Fauci Pleads the Fifth in Explosive Senate Hearing, Mamdani's Grocery Stores, And Gen X Bishops

And we're live. Welcome back to the LOOPcast. It's Tom, Erika, and Josh. It's that time of week in which we discuss. Politics, the crazy world of news, Catholicism, all that good stuff. I moved this to the top of the show because it's going off. It was like, we might Al Capone this guy, okay? Dr. Anthony Fauci is in front of the Senate right now, and has had a pretty explosive testimony so far, not because of what he said, or kind of because of what he said.

Or didn't say. Maybe the lack thereof of what he didn't say. So, that got way more interesting than I thought it would be, so we moved it up to the top of the show. Crazy stuff. Also, we are touching Mamdani's Grocery Stores in New York City, Gotham, the Gotham section, as Erika is saying. There's a few different actions by the socialist darling in New York City. So, we're going to analyze that exact proposal. We have a new appointment made by Pope Leo, someone that may be very familiar to our audience.

Cordell Leone has been elevated to a new position, and then someone that might be too familiar to our office has been... Kind of de-elevated, if you will, not renewed. So, we're going to talk about that. We have good news. We have Twilight Zone. We have new attacks on J.D. Vance. We're getting into it all. They keep coming. They keep coming. It's going to be great. They keep coming, but it's going to be a great show. Before we get into it, though, we, of course, have to talk about...

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To get started, visit charitymobile.com and use promo code LOOPcast. That's charitymobile.com, promo code LOOPcast. Thank you, Charity Mobile. And welcome to the show, everyone. Always good seeing people live in the chat, and we appreciate everyone that listens and engages in conversation and debate on the show. We really do appreciate all of you. I just want to get that out off top. And then, Erika, I actually made you elevate this from your Twilight Zone. It became a much bigger news story this morning.

Start me at the top. Why is Anthony Fauci in everyone's social media feeds right now? Yes, and I had originally titled this the Anthony Fauci PTSD Twilight Zone, and when it comes to the Twilight Zone, I am going to plead the fifth, inspired by Anthony Fauci, because here we go.

So, yesterday, or was it Monday? It's so long. It all blurs together. Senator Rand Paul released what is being characterized as the private diaries of Anthony Fauci, and that's probably the headline most of you have seen, is that we got all of these records, and they were just put out to the public, but they're not quite personal journals, although I do love all the little memes now of little Anthony Fauci dressed as a 12-year-old girl, like, writing in a little diary with a feathered pen, but that's not what they are.

He actually chose To record these thoughts and his daily, what had happened to him each day through the pandemic, they were government records because he recorded them on a government computer using government email. He was a federal employee. So, these were all, it's not like Senator Rand Paul, as he's being characterized by the Democrats on the committee this morning, like went in and stole all these private things that we should have had respect for the good doctor on. No, not so.

So, what have they showed us in, I mean, there's Thousands of pages to go through, but the highlight so far. One that everyone's pointing to is the question of COVID's origins. So, on January 26, 2020, you'll remember this is even before the lockdowns happened. For me, in January of 2020, this was still like a Chinese flu. Fauci wrote, now we know the market, the wet market, was not the source. It was the amplifier, meaning the gain-of-function research going on in the Wuhan lab.

So, he knew that early, and this was, so he also documents meetings that he had with figures like Jay Bhattacharya, with the 12 doctors from the CDC who were like, wait a minute, no, I think this was actually human engineered. He was meeting with them before he threw them all under the bus and, you know, made sure many of them lost their jobs and their professional credibility. So, that was one of the highlights, but I think the overall arching impression one gets from these diaries.

Is that this is a man who was, while people were dying from this, obsessed with his own public fame, with his profile. He was closely tracking his rapidly growing media profile. One day, he was like, today, I did all five Sunday shows. They went really well, things like that.

Also, the amplification of the deadliness of COVID was another big... The thing that came out, Fauci wrote at one point in his diary, and this was toward, I believe, the end of February, beginning of March, as the lockdowns were beginning, that the death rate from COVID appeared to be 0.2, 0.3 percent, but what he actually got up and told the public from the White House podium was that this was 10 times worse than the flu.

And so, you see, this is, I mean, this is what we mask the kids for. He also says he knows, in the diaries he records, he knows that masks aren't effective. He met with the guy who did the study. He knows that, but they're going to go ahead anyway. And I think for anyone listening to this right now or reading these diaries or accounts, just, I mean.

Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. This is a really hard time to live up to the Our Father prayer, because this man's... God is merciful, but he's also just. He is also just. We have not received justice for what was done to the country. Yeah, so then we come to these hearings. He's going to come up in front of Rand Paul today, and we're hoping from these hearings, we're going to get some of that justice.

Like, I want to hear it. I want to hear him say... I was wrong. I ruined the lives of millions of people. I put hundreds of millions of children around the world behind in school. And no, that's not what we're getting. Before we get into that, why was he subpoenaed now? Was it the diary that was released? Why now is this being brought up? Yeah, so the diary was released, but this hearing was already scheduled prior to the release of the diary, and it was a subpoena.

Initially, Fauci had agreed to appear voluntarily before the committee, then he walked back on that, and so finally they issued the subpoena, because, you know, arguing that his testimony about how COVID happened and what went wrong is crucial to Congress and the American people understanding it, so that we don't do it again, right? Right. This is really important stuff, because, I mean, when was the last time we went through something like that, that changed the course of history and lives to that extent?

It's hard to remember. Well, we can't. It was 100 years ago. It was 100 years ago. In Spain. I was like, black plague in England? Well, and as several of the Democratic senators on the committee reminded us all this morning, this will happen again. So, we can't politicize Dr. Fauci. I'm like, no, we can absolutely politicize Dr. Fauci. Because we know that there will be another attempt to psychologically manipulate the entire population of the United States, absent even a threat from science.

