought on Virginia before we move on. How much of this can we attribute to the fact that Trump fired, like, 25% of Virginia? I mean, look, Glenn Youngkin won four years ago in the immediate aftermath of Biden being sworn in, right? It was a year after that, okay? So, you had a perfect storm where Biden, you know, people were still upset with how he was doing things. It motivated conservatives to vote. So, again...

I think it's only been like twice in Virginia and in New Jersey where the party that controls the White House actually managed to also win the governor's race. It's like, it just doesn't happen. This is the first chance that anyone in the opposite party has a chance to go like, I just want to say, screw you, to the current guy in the White House. And so, it motivates the other base.

So, that is what happened. Republicans were furious about Biden in Virginia, came out for Glenn Youngkin, and Glenn Youngkin was a phenomenal candidate. He was good on the stump, he was great at speaking, and he campaigned hard, and he campaigned a lot.

Now, Winston Sears, again, this is where we talk about, like, she seems like a very wonderful lady. I like all of her views, just about, but I haven't seen anything she said I disagree with. But again, when we talk about candidate quality, we are talking about somebody who is going to get out there and try to win votes and campaign and rally your side and rally your team and get them excited about things. She just was not campaigning nearly enough, and she just didn't have the retail politics, like the ability to connect with voters.

I just think that was a big missed opportunity. However, someone is like, oh, too bad. The Constitution in Virginia prevents governors from running for re-election, because you can't. Glenn Youngkin can't. He was termed like just one term at the time.

I got a, and someone's like, well, Glenn Youngkin would have won. I don't think so. I think he would have been defeated if he would have had the chance to run for re-election. Yeah. This electorate was in a very... I mean, look, Democrats picked up 13 seats in the legislature, which means we are going to have a constitutional right. To an abortion in the Commonwealth of Virginia soon. That is what we are trying to focus on with our activities with CatholicVote.

We are trying to go in some of these delegate races so we can flip the House of Delegates, then we can try to put the brakes on this effort to put abortion, but young women. Well, I want to get to both sides of the youth, because young men in Virginia, New Jersey, and in New York City all shifted blue as well, and that totally dispels the, there is this theory going around, like you have no idea what is coming, that the young people are so radicalized, they are so far right, and I have my own hypothesis on why we saw that phenomenon, but before we get into that, Prop 15 California surprised me too.

I mean, there is... No, resist that at all. It's game on. Right. It was by 65%. So, Prop 50 was the one statewide ballot measure in California, and it passed overwhelmingly. So, that's going to give the California legislature the opportunity to redraw restricting lines and pick up probably as many as five more seats in the House, in Congress. So, it's being touted as a big win for Gavin Newsom, confirms him as sort of Trump's National alter ego or something. I think it'll be good for Gavin Newsom because it is increasing.

I mean, I think he's the front runner now on the Democratic side precisely because of this and other things that he's doing, his tone and action, everything. It might turn out to be a victory. Precisely because it's, you know, just a threat that California was going to do this, you know, made Texas lock in what I think is a map that's probably going to give them five seats. So, basically, you're already at equality there between those two states.

Right. Kansas yesterday announced, Republican leaders in Kansas yesterday said, well, we're not going to try to do the redistricting, and I think the reason why they decided not to was because their one House seat that they were going to try to gobble up by a Democrat there, if you take out her seat, then she might run for the Senate race, and that's what... Gets all the rhinos in Kansas. Can I stop briefly? People know that Prop 50 has to do with redistricting.

Do you know exactly what Prop 50 is? So, what Proposition 50 says, California put into place into the Constitution a few years back this idea that we're going to have an independent commission draw the district line, so we don't have partisan gerrymandering. It'll be a nonpartisan commission with Democrats, Republicans, and independents. Well, I mean, give me a break. The political leadership of California made sure that even the so-called Republicans were people that were, you know, super liberal. Like I mentioned, the one who works for Planned Parenthood in Berkeley, California is on that commission.

But then that wasn't enough because they're like, well, wait a minute now. We can actually, again, with maps and scientific data, looking at all the voting trends, we can craft a map that maximizes our opportunity. So, right now, it was like, what, 44 to 9 or something like that. They're like, let's see if we can't get it to like… So, Proposition 50 said, let's take a break on the Independent Commission and that kind of stuff, and allow the legislature to redo maps for the next, like, basically four years or whatever.

Which is overwhelmingly Democrat, just to be clear. Yeah, I mean, so, everyone knew what was going on. This is not like voters are confused by this, because, you know, the overwhelmingly blue states said, yeah, let's go for it. Right. California is going to redraw their maps. Virginia did this right away, within the last week or two as well. They voted really quick before the election, saying, hey, let us alter the maps and get rid of the… redistricting commission and allow the legislature to redraw the maps and it has to pass the two successive sessions so they did it right before the election and now they're going to have a bunch more democrats in the house of delegates and then the senate wasn't up anyway and so they're going to pass a super gerrymandered map in virginia as well and so now it's up to republicans in missouri and indiana uh you know nebraska kansas you To be able to say whether or not they should respond to this, or are we going to have asymmetrical warfare where only one side does super aggressive partisan gerrymandering?

Texas did their job. Texas Republicans responded to these demands. And who started it? It was New York. They did it in 2023, a hyper-partisan map carving up those districts. So, that is why Texas responded, and California responded to them, and that kind of stuff. Game on. I don't have any issue with this at all. California is playing hardball. Great. Good for them. I mean, I would expect. But the thing is, our side needs to do the same. Like, it can't be asymmetrical.

Like, you want to play hardball? Great. We'll do it, too. The problem for the Democrats is that there are more Republican states that have the ability to enhance their maps with redistricting, and if the court comes down with a ruling on, you know, getting rid of the need for doing...

The race-based. The majority of black districts, because of the Voting Rights Act, because it has been 60 years, we can move on from that. Then you have the opportunity for states like Tennessee and Mississippi and Georgia to really maximize the maps. It doesn't really matter, VRA doesn't matter as much for Florida. Florida has the opportunity to add like five seats, but just the way their states are, you are still going to end up with like three super-liberal districts. But anyway, there are opportunities.

I am watching all this kind of stuff to see where And we might even be able to make some gains in California, because we will see, but overall, obviously, election night, these were Democratic strongholds, New Jersey, Virginia. New York City. The question with New Jersey was whether or not it was starting to trend, because New Jersey, actually, four years ago for their governor's race, the same guy, Jack Chiarelli, actually came pretty decently close, having a chance of winning it. So, the thought was, okay, well, man, he might really do it four years later.

But again, Biden was in the White House four years ago. It made it easier for him to get his... Get conservatives or Republicans to come out and vote for him, and now it is Trump, and he has motivated every liberal woman in the state to go vote for the Democratic Party up and down the line. So, their motivation was like at 1,000%. The wine moms were crazy.

Yeah. Okay, I put together some takeaways based on exit polls, and Josh, this is your opportunity, and Erika, your opportunity as well. Is this crazy? Should we overreact? Or about what you expected, okay? So, key takeaways, and I aggregated from an NBC, CBS, and CNN exit poll. Again, exit polls, not always the most reliable, but can help paint a picture of what motivated people to vote. So, for example, the way these are taken is if someone walks out, someone immediately asks them, hey, who did you vote for?

What were your priorities? They take the information down, and then they aggregate it for people to understand. So, first takeaway, Trump's approval, underwater everywhere. Virginia, 56% disapprove. New Jersey, 55% disapprove. NYC, 69% disapprove. 40% of voters in VA in New Jersey said their vote was to oppose Trump. Only 13% to 15% said it was to support him. Any surprises here?

