Election Day: Key Races To Watch, K-Shaped Economy, And Nigerian Christians Get Help

And we're live. Welcome back to the LOOPcast. It's Tom, Erika, and Josh. The LOOPcast is brought to you by The Loop, every American Catholic's favorite morning newsletter. And I'm delighted already with the chat activity. We have someone from Lithuania checking in. Awesome. And the conversation is ranging right now between NFL franchises, disappointing or exciting people, All Souls Day.

Yeah, good homilies, All Souls Day. Something about the NFL, because isn't this kind of like this blue, it's sort of like a Honolulu blue, almost, for your Lions. Listen, I got nothing but praise for the Vikings. They came into a hostile environment. They clearly played harder than the Lions.

Rookie quarterback had a day, probably the best game he's played so far. Bright future ahead of him. You know, must win for the Vikings, if I could get in that little jab, you know, in that position, must win. You had a chance to put us away for the year.

Right, exactly. Look, the line's got to be better. We all know that. The problem is, is we're so hyped up all the time. If you have a bye, it's like we can't let them relax. Like, the lines, we grind it out all the time. You need to just keep playing. But that's not what we're here to talk about, okay? We have elections going on. It's actually election day.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow. So, we have some key races to watch here from Virginia to New York City to New Jersey. Erika, I had you go take a look. What are the ones we should be looking at, and how should we be taking in the data? I've got it all for you, Tom. I also was taking a look, speaking of data, I'm seeing some pretty alarming signs of a K-shaped economy. That's kind of a little buzzword going around, and I'm like, okay, is there anything to this?

I guess you'll have to wait for that section. I have some news on that. Good news, twilight zone, and good news coming in from Nigeria, some pretty strong words from Trump and the Department of War of the persecution of Christians going on there. Shout out to Riley Moore, had a good conversation with him. He's been beating that drum for a while. So, we're going to get into all of that, but before we do. Why we can do the show, and why Erika's skin constantly is glowing on the show.

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It was amazing. It was top shelf. Some of the best World Series I've ever seen. I hate the Dodgers so much and everything they represent that I couldn't even bring myself. I think I watched the highlights, but I'm like, well, yeah, great. If you buy all the best players. And I was rooting for Canada. I was rooting for a Canadian team. That's how sad I was about it. It's tough, yeah. And, yeah, anyway. Okay, elections. New Jersey. Start me up top.

Erika, what are we looking at here? Yeah, so we have some big ones coming up, and the New Jersey governorship, this is an interesting one. So, this is tomorrow. These are all tomorrow. What am I talking about? In New Jersey, voters are deciding who will replace the governor, Phil Murphy, who has hit his term limit.

And the race is what we are calling a national pulse check. Democrat Representative Mikey Sherrill faces Republican Jack Ciattarelli. Horrible. I mean, these are our options, people. Jack's not bad. I mean, he's not with us on life, but on other issues, I mean, you know, so therefore we can't endorse him as CatholicVote, but...

He's pretty rock solid when it comes to crime and a lot of other issues, and he's with regards to, he's against boys playing a girl's sports, so she is, Mickey Sherrill, she is just, she is terrible from head to toe, horrible. Yeah, and the reason this is interesting is because you think New Jersey, you think deep blue, you think blue state, but not necessarily. So, in 2024, New Jersey was the state with the second highest shift to the right towards Donald Trump.

It didn't go Trump, but the movement was all toward the right. And in recent days, the registration, Republicans have been registering more voters in the last two weeks for this final push than Democrats. But early voting does look like the Democrats have a higher turnout, which is not unusual, as Josh will tell you. But again, it's sort of a bellwether for maybe national trends in other blue states. Josh, what does New Jersey tell us if it does flip red, and can it actually do that?

Well, it can. I mean, the thing is, it is very hard for, you know, again, we are talking about gubernatorial elections, and so they are just slightly a different animal, obviously. The Democrats have not won the governor's mansion three times in a row since basically the late 50s.

You know, if Jack, the Republican, doesn't win at this time, it's like, you know, maybe it's not as red as you think. So, you know, he, but he came so close four years ago, and that was actually a very big shock, and so I still think he's got the inside track. Steve Cortez, if you go over to Steve Cortez's, you know, Twitter, X page, whatever, you'll see he's got a good documentary profiling how ethnic.

So, voters have shifted to the right. So, Italians, you know, they're making a big swath of the New Jersey electorate. That's right. They're moving right. You know, Catholics as well, I mean, just in general, as a population in that state, are moving to the right. So, I mean, like they are nationally. So, you know, the question is, Will New Jersey go from being a reliably blue state federally in federal elections to becoming sort of a purplish tint? And if it does, the reason why that could be significant, and maybe it will be just outside the realm of possibility in 28, but then by 32, maybe it is.

And it would require an enormous amount of money for Democrats to spend there, because you're talking about the media markets of both New York City and Philadelphia. Yeah, big time. Because so many voters in New Jersey are in different media markets.

So, you know, it's a significant state, you know, in size. So, again, I try to tell people this, like, states kind of trend certain ways. You know, when I was in college, Florida and Ohio were swing states. Now, they are both considered reliably red.

Colorado used to be a reliably red state. Now it's blue. So, these things do move over time. Blue is the sky. Speaking of spending, all of these races, it's been interesting to see just by how much Democrats have outspent Republicans. Here in New Jersey, we're looking at $61 million on ad spots since June versus just $41 million by the Republicans, even for that. Down in Virginia, which is where we'll look next, we've talked about this race. We have Democrats spending two to one, so $50 million versus $25 million.

This is Democrat Abigail Spanberger, who is just bad news bears, running against... She's a CIA plant. Lieutenant Governor Winston Sears. One CIA, always CIA. Yeah. So, this is an interesting little tidbit. So, since 1977, the party that holds the presidency has lost almost every gubernatorial race. So, you would expect... With Trump being Republican across the river in D.C., we're going to see a Democrat take Glenn Youngkin's term-limited seat. This race, if you will remember from our coverage of it, there was sort of a wrench thrown into it when those text messages were revealed for the Attorney General Democratic candidate, Jay Jones.

When he was joking, or not so much joking, about killing his Republican opponent, and... Joking is the most charitable possible interpretation of those facts. That's how he explained it later, was it was just... He didn't catch himself. I think that's what people say. Sometimes you can say something, like, pretty nasty and ghoulish, and, like, someone's like, dude, are you serious about that? And you snap out of it, like, yeah, I'm sorry. But, like, he didn't. He, like, called on the phone.

Double, triple down. Like, I hate this guy. Double down. Watching his children... Opponents' children die in their mother's arms. It was absolutely disgusting, and it does right now look like he's going to lose, not by the enormous tidal wave that I would hope, but it's a close thing. But all the numbers right now, well, most of the numbers, I think it was like 15 out of 18 polls. There we go. So, some of the polls have tightened, so it looks like there's a chance.

For the pro-life Attorney General Jason Mayer to get re-elected, and that hopefully this Jay Jones won't win. However... Uh-oh. I am very gloomy about things in Virginia. First of all, as you mentioned, it is extremely hard for the party that's in the White House to win the governor's race, and it also goes for the additional row offices, so attorney general, lieutenant governor, and all that stuff.