Yeah, they were the ones politicized. They were the ones politicized. Before I get to the clip, I want to ask you this question, Josh. So, this is a subpoena. He was issued a blanket pardon by President Biden on the way out.

I mean, maybe I can even just... Some of the clips are so bad. I mean, it started out with, he brought his lawyer, and his lawyer sat... He brought six lawyers. Well, yeah, I think it was six or seven, yeah. But one of his... Let me show this down. Let's see.

So, this was how it started, which I was like, okay, this is already off to a rough start. But the attorneys are not recognized. In fact, the attorney was told not to sit at the table, and he's not obeying that recommendation. There's a row behind you, sir. That's where you were told to sit, and you're not. And now you're disrupting the proceedings. And so, look, this is the way Anthony Fauci wants to be remembered. For a lawyer not listening to the rules, that's the way you want to be remembered, and that's what you're going to do.

You are not recognized, sir. So, a round of applause. A round of applause. People in there removing this lawyer. Like, this isn't a courtroom. This isn't... He's not on trial, per se. I mean, this is a subpoena. So, why did he bring all these lawyers? And then, that was my first question. And then, the second one is, you know, he started off with Rand Paul saying, I'm just going to plead the fifth on all of this. And then, of course, you get Josh Hawley comes in and be like, I'm going to ask the most...

Well, I don't have a problem with him bringing lawyers in. Listen to this Hawley clip real quick. Well, nothing says honesty like taking the fifth, huh, Doc? Let's try something. What day of the week is it today? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. What color tie are you wearing?

So, if that gives you a taste, I mean, we started out with some pretty relevant questions to the American public, and then we went to the extreme there of, like, are you going to engage in this in any way, period, and it seems like the answer is no. Will you even acknowledge today is, you know, Wednesday? Right, I mean, we get to that level, and then, Josh, before I ask you the question here, you know, I see this analysis. Here is what the Fifth Amendment actually says.

No person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger, nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb, nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of the law.

Now, this guy, Jeffrey A. Tucker, is saying, the trouble is Fauci has already been pardoned, and the court precedent says that in this case, the Fifth Amendment does not apply. So, how does he get away with doing this?

Well, I mean, and Rand Paul, toward the end of when I was watching, Rand Paul said, there will be repercussions for this, because this abuse of the Fifth Amendment is contempt for this committee, it's contempt for Congress, and therefore for the people of the United States who elected us to figure out what happened with COVID. And so, Rand Paul, I don't know if you have the clip there, but he did warn that there will be repercussions. Yeah. For the refusal to testify.

You can go ahead and play that. And let us know. Dr. Fauci, would you like to at least answer this one question for us today, and let us know whether or not you've changed your mind on whether or not the benefits of gain-of-function research outweigh the risks? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.

The chairman has denied your assertion of privilege and directed you to answer, but you nonetheless refuse and stand on privilege despite the existence of the pardon. The committee will have to consider, after this hearing, what appropriate action should be taken against you for the failure to testify after being directed to do so. It is against the law to obstruct an investigation of Congress. There will be repercussions to your refusal to testify today.

Senator Peters. Yeah, and I just hope that there are, the Democrats have done this too, for the last two years, or a year ago, we had several high-profile Democrats refusing and pleading the fifth as well, and I hope there are repercussions, because it is a mockery of Congress for his behavior.

And so, just to make sure everyone understands, clearly, like, obviously, he was pardoned for everything from, like, 2014 onward. He was a blanket pardoner. It wasn't even specific things. It was, like, everything. Mm-hmm. Any potential federal crime. And then, you know, obviously, these officials often will voluntarily testify because they're trying, you know, they're, he's, you know, you're... He's had to testify before Congress many times about, you know, funding for this or for that, or answering questions or whatever.

In this case, you made the point that he originally volunteered, that he was going to testify, and then kind of changed his mind, and then the Senate committee actually gave him the subpoena, so he's forced to testify. So, what's going on here? Well, obviously, you have a pardon for past actions, but if he goes before Congress and he's sworn under oath, And if he knowingly lies to Congress, That is perjury, and he can be prosecuted for that, no matter what he did, you know, during the COVID era.

So, that's, you know, his lawyers are like, they're going to try to trap you, they're going to try to get you to start talking, and trip on your words, and then they'll claim that you committed perjury. So, the best thing, this is apparently what the advice that his lawyers gave him, plead the fifth on everything. Like, even, like, what day it is.

So, this shows, you know, to me, an absolute contempt, as you say, Erika. For our elected representatives, and therefore, for we, the people, we want to know what's going on here. We want to have an understanding, you know, and it's like, and it's not even like we're going after you. We just want to know what the heck happened. Yeah. Why did our lives get turned upside down? Like, why couldn't our kids go to school? Why couldn't we worship in our churches?

Why were people losing their jobs because they wouldn't get this vaccine? I mean, it goes on and on. And we have these, you know, things for every other, you know, everything. So, like, after... The Iraq war, we had a bunch of hearings in Congress saying, okay, how did we screw this one up? What happened here? What went wrong? After 9-11, massive intelligence failure. Hey, what went wrong on this? We really need to review this so we don't do this again. And so, it is perfectly natural, perfectly normal, in fact, healthy for the Senate to come forward and look at this.

And of all the clips, actually, the one I like the best. With Senator Rand Paul, I don't know if you saw this clip, but he was talking about how the Democrats and the science guys were always like, it cuts against skepticism. It cuts against the public if you don't.

I'm trying to get the exact line here, but actually, I have the clip where he goes, you know, we're undermining the truth if we don't hide things. It's like, well, actually, no. Actually, that's how you corrode the public trust. That's how you corrode what people believe in and telling the truth. And I got to tell you, everything he did today, pleading the fifth on everything, is only going to further erode trust, because we're supposed to, remember, trust the science. And at one point, Fauci, during this whole COVID stuff, said, I am the science.