No. Not a surprise. No. And kind of standard, I think, for after you win the presidency, that next election is usually a rebuke. I think Obama's approval rating was actually a little bit lower than Trump's is currently at the same time when he was in office. Certainly, three weeks ago, Trump was even better because the shutdown has dragged it a little bit. So, if it weren't for the shutdown, Trump's numbers would have been. A decent amount higher than Obama's, yeah. Yeah.

Second, the economy beat every other issue, which is unsurprising to me, but I think got lost in all of this. Voters who picked the economy as number one broke for Democrats by 20-plus points in Virginia and decisively in New Jersey and New York City.

Spanberger won economy voters 60-38. Sherrill won them 56-42. And New York City, cost of living worries, no surprise. Powered Mamdani's win. No surprises there. Actually, do you have the Cortez clip? I think that would actually be a good one. I don't have the clip, but he took that poll, and I do want to get into that in a little bit, but I just want to get through the observations first. So, the next one, and this is kind of why I brought this up, like the Doge cuts and the shutdown were a gut punch.

In Northern Virginia, most of Northern Virginia employed in some fashion by a government or by a contractor to the government. One in five voters said Doge layoffs hurt my family a lot. Spanbagger. Closed an ad featuring a laid-off Pentagon analyst. I voted for Trump at 24. I'm voting for Spanberger today. Nova went 68 to 34. That's not super surprising to me. We already went over the young women trend, but, I mean, it really is staggering. Ages 18 to 29 women went 78% to 81% for the Democrat in every race.

So, every race between 78 to 81% Democrat. Four out of five. Yeah. One white college-educated woman, 80-plus. 80% plus Democrat. Huge. The interesting one was Latinos sticking with Democrats. Despite GOP immigration messaging, Latinos went two to one for Spanberger and Sherrill. In New Jersey, the economy plus Trump's ICE raids went too far, sealed it. I just don't know about that.

What it amounted to was that, again, the biggest thing about the Trump coalition is they have what we call low-propensity voters. They don't necessarily vote in off-year elections or midterm elections. They vote in the presidential, and they vote for Trump, and when they're there, they vote for other Republican candidates. They tend to, yes. So, the question is, the voters who did come out today or yesterday that were Hispanic in these states definitely were anti-ICE, but… If you had had, I think what it amounted to is like a lot of Latinos that voted for Trump last year, they didn't see a need to come out necessarily for who are these candidates, so they didn't.

They went on to their regular jobs. Yeah, it's not something I want to have a huge debate about, but I do think that there's people that aren't inherently anti-ICE that did see actions from CBP or ICE that scared them. Well, certainly the mainstream media are. Putting forward a narrative that makes it seem like these are ghouls. Well, it's two things. It's the Trump administration on social media, no doubt. I mean, they're making hype edits of ICE raids, and like, they're projecting it, and I understand strategically why they're doing it.

They want people to self-deport, but at the same time, that's reached circles where it's like, you know what I mean? Like, okay, I was going after the best. There's going to be some blowback, for sure. I was going after the worst of the worst, and now you're going through Home Depot parking lots, and that's not even my personal opinion. You know, I do think... If you're here illegally, you should either become a citizen or you should leave, but the strategy about it is highly debated right now.

Well, and I think, too, part of the story in New York City, at least, I haven't looked at the other areas, was that So, really, Mamdani won because of foreign-born voters, right? If you had limited New York City voting to only native-born New York City-ers, New Yorkians, Gothamites, then it could have gone Cuomo, right? It could have gone for Cuomo, but it would have gone for Cuomo, but among foreign-born. And I think that the Trump on immigration narrative from the mainstream media, and especially the New York City-based media, right, which is what they're...

...inundated with, that because we're looking at a large...for the first time, I think the foreign-born voters were equal to the number of native-born voters, but they all go Mamdani, and so that... A lot of numbers are high, yeah. Right, that makes a huge difference, even if you're here legally, or on student visas or something. Even if you're here legally, and you're voting... Legally, as someone foreign-born, you're going to feel that threat, given the narrative that you're absorbing. Yeah, people want to take that, like, just objective fact and run with it in whatever direction they want.

I don't even think this is really a racism thing. It's just, if you want to look at this from a hard political perspective, if the biggest, one of the biggest cities in the United States, I think maybe the biggest, New York City. It is. If a majority of them were not born in that city, it certainly is going to change the political. It is going to transform the landscape, yes. Of course, which is like, okay, Pat Buchanan called it, right? It is just something that everyone possibly understands.

Now, the question is, is that a good thing or is that a bad thing? And it certainly changes the direction that you vote. In general, I consider it a bad thing. I mean, imagine you are a Japanese voter, and you live somewhere in the rural areas, and then you come to find out over a course of 20, 30, 40 years, a majority of the people of Tokyo are, let us say, Americans. It is a majority of Americans here. What the heck is going on?

Yeah. Like, it just, you know, are they racist for, I mean, Japanese tend to be actually racist, by the way. By our standards, they're way more racist than we are. Like, that was my radicalization moment in college, was I had a professor be like, Japan believes that, the Japanese believe Japan is for the Japanese. Is that racist? And I was like.

Hmm. Yeah, probably by the standards we're held to. How about this? I mean, again, we had such a toxic problem with racism in our country because of the horrible treatment of Blacks, obviously, in our country. And so, we just automatically equate racism with the highest, most evil thing that you could ever do, and I still think, like, I don't know, butchering babies at Planned Parenthood is worse than calling someone a racial slur.

Like, I mean, but in our hierarchy of values, you know, so that's why when we had this big dust-up on the internet over the last week or so, over, you know. What is that little shorty? Tucker and Nick? Yeah, Nick, whatever.

Yeah. People are like, because they are worried about that stuff, because the racist element can spread, because it becomes this ready-made excuse. But take, for example, Japan. Are they racist for only wanting Japan for Japanese people? I mean, how about this? Are they wrong? For that. That's my bigger question. Is it morally wrong for them to be like, we would like this island to be of our own people? No, I don't think at all. That's the real question. Do they happen to think that they're better than Chinese and Koreans and Americans?

They do. Is that inherently wrong? As long as they're not absolute jerks about it and hate people for it. I just don't understand. I want France to be for the French. I want Italy to be for the Italians.

Yeah, you made an interesting point, and again, I don't want to just toss this bomb out there and leave, but I will. We have an inverted hierarchy of virtue, at least in our political conversation right now, and I think part of it is actually caused by self-interested actors that weaponized the term racism and used race baiting as a way to gain political power, but they actually didn't. They applied that label to people who aren't actually racist, so in the case of what you're talking about here, and that— Well, there's a certain projection in it as well.

Of course, and of course, there's a projection, and of course, it turns you into a racist. Right. But now that occupies all of our current conversation, and again, it's not that there isn't something wrong in there. There is, of course, to judge someone based on their race, identity, and politics is toxic and noxious to the soul. We're all seeing it happen right now. Is it worse than dropping bombs on foreign countries that have nothing to do with us? For the private gain of the military-industrial complex, and people like Dick Cheney, God rest his soul, please pray for him.

He needs it. He just passed away. He does. But, like, that is much worse, in my mind, than the, like, tossing, like, racism has just occupied a space. It's some auto-mechanic that says something off-color. Exactly. They became the worst possible person. In my mind, the worst possible people are profiting off of the death of children. And, like, if we had a serious political conversation... Actually weighing the weight of all these things, murdering children in the womb would be number one, and then the second would be people profiting off of forever warfare.