So, it's very tough anyway. Then, you're facing a situation where the preponderance of voters in Northern Virginia are government employees or know people who are government employees, so they're not going to be able to do that. Directly affected by the government shutdown that has been going on now for a month. Actually, I believe it is about to be the longest of all time. It is about to be the longest. I thought, we will see. I thought they were going to end this, but it looks like they are not.

Not before the election. So, I think given that, and given that, as much as, okay, if we are talking about these two women, Abigail Spanberger. She probably is a CIA plant. She's a spook. She's terrible on all the issues. Horrible. And Winsome Sears, I mean, she's awesome. I love her as governor, and I love her as a neighbor. She's fantastic. I will also say, though, in terms of their message discipline and how hard they're working, Spanberger had a pretty crummy debate performance where, you know.

Where Winsome Sears was giving it to her, like, hey, why don't you condemn this? And she kind of, like, stared awkwardly. But with the exception of that, Spanberger has been out there on the campaign trail, campaigning very hard and aggressively to try to win. You've got to go where the voters are and meet what they are. And Winsome Sears is a great person, but, like, in terms of campaigning, like, with gusto, I just, I'm not seeing her on the trail as much.

I have a feeling. I mean, look, anything can change. You've got to get out there and vote, but I'm not. Okay, Josh, a couple insider questions for you then. I see ad spend, and I'm like, okay, these are the annoying commercials that come on during football. One, how effective is that actually? So, if I see someone's outspent two to one, does that actually move the needle in practical terms? And then number two, when you say campaigning with gusto, say Spanberger's done a good job, what does that look like really practically?

Is that more town halls? Is that more door knocking? It is not really going to be door-knocking, obviously, as a candidate for governor, but you are going to all these different community events. You are going to where voters are. You are holding rallies. You are holding, like you say, a town hall or something like that, where you are trying to go to all the different cities. It is a big state, big Commonwealth, Virginia. You are going down to Norfolk. You are going to all these places.

I am not saying that Winston Sears has not campaigned. I am just saying she has not. I've treated it like a full-time thing. I know she's the lieutenant governor, but it's like, get out there. I would have wished she would have campaigned more. I've heard that from a lot of the people in Virginia that said she could have really just worked a little bit harder on this one, and I think that could prove a difference. In terms of spend, look, spending used to be everything.

You know, like 20 years ago, 30 years ago, I would say, yeah, I mean, the person who spends twice as much is probably going to be elected, and there are very rare exceptions to that. I feel like those rules are kind of over. What has to happen is you need to have enough money to get your message out to your voters, and if you are outspent two to one, that is not inherently a problem.

What matters is you have to have a mission, a message that resonates with voters, and Donald Trump was outspent. Something like three to one, or something like that, again, by Hillary Clinton. Didn't matter. He was able to get out there, and he had a message that resonated with voters, and he campaigned hard, and people saw him, and he was able to get his message out. Social media can help amplify your message on that. So, being outspent isn't necessary. I mean, if you don't have any money, then that is a big problem.

You need, obviously, a certain amount of money to be able to get, to hire a campaign, to get out there. And to do things, but being outspent isn't necessarily the killer like it used to be. Okay. Nice. On to the big one. Yeah, we have the big one. And someone in the chat mentioned we actually have two mayoral races to watch. Obviously, though, the big one is Zoran Mamdani in New York, and he just dropped his last big push. He has a series of ads.

Do you want to just play us this ad? Hello, my name is Zahran Mamdani, and I am nominating myself to be the new president of New York. Yeah, that's right. You're hearing that correctly. That is an ad campaign entirely in Arabic, and people are kind of losing their minds over this, but the reality is he's just going where the voters are. Yeah, I don't even think this is, I mean, clearly there must be something there if he's doing it. He wouldn't do it if it was more damaging than helpful.

Yep, so he made the rounds. He made a series of... Eric adds in Arabic, and on Saturday night into the wee hours of Sunday, he was making the rounds at all of the bar scene in New York City, including one of the most notorious gay bars in the country. So, you know, he's there for everyone. You want your cousin in Damascus who came to New York, and now you have the gay bars. Well, to me, I find that, I mean, whatever, I kind of roll my eyes at it.

What I find more offensive is the mayoral candidate in my hometown, original hometown. This is the other one. Minneapolis. Yeah, and he just was basically railing, you know, Somalians and waving the flag of Somalia, and I'm just like, excuse me, are you a citizen of the United States or not? I mean, like, look, I like to talk fondly about my Viking heritage, but, like, dude, I'm not from Norway. You know, I might have an English name. We left 300 years ago, brother.

This is, you know, ride or die with the United States. Sorry. I'm not dual citizenship, nothing. I'm not a... Hyphenated American. I live, I breathe, I die, right here. I'll get to it later. Pat Buchanan was right about all this, by the way.

Yeah, and of course, we're referring to the Democratic candidate Omar Fateh, I think is how you pronounce his last name, but he has campaigned as a Somalian to take over there in Minneapolis. So, we could wake up on Wednesday morning with two avowed socialists in charge of two major... No, no, no, no, no. No? No. I mean, Minneapolis was going to take... No, no, no, no, no. Several weeks to count their ballots, because they don't expect winnings. We won't know.

We won't know anything Wednesday. You might know by Thanksgiving. Look, if you have a problem, if some of you might be tempted to say, like, I wish we had something better than a two-party system. I actually kind of like the two-party system, thank you very much, but... Ranked choice voting is a disaster, and there's other ways to amplify third or fourth parties. Ranked choice voting is a nightmare. It's like, you know, no, no, no, no. Why do you not like ranked choice voting?

Because it is extremely difficult. It takes so much longer to count the ballots because, you know, it's several layers. Like, you know, you have to divvy the votes. Just a quick explanation of what ranked choice voting is. So, you vote for several different, you know, like if there's 10 candidates running, you vote for, you can vote for four or five candidates or whatever, and you rank, this is my number one, this is my number two, this is my number three, this is my number four.

And if 50% plus one of the people vote for the one guy, then he wins. But if not, then all those people that voted for a person, you know, like the person with the least amount of votes gets eliminated. And if that guy was your first choice, then your votes get assigned to your second choice. And it's like this, it's just, it's like.

Math nightmare. Wasn't Alaska one of the first to have it? Alaska has it, but they still have it. Okay. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, and someone in the chat, Cigar Mode, I see you. Yes, they are communists. That is what they are trying to. But when I said, I said self-described socialists. Yeah, democratic socialists is what he would call himself. But yeah, I mean, yes, they have communist agendas that they're hoping to enact. Obviously, with communism, you can use ballots. It's funny.

To get into communism, but you need bullets to get out. Yeah, it's true. Take me through Prop 52. No, I was thinking about Mamdani for a second, because Mamdani is a big fan of a lot of Stalin's measures, and so he and Nick Fuentes, I mean, they are like bros, because they both love Stalin.