Like, you know, Stallone's character, I am the law. I mean, what are you talking about? Well, you know, I saw this clip. If you're wondering why Fauci was always so eager to go on TV, I mean, this was his experience with the press. Like, I have a super gut if you want to remember. Voice in the pandemic. It's Dr. Anthony Fauci. The man who's become known as America's doctor. The nation's top infectious disease expert, Anthony Fauci. You are seen to many as a superhero.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, American hero and New York Yankee fan. You've done so much for this country in terms of this crisis, so I really appreciate your insight. Who better to give us answers that we can trust than Dr. Anthony Fauci? The perfect person to answer our questions today, joining us now, Dr. Anthony Fauci. Dr. Anthony Fauci. Appreciate your candor. Dr. Fauci, appreciate the candor. We appreciate your service to this country. We appreciate your service. Thank you for your service. Thank you for your service.

Greatly appreciate your service, too. Yeah, I think we're getting the idea here. And I have a broader question, because I think this is such a slam-ducking example of it, but I can think of many examples of people perjuring themselves in front of Congress. The latest that comes to mind is...

What is it? Howard Lutnick lied about being at Epstein Island. It came out in the files, he lied to Congress about it, and it's like, maybe that's not enough to... Have the will to prosecute someone. It is for me because you just perjured yourself.

So, does this just come down to the will? Who actually decides, yes, you perjured yourself in front of Congress? Because it just makes these subpoenas and hearings feel like kind of a sham. Nothing's going to happen. You can just lie to Congress. You can hide things like this. It's all going to be swept under the rug. Nothing's going to change. You can just plead the fifth. Until we get some actual jail time or punishment for... With betraying the public in this way, betraying the American people in this way, how are you ever going to gain back institutional trust with anyone?

I mean, you see the numbers. No one trusts the government right now. This is the biggest radicalizing event of my life. Josh, you okay? Yeah. Sorry, things are blowing up, but yeah. Oh, no. He's on with Fauci's lawyer. Yeah, I love that. No, I mean, I just, I feel like, you know, if you want, I mean, again.

This really cuts to the core of, I would say, you know, the modern secular liberals, you know, religion. Like, we're always supposed to trust the technocrats. We're always supposed to trust, you know, the people in the science or whatever. And all during the whole COVID stuff, it was like, well, you know, they're saying this is the safest thing to do, so we should shut everything down. And it's like, no, no, hold on a second. It is in politics.

Where we as a people are supposed to listen to this expert, then listen to another expert, and then our elected representatives are supposed to try to determine what is in the common good. And so, what happened, we had sort of a despotism, a tyranny of the elites in this country who decided, well, the safest thing we can do is have everyone shut down the economy, and you'd have to... And it was just, you know, there's no, like, well, what if that really has a lot of bad consequences, and is it really worth it because of this?

And any time people would ask those questions, they were shouted down and screamed at, and it turns out that these guys, even themselves now, from what these emails are pointing out, they're all liars. Great. I agree with all that, but to ask a specific government-related question, who actually decides whether or not punishments come for perjury? Is that?

It seems not Congress. It doesn't appear that he said anything today because he kept pleading the Fifth Amendment, so I don't know how they're going to get him on perjury for what he testified to today. I guess other high-profile examples of people lying to Congress. If he bans it, they throw him in jail. Well, he just refused to show up.

Yeah. Right, but he didn't lie. He just said, I'm not going to come, you know. Yes, well, that's okay. But for high-profile cases of perjury, who decides? You perjure yourself, you're going to go to jail. Well, you can either have the just, you know, what the Senate or the House will do is refer the person to the Justice Department for prosecution. Okay, Department of Justice. We had that with, you know, the former FBI director, Comey. Right, and did he? Comey just got removed, right?

He didn't go to jail. Right. He did not end up getting jail time. It's like, oh, it's so frustrating. So, I don't know. Yeah, and I think some of the speculation, too, is that based on his previous testimony, I believe the first time he was in front of the panel, was it June or May, but earlier this summer, he did go before the panel and testify that, in fact, he didn't know the origins of COVID at the time, and that he, you know, believed that it was from the, it was not gain-of-function reason.

So, I think some of the hope is that the diaries would offer a way to indicate perjury on that first testimony, but they're going to have to go more carefully through. Again, it's thousands and thousands of emails and pages, so there's some hope there. I think the easiest slam dunk would have been if he did testify today and contradicted his earlier testimony, then that's the obvious one, but as it is, it might have to go through that. So, continuing story whether or not anything happens to him, but man, talk about a cautionary tale for every American out there.

Well, where is he a doctor? He's a medical doctor. I would strip him of his medical license, so he can't call himself a doctor. Yeah, but he's 85 years old. Do what? Do it anyway. Yeah. Do it anyway. No, it would be a good symbolic step. I mean, I guess it's sad that that's all we can accomplish as a people, instead of throwing this guy in jail and strip him of his title.

We're not going to get national healing until someone sees jail time. Hillary Clinton should have saw jail time. People in the Bush cabinet should have saw jail time. They never did. They always get protected. So, it feels like we just keep going. I'm happy about this.

I actually am not happy about this, because Fauci is being a coward and not being transparent about how he acted, and we're never going to see progress until that actually happens. Either he's going to volunteer that, or he's going to be forced to do that, because we have so much information. We FOIA'd all these files. He wasn't smart about covering this up. It was all these emails. Everyone kind of knows it.

Well, can I interject for a second? Please go for it. I agree with your greater principle, is that we don't have... The appropriate level of justice yet. But today was a step forward. Today was a step forward in a major way, because the releasing of the diaries, and the Senate committee calling attention to this, and him having to be the fifth on everything, just allows us to now go tell people, like, hey, now. Remember, this is what actually is happening. Again, it is about understanding the history of this.