That is the worst. Killing, taking someone's life overseas that you never see, and you don't actually go there and do, and the damage it does to the soldiers is worse. So, I've been meaning to have that conversation for a while. Yes, I agree with that. It's time to recalibrate what we consider most reprehensible. 100%. Now, going back. Just to recap the thing on this, with these elections, I really do believe, obviously, if you had asked me a year ago, eight months ago, who was going to win, I would say, well, The Democratic candidate is probably going to become the next governor of Virginia, and the Democrat will probably win New Jersey, although we might have a chance.

Remember, I said all this. I've been saying this all year. It doesn't mean we didn't work hard. We sent out tons of text messages, phone calls. We tried to do everything we can to try to turn this around and make it a better outcome.

Anti-Trump fever is high amongst white, you know, suburban and urban voters, especially white women, and so those are big headwinds. Now, if these elections, it just so happens it's Virginia and New Jersey, right? But let's say it had been like Iowa and Ohio.

And Democrats won big. I would be apoplectic. I would be absolutely crazy concerned, because Iowa and Ohio were states that once were, 20 years ago, ultimately swing states. I mean, Ohio was the swing state of the 2004 election. Those two states have trended to the right. They both become safely red. And the reason why is, again, demographics.

Well, wait a minute now. Isn't New Jersey also kind of very white, like Iowa and Ohio? Well, the difference is New Jersey has a higher percentage of people who are college-educated and suburban than Ohio and Iowa, which are more rural, and people who don't graduate from college. So, Trump has cleaned up very well amongst those voters and done well. So, this doesn't mean that I'm absolutely petrified about the 2028 election cycle. I am concerned, though.

Because it is a kind of sign like, hey, Republicans need to get their act together. They will not have Donald Trump on the ballot in the midterm elections next year, so they need to find a way to rally their base and get them out to vote when Trump is not on the ballot, and so it does matter. So, I'm not like, oh, nothing to worry about, and I'm not like, sky is falling, but I am concerned. Can I, thank you for that, and I wanted to present, I saw this great article by Mark Carney about Park Slope Populace.

John Carney. John Carney, John Carney, thank you. It was fantastic, so I encourage everyone to go read the entire thing. We talked about the young women turnout being significant, but the young men turnout was significant, moved back to the left, and young voters in general, first-time voters in general, moved pretty far to the left. And I think there was this idea that... Oh my gosh, the next generation is so hardline, hardcore, far right to the point where you're concerned about them.

And, you know, there's the cruel kids club thing, and Trump had all the momentum with the youth, the cachet, and like this election, I think, was a podcast, right? Like, I think this is a big wake-up call. And Carney, I think, does a good job kind of identifying this group of people that, and I actually caution everyone to just chalk this away to There's a big portion of the country that wants to vote for a communist, or there's a big portion of this country that wants to vote for a crazy socialist who prompts all these free things.

I'm just going to read some of it. I thought it was fantastic and something to think about. So, as everyone knows by now, Zoran Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist, recently won the democratic nomination for the mayor of New York City. More than 400,000 voters, 43.51% of the electorate cast their ballots for a guy who promises government-run grocery stores, free buses, a rent freeze. Diminishing the role of police in fighting crime, higher taxes on the wealthy, and a vastly expanded government sector.

Some of his best numbers came from the gentrified and gentrifying neighborhoods of Brooklyn, Park Slope, Bushwick, East Williamsburg, areas now associated with oat milk lattes rather than organized labor. Facts. Facts. That's led many conservatives to scoff at the idea that Mamdani represents a working class insurgency.

Far from being the tribune of the downtrodden, we're told, he's simply channeling the performative rage of the privileged, over-credentialed, undershowered, and long on theory, but short on gratitude. The Park Slope, Bushwick, Mamdani supporters are not, in any meaningful sense, working class, but they are not exactly elite either. They belong to a group that has become increasingly central to American politics, the downwardly mobile professionals, the overproduced graduates of our university system, raised to expect middle-class stability and discovering instead that the system has little to offer beyond high rent and burnout.

The rage is real, and if the right wants to be serious about building a majoritarian coalition around economic renewal, It ought to start by understanding that rage, not mocking it. These voters are not clamoring for socialism out of youthful rebellion. They're reacting to a broken bargain. They grew up being told that education was the path to a stable, meaningful life. Instead, they've entered a labor market that treats professional work as disposable, housing as a luxury good, and children as a financial impossibility.

Many have good salaries by national standards, $80,000, even $120,000, but in New York City, that can still mean roommates, debt, and no hope of buying a home. They're too rich to be poor. And too poor to feel secure. This class, increasingly defined by contradiction, culturally elite, economically unstable, and structurally blocked from mobility. They are renters in every sense of housing, of jobs, of status. What they see in politics is not a chance to remake society in the image of Marx, but a last-ditch effort to recover the future they were promised.

A surprising number of the people who make up Amdani's base are doing what David Graeber calls BS jobs, positions that serve little productive purpose, sustained by inertia, branding, and grant money. These aren't blue-collar jobs lost to China. They're white-collar jobs lost to extraction.

Abstraction, and that's a very good line. Dropped a ton of bars in here. It's easy to dismiss their demands as radical. What's harder than admitting that what they really want is something conservatives should recognize? A chance to own, to settle, to raise a family, to participate in a community that offers continuity and meaning. These are not fringe values. They are the building blocks of a stable society. A conservative movement serious about the common good ought to see this as a call to action.

These voters are not lost to the left by necessity. What Mamdani's win reveals is not that New York professionals have embraced socialism, but that they've given up on the institutions that were supposed to work for them. Yeah. It is a clarion call for the American dream.

It is, and I think he gets it right. So, Ross Douthat dropped a video this morning reacting, and his message was basically, everyone's losing their hair about Zoran Mamdani winning, and everyone should just calm down because it doesn't really have the significance. New York mayors, it is not a beginning point for any politician. It's kind of where it's your peak. He's peaked. He's not going to go to any point. He pointed to examples of Bloomberg, Rudy Giuliani. And others in the past who just never really made it past New York City.

Maybe they get to be a senator or something. But I think we should not diminish the meaning of what happened in New York precisely because of who voted for Mamdani. And I think what this article, what John Carney gets here right, is that that disaffected youth.

Mamdani isn't offering good answers. He's offering terrible answers and terrible solutions to a real pain point that we've talked about here and that he nails. And this whole, like, I love the line, these aren't blue-collar jobs lost to China, they're white-collar jobs lost to abstraction, because that touches upon not just the economic poverty that is what we're all thinking about and talking about, but also the spiritual poverty that has resulted as... That has come about as a result of the last 60 years, right?

Even more, 100 years. And that is a poverty that applies across the country. So, I'm glad that this election happened now in 2025. I'm glad it happened a year before the midterms, and three years before we hopefully have J.D. Vance on the ticket, because I think it is a wake-up call, and we can garner some very significant lessons. From what just happened in New York, and also in the other races that we just mentioned. Yeah, JD actually put out a tweet on this, too.

I think he had some good thoughts. I think it's idiotic to overreact to a couple elections in blue states, but a few thoughts. Scott Pressler, TPUSA, and a bunch of others have been working hard to register voters. I said in 2022, and I've said it repeatedly since, our coalition is lower propensity, and that means we have to do better at turning out voters than we have in the past. Two, we really need to focus on the home front. The president has done a lot and has already paid off in lower interest rates and lower inflation, but we inherited a disaster from Joe Biden, and Rome wasn't built in a day.