Did Mamdani come out and talk about Stalin? I don't think so. My guess, he probably tried to stay away from that at this point. At this point. I thought it was hilarious. Someone was like, oh, Bob Donnie's not a communist. We went and asked the communist chapter lead of New York City, and he's like, no, he's not. He's not a communist. I was like, okay. He wants the government to control grocery stores. If it rocks like a duck, it rocks like a duck.

Got it. We heard from the leading communist in New York City. He said, no, it must not be it. All right, all right. All right, speaking of socialism, California, we have Prop 50. This is on the ballot out there. Also, something to watch because this is Gavin Newsom's little hobby horse right now, and Gavin Newsom, as we know, is running for president in 2028. So, a yes vote on Prop 50 would mean California would adopt a new set of congressional district maps drawn by the state legislature rather than the existing independent commission.

For elections starting in the midterms 2026 and lasting through 2030, the new map has been drafted by Democratic legislative leadership, and the publicly stated goal is to give Democrats a numerical advantage as if they didn't already have one in California.

So, basically, they want to capture the up to five additional U.S. House seats in California that are currently held by Republicans. I think Republicans in California hold nine, right? They hold nine right now. They want five more. Out of how many, Josh? How many house seats are coming out of California? I think they have 53, but I'm, you know, going off my old school math here. It's off top.

Yeah, that's pretty good, though. That's pretty good. So, nine out of 53, when the population of California is 40% Republican, seems like they already have a pretty strong numerical advantage, but they want more, because Newsom is resisting Trump. All right, 52. They had lost one. Oh, they lost. You were close, though, man. That's better than I had. What's going on over here? Yeah, there's 43 Democrats and 9 Republicans, so they're hoping.

But here's the thing, like, Democrats talk about, you know, democracy and all this stuff, so they're like, let's have independent commissions, so we won't have this nasty gerrymandering. Okay, sure. So they set that up in... California. They also set it up in Virginia. So, what are they doing? They're like, oh, wait a minute now. This is going to foil our attempts to have super maximalist gerrymandering, because the fact is, even with this independent commission, one of the independents, so you get Republicans and Democrats and independents on these panels.

One of the so-called Republicans on the California Redistricting Commission from Berkeley, California, works for Planned Parenthood. Some Republican. Right. So, what they're doing is like, well, wait a minute now. We've got to get back at Texas. Let's abolish this independent commission, or not abolish it. Let's just put it on a five-year pause so we can get a few congressional elections in the meantime. What happened in Virginia is actually even more appalling. They summoned a special election of the legislature just last week, and they voted to put a proposal in motion because they needed to do it two consecutive legislatures.

So, they're going to get rid of their independent commission as well, and they're going to gerrymander. I mean... It just boggles my mind how, like... So, let's zoom out here for a second, because Prop 50 is going on, but we just touched all these races. Josh, do you have any national trend predictions of what you expect to be the aftermath? Before I get to that, real quick, voters in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, I need you to go out and vote.

There is something important. Everyone in Pennsylvania can vote. Vote no on the retention for Supreme Court. There's three Supreme Court justices on the ballot. They all are rabid supporters of abortion. They got rid of a law in 1982 that would prevent Medicaid funding of abortions. So, get on there and say, no, we don't want them retained. Get them out of there, and then they'll be off at the Supreme Court. So, that's an opportunity for us to To make a little bit of some noise there.

In terms of the implications of it, I like to be as upfront and brutally honest as possible, okay? So, I like to call it like I see it. Like, sometimes, like Virginia, I hope I'm wrong. I hope Winston Sears wins. That would be awesome.

It can still happen. Obviously, anything can happen, but I look at the trend ones, you know, tail ones and all that kind of stuff, head ones. I suspect what will happen is the Democrats will have a good night in Virginia. Republicans might pull it off in New Jersey. Either way, I don't actually think it's going to be a big barometer as for what's going to happen one year from now in the midterms.

I mean, if we're being quite honest. I mean, if Democrats win by 15 points in Virginia, then I would reassess that. And they might. They might win by double digits. I mean, it's not looking so hot in Virginia. Every Republican in Virginia gets off their duff and gets out and votes and grabs 10 of their friends.

So, it does not necessarily mean that there's going to be, you know, like, Democrats will feel triumphant if they have a really big win tomorrow night, and they'll think that there will be a shoe-in to win. But again, I still think a year from now, as voters go to vote on the midterms, Who should, should the Republicans retain their slim margin in the House? Should, you know, who should pick up the seats in the Senate? You know, should that be up for debate?

And a lot of governors' races across the country are very important, and I just ultimately feel like everything that Donald Trump has done on tariffs, it is a big financial gamble. So far, it has actually proven pretty good for them, because the initial economic experts thought all these tariffs would have, for sure, pushed us into a recession right now, and in fact, it has not had. bad economic effects on a grand scale like it had been thought. There are still segments and sectors in the economy that are having it to make...

That is an important distinction. I know that there are still some segments of the economy that are having some big adjustments because of these tariffs, but I am saying, overall, the economy is in pretty decent shape given all these tariffs and given what all these economic oracles that thought were going to happen. So, if... Trump's gambit on this works, and that is, like, by putting a bunch of tariffs in, I'm going to hopefully bring about more domestic industry, and hopefully wages will increase for, you know, the blue-collar folks.

If that pays off, then yes, I do think Republicans have a decent shot of coming out of the midterms pretty good, especially since Democrats seem to be really kind of Still playing by the same playbook. You know, some people thought after Kamala Harris got defeated, like, Democrats would go, well, we got to change her playbook here. You know, we're losing voters. People, you know, there's an article in today's New York Times, Ezra Klein, saying like, boy, voters just really feel like the Democratic Party is toxic.

They feel it doesn't represent them. It feels like they hate them, hate them as voters. And so, like, you would think, well, make these adjustments, change what you're doing, learn to be different, but I'm not seeing any of that from Democrats, you know, so. Well, Josh, it's an interesting part of the analysis because I was diving into the economy, and I think that's actually a key, not just for the political success of the Trump coalition going forward, but also I feel like we're living through.

Like, so much, like, anger, division, extreme on both sides. You talk Nick Fuentes, you talk Mamdani, people being pushed into camps. And I think a lot of this actually does come down to the economy that a lot of young people, in particularly, are inheriting. So, I'll start off. I was looking into this idea of a K-shaped economy, and for those that don't know what that Phrase means, it means that wealthy consumers are doing well and spending freely, while lower and middle income people struggle and scrimp.

So, if you imagine, like, line going up for people over a certain income bracket and line going down for people under a certain income bracket. So, the affluent doing well under booming stock market and the appreciation of their homes. In the inventory crunch real estate market, nearly everyone else faltering due to a shaky job market, high interest rates, and or inflation. The one story that really caught my eye, and it's not actually, I think it was back from August, is that the top 10% of earners in the U.S.

accounted for nearly 50% of spending in the second quarter. That's the highest level since this data was first being collected in 1989. This is according to Moody's Analytics. So, that's specifically for retail. So, how that's kind of manifesting itself in the economy, and a lot of people's...