What had happened is a horrible thing had been done to our country. We were ruled by these elites, and now we can actually say, see, this guy was a liar. This guy was a fraud. This is why you don't give all the power to these people. And I will say this.

Even though Ron DeSantis was not really a great presidential candidate, and I love him to pieces. You know, maybe when he does decide to run for president, he should say, I'm not really good at running for president, but I would be a great president. Like, I wish he would just say that. That'd be awesome. But the fact of the matter is, I thank the good Lord for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. In these emails, we can just show how pissed off Fauci was that Ron DeSantis wasn't playing games and he wasn't rolling over to the Fauci guys.

So, that was awesome. And, again, I think that one judge who just said, no, we're done with this. We're done with forcing airlines to put the masks on. Yes, I remember that day. Literally, I remember where I was that day. That was the beginning of the end. We're like, okay, great. We're done with this crap. Yep. We're done with this.

I think you're underselling DeSantis. No, I'm not underselling him. If it's even possible to undersell, he went against the advice of all of his... Council and elite people, the legal people, and just, no, this is wrong. I'm not going to do it. Well, precisely because Donald Trump has some weaknesses. I mean, I do think the good Lord for Donald Trump, like him getting elected in 2016, and then him serving the second term, like, it is what was the right way. And I love DeSantis, and I still was more actually for Trump for 24, precisely because I didn't think the country was ready for DeSantis just yet.

I mean. That's the kind of thing, but Donald Trump, you know, does have some flaws. Obviously, we all do, and one of his flaws is he loves media attention, and the media was 1,000% in favor of the whole total shutdown, and Donald Trump was like, you know, a businessman, and normally would be like, no, it doesn't sound right, but he went along with it for a little bit too long, and thank God. He still won't apologize for the vaccine. Thank the good Lord.

That the voters of Florida, you know, that were there, that close to electing that, you know, someone else instead of DeSantis, the guy turned out to be, remember that mayor, that black mayor? Yeah. He's in jail. I literally think he's in jail right now. Yeah, he was arrested recently. Yeah, I mean, the guy is just an absolute nut bar. Andrew Gillum. Was it Gillum? Yeah, that's it. I think it was, yeah. I was in Florida at the time. I was going to school at Ave.

And I remember that was a close race, and DeSantis was not a household name. By the way. No, no, no, no. He only got that, but see, the thing is, I still give credit to Trump, because DeSantis won that primary, because he got a massive boost from Donald Trump in the primary, and then DeSantis got elected governor, and then he got re-elected in a landslide. It was so big, as the numbers were coming in in Florida, I thought, oh, wow. Because he got results, right?

This is going to be amazing. The Republicans are going to rock this midterm, and in fact, they did not. That was a sad night. However. So, here is two different Catholic men. Anthony Fauci, the expert who is enamored with his own version of himself and adoring the media adulation, and then Ron DeSantis, who is willing to be like, no, the emperor is wearing no clothes. This is stupid. Why are we doing this? And there is a clip of Ron DeSantis, actually very heartwarming, where he talked about it back, this is in 21st century.

20 or 21, and he spoke movingly. Now, politicians may lie, so maybe this is phony, but it felt real. He was talking about how these people just want to be with their loved ones as they die. They know there's no hope of a cure. Let's let them be there with it, and they wouldn't. There are certain places they just refuse to let people watch their family members die. They have to see them behind a glass, and thankfully, you know, that wasn't the case.

With my own grandparents, our family members in rural Minnesota were able to see them, but there's a lot of people who were in different places that could not. They could not actually see the loved ones die, and they pulled up a sign against the wall saying, they're in peace now. Yeah, he's in peace. That photograph. Well, the person who put that sign up, if it were my wife or someone I love, they would not be in peace. I'd be giving it to them.

Yeah, it does feel like COVID was kind of like a great national sin, and even the fact that we're talking about this today on the top story, I think is kind of a sign at how much pain. Six years later. This was six years ago, and this is like, wow, this is really painful and personal to everyone, and hopefully a good... I saw Trump Truth something about like... I got rid of Massey. It's scaring Rand Paul into doing a good job, because I think Rand Paul is getting a lot of credit, obviously, for going after Fauci here.

He deserves a credit. He doesn't let go on this. And so, it might be just a good advice to the admin or to people running of, this is still really potent. If you can find ways to get justice for people afterwards, that's a huge, at least from my perspective, that'd be a huge gold star. Well, I mean, and again, like... The joke of having, you know, some people on the left who want reparations for slavery, when we fought a civil war over this over 175 years ago, but they won't talk about reparations for all the people who lost their businesses, you know, that were crushed.

Soldiers dishonorably discharged. I remember that. Kicked them out of the military. I mean... And some of those guys, by the way, Hegseth is Brom Pack. Yeah, I did see that, and I give him a ton of credit for that. And for all my frustrations with Hegseth, too, it seems like he really got rid of a lot of the DEI, like insanity.

And so, I credit him for that. That was crazy. I remember when that was a huge morale killer. So, yeah. We got to put it down on the DEI front. I don't know if you saw this, but the story came out just yesterday that amongst, I don't know, the Wall Street Journal or whoever reported this, but... Amongst Fortune 500 companies, they had a record drop in the number of minorities and women appointed to different boards, precisely because there was an overabundance of that over the last seven, eight years.

People were like, maybe we need a little course correction and stop just promoting people for the sake of promotion, and actually have people on our boards that can make sure that we're doing the right thing. Again, three cheers for meritocracy instead of this baloney. Josh, I think it is because we got rid of USAID. That is my new favorite or anything changing. I saw Choose in Texas by Ella Langley had the top spot. It is about to break a hip-hop record, and everyone is like, it is because we cut USAID.

The nation is healing. Country music. She is the female soloist with the longest running number one hit. It beat Mariah Carey's song or whatever. It is a banger. It is not AI. It is a banger. It is so good.