We're going to keep on working to make a decent life affordable in this country, and that's the metric by which we'll ultimately be judged in 2026 and beyond. Three, the infighting is stupid. I care about my fellow citizens, particularly young Americans, being able to afford a decent life. I care about immigration and our sovereignty, and I care about establishing peace overseas so our resources can be focused at home. If you care about these things, too, let's work together. Yeah.

Yeah, so let's move on that. After yesterday, it seems like maybe Nick Fuentes is not our primary problem. No, it's a huge problem, and I'm going to get in so much trouble. You're going to get in trouble for saying that, but no, everyone online smartly pointed out, like, hey.

Major commentator here, major commentator here, like, we have major elections going on, and you're supposedly in the political space. Spending the last 10 days of an election season bickering on this stuff. Is it an important debate to have? We can have this debate. Yes. By the way, though, Tucker didn't do us any favors by interviewing that jerk so close to the election anyway.

Like, if you want to have those ideas. So, again, part of it is just everyone needs to be a little bit more grown up about this kind of stuff. Yeah. I'd say if only people could listen to Josh, man.

It's true, but I think, so this article. I did not see that article, that Park Slope populist. We've got to drop that in the chat. Major kudos to John Carney. That family punches above their weight. That's Tim Carney's brother. Right. They are from New York. They lived in the city for a while, and they lived in the suburbs as well. He lived in that area, yeah. Yeah, so he knows about what he's speaking of. I'm a Midwest guy. I don't know enough about the particulars.

I can't pretend like I'm familiar. I lived in New York for only about three months, not a long time. I'm surprised you admitted that out loud. Well, I was in the suburbs, not in the city. It wasn't his fault, no.

But, yeah, I actually didn't know that was Tim Carney's brother. Shout out. But I thought that, so he lived there, and he's talking about the types of people that lived there, and I don't think... I think this was a great way of painting exactly the experience that a lot of my friends are going through right now, like people I know very personally, that they did everything they were supposed to do, and they are presented with an impossible situation, and I don't always want to come on here and sound like I'm complaining all the time.

I think he pointed out, as it actually is, it's a huge political liability, and it's a problem for the future of the country. The people that are supposed to be building the next generation in terms of children, but also in terms of economic productivity, everything else, if they are this unstable and this unhappy, I think what people don't realize is if they're asked about the bargain that they're given, they're so nihilistic about everything right now that they're just like, I don't care.

Like, even if this does break the system, fine. And it's related to actually what we talked about last week with regard to the conspiracy theories, precisely when people are feeling despair. They don't feel like they're a part of the system. When they think all the machinations of the economy are working against them, and young people feel like, I can't get ahead. I'm going to be in a dead-end job. I'll never own a house. I'll be renting for the rest of my life.

That is a recipe for radicalism, and it'll turn to online voices, whether it's the Groyper types or Mamdami, and it's going to be toxic either direction to go. So, I welcome. Vice President J.D. Vance's words there. We do need to talk about affordability, affordability, affordability. Those are the top three issues in the next year should be affordability, affordability, affordability. Yeah, and if you're doing something else that affects it, I mean, so here's the RealClearPolitics link from Steve Cortez. He did another poll with young voters.

Really interesting. It was super interesting because they weren't as uniformly fitting into the categories that you thought. One of the categories that they said is, like, overwhelmingly, we are done with. overseas, um, adventurism, right? Like it was overwhelmingly the young generation. We do not want to be involved in Ukraine. We do not want to be involved in Israel. And I think part of it is the affordability bit is like, I could put up with that if things are good on the home front, but they're not.

So I think this is a huge message, hopefully for Trump to be like Trump. I am not saying everything he has done is bad, but he has spent most of his first time in office overseas. Well, I would say the last two or three months, he has spent a lot of time in foreign policy, so that is what it felt like, because he got the big, beautiful bill done, and then he started the tariffs thing in May, and then he has been doing a lot of trade deals and the Gaza stuff in the last two or three months, so it paints a picture that he is very focused on foreign stuff.

Right. You know what? Okay, move on to the next chapter, come back to the domestic agenda, and let us get going. Yeah. And his thought was, get rid of the filibuster, nationwide voter ID, and it is like, come on, man, focus on affordability. Speaking of, good segue. Josh, you are so good at segueing into my next section. We are on the wavelengths together. We are riding today. We are riding. Shutdown is at the longest in American history at 36 days. The only one that was as long before it was also in Trump's first term, so this is becoming a regular fixture.

The Senate just voted on a continuing resolution for the 14th time. It passed the House. It did not pass the Senate. So, only two voters. You're talking about yesterday's vote? Yesterday's vote. So, the 14th vote. Well, now that the Democrats won in Virginia and in New Jersey, I have a feeling the shutdown talk is going to, basically, Schumer is going to let the dogs go, and if they want to vote to reopen the government, he's going to be perfectly fine with it.

Why do you say that? Because they won. They got what they needed. They wanted to have the shutdown to help them juice voter turnout in Northern Virginia. But the fact is, the Democrats are going to start getting blamed if they keep voting no on these bills, and the FAA, the flights are going to start really stacking up on top of each other, more flights to cancellation. People are going to be looking ahead to Thanksgiving and freaking out whether or not they're going to actually be able to fly home to see mom or dad or grandma or whatever.

And so, I would not be shocked. I thought it was going to be Monday, but I forgot. Yeah, election. I've got to wait for the other side of the election. So, it's going to be, you know, whatever. By the next LOOPcast, I won't be surprised if we're like, oh, the shutdown's going to end. Take it to the bank. Take it to the bank, people. No oracle speaks.

Right. So, the interesting thing about this, too, and I don't know what your two cents on this is, Josh, but Senate Majority Leader John Thune acknowledged that the legislation no longer helps the current crisis because it expires on November 21st. So, this leaves little time for progress on full-year spending bills. The Senate hasn't voted on that bill. Precisely because, you know, you've got Thanksgiving coming up, and so Thanksgiving holiday, all the lawmakers are going to want to go home to be with their families and stuff like that.

So, yeah, you basically need the House to come back. Which the House has been reluctant to do so, you know, in other words, why, you know, balls in your court, Senate, but now they're going to have to come back, and he's going to have to sit that lady from Arizona that got elected in the special election, and so they'll have the votes to call a discharge to the House to release the Epstein files or whatever, so that's kind of another embarrassing thing for someone, I guess.

Anyway, and then, so what's going to happen then is the House is going to have to pass a new bill that's going to basically give you, now the question is, do you go to the end of December? Which some lawmakers are like, yeah, because, you know, deadlines help, and everyone's going to want to go home for Christmas. I'm like, yeah, but that's when bad legislation happens. I would like it to go to the Super Bowl. Just fund the government to the Super Bowl, and then figure out what we're going to do after that.

Not asking for much. Then you'll figure it out after the Lions win. Major national holiday. Well, I just don't like this idea where it's like... We'll fund it until December 25th or whatever, and then everyone's like, oh, crazy.

And then it's just a game of chicken, and then everyone wants to leave, and it's like, fine, just give me, I don't care. Yeah, bad things happen. You're making rash decisions about billions and billions of dollars. It's dumb. Speaking of rash decisions, do you need me to read out the true social of Trump on the filibuster?

Go for it. The Democrats are far more likely to win the midterms and the next presidential election if we don't do the termination of the filibuster, the nuclear option, because it will be impossible for Republicans to get common sense policies done with these crazed Democrat lunatics being able to block everything by withholding their votes. Now we get into all caps. For three years, nothing will be passed, and Republicans will be blamed. Elections, including the midterms, will be rightfully brutal. If we do terminate the filibuster, we will get everything approved.