They had their quarterly shareholder meeting, so a lot of different companies came out, and they're like, hey, this is what's going on. This is why we did better than we thought. This is why we did worse than we thought, and there's a couple of interesting ways that's kind of coming out, particularly Delta Airlines. CEO Ed Bastian said that sales of premium seats would exceed those of coach seats for at least one or two quarters in 2026.

Very interesting. Coca-Cola CEO James Quincy told CNBC that sales for its premium brands like Smartwater, Topo Chico, and Fairlife are juicing the company's sales, while Coke demand is up at dollar stores, as well as at amusement parks frequented by higher spenders. One that was really interesting to me is Chipotle's earning call. They did not do nearly as well as I thought they would do, and this is coming like early Chipotle. Listen, goated. Take me back. It'll never be the same. But I still see it as kind of a, for what you get, yes, it's getting less and less, but pretty efficient in terms of like protein and to fill you up.

So, straight off the earnings call, I was reading this. Earlier this year, as consumer sentiment declined sharply, we saw a broad-based pullback in frequency across all income cohorts. Since then, the gap has widened, with low-to-middle income guests further reducing frequency. We believe that this guest with household income below $100,000 represents about 40% of our total sales, and based on our data, is dining out less, often due to concerns about the economy and inflation. Our particularly challenged cohort is the 25- to 35-year-old age group.

We believe that this trend is not unique to Chipotle. And it's occurring all across restaurants, as well as many discretionary categories. I was actually reading a report from a lot of fast casual chains saying that they're really struggling at this time. It's kind of like the step above fast food. And even at fast food places, people that are ordering off of their really high dollar type menu is up, but then the value meal is actually up as well, so that middle category is kind of missing.

And then their assessment, this group is facing several headwinds, including unemployment, increased student loan repayment, and slower real wage growth. We tend to skew younger and slightly over-indexed to this group relative to the broader restaurant industry. Even Chipotle is feeling the hit on this. Consumer Goods talking about iPhone 17. Those sales are doing great. $799 price tag. You and I, we have all talked about this on the podcast. What needs to happen is Trump Vance needs to speak about housing affordability.

And, you know, so they need to do several things to try to make that a factor. The other thing I would do is, look, you can revisit the tax code a little bit here. Maybe, you know, overall, like this, you know, Ron DeSantis talked about getting rid of property taxes, like, how about we go the other way? Why don't we reduce, especially with the concerns of AI?

There might be more and more people that are laid off in jobs like that. Why don't we make it cheaper for employers to hire people? Bring down the cost of wages. Maybe have more of the revenue of the federal government on tariffs and capital gains and less on labor. Make it cheaper. Lower the tax on labor. That's an idea. Part of that might be...

Re-figuring out how you finance Social Security so it is not all dependent on just taxes on labor. We call it payroll taxes, like make payroll cheaper. Make it cheaper to hire people. What concept? A couple of things on that point, too. I saw only 2.8% of homes, about 28 out of every 1,000, changed hands in the first nine months of 2025. That is the lowest turnover rate in at least 30 years. And again, part of these are problems we inherited from the insane shutdown of the economy and then the corresponding interest rate freezes and really low.

I mean, those are serious problems. So bad. So, yeah. But Josh, to your point, Also, from a healthcare perspective, I know we've talked about this at this, you can now go and see if you have to get insurance on the marketplace, how much it's increased. I haven't looked for me personally, but I'm seeing a lot of people who do pretty well, who are now like, my insurance is now up 50%. My insurance is now up 17% for mediocre to bad insurance.

So, all this being said, like, Part of the problem, I think, is that all these numbers are coming back, and people feel them, too. Like, if you've been shopping recently, go check out beef prices, and I know we're talking about Argentina or whatever. I still can't get over it. I'm shocked every time I go to the grocery store. Every single part of the economy for a working-class, middle-income bracket American has gotten considerably more expensive. We're not even talking about low-income Americans.

I mean, low-income Americans, that's the difference between you eating a meal and eating a meal. An extra meal for the day? Maybe you don't have breakfast anymore because of that. Housing, basically impossible. Earnings calls, really shaky from a lot of these companies that are specifically catering to that middle, lower class. So, all of this really restrictive. What's the biggest problem in this? Obviously, the fact that Americans can't eat. And then, yeah, Josh, you were mentioning on the tax code. Well, the eating thing.

I mean, that's why, obviously, we have SNAP. Of course, that stopped yesterday. Which stopped. So, my point is, the biggest problem with the K-shape, if I could, is the political and social instability that's going to follow. You wonder why people are like, hey, Zoran Mamdani is making some pretty sweet promises, and I have not, whatever I put in the status quo clearly has not yielded me results. I now can't eat an extra meal. I cannot afford a home. I can't pay rent.

I can't pay for healthcare. That's the core problem, I think, of all these kind of side flights happening within the broader coalition. It's the fact that Trump has been abroad, which I'm not saying there isn't stuff to do abroad, but the domestic front has not felt what you say needs to be felt. For there to be a successful 2026, and I think if it gets worse from here and there's not creative solutions applied to the absolute domestic front, we're talking about being able to afford where you live, it's going to be a bloodbath, I think, in 2026, if it continues.

I don't know. I mean, I'm just saying that, like, they've done some things with the big, beautiful bill, but they need a more obvious agenda moving forward, no question about it. Yeah. Part of it could be messaging, too. I wish we could just reach someone inside and be like...

Completely just message affordability, get back to the basics here, and you need to come up with some really creative solutions that you can tout as wins. Right. I think also on the employment front, too, yes, employment has been down significantly. Pretty much a lot of people are saying, oh, it's right about the time the Chad GBT came out, and listen, it could be causal, I don't know, but it is hard to see major companies cutting jobs, and then their stock price increasing, and being like, okay, well, where are these people going to go?

I was looking into the interesting, there is a German apprenticeship program that is kind of a public-private sector collaboration that they enjoy really good employment, and they equip people with reasonable skills that actually the private companies are advising on. Like, hey, we need these skills. Let us move people into the apprenticeship program. That could be a good creative solution, I think. We are seeing that, though, actually in the United States as well. We have a, I was looking into a Wisconsin.

...version of that, and I think they actually collaborated. Like, the government's collaborated, and they're doing a very similar program, and I think Harley-Davidson and a couple of major companies do that apprenticeship program. Yeah, but Michigan, I hear Michigan, I see it, too. Like, the local community college here is working with businesses and making sure that there's employment options for a lot, especially men, but women, too, who want to go into these, you know, skilled trades. So, we're seeing a lot of that stuff.

So, you know, God bless Mike Rowe for being the person that... To call attention to this over the last 10 years or so. It is starting to sink in, as we see a lot of these baby boomers are retiring, and like, yo, we need this stuff. The thought was, and again, I am not trying to take a dump on the baby boomers again. One of the things that the baby boomers lessons that they learned was like, hey, working at a blue-collar job is a lot of hard work, and it is a lot of hard work, and they deserve appreciation for it, but they are like, work smarter, not harder, and they try to push everyone else into white-collar.