The nation is healing, guys, one step at a time. Well, all of the nation, except one particular location. Let's talk groceries. Let's talk grocery stores. Wow. Okay, so this is the one thing that I'm like, you know, the socialism craze. You know, you could probably go after other industries. I would not go after the grocery industry. It's truly a marvel of supply chain and ingenuity, and I have my issues with, say, the industrial nature of it, but it really is incredible that you can go to your grocery store and have fresh bananas there for a cheap price.

So, it's very, you know, understandable. I agree with you. I want to stop you right there for a second, because you went to school in Florida. It used to be you could only get oranges in Florida. Yeah, but you can get oranges in northern Michigan.

Four feet of snow on the ground. Dude, any season. Yeah, exactly. And there's access to that. I don't want to totally glaze it, because it's tough when you're somewhere and you're like, why am I eating beef from Argentina when I'm in Iowa? Quick pause. We're going to do a deep ad, because tomorrow's episode of The Deep talks exactly about this issue, but also pointing out that all of this accusation against grocery stores about price gouging and they're just getting the wealth.

The grocery store owners, Walmart's getting rich off of the poor. They operate at like a 2% margin, maybe three, maybe three, like, yeah. Maybe one. Last 4D critique, Walmart benefits off of the welfare state so they can underpay their employers. That's a whole nother beef I have. Yeah, you don't, okay, that's a whole other episode. And I'll say, socialism, it's hilarious that. We talk like we don't live in socialism currently. Like, I pay so much of my paycheck to go towards entitlements, okay?

Like, 40%, 50% of my paycheck, entitlements. So, we live in a version of redistribution right now. This is a new kind. This is a whole new level. Okay, but I've got to jump on Erika, which she just said about the profit margin for just two seconds. What is the worst company, the most rapacious capitalistic company we have in this country? Obviously, it's Amazon. They squeeze profit out of everything in the supply chain. They're so terrible. We hear from wholesalers, we don't get hardly any money from Amazon.

Profit, profit, profit, profit. Amazon's like, hey, let's get into the grocery stuff. And they're like, wait a minute, this is the profit line? Peace, I'm out. They're done. There's no nickels to squeeze. Yeah, only Whole Foods will deal with them because no one else wants to go near that. All right, so to properly set up this section, okay, I saw like a graph that literally stopped me in my tracks, but... I couldn't believe it was real, but I feel it was real because anyone that's gone to the grocery store recently is like, how did...

It's crazy how expensive stuff has gotten recently. And the chart kind of plays this out. So, here we have the price of food purchased for home use rose 33% from 2019 to 2026. Consumers are now buying fewer of their favorite foods and less food overall. If you take a look at this chart. It just explodes. You talk about Fauci being mad at Fauci. It just explodes in 2020. I mean, we were really, it's pretty reasonable at this point, and then 2020 to 2026, I mean, we're looking at like a 40% increase.

It's shocking, and everyone feels it. I feel it. That's in the seven and a half years before that period of time, prices only rose 6.4%. So, from 2020 to now, 33% more expensive. Would you like to say something about that, Josh? Well, I'm just looking at the graph, and it looks like the worst part of it was the years 2021 and 2022.

I mean, it's not like it's great, but since 2023, it's still upward, but it's the real hockey stick. The rate has slowed, right. The rate has slowed. 21 and 22. Right. Right. So, we are looking at coronavirus pandemic, of course.

Right. Droughts, hurricanes, diseases, bird flu, if you remember that, with the chickens, tariffs, Russia's ongoing war with Ukraine, disrupted oil and fertilizer. We are now looking at the war with Iran, disrupting fertilizer. So, people are kind of scared about this again. So, I will just say...

You know, the concern about increase in prices, these aren't people eating out. This is not, you know, buying expensive food. We're talking about core basket of goods at your average grocery store. Significantly, no question. And so, people are concerned about this. This is a major election issue that's going to be coming up in the midterms, and I understand. So, we get now Gotham Mayor, Mayor Mondani. I'll play his little press piece here, and then we get into his plan.

We know that for many New Yorkers, 30% at the grocery store means something very different. Since 2019, food prices have soared at grocery stores around the country by roughly 30%, in fact. Talk to shoppers around the city, and you'll often hear the same frustration.

Wages have not kept up. Making matters even worse, some corporations have built out technology that allows for something called surveillance pricing. Collecting personal data to charge some people more than others for the same carton of eggs, for the same gallon of milk. All of this leaves too many New Yorkers feeling like groceries are out of reach, and that is frankly unacceptable, which is why city government is stepping in to make people's lives more affordable.

Today, I am proud to announce a collection of essential staples that will be predictably 30% cheaper at all five of our city-run grocery stores. This core set of goods will include all fresh produce, meat, and seafood, along with 20 other essential items like cheese, milk, and bread. Here's how it will work. Once a month, our five city-run grocery stores will set prices for this core set of goods at 30% below typical retail prices. No exceptions, no gimmicks. The savings will last for the entire month.

That means no weekly fluctuations nor sticker shock at the checkout line. Not for our seniors living on fixed incomes, nor for the parents who rely on a regular supply of apple slices to keep toddler tantrums at bay. What?

Can we all see? Yeah, let's do it. Okay. This, you know, pretty expectedly set off a lot of people who are familiar with... Public owned stores. Basic economics. So, basic plan details, to be as fair as possible. The city will build and own the stores. New York City plans to establish five supermarkets under the NYC Groceries brand, one in each borough. The city has already allocated $70 million in capital funding to acquire or prepare sites, construct and renovate buildings, equip them as functioning grocery stores.