Like, no Congress in history. We will have fair, free, and safe elections. No men and women's sports or transgender for everybody. Strong borders, major tax, and energy cuts. And we will secure a Second Amendment, which the Democrats will also terminate immediately.

Josh, do you think it's a good idea to remove the filibuster? I don't think it's a good idea to remove it, but I think it's good politics for Trump to have some foil for which he can blame, I guess. But the fact of the matter is... If we had, you know, like Donald Trump actually won by 1.5% over Kamala Harris, and so you would have thought, under normal circumstances, that the Republicans would have like a 20-seat margin in the House, 20, 30 maybe even.

But he didn't. He's got like, there's like a four-seat margin in the House, and that's because the Census totally screwed us over, Republicans on the Census. We count, well, we've always counted illegals, you know, for allocating House seats, which is total baloney. And then the VRA, Voting Rights Act, which is a handicap of another 10 seats there. And Democrats were maximized on gerrymandering with Illinois and New York, so you had all these factors. All of a sudden, you wake up, Republicans have this tiny, slim majority.

It's like, yeah, guys, wake up. Wake up. But I don't want to nuke the filibuster right now. If I were open to it, now would not be the time. You have a four-seat majority in the House, and you have only 53-47 in the Senate?

You think you're going to get all this legislation passed? There's always a few rhinos and squishes. It's like, you're not going to get anything passed. It doesn't filibuster or not. So, I just don't buy it, but you know what you could do?

Hey, maybe it is time to do another reconciliation bill and cut taxes a little bit more. I mean, give people more in their paycheck. Do something. Come on, wake us up. Do something to get this economy moving. You know, you got to do something like that, you know, and call it, figure out all the money you received in tariffs, and basically, you know, make it a check. Send it a check to everyone in the country. Steamy checks?

Why not? So, Josh wants to take the tariff revenue and send it out as stimmy checks. I think it is a good idea. Why do you think it is a good idea? Well, because, I mean, again, what you would... Like, what are your options? Just allow it to be general, you know, revenue and, like, lower the deficit? Like, people are feeling some of the pain of the tariffs, you know, especially, like, Iowa farming, you know, country or whatever. So, if you actually provided some of the economic benefit rather than just, over time, we're going to lower the deficit, and it's like, whatever.

I mean, that's... Yeah, people need relief now. Yeah, would it be... I feel like that'd be even better than as if you just took it and then reduced someone's tax burden. So, like... Whatever that would be parsed across, because you actually get a physical check, so you're like, oh, sweet, there's a tangible. It's much more tangible.

And do it next summer, right in the middle of the campaign. From Oracle's lips to Trump's ears. Yeah. Okay, good news, Erika, what do you got? I'm going to go with dementia. Okay. Great news. That sounds like great news. That's a bold good news.

And it says good news, so this was one of my favorite headlines this week. We have... Oh, it's not loading for me, but it has to do with cheese consumption. Americans who eat… Once a week, cheese, and not just like American cheese, like a square, but eating cheese once a week is linked to 24% lower dementia. I'm from Boston. Yeah, that was an awesome code switch.

And I'll eat lower cheese. But anyway, you can lower your dementia risk by 24% of study finds. This is great news for me because I love cheese, and I eat cheese probably at least twice a week. 14 times a week. No wonder you're so sharp. And so, I did the girl math, and I have reduced my dementia chances by 336%.

Because I eat cheese 14 times a week. So, there is a little girl math for you. Well, this is something for the Tourism Office of Wisconsin to get on. Yeah, come on, hop on it. Dairyland needs to get all over this. Shout out cheese, for real. Yes, and before you ask, I am an all-cheese kind of girl. I like the hard cheeses. I will do the soft cheeses. All the cheeses are wonderful.

All right, Josh, what do you got? I am a Charles de Gaulle. How can I possibly govern a country with... 300 cheeses, you know, like, it is pretty funny. Well, I mean, you know, one, actually, I am going to talk about both Jennifer Lawrence and Dick Cheney. Wow. So, Jennifer, let us start with Dick Cheney. I do not want to actually, I mean, I have never liked the guy in the last 20 years or whatever, his legacy or whatever, but from a good news perspective, I do think it is actually kind of good news.

I mean, this is a man. We have advanced in modern medicine, because he had a heart attack at 37, he had a quadruple bypass, and he ended up having four heart attacks in the course of his life, and he still managed to live to 87 years old.

That is an advancement in modern medicine. I think it's good that we're living longer in general. I don't particularly care for... His politics. But that's still a good thing. That's good news. So, I do want to ask people to pray for him. I mean, I cannot tell you how happy I am that his kind of person is not welcome in the party anymore. He was pro-war, pro-gay. You'd be surprised, buddy. They're still around. But, in general, it is good news. Like, modern medicine is still advancing, and, you know, that's the kind of stuff that would normally...

Would have killed somebody 20 years before, so those advancements, those are good. Just kind of take it in perspective. Now, what does this have to do with Jennifer Lawrence? Nothing, really, but it is good news. Hunger Games? It is good news. All right.

She has decided to shut up. Oh, that's wonderful. So, you may know her. She's very politically active, and she would oftentimes lecture Americans about what to do, but she has an epiphany, and she announces so in her interview with the New York Times podcaster. It's also a film that, as we started discussing, it speaks to this political moment in a very interesting and important way that is funny, that is complicated.

And it's a good idea. It's not a bad idea. What do you mean? A revolution. You have been politically outspoken in the past. In the first Trump administration, you know, you had a lot to say. I'm curious how you feel about talking out now. I don't really know if I should. I think, like...

The first Trump administration was so wild, and just how can we let this stand? Like, I felt like I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off. But as we've learned, election after election, celebrities do not make a difference whatsoever on who people vote for. Could have told you that. And so then what am I doing? I'm just...

Sharing my opinion on something that's going to just add fuel to a fire that's ripping the country apart. I mean, we are so divided. I think I'm in a complicated recalibration because I'm also an artist, and I, with this temperature and the way that things can turn out, I don't want... Start turning people off to films and to art that could change consciousness or change the world, because they don't like my political opinions. You can stop now. I love that. It's like, whatever excuse you need to shut up.

No, obviously, honestly, she's an American citizen, and she has every right to free speech. She can say whatever she wants to. I actually believe that. But... This idea that you just lecture at us, like, how can you be so stupid to do something like that? I just wish... That's kind of the arrogance that kind of frustrates me, because Hollywood is full of gorgeous people, and they say things in front of a camera, and they make millions and millions of dollars, and sometimes they got the roles because of connections they made.

I mean, Harvey Weinstein comes to mind. I'm not saying that about her. I don't know, but the thing is, it's almost like winning a lottery, and it's just not. You're kind of like in a make-believe land, and then you just get to sit back and go, how could this happen that voters are voting this way? They don't have that experience that their regular people Jennifer Lawrence, you are free to tell the whole world what you think on everything. However, in your discretion, deciding not to pop off on every political thing and just focusing on your career, I welcome it.

Because you know what? I don't want to, I just honestly don't care. I don't think you need to be masochistic about it. Like, I've seen some people really, they act and they're like, who am I? Like, I'm just some dumb guy in front of a camera. Like, you're clearly very talented. I love this answer. I think we should know a lot less about actors and actresses. Social media has completely killed the mystique or cool factor of so many people that are great.