Right. We don't make things, right? Actually, you know, you might then get an economy that's off, because then you've got a lot of kids that went to college that are looking for the same jobs. It's like, it's not there. And meanwhile, you have these blue-collar jobs, these skilled trade jobs that pay very well, and they're very rewarding. And it's not as back-breaking as it was working in a coal mine 100 years ago. I'm not saying it's easy, but hey, it does pay very well.

Yeah, I think there needs to be the balance on we need to rebalance labor, and we're just going to get new labor. That's why I'm not super doom and gloom about AI. We're just going to need new labor. But the other thing, too, I think I was seeing a debate online about people's cars are too nice now. They're like, oh, back in my day, we only drove around beaters that are like three grand.

And I'm like, there needs to be somewhat of an acknowledgement at this point. Like, the average used car now is $15,000. Yeah, that's insane. To find new cars or used cars that are under $10,000, it's really hard. And so, like, the inflation in the inventory is just completely different at this point than it was 20 years ago. And then I also saw in Texas, they're trying to change, they're trying to lower property tax on people over a certain age, like 65%.

And I'm like, This is the complete wrong direction. Those people, God bless them, they did their part, they worked hard, they benefited. I'm not even saying they did anything wrong, but the way that it's skewed right now against young Americans and their prime working years raising families is insane. From a healthcare perspective, from a tax burden perspective, it benefits homeowners and people that are heavily invested in the stock market right now, which is great, but if you want to have a flourishing, good country where there's not stress and instability, you've got to take care of this middle-class, young, up-and-coming, this is the future.

These people need to have kids. They need to have kids, clearly. You look at what is going on. Yeah, and I think in general, we need future-facing policies, which means, like you said, the young families looking to have the next generation, and I think that part of the social and cultural upheaval that we are seeing, along with the K-shaped economy phenomenon, is that the older generations, for too long, have not had a future-facing. The vision for the country, it hasn't been about their children and their grandchildren, because we haven't been having them as much, and we have this sort of spiritual sickness when it comes to what is government for, what is the purpose of the state in terms of human flourishing.

It's not just for this generation so that we can all sit and have our second home and our time share and all of our nice cars. It's for the future, and that has to be a cultural mind. When it comes to policy and economic practices and norms, basically. So, anyway, that's my thought on the cultural sickness kind of behind this phenomenon.

Which is hard, because I'm reading a bit on the philosophical underpinnings of America. I say, like, Lobs, or sorry, Lobs. That was quite the marriage of Locke and Hobbes. John, yeah, Lobs. Calvin and Hobbes, what do you say? I'll call him Lobs. Hey, Lobs. But basically, like, the philosophical understanding of rational man is, in America, you can, what makes you an American is that you can pursue your interests as aggressively as possible. And there's no thought of virtuous taming of your desires.

So, I think that it's hard to even talk to people who have done really well in this country and to convince them, say, hey, you need to be a part of a national project that takes care of the next generation because it's what's best for your country, because I think for too long, it's thought of as this economic parking lot for you to be as successful as possible, to make as much money as possible. It doesn't matter in which way. That's your right as an American.

That's what being an American is. And so, like you said, we have a fundamental shift into, like, if you want this thing to continue, you're going to start needing to take care of, we need to change what government actually means. What is an American? And I don't know. I'm having a hard time. Like, I think we might be a little bit too far beyond being able to even define what an American is. I mean, I'm going to get into Pat Buchanan here, but his prescriptions, unfortunately, a lot of them came true, and it's going to take a real revolution.

Hopefully not a Marxist one. Hopefully not a fascist one. I don't know. We ignored his prescriptions. Yeah, unfortunately. Good news now, Erika. Okay, this was just a great quote from Pope Leo for his All Souls Day homily. I loved this. Speaking of, we have to be forward-facing. We have to also remember the dead, those who have come before us, and really, this is the Catholic vision that is not a Lobsian vision of the human person.

That is quite a new phrase. But I loved this, so pull up this quote here. The Pope said to us, this is just so human, on All Souls Day, although our loved ones left us on the day they died, we continue to carry them with us in our hearts, and their memory remains always alive within us. Amid our daily lives, often something brings them to mind, and we recall experiences we once shared with them, many places, even the fragrance of our homes, to speak to us of those who we have loved and who have died.

before us, vividly maintaining their memory for us. And I loved how physical his description was there, because we do. If you've lost someone that you've loved, like a smell will bring back a memory of them, or you walk into a room and you like turn a corner and see their chair, like these little things that are so human that connect us to those who have gone before. And I hope that we can, as a culture, also apply that to An imagining of future generations, right?

Like, I turn a corner and I imagine seeing my grandchildren play there one day, or this toy that I'm putting away that my children loved in the hopes that another generation will cherish it as well. And again, I love this time of year. I love being Catholic. I love that we're tied to those who have died and to those who will come after us. So, that's just my plug for November.

Well, I mean, just to add on to that, I mean, you get a plenary indulgence during All Souls Week here, if you go to a cemetery and pray for the dead, so do that. It's an important thing to do. You know, actually, I was traveling with my son to make sure he could get gun safety, and so I had to go to a different church than I normally do for Mass, but it was a really holy priest, and he just talked.

One of the things he said, I thought it was so beautiful of insight, kind of echoes what you were saying. He says, mourn for the dead, and don't buy into this garbage in our culture that you've got basically two weeks to mourn, and then you've got to get over it. He goes, no, don't get over it. I mean, don't. You know, always be united with Jesus Christ and the suffering so it does not take you into a dark place, but it is okay for you to be like, oh, it would have been great, mom would have, you know, Thanksgiving is her favorite holiday, or, you know, Rick loves, you know, going hunting on, you know, it is okay, like mourn, like it is a normal thing to do.

So, I just thought that was a beautiful thing, I thought of that one when you said that. Anyway, so my good news. I want to continue the celebration of the Navy's 250th anniversary. Oh, boy. I thought this was kind of a neat. I just learned about this. Someone else shared it on social media, so I thought I'd share it with you guys. The United States Navy has managed a total of 273 nuclear reactors, which is, if you think about it, 6,200 reactor years, over 177 million miles, averaging four reactors.

New reactors per year over 70 years. They've done this with a perfect safety record. Zero accidents, zero injuries, zero deaths, zero environmental pollutions. So, I give major kudos to the late Admiral Hyman Rickover, who's shown here, father of the nuclear navy, for this absolutely tremendous achievement. It's the kind of thing that you would have only heard about normally if it had gone awry. If something had gone very bad, then you'd know about who was the guy who screwed this up. But you know what?

Let's celebrate a guy getting it right, and not many people knowing about it. I think it's just kind of cool. That is cool. Go nuclear. We do need nuclear energy, by the way. I'm a big fan. Speaking of someone who got it right, happy 87th birthday to Pat Buchanan. Oh, happy birthday, Pat.

Patriot. Patrick James Buchanan. He was always my favorite on the McLaughlin group growing up. I have some quotes, but I'll be the first to say, Pat Buchanan was right about everything. He was right about borders. He was right about trade.

He was right about multiculturalism. Demographics. And immigration. More policy. I mean, he was literally right about everything. Economics. And I saw the dumbest. So much. Oh, no. The discourse is now getting people to try to cancel Pat Buchanan. I promise you that will not have the effect that you hope for if you want to win over the America first right.