The city will prioritize publicly owned property, but may lease private locations when necessary. So, private grocers would actually operate them. Despite the city-run label, the city does not plan to handle everyday retail operations. They're soliciting private grocery companies through a competitive request for proposal. The winning operator, or possibly multiple operators, will be responsible for hiring, purchasing food, establishing supply chains, stocking, merchandising, inventory, customer service, food safety, security, theft prevention, potentially developing a NYC Groceries private label brand.

Operators are expected to be selected early 2027, so this is very much on the early side of that. Taxpayers remove some of the store's overhead. The idea is that stores can charge less because the city will absorb costs that private supermarkets normally have to recover through prices. City plans to provide lower no-cost retail space, construction, and initial build-out, rent, property taxes, and additional targeted subsidies for discounted food. Selected groceries will receive that 30% discount. I guarantee they got this number from that chart that I just showed because you see that around the 30%.

And he kind of mentioned it, but it'd be fresh produce, meat and seafood, eggs and milk, etc., etc. So, we're not talking about like pop or cigarettes or anything like that. And then the city imposes labor and product requirements. This is the interesting thing.

We have, must provide what the administration calls family-sustaining wages and benefits, observe workplace protections, and sign a labor peace agreement allowing employees to organize without company interference. It's a worker's paradise. I'm not sure what that number is going to be.

So yeah, I mean, the obvious question here is that $70 million covers construction and fit out, but definitely does not say what the rest of this cost is going to be, let alone the impact on local bodegas and other privately owned grocery companies trying to operate within New York City. Because if you're going to have that much lower of a cost, you're definitely impacting their competition. I mean, this is basically like a monopoly squeeze out. So that's the plan. I'll let you guys speak on the first things that come to mind.

Well, I mean, like, again, there's this perception that this is somehow... A sector of the economy with a very high profit margin, and if we just got rid of that profit margin and provide that cost savings to the people, that the people will be able to get groceries for so much lower. But it's, in fact, not the case. There are pharmaceutical companies, software, there are businesses that have higher profit percentages, but not food. Food is like 2%. So what are you going to do?

How are you going to keep this going? The city of New York is going to be buying all these groceries and then selling them for less than what they paid for them. Well, they're going to have to then subsidize all the purchases through the taxpayer.

And so, people just think, oh, this is awesome. I got my bananas, you know, for 30% off. It's like, well, no. You paid for the grocery store. The worst is somebody who doesn't live in the city of New York could come in and buy those groceries for cheaper, unless they're going to make you require show ID that you're in New York City. So, what ends up happening is, how does this keep going? I mean, you have to bring in more and more money, and they're going to have...

They're going to be facing with these problems, these price constraints, where they're like, okay, well, suddenly they're going to run out of money, and they're going to be like, well, we're only going to do five items a month, or they're going to run out of money. It always is the case, and the shelves will be empty.

Erika? Yeah, I mean... It's hard to know where to begin. I think all the points that Josh makes, 100% true. I also, the fact is... The New York, these five city-owned grocery stores, they will have to establish supply chains, right? And who's going to participate in this? Because you get all these suppliers to say, basically, the cost will be so high to participate in these government grocery stores, and the suppliers aren't going to get the same amount of money back.

You understand that the city will try to discount what they pay for the food, because that is what the government does already with Medicaid-indicated doctors. Yeah, it is just, again, like... Doctors deny Medicare and Medicaid for that exact reason? It's the policy of all populist policy that, okay, the government's going to provide free stuff, and what Americans have to get through their heads is that when the government provides it, it's not free because you paid for it. I disagree.

Oh, Josh, let her rip. It's free for that person. I paid for it. That's true, yeah. But the person who didn't pay taxes gets it for a great deal. Well, really, the middle class pays for it. They get the subsidy. Right, yeah. So, the people who are on welfare get it. You get the subsidy, so it's redistribution. Right, it's redistribution of wealth, and I've lost track of what else I was going to say. I'm sorry. I'm just thinking from, I don't know if it's the entrepreneurial kick or whatever, but I'm thinking from the perspective of a bodega owner.

Like, I'm paying you? taxes for you to crush me and put me out of business? Right. I would be so mad about this if I was... There's so many different ways you can go about this. Especially since Mamdani's TikTok politics, he campaigned by going up to people in food trucks and little... He called them his abuelas at the bodega. So, remember those? He's like, my abuela at the bodega. And I'm like, you are literally going to put abuela into poverty, and she's going to be dependent on your government handouts.

But you know what? That's actually the point, because they would love For more people to be dependent on the welfare state. That is the end game here, and I think that it's, again, this is not. He's not doing this. One of the reporters during this press conference actually raised his hand and was like, New York has one of the most robust food bank and private charity networks in the country, and it's almost impossible to starve to death in New York City unless you're on drugs and you can't get yourself to these places.

He's like, why don't we just take the $70 million and give it to the private charities already handing out food staples? Like, you go to a- And they give you exactly what you're describing for free. Why don't we just use the existing structure instead of building these new, you know, and there's no plan for the continuing cost of operating government grocery stores? And Zoran Mandani is like, we want to do all the things. We'll continue to do this, but we also will have the government do it because the government does it best.

And then he did his old, like, Ronald Reagan once said, the scariest words are from the government, and I'm here to help. Well, I disagree with Ronald Reagan. He pulled that out again. He said it. And he's like, no, it's actually the state will do it best. And the answer is no, because we have watched the state do it. Not just in, and everyone pulls out Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, but it hasn't just happened there. We tried this in Kansas City. Josh can tell us the exact date, probably.

But the Kansas City-owned grocery stores, like four months after they open, they have reporters going through it, and the shelves are empty. Shipments come in. Immediately, there are these long lines. Everything is bought up at the discounted prices, and then there's no new shipment for a week, and it's just, it never works, and we know it doesn't work here. We know it doesn't work in communist countries. It doesn't work in soft socialist countries. Perhaps it works in Sweden, where we have a homogenous population that all get along, and they're all basically of the same class, but it does not work here.