They're just great at what they do, but then, like you said, Josh, they kind of get fluffed for most of their lives, and then they're just like, oh, I have these insane. Political theories that the world needs to know about. I'm like, oh my gosh, Mark Ruffalo, just stop. Yes, Mark Ruffalo. I was just thinking of the Hulk. Mark Hamill, stop, dude. Just let me... William Shatner had a good answer, though, on all this stuff. He's like, I'm a Canadian. I don't vote in these elections.

Don't ask me. I'm not going to do it. I'm not political. It's a very smart answer. There you go. Yeah, and actually, I'm not even really making fun of her now. I feel like, personally, I've gone through my different versions of how do I... How do I speak publicly in a way that's productive? Why am I speaking? And I think as you get older, that changes. You have kids, like new things happen, so. Yeah, she became a mother, so. Yeah, I think when your whole public record is online, too, it's kind of hard because you evolve, but that stuff's still out there as a bulletin board, as opposed to before.

Maybe you talk and it doesn't get recorded. So, actually, I respect your self-reflection. And now we can go back to enjoying the Hunger Games, I guess, but not saying I didn't before, but I'm just, in general, actors, actresses, I think that's probably the correct take.

Okay. What was my good news? Oh, yeah, I can do this quick. So, I'm still in the process. I know I've promised this. I talked to Rachel Bovard. She's fantastic. She's going to give us the lowdown on Arctic Frost, but one of her takeaways was like, okay, there needs to be real punishment to fit the crime. Arctic Frost was a massive dragnet where the FBI operated rogue under the direction of Merrick Garland and started investigating 20% of Republicans in the Senate.

Phones, yes, the phone. The landline phone of Ted Cruz was tapped. And one of the things that happened with the Ted Cruz situation was AT&T came back and were like, legally, we don't think we can do this. It's a problem legally for us. And this was after Judge Bozenberg said, hey, you got to do it. And then, so Judge Bozenberg slapped a gag order on Verizon to not tell Ted Cruz that an attempt was made to tap his phone. Okay, you switched between AT&T and Verizon, but it doesn't really matter.

Right. Phone company, I believe it was Verizon, was gagged by Boasberg. It might sound familiar. He's blocked a lot of different Trump things. And so, one of the big prescriptions was, hey, he needs to be impeached. He's completely out of control.

Why hasn't this been happening yet? And Congressman Brandon Gill actually just put up articles of impeachment. It's beyond time. So, I was happy to see that. Finally. Let's do it. Good news. All right. Yeah, so Church Corner now, Erika, why was everyone mad about...

Well, everyone gets a little emotional about our Blessed Mother, because we all love Mary very much. She is our friend. She is our mother. She is the Mediatrix of Graces. And this week, the DDF, Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, released a doctrinal note, which is a technical term for one of the different kinds of documents that can come out of the The Vatican. It has Pope Leo XIV's signature on it, and it did drop on October 7th. It sort of took off in the news this week, though.

The bottom line is, it is cautioning against using the terms co-redemptrix and the term mediatrix when referring to Our Blessed Mother. So, a little bit of background on this. This document was written As many of the ones we've been seeing lately are, under Francis's pontificate, Francis had a very strong reaction against using the terms co-redemptrix and mediatrix, and so this document was drafted and was approved by the DDF under Cardinal Tucci Fernandez, our old friend, back in March. When Francis died in April, the document sort of like simmered for a while until receiving Popio XIV's signature.

In October, and again, it was presented this week by Cardinal Fernandez of Fiducia Suplicon's fame, and Heal Me With Your Mouth fame as well, those of you who remember that. That's a big part of it, because the guy who's in charge of it is like, ugh. Yeah, so...

This is from the introduction. I'm just going to read this. This is like the best part of the thing, his little explanation of why he's putting this out. Quote, The piety of the faithful people of God who find in Mary refuge, strength, tenderness, and hope is not contemplated here to correct it, but above all to appreciate, admire, and encourage it. However, there are some Marian reflection groups, publications, new devotions, and even requests for the gospel of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

for Marian dogmas that do not share the same characteristics as popular devotion. Rather, they ultimately propose a particular dogmatic development and express themselves intensely through social media, often sowing confusion among ordinary members of the faithful. Why is that important?

He's saying that we have to have this doctrinal note, because we're not just talking about new popular devotions, like, oh, we have a devotion to the Black Madonna here in Poland, or we have a devotion to Our Lady of Knock has sprung up in Ireland, or titles along the lines of what you hear in the Litany of Loretta when we pray, Tower of David, Mystical Rose, Source of Wisdom, Seed of Wisdom. It's beyond that. He's saying there's some kind of calls for dogmatic So, he wants to clarify the Church's teaching on Mary, and whenever you hear, I want to clarify, coming from Cardinal Fernandez, you should have a little red flag go up in the back of your theological brain.

And it did, in fact. So, most notably, this doctrinal note, and I talked to a Mariologist who is actually involved in some of these conversations, and she said, she told me, this is not a nothing burger. Some people, like Eric Sammons over at Crisis Magazine, they reacted and they were like, look, it's another Cardinal Fernandez thing. Some future pope can just reverse it. And that was my initial response to it as well, but this is actually going to pick up more steam.

This is not just a one-off, so we should watch this carefully. This note, it determines that the title of co-redemptrix should be avoided because it, quote, risks obscuring Christ's unique salvific mediation. and can therefore create confusion and an imbalance in the harmony of the truths of the Christian faith. And as far as we can tell so far, the document also takes exception to the term Mediatrix of All Graces for Mary. All right, I'm going to get a little more technical here.

There are three levels of mediatrix. There is just basic mediatrix, Mary is the mediator, there is mediatrix of graces, and there is mediatrix of all graces. And what this document seems to be doing is starting to walk back on that, being like, can't say mediatrix. The third one. Yeah, the third one, mediatrix of all graces.

Now, mediatrix is actually a term, though, used for the Blessed Mother in Lumen Gentium, which is the dogmatic constitution out of Vatican II. And Pope Leo himself, just a few weeks ago, in a letter to the German bishops, he referred to Mary as the Mediatrix of Graces. So, the first two degrees of that term, Mediatrix. So, what we get from Cardinal Fernandez here, with Leo's signature appended, He writes, this title, Mediatrix, risks obscuring Christ's unique salvific mediation and can therefore create confusion and an imbalance in the harmony of the truths of the Christian faith.

So, the reason this Mariologist says this is not over yet is that the way Fernandez is presenting it. Seems to suggest a disconnect with the way that Pope Leo himself has used the term mediatrix just recently, a couple of weeks ago in another letter. But he used all in the letter, or what? He didn't. He said mediatrix of graces, so he used the second degree.

And also the teaching of Lumen Gentium, which uses just the term simply mediatrix. Also, I was doing a little bit more careful reading of the DDF statement. It suggests that that paragraph in Lumen Gentium is not dogmatic, which is silly because the title of Lumen Gentium is Dogmatic Constitution. So, it is a really interesting sort of intra-church thing going on here. It is not over.

This is going to be a developing, ongoing controversy in the church, for sure. It doesn't seem like there's any problem with just mediatrix or mediatrix of graces. That's fine, right? They're saying there's no problem with that. The question then is, if you call her mediatrix of all graces, is Christ not able to be a mediator for grace? Why would you be making it seem like Mary is a necessary component? Anything that would make it seem like you're sidestepping Christ's... Number one rule here would be a problem, even if that is not the intention of the language, if that is what leads to confusion.