I think it was Mark Levin said that he is by far the worst. Well, he's a never-Trumper, and he voted for DeSantis, so sit this one out, first off. And then now he's smearing him. It's like, oh, we canceled Pat Buchanan, and that was a good thing. So, you're happy for presenting Bob Dole, the biggest dud to America, to exist? That's what you're proud to present? I promise you, that's not going to win people over. So, I'm going to go through some of my favorite Pat Buchanan quotes.

Oh, go ahead, Josh. You got something to say? No, I was just going to say, like, it'd be better for... Like the never-Trumper, neocon, you know, loving war people to focus their attention on how bad Buchanan is and how no one should listen to Buchanan, and so that hopefully the young right will. Walk to Buchanan and ignore that Fuentes idiot. Yeah, it's over, by the way. The young right loves Pat Buchanan, because largely Trump co-opted a lot of Pat Buchanan's ideas to great success.

He broke with the 20 years before, said, no, actually, this isn't an economic parking lot. We should have national unity. We should close our borders. I think Pat Buchanan called for a wall way before it was popular, and he was just too ahead of his time. I mean, he basically got canceled for all the views that Trump now enjoys. With some exceptions, but some quotes from Pat. I am an economic nationalist. To me, the country comes before the economy, and the economy exists for the people.

I believe in free markets, but I do not worship them. In the proper hierarchy of things, it is the market that must be harnessed to work for man and not the other way around. Dare I say that sounds a little bit like Catholic social teaching. Interesting.

Half a lifetime, many Americans have seen their God dethroned, their heroes defiled, their culture polluted, their values assaulted, their country invaded, and themselves demonized as extremists and bigots for holding on to beliefs that Americans have held for generations.

If anyone is curious, go read The Death of the West. I would say borderline essential reading to understand the modern right. Our culture is superior. Our culture is superior because our religion is Christianity, and that is the truth that makes men free.

There you go. Pat, seriously. It's right about everything. I think it is. Happy birthday to a true patriot. To quote Donald J. Trump, way to go, Pat. Way to go, Pat. And it's time to give him the presidential freedom.

We're ready. Yeah, kudos to Representative Riley Moore for pushing that. I have been a big fan of that idea. I have been trying to get people to bite on it, so the Congressman Riley Moore is on that. He was the one that got Trump to move on Nigeria, so, I mean, let me tell you, this Riley Moore guy. You are killing it, brother. Good job. Yeah, I want to get on that now. At this point, that would be a twofer. People are saying Mark Levin is so into Trump, he has got his personal phone number.

Maybe at one point, Mark Levin is a neocon war hawk that did not vote for him in 2020, and one of them kicked out of politics in 2020. This is all just easily verifiable. Really? Yeah, I mean. I like Pat Buchanan more than I like Mark Levin, if that is my standard. That is maybe where I will leave that out.

I like Pat Buchanan more than I detest Margaret. What? This isn't even a conversation in terms of contribution to the republic. Okay, let's get on to rally more now. I'm becoming a bigger fan day by day, but some interesting news on the Nigeria front. So, Trump has now directed the Department of War.

As of November 1st, to prepare for possible action if the Nigerian government fails to put an end to the deadly Christian persecution in his country. If the Nigerian government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the USA will immediately stop all aid and assistance in Nigeria and may very well go into that now disgraced country, guns a-blazing.

To completely wipe out the Islamic terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities, Trump said in a November 1st True Social post, 4.43 p.m., I hereby instructing our Department of War to prepare for possible action. If we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our cherished Christians, warning the Nigerian government better move fast.

Quite the threat from President Trump. This comes after Riley Moore wanted them to designate Nigeria as a particular area of concern for Christian persecution, and the language to me, after looking into this a little bit, of course, I don't like really casual war language, especially someone that's pretty anti-war and does not want to get tied up being the global police, but seeing a lot of this violence, definitely something needs to be done at this point. So, for people curious, what's going on in Nigeria, I've kind of We dove into this a little bit, but the raw numbers are really shocking.

Over 7,000 Christians killed in the first 220 to 240 days in 2025 alone. That is an average of 30 to 35 a day. This is including maskers like the June Yalawata attack in Bennu State, 280 dead, and ongoing raids in Plateau and Bennu.

Longer term, since 2009, this is when Boko Haram's insurgency escalated, estimates range from 50,000 to 125,000 Christians killed, with 18,000 to 19,000 churches destroyed or attacked. 2025 was ranked number seven globally for Christian persecution, noting it accounts for 70% of faith-based killings. Worldwide in recent years, that is crazy. I mean, yeah, I guess. I don't know who number one is, but I mean, that's shocking. And then for people who are curious, like, who's behind this, I was looking a little bit into this.

It's Fulani militants. Radicalized Muslim Fulani groups attack Christian farming villages in the Middle Belt. Motives blend into land grabs with jihadist ideology, burning churches, killing men and boys, raping and abducting women. UK parliamentary reports note that they adopt a comparable strategy to Boko Haram, targeting Christian symbols.

Christmas attack in 2024, 60-plus in April, Boko Haram's raise, and then the other one, Boko Haram in... ISWAP, Islamic State, West Africa Province, jihadists seeking an Islamic caliphate in the Northeast. They bomb churches, execute infidels, and kidnap or force marriage conversion. Tax spill into Cameroon and chat. So there is a very serious problem here, and people are sounding the alarm for good reason.

Nicki Minaj even got in on this? I saw Nicki Minaj tweeted, not who I expected. That was a surprise. That was definitely a Twilight Zone sort of. Yeah, pre-Twilight Zone. Nicki's in on the mix. Shout out, Nicki. What? Reading this made me feel a deep sense of gratitude. We live in a country where we can freely worship God. Amen to that, Nicki. Yeah. No group should ever feel persecuted for practicing the religion. We don't have to share the same beliefs in order for us to respect each other.

Numerous countries all around the world are being affected by this horror and it's dangerous. To pretend we don't notice, thank you to the president and his team for taking this seriously. God bless every persecuted Christian. Let's remember to lift them up in prayer. Well, not on my bingo card forever, but... We also took it a little bit after that because people were freaking out that how dare she say something even remotely nice about Trump.

And so, she tweeted, imagine hearing that Christians are being persecuted and not being able to have empathy for them because you are blinded by your own personal obsession with Trump. This says more about you than him, my darling.

My darling. She blocked that person, and then she eventually deleted the tweet or whatever, but I thought that was still pretty striking. So, okay, let's take a step back. This is obviously horrible. I even asked this to Riley in my interview, and we can throw this in the chat if people want to go listen to the answer.

I'm obviously disturbed about Christians practicing my religion who are being slaughtered. I mean, a lot of Catholic churches in there, we've seen it, priests kidnapped, killed. I am someone that does not want to be the world's police and get in prolonged fights and wars elsewhere. I've been pretty upfront about that. I think a lot of Americans feel that way, really fatigued from being involved in foreign wars. How do we go forward here? I guess, seeing the language, hearing, is it time?