The Sweden analogy is so dumb to me because the Norse countries actually have probably more robust capitalism than we do. Yeah, at this point. I mean, in their market economy, yes. Like, they compete differently. They don't have the same monopolies we do.

Well, we could probably handle a higher level of socialism precisely because we've got a larger-sized economy for a while. But, you know, it's funny because I can't help but think about a time when Boris Yeltsin, the former leader of...

The Russian government. He actually came to Houston in 1989, and he visited a grocery store, and this is like a very underrated seminal moment in the Cold War. Because he was absolutely astounded by what he saw in the grocery stores, because, you know... This is your favorite picture. It's my favorite picture of all time. Here he is, Boris. He's like, I can't believe it. Look at all this stuff. He's a big guy like me. He likes to eat a lot of food, okay?

And see, the difference is... In communist countries, people wait in line for bread. In capitalist countries, bread waits at the store for us. I prefer that model, actually. Thank you very much. And so now, this photo of Boris Yeltsin, just absolutely astounded by all the many different things that are available at a grocery store, that every common man, every common worker can afford to purchase this. And I think we sometimes forget about that. And so, but anyway, this photo is so iconic, and what people are doing right now is they're roasting Mondami with it.

So, you can see in this caption, someone put up a fun little thing, the drunk Republican. This is, you know, this photo Boris Yeltsin, like, this is New Yorkers vacationing in Florida next year. They've been having to deal with socialist grocery stores for the previous, you know, Mondami regime. Yeah, I mean, this is small. Like, it's only going to be five stores, and like, I just, I've... Really, I don't know what kind of magic has to happen for this to actually succeed.

Like, there's so many different... So, it's funny, you brought up that video from Emdani, because of course, we were all following the social media campaign that he ran. I mean, he was an upstart, super surprising. And he went in there, and his thing was, I'm actually going to be cutting regulations for these small mom and pop businesses. You don't need to get as many licenses, you don't have to pay as many fees. And I'm like, that's great. That's great. That's great.

That's actually the solution. If you want more grocery stores in New York, you need to cut those regulations, cut down how much you have to pay. And it's the same thing with a lot of these New Yorkers that they're struggling with the food prices. Totally understand. Then cut taxes on them. Cut taxes on them. Maybe you can increase the tax on the wealthy a little bit, but if you're increasing the tax on the wealthy to subsidize a grocery industry that's going to be way less efficient and cause problems with local competition, you're making it worse.

So... I hate it. I hate that so much, yeah. Why don't you cut taxes on all grocery stores? I mean, I actually don't prefer that. I prefer a level playing for everything, but if you're going to favor a business, say, you know what, you bodegas, we're not going to charge you property taxes. Yeah, there's so many ways to go about this that don't involve a government-owned grocery store. It just seems like, you know, it's probably bound to happen, but in excess, right?

There's so many different ways that socialism can sound appealing, because we're looking at the grocery prices, because we see it, but this is the last industry I would go after, because... You mentioned it too. If these grocery stores have to go find these type of supply chains, that's why the grocery stores end up empty. Because you think you're going to do a better job than Kroger, Meijer, Walmart, Aldi. They're ruthlessly competing with all of their suppliers. They're literally probably shaving pennies.

I mean, they've perfected over years and years and years. If the government comes in and they start throwing money around, why would these places... You've got to sell at 30%... They're going to leave the city. Why would they stay? Yeah, I don't know. This doesn't... Well, I think... Oh, sorry. To the point that his proposals that sound more, oh, conservative or Republican, like cut regulation, that he has made these points, and he has made a couple of changes. You can go on the website, and they have...

Cut some regulations. But they don't have big press conferences announcing this, because it doesn't appeal to the base that elected him. What the base wants to see are the free buses, the free groceries, the rent freezes. They want to see these sort of radical destabilizing policies touted, and so that's why he's out there, because he's appealing to them.

And I think another tactic that appeals to the base is something that he did this week in addition, and this was the doxing, essentially, of the addresses of people who will be subject to not just the Pieta tear tax that he's introducing, but it seems like he's also lumped into this database that the city has published, middle-class homes, any home worth over a million dollars. Basically, ...has been put out on the searchable, very easily searchable database on the New York City, and he, during the same press conference with the grocery stores, he said, the reason I'm doing this is because we want to protest, and New Yorkers have a proud history of protesting.

So, it's not just saying, okay, we're going to tax people with second homes and tax the rich. He actually wants to hurt the rich. He's putting their names out there in an environment where... Luigi Mangione's are touted as heroes. This was completely, it's, oh my gosh, it's reckless, honestly, is what I would say for that. Well, what a way to invite, you know, again, this is like, you know, kill the golden calf, right? Like, if you want to be able to use a ton of money from wealthy people in New York City.

You know, to fund all these social programs, to fund your socialist grocery stores. Yeah, that is one thing, but then at some point, they are going to be like, I am sick and tired of being the city's ATM, especially if you are going to target me and pretend like I am the enemy. I think my brother works in the finance world, and he says that people are starting, with Mondami, they're starting to slowly but surely move out, because for a while there, New York City's had a lot of super high taxes.

The state of New York has a high income tax, and then the city itself of New York City has a high income tax, and property taxes are higher. All these things are, you know, the biggest canard in democratic politics, they always talk about like, oh, the top 1% need to pay their fair share. It's like, it's such a joke. Like, they pay enormous taxes. But the fact that, and there is a lot, you know, New York City has been the financial capital for, you know, 150 years or whatever.

So, there's still, like, it makes sense to stay there. But at some point, he's... My brother said he's in the financial world. He's starting to see these companies. They're going to be leaving New York City. They're going to go to Miami. Miami is going to be the financial capital, I think, pretty soon, because they're not going to put up with this. At some point, it's like, especially you can live remote or whatever, but no, I think they're going to kill the golden calf here.