And that is the same thing with the co-redemptrix thing. The idea is, like somebody even said, with co-redemptrix, like, well, wait a minute, is Christ not our only redeemer? Like, he is the redeemer. And so, someone said it almost would make more sense, because in English, we say co, like, well.

It is co-equal, like husband and wife. You have to have both, almost. That is why some people say, using the Latin term sub, which is with, subredemptrix makes sense, because it is like you are redeemed from Christ alone, but it is with Mary's help in salvation history, and so you are not undercutting Christ's power as the sole source of. Yeah, and I think there was a lot of reference in the document to ecumenical concerns that, like, this is confusing for Protestants who might want to become.

I didn't find that as convincing because we have a lot of other terms that are confusing or off-putting to Protestants. Yeah, it's going to be an interesting discussion. I got to disagree with you there, Erika. Whoa! I do think this is, I mean, I know a lot of Protestants who do think this is a very confusing term, and there have been people promoting it. No, it is, but it's one of many very confusing terms. Not that there aren't others, but this is a stumbling block, I definitely think, for Protestants.

Should we determine church doctrine and how we speak based on people outside of Catholicism? Should we be more precise with our language so we don't prevent people from coming to join the Catholic Church? I would think so, yeah. I mean, I'm not suggesting we change what we say. We still believe Jesus Christ is the sole Redeemer. We absolutely believe Mary is a mediatrix of graces, but if we use words that make it seem like, are you suggesting that it's not Christ alone that, you know, like, I would want to avoid that confusion, sure.

Okay. Which this document does come down on. I know we have a problem with Tushy or whatever, Fernandez or whatever. We are not a big fan of him. And again, a lot of conservatives and traditionalists have had problems with Pope Francis because he seemed to have a sort of a hatred for traditions and stuff like that. But, you know, oh, this is just proof in some people's minds. Leo is just Francis, too. Here is the thing I would say. On this particular question itself, good people… Have even conservatives and traditionalists have come down on the other side of this.

Pope John Paul II was very much a supporter of the idea of co-redemptrix and wanted to promulgate that, whereas Ratzinger, who was his head of the CDF at the time, who became Pope Benedict, was like tapping the brakes on that. He goes, hold on a second. So, good people, faithful people, people who love Mary, and I'm not trying to suggest Pope Leo is not one of these at all. Don't put words in my mouth.

But not just if you escape from the immediate past of Francis and Leo and look back, there have been a lot of people over time on both sides of this question saying, this would be great to add this title. Other people are like, well, we do risk confusion.

I am going to be a loyal son of the church. NCR hit piece incoming on Josh, dude. I am going to be a loyal son of the church, and I am going to be like, this seems like a rational thing that the Vatican is doing. We will see. We will see.

Ongoing story to be continued. Early Twilight Zone, NCR actually had an op-ed calling out Chris Hale and Occupy Democrats for taking a version of Francis and bringing it to progressive policy. Leo. Yeah, I am sorry. Leo, yeah. I was like, I didn't expect that from NCR. Good for you guys.

Josh, Twilight Zone, what do you got? I do kind of feel like Ed Fazer had a good point about this whole thing. He said, you know, you're right. That confusion is enough of a reason to avoid such things. He goes, think about what that has to do with Amoris Laetitia. That's his little addendum. He's not wrong.

Okay, so Twilight Zone, where are we at here? I got to. New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg says Nick Fuentes used to be the arch-villain and enemy of Charlie Kirk, but now he's Charlie Kirk's successor, reaching young people, young men.

And here's the thing. No. No, he's not. But here's the question you need to ask yourselves. That's something that Nick Fuentes would say, yes, I'm the successor. And the New York Times would also say, yes, that's right, you are his successor. Why? Well, of course, Nick Fuentes wants to do it because he's a self-interested person. Everyone wants to be the next big thing. So, of course, he's going to say that. But why would the New York Times, who hates conservatives so much, want to elevate Nick Fuentes?

That's it. New York Times wants to be able to paint everyone who's not a leftist as if he's a Jew hater. So, guys, just realize the mainstream media considers you the enemy and wants to paint all of you as extremists and evil. They didn't seem to have any problem at all with political violence and any attempt they can use to smear.

People who believe in God, family, and country, they will use that as an opportunity to do so. Yeah, I mean, that was one of the early arguments to, like, the thing about this is it creates an opportunity for the left to now use this as a brand and attack against the entire right. So, that is why you are having the intra-coalition arguments.

Ross, actually, Ross Douthat wrote something about this, too, of like, Trump is now. The reason that this has become such a big issue is because Trump has kind of lost people that he built his coalition that he won the election with. Like, it's been kind of slipping away, slipping away. And so, in a way, Having to deny or denounce part of the coalition at this point, no matter how unseemly, is hard for him because the normative policing and governing has not been working.

His approval in the middle has not been good. So, now he has a smaller bit on the right, which creates a tougher political situation. So, the New York Times, of course, picking up on that, and the left trying to make it all about that. Well, you said earlier, Tom, though, about how young men who everyone thought were going to be suddenly the bastion of super-conservatism. Now, they are not so sure about what is going on, and they started voting. You know, for Mondami in New York City and some of these other candidates in Virginia and New Jersey, and I would just say, yeah, young men are a swing vote just because they sound based and they sound Republican.

You know what? You still got to make sure that they have a foothold in the American dream, and that is why when we start, you know, look, I tell people who are Generation X and the boomers that are older than me, hey, we need to do more to make affordability.

The number one issue. We need to make it so that men in their 20s and 30s feel like they have a stake in the American dream, that they can buy a house, because right now— The gap, how much it costs, the ratio between how much a house costs and how much wages you make is way off. It's way lopsided. It's not like it was. I know interest rates were high in the 1980s. My mom and my dad bought a house when I was nine months old, and they paid through the nose for it on the interest rates.

I get it. But by the mid-half of the 80s, it started coming down. All through the 90s, 2000s, it was affordable. It's not affordable, and the USA Today was just talking about how starter homes aren't, you can't find them. So, what we need to do is make housing affordability a big thing. We need to start getting more money in the pockets of the American people, and you know what?

Here's a point I want to make on that, too, and I know that I'm super long-winded, but maybe I'll make this even my twilight zone. There was a ballot initiative in Texas. For homeowners over 65 to not owe property taxes at a certain point, and it passed overwhelmingly, of course. And so that means now that they do not have to fund their local schools. It was specifically a school exemption, and the argument was, well, I'm over 65, and my kids aren't in school anymore.

I have no need to fund that. Now, and it passed, right? Yeah, now do it for homeschoolers. Like, this doesn't make sense. Yeah. At a bottom line... What you say, Erika, makes more sense than that. Right, but at a bottom line, like, we live in a society, and like...

How many things do I, I don't use dialysis right now. I fund Medicare. I'm not pulling Social Security. I fund Social Security. So, the tax burden, that's just like a small example of a really Like, selfish move from the boomers in Texas, which, listen, I know we got boomers here, and we give them a hard time. They're getting a hard time lately. I love my boomers. You're not all like this. I know this is true, but this is just a pretty raw, tangible example of people that have the majority of the wealth in this country making a tax burden shift onto, because someone's got to pay for schools now.

It's going to shift to people who are younger, when they could just easily make that contribution to make their community. Better, more affordable, pay-for-schools. Now, you can make the argument about the effectiveness of schools. That is not even here nor there. No, no, no. I mean, I am with you on this one because in Michigan, we made the decision that we are not going to anyone who is wounded veterans.