Does it need to be done? Is this dangerous? Is it going to entangle us? How do you guys feel about that? I guess it is probably too much to ask that the Pope would summon a military and get a Holy League of Nations. A cavalry.

The Crusades. Probably not, right? No, it is probably not going to happen. No new Crusade. The Crusades were defensive, just in case anyone wants to know. It is true. I struggle with this one, too. Obviously, I'm not a fan of regime change efforts and CIA ops and all that, but I think that when it comes to something of this scale, when you understand the scale of what's going on in Nigeria, I mean, 70% of Christian martyrdoms in the recent years come from Nigeria.

That's crazy. We're also looking at similar... There's similar persecutions happening in the Sudan right now with the civil war there, the mass slaughter of Christians, and then, as you mentioned, spilling over into neighboring countries, because it turns out militant Islamic groups don't respect borders, and they're like, we're just going to conquer Nigeria. No, they're like, wherever we can land grab and prosecute our ideology. And so, I think that there is an argument to be made that it is in the United States' interests.

To put the pressure on the Nigerian government, which claims and protests that they are free, have a freedom of religion, they bring people of all faiths to the table, and no, this is not going on. I think there are things we can do and ought to do as the world's superpower to To put the pressure on that government to actually do something and stop the slaughter. Here are my thoughts. Yeah, exactly. We come to the aid of, you know, like the United States government for decades has been sympathetic to the plight of Jews in the Holy Land, you know, making sure that they don't get persecuted.

We also are very concerned about other people's, you know, like genocide from different countries going at each other, like in places that there's not necessarily a strategic interest. I mean, like, what, I mean, do we really think Kosovo is going to spill over into a world war in Europe? I mean, you know.

So, to me, it is like we have always been shown like almost a pure altruistic notion of trying to take care of persecuted peoples all across the world, sometimes at considerable expense to our economy and our spilling blood of our own men.

And to me, it would be kind of outrageous if the only group that we never came to the defense of were Christians. Like, we are going to take care of every other possibility, but like, what? Persecuted Christians? What do you mean? It would just strike me as bizarre, and if you are a Christian being persecuted in Nigeria, like, oh, you help out these guys, you help out those guys, but like us, you just totally ignore us? Like, what is the deal?

I am not suggesting that you necessarily have to go in and take over their entire country, but it would actually be kind of interesting if, I don't know. We are good allies with a lot of Islamic countries, I mean, at least decent, right? Saudi Arabia, Turkey, maybe not Egypt as much anymore, but why can't we say, hey, what is this stuff? You are just totally okay with these countries in Central Africa that are oppressing Christians? Are you okay with that? Because I just want to get an understanding.

We bailed out Kuwait in 1991, but, you know, whatever. So, I just kind of feel like, I think a little, some diplomatic pressures could be brought to bear. Some aid could be. 100%. Yeah, good first step. I did look into, we have a lot of options at our disposal, including things like Starlink, and we can get really creative with security.

Stop before this. I was looking at solar sirens, Starlink. I mean, I was getting really into it. Train, deploy 500 local Christian constables. What's a solar siren? Can you tell me what that is? I don't even know. I'm early on my research, but I'm like, is there a way we do this without getting boots on the ground?

Listen, I know Trump's negotiation style is really going in bombastically over true social, and then usually walks it back. So, I think it's possible. We certainly enjoy a lot of leverage over Nigeria as a country. Let's do it, guys. Anyway, shout out to Nicki Minaj. That is basically why I wanted to talk about all this. I am certainly not excusing some of her cultural sewage, but we are going to call someone out for doing something very good when they use a platform to do so, and that is the case here.

Yeah. Cool. On to the Twilight Zone now. Hey, so if you want to be a – just, guys, you got to remember this. If you want to be a bigot – Make sure you're a progressive Democrat, okay? It's very important because, you know, if you're progressive and you have half a million followers and big show on YouTube and your wife is, you know, a guest on MSNBC, then you can be a total homosexual bigot type, you know, go after the gays.

Let's look at this costume. These are all, of course, jokes, right? Halloween costume. Okay. So, this is somebody attacking House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, and this is a liberal who's putting this out. You don't know this guy's bit, Josh?

This is obviously on a, you know, there's a joke, right? Kyle Kalinsky. But he's taken the, he also did one of, I think, Erika Kirk crying. Yes, he did. And he's like, I mean. So disgusting. You're saying it's all rage bait. It's all rage bait, and there's no, like, you talk about this all the time, of, like, make the enemy fight by your set of rules. Like, he has no standards. So, you pointing out to him, like, oh, look, you're hypocritical about using homosexual as a slur.

It doesn't matter. Like, he's an alley brawler that has no standards and is going to poke the bear all the time. He has this podcast. He's, like, openly called for, like, murder. Like, he's in, like, the Hasan Piker mold of this, like, Here is my point. He can shout into the void and say all sorts of obnoxious, horrific things. As you mentioned, he put it on a costume. You do not have to put it on there if you do not want to.

But of Erika Kerr crying with a whole bunch of cash and was just making fun of her, pretending that she is just a grifter. She is just doing this all for money. She does not even care that her husband died.

It is truly reprehensible and vile stuff. And again, Josh, who cares? Some anonymous dude on Twitter with 100 followers decides to post something online that's obnoxious and evil and rude and gross and disgusting. Who cares? Like, this guy has...

Half a million, 500,000 viewers. He's got a very popular YouTube channel. He makes bank, and he has an audience. His audience is made up of millions of people on the progressive left who do not have a problem with this. In fact, revel and enjoy in it. This is my concern. It's not that some psychopath is posting into the ether a bunch of crazy stuff. It's that he's doing this, and he's not. losing his audience. That's the problem. Like, there's a whole hubbub over the weekend, like, did you see that Erika Kirk gave, like, this really seductive hug to J.D.

Vance? Oh, that was disgusting. These people are insane. It's just disgusting. It was like half a second, like, you would be absolutely... An idiot. And so, then this same guy posts a picture, an AI picture of, you know, J.D. Vance and Erika as if they're getting married. Like, these guys are reprehensible. Again, Josh, some rando putting something, it's not a rando. He's got a following of half a million people. But I think it is disgusting. Trump is now, like, he's the center.

Like, he is the institution. He is, and he just is. And so, now I think Democrats are kind of realizing, like, the kind of high-pitched, moralizing, nah, nah, nah, finger-wagging, like, you shouldn't do that, that's beyond the pale, doesn't work, clearly. And so, they're resorting to somewhat Trump-style tactics on social media. Like, look at Gavin Newsom's press office. Like, they say the most outrageous stuff you could possibly imagine every day, and it is garnering a huge following. So, I don't know if that speaks to, like...

Just a nihilism, or they just want someone to feel like they're going to bat for them and doing naughty things, and that feels good. I'm going to say people felt similar about Trump. It was like he was having fun. He was making fun of people. He was making fun of the grails of the left, like the Kamala's for they, them, Trump is for you. Trump does stuff like that, and they like it. Now, probably there's something different. I think some of the things that Trump said in the past have been reprehensible, too.