From wars, we no longer have to pay property taxes, and it is one of those things that sounds so good, so the state of Michigan, you know, the lawmakers in Lansing pass it, and all the local areas are like, okay, great, so now I have to raise taxes on everyone else a little bit, but there is not like too many, so it is like kind of okay, so whatever, they dealt with it. But like what Ron DeSantis was suggesting, and he has a state that is even more disproportionately people over 65, let us abolish property taxes for everyone.

I still don't like that idea, because like what you say, then you're having to shift the tax burden onto people who are, you know, from age 25 to 55 or in the economy. I don't like it. But taxes, what you just said, it's even worse. It's like you're not getting rid of property taxes for everybody. We're just only getting rid of people for this particular population. I am very much not a fan of that. Yeah. Let us get rid of income tax.

I am a fan of getting rid of income tax. The people, yeah, anyway. I do not know the ways forward here, but it just feels like other ways we could fix things. Yeah, I am going to pull in your Nigeria one, because I think we have done enough. We have heard enough Mamdani for the day. We do not need another Mamdani, but yeah, this was an interesting development. We covered the Trump administration's efforts with Nigeria on Monday. To save the Christians who are being persecuted so terribly and martyred there, the pressure that the Trump administration could maybe bring to bear on the Nigerian government to do something.

And it seemed this week that there might have been a little bit of movement there. There were some stories that the Nigerian government was putting out, some documentation of arrests that they were making. And then we get this really interesting statement from the foreign ministry spokesperson, Mao Ning, from China, when she was asked about... President Donald Trump designating Nigeria as a country of particular concern.

And she said, as she said in reply, as a comprehensive strategic partner of Nigeria, meaning the Nigerian government, China firmly supports the Nigerian government in leading its people to a development path that fits Nigeria's national realities. We oppose any country's interference in other countries' internal affairs under the pretext of religion and human rights. We oppose the wanton threat of sanction and use of force. Code 4. We oppose any other country's interference in other countries' internal affairs, because China, it appears, is heavily involved in the internal affairs of Nigeria.

So, we were talking on Monday about, you know, United States interests in Nigeria, why would we get involved in Nigeria, and etc., other than, like, we should save Christians, right? Because... This is one of the hotbeds of persecution. It turns out that we might have other interests in inserting ourselves in Nigeria, including a sort of way to combat China.

I couldn't believe how embedded China was in Nigeria. Yeah, some of these numbers are... Crazy, and Tom, you pulled these, but next, 5% to 10% of China's crude oil imports, making it Beijing's third largest African oil source after Angola and Sudan.

Which are other countries where Christians are terribly persecuted. A little bit of connection there. Nigeria is China's number one engineering contract market in Africa, billions annually. And critical minerals like lithium, cobalt, and tin essentials, Chinese firms have poured billions of dollars into Nigerian mining for these materials. So, the list goes on and on. So, there's a lot more going on here. And China is... They're the largest bilateral lender for Nigeria's debt, $5 billion of Nigeria's debt as China.

Eric is onto something here. What's going on with China is they have a foreign policy where they want to try to extract as much as they can from other countries like Nigeria and countries in South America as well. And the United States has foreign policy since the Marshall Plan.

The last 75 years has been, well, we should help other countries in the world, but we should always be super altruistic and never, ever have any self-interest. At least, that is what we try to ostensibly say. And it is like, that is not the right approach either, okay? Because after a while, the people in your own country are like, why are we spending all this money, all this treasure? This is stupid. The right balance is not to do rapacious stuff like China does or be purely selfless.

You know, altruism or whatever. Like, you don't care about your money, you just give money away. It's not your money to give away, politicians. The real answer is, how can we help you and how can our own country benefit as well? That's the proper perspective. We're not taking advantage of other countries, but if we're going to invest billions of dollars, we'd like to see some return on that. And actually, it's better for the other country if we have an interest in making sure it succeeds, too, rather than just say, here's a bunch of help and money and then, you know, walk away and hope.

No, no, no, that's not the answer either. So, I think. From what I've heard from some of these people in the diplomatic corps, the United States is starting to, because of Trump, starting to change their tune on this stuff. Like, less about bombing other countries, you know, like, our response has been, bomb countries or give them tons of money. Sometimes both! A new approach might be, like, let's have less war, and if we're going to invest, like, don't do it so stupidly that we don't care and give away the store.

Having a partnership. Well, that was the big innovation of 2016. Realistic, long-term strategy. Like, I remember talking to, he's a sir now, I forget his name, he was the ambassador to Spain, or Portugal, maybe Portugal under Trump? Yeah, Portugal. Great interview, man, that was like years ago I did that, but he was talking about the big innovation of Trump's diplomats in 2016, was he hired a bunch of businessmen, and he was one of them, he was one of these businessmen, he sent them all over the world, and...

The people at first were kind of shocked, like, I can't believe, like, really, this is the new way to do it? But then they began to like it a lot because they actually were able to get access to Trump and then get deals done. Get deals done. And now, he did so well in Portugal, now Ambassador Glass is the U.S. ambassador to Japan.

Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah, the Trump in Japan stuff was hysterical. Did you see that he got the putter from the new prime minister? I did see, and then he asked, did he ever use it? I guess he didn't use it, right? Yeah, he was really sad. Well, he was sad because he was his friend. What was his name? I think he was assassinated. The former Japanese Prime Minister, we got to get Google on that, but the new one gave him his putter as a kid.

Shinzo Abe, I forget his last name. Yeah. Shinzo Abe, yeah. Now, they got a hardcore right winger, and it's a woman, too. Yep. Feminization, Erika. This was a very Japanese episode. Go us. We're global. What's Japanese? What else was... Oh, yeah. We talked about Japan for the Japanese, right? Yes, Japan is for the Japanese. That is racist.

That was my... We tied it in a bow. As long as you're not white, that's all. Yeah, exactly. That was my international relations... I took an international relations class in college, and I got killed. I got red-pilled by my professor.

Awesome. Well, good show, guys. Again, thank you so much for joining, helping us do it. It is impossible without you, so love having you guys all along for the ride. If you want to help us out, CatholicVote.org slash champions is the best way to do that. Thank you to all of our champions. I think I saw Alan joined literally yesterday. Shout out to you, Alan. Yeah, new champions. Impossible to do this without our monthly supporters. If you want to help us out, reviews, Apple Podcasts, Spotify is where you can do that, but subscribe to the YouTube.

We have another great episode of The Deep coming out tomorrow. Specifically on the polling on priests. What did it tell us? What does it tell us for the future? It's a really fascinating episode. Happy National Vocations Week to all the priests and bishops out there and sisters, and this is for you. So, watch it tomorrow. Awesome. And then, yes, I'm working on that Bovard interview. I hope to get that up either today or tomorrow. And then, yeah, Katie Foster interview coming as well.

But we're going to end with a prayer. We have the Feast of St. Elizabeth today, Mother of John the Baptist. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. Oh, glorious St. Elizabeth, after many childless years of marriage in your old age, your faith in God was rewarded with the birth of a very special son, St. John the Baptist. Help me, dear saint, to be patient and trust in the will of God, knowing that he knows what is best for me.

Oh, God, you chose St. Elizabeth to play a central role in our redemption. Her openness to thy will is a model for us. May we follow you as faithfully as St. Elizabeth did. This we ask through Christ our Lord. Amen.

St. Elizabeth, pray for us. St. Thomas More, Our Lady of Oralou Bay, and St. Fidelis, pray for us. Great episode, guys. I hope you have a fantastic day. We will catch you on Thursday with the Deep. We will be back again on Friday, and we are going to make it happen. Peace.