I've said that before. For sure, for sure. Making fun of Ted Cruz's wife. I mean, that's loathsome behavior. I will never defend it. I thought it was disgusting. Yeah. But, like, saying, you know, Erika Kirk is just a grifter, and she doesn't care that her husband was murdered.

Like, and it's like, and I thought we had sort of adopted rules. Like, okay, so it's okay for you just to call anyone you don't like a closet gay? Like, because you know it's an insult to conservatives? Whatever. These guys are just wackadoodles. It's a dark pit. Yep. It's a really dark pit. Stay far away. Do not let your kids come on. And the mute button, the mute button is fantastic for these kind of people. And don't give your kids social media.

Don't do that. I know we're talking about the mute button, but I think it's instructive for people to be aware every once in a while what they think about, you know, what the hard left thinks about people like you.

Oh, yeah, for sure. No question about that. Well, I have two Halloween photos that are a little more fun. So, my Halloween was awesome. I just want to share my costume with everyone. So, pull it up, Pogo. Oh, gosh. Eric had a good Halloween. It's my Phyllis Schlafly costume. I was so excited.

Goodwill had this dress that was legit sewn in 1977 or something. I picked it up, picked up some shoes, and I got my Stop the Equal Rights Amendment sign on, and I went trick-or-treating in dark blue, Spring Glen, Hamden, Connecticut. It was awesome. I was holding a very sad penguin in a fat suit. So tremendous. Yes, it was great.

I'm not a big guy for getting dressed up for Halloween, but that's a grand slam right there. Thank you. We don't want to talk about what Josh dresses up as when he does. I should dress up as J.D. Vance.

You should, which is my next one. J.D. really leaned in. But here is the one that won the internet. This was J.D. Vance. Is it the... Let me see. Let me see where this one is. Oh, the J.D. Vance meme. Oh, yeah. No, he posted another one that was pretty wild, too. Yeah, he has got some good ones. This is... He is greeting someone at the door. Yeah, here he is, right.

It is the fat J.D. Vance meme, and there he is again. He even went out with his kids trick-or-treating dressed up as this, which is awesome. Yeah, one of his kids was a tomato or something. I am not sure what that was, but... You got to give him credit. You got to give him credit. It is pretty awesome. I do love the sense of humor, J.D. This is great. Okay, my twilight zone. Well, first off, correction to Woodchipper, who is partially correct.

Mark Levin started out as a never-Trumper, said he would never vote for him, in 2016, and then has since come around and been full mega, according to himself. So, I will humbly, I was wrong, partially. He was initially, but I don't even judge people on that, because who wasn't never-Trump in 2016?

I don't think I, I don't even, how old was I? I was graduating high school, college. I just didn't like that he was taking shots at my king, Pat Buchanan, and I detest a lot of his foreign policy views and neocon views, but that being said, hand up. I was wrong on that. Interesting point, again, on the foreign policy front, I was looking into this Venezuela deal.

I don't love that we're getting really involved there after some reflection, but what's even crazier about it is, like, it's not even the Trump administration's approach to Venezuela that's even as frustrating as the Biden administration's approach to Venezuela.

So, this is from Sagar and Jetty. I was doing some reporting. He said, Maduro has been irked to interlocutors at the claim that he invaded the U.S., telling Americans they funded their own invasion. Turns out, he was pretty right. Oh.

So, we have... I knew it. The U.S. funded advertisements throughout Latin American newspapers encouraging Venezuelan migration. One such contract was reviewed by Dropsite, revealed a USAID contract beginning in September 2023 and ending in July 2024 with Colombian newspaper El Pais. Pais. Pais. Whose purpose was to disseminate a new narrative about the Venezuelan migrant population, the grant required the paper to document and make visible success stories of migrants addressing the formal market using formats and media regularly consulted by business groups.

This is a... It is harder to imagine how much more anti-American the Biden administration could have possibly been. And then stuff like this drops. The scourge. So, in what world would a country use USAID dollars to advertise other countries to migrate to their country? I just don't understand this at all. And Maduro, whatever you want to say about him, probably a bad guy. I'd be kind of mad, too. I'm like, you were the ones advertising for people to come to your country.

And he's right. Yeah. Man, we dodged a bullet. Oh, gosh. The depths of looking into the Biden administration, I mean, like, I did that interview with Rachel, who, Rachel Bovard was literally spied on by the FBI during Arctic Frost. Oh, my goodness. The depths to which they, I mean, yeah, we got some problems to clean up. So, it is almost like going back just makes me angry. I guess, like, the problems we have now, we got issues now, but. Yeah, my original Twilight Zone, before I realized we needed a little humor on the pod today, was going to be that yesterday marks the one-year anniversary of the Iowa poll that gave us Kamala Harris winning by three points, having made a gain of 13 points within that last week there.

Kamala knew that poll was... Yep, and Josh called it. He did call it. I am willing to say that here on the pod, but it was a year ago today. We were like, wait, what? This might keep happening.

If anyone needs to know about Josh's bona fides, I'll never forget being at the election. Was it the 2020? I think it was the 2020 election. We were at a party, and everyone was like, nah, Trump's going to win. It's going to be fine. We all did our little prediction maps. Josh was the lone blue map. He's like, no, this is not going the way you want it to, unfortunately. We're like, no, Josh, you're crazy. You're such a downer. Lame. And then it was the saddest sight of two in the morning, the votes rolling in, and everyone's just depressed.

I'm not saying Josh was happy. You weren't happy about it. You didn't quote, but you were right. You were right. So, that's what we got, man. Oracle for a reason. That's right. Which is why I'm not happy about tomorrow, because Josh is sad. Yeah, right. Typically, I don't go against Josh's predictions. I'm trying to think what time Josh was right. We'll see. We'll see on Wednesday. Or never, because... I'm not always right, but...

But just mostly. What does that mean? It's like when the worst person you know makes a good point or something like that. Yeah, exactly. It's the picture of the guy, so it's basically you. And the guy's bald, too, just like me.

Dude, that's Josh in a nutshell, man, whatever he's like, the worst person you know. Awesome. Well, hey, good show, guys. We got a great lineup. Eric had a lot of fun with The Great Feminization. Go watch that. It's one of my favorite videos we've done as of recent. A very fun one. What are we doing? Interesting concept. Go check that one out. Join the Champions Club, CatholicVote.org, slash champions.

So, we can support us. Appreciate that. And a lot coming this week, but I'll leave it at that. We're going to end in a prayer today. And again, go pray at a cemetery. Go hit confession. Go pray for the souls in purgatory. It's the most important thing you can do, period, spiritually, for sure, this week. Keep that in mind, and know that I'm praying for you guys as well. So, daily prayer, we have the prayer to St. Gertrude, releasing souls from purgatory.

Here we go. Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Amen. Eternal Father, I offer you the most precious blood of your divine Son, Jesus, in union with the masses said throughout the world today, for all the holy souls in purgatory, for sinners everywhere, for sinners in the universal church, those in my own home, and within my family. Amen. St. Thomas More, St. Fidelis, Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us. Thanks for joining us on this one, guys. Hope you have a great week. We'll catch you again Wednesday with another good show, Ready to Rock. Peace.