I think New York has positioned itself with such a strong economy for so long, leader of the free world with their economy. You elect someone like this. Guess we'll see. Speaking of elections, let's go on to ground game for 2026 and 2028. I put this in front of Josh, and he said, this is actually all I pay attention to all day.

So, I'm excited to hear what he has to say about this. We get a new national poll. This was actually sent to us by the tinfoil Tom, Tom McCluskey. So, we have a national poll by YouGov. And we're looking at President Trump. He's at 34% approval rate. That's down two points since the last poll. And then disapproved, 62%, up 2% since the last poll. This is Trump's lowest approval in either term. They have not approval for all the different demos here.

You can take a look here at the graph. That's the baseline. Erika, I don't think Democrats are any more popular, unfortunately, if I take a look here at, this was a Harry Entenman poll. Back in 2018, when Democrats were able to take control of the House, they were actually on the plus side of the ledger. They were actually in positive territory at plus one point. Look now in 2026. We're not just talking down there underneath the Potomac. We're talking down there with the Titanic.

We're talking 24 points underwater, and this is just the party overall. This isn't the congressional leadership. This is the party. The party. It's just a terrible, terrible, terrible rant. Terrible. I want to almost get my trawl far. I love this guy. He really does kind of zhuzh it up there for the thing. It's like that's me on a- That's me on a bad podcasting day. Like, I have one word. Terrible. The funny thing about both of these, though, is that was Trump and Democrats.

I didn't even mention Republicans. I think Republicans generally, probably even lower than Trump in terms of getting things done, like passing the SAVE Act or just doing just about anything in Congress. I think you saw... Interesting there, though. Yeah, so Trump has tanked negative, right, he was positive six, and now he's at negative 24. I don't want the Economist poll. Give me a break. Philip Morris, he's an idiot. Yeah.

Okay, wait, you want the YouGov poll? We'll give you the YouGov poll. That's why you come to Lucas. So, Trump's approval fell from plus six to negative 24 in 18 months. Yeah, GOP not tanking as quickly as... Democrats or as Trump? So, only down by six points. Don't even know how to do that. But also, if you could go back to the first one. So, the House ballot is, hold on, the House ballot, they have it as Democrats plus what? Six?

Right there? Plus six, yes. 2026 House ballot, yep. That's about right. I mean, that's... Yep. There's some that have it at plus nine, there's some that have it at plus three, so... All right, I feel like splitting hairs over the polls kind of is super unproductive. No, I'm not trying to split hairs. No, not you, Josh. That's probably accurate. I think it's... Yeah, yeah, yeah, not you. I just mean in general. The point I was trying to establish is Trump historically unpopular, Republicans pretty unpopular, Democrats historically unpopular, but you get into looking for 2026, you know, what's the ground game, what are the attacks?

The one thing that really stuck out to me is the difference in money. I see, and maybe you know more about this in terms of... Fundraising and effectiveness. Another big issue shows how on the edge the DNC is. You actually see that the DNC put its physical headquarters up for collateral last year in order to obtain a $15 million line of credit to help invest in off-year elections. I mean, that does not scream things are going great. How big of an issue is that, and how do you see that playing in at this point?

Yeah, and actually, by the way, a notice covered yesterday, too, that the DNC lost nearly $29,000 to an email scammer, posing as their chairman, Ken Martin. Was he from Nigeria? Yeah. It's just like... The Nigerians have been scouts for the DNC. The Democrats have had a lot of problems raising money, and again, you wonder if it is USAID, because ActBlue is this big funnel for getting money. There is a guy in Michigan.

With Michigan and Joyner, he went around to this lady who lives literally in a mobile home, and she's like 80 years old, and she is a Democratic voter. She votes for Democrats, she donates some, and she's like, and he says to her, you know, it's Charlie Duff, he goes, did you by any chance, you know, donate $78,000 to Democratic candidates? And she's like, What? And so, it just turns out that Ag Blue used her name to, you know, to funnel a bunch of these donations, because there's no way this woman has $78,000.

I mean, she just, she's like, I don't have that kind of money. Like, and so you start to wonder, like, you know. Was it just USAID money flowing through ActBlue to give up all these candidates? You start to wonder, because it doesn't add up, and in fact, it does not add up. The Democratic National Committee is broke. They actually are in debt, and the Republican Party is flush. The RNC is flush with cash. Trump's PAC has got a ton of cash.

All the Republican Senate and Republican House committees are all flush with cash. And they're reserving tons of ads, and they better spend it, but the financial edge is clearly with the Republican Party, and the fact is, you look at the Democrats, their approval is, you know, as Harry Enten said, they're 24 points underwater, and it's precisely because they're a much better spot. In the midterm, for Trump's first thing, because they could rally around the fact that Donald Trump didn't really win.

The American people didn't really want him because he just got the electoral vote, but not the popular vote. Well, Trump got the popular vote this time, so you can't really use that against him. It's harder to get people motivated.

And we talked about it last episode. They couldn't even use the Iran war, you know, to motivate true people. And so, it's harder and harder. There's less protests going on around the country because, again, I think USAID was probably funneling that stuff. I believe these protesters are paid. And I do think, though, when you look at the election, I do look at the polls.

You know, they are a barometer. They are something to look at, and I don't like poll truthers. I agree with you on that. You get these people like, well, that poll tells me something I don't like, therefore, I'm going to discard it. Right. No, I wouldn't say that. No, no, no, certainly not. There are some things to consider, though, as caveats. Summer polls aren't usually as accurate. The ones in September are going to get to be a little bit more of a picture.

But I think... What we, in general, do is we look at polls as like, well, this is the best indicator of what's really going on, because you're asking people what they want. Maybe. Maybe it's not the number one indicator, though.

And again, these are polls that are conducted by media outlets, and I'm not trying to suggest they all have an agenda. I really do believe that some of them really are trying to discern what's going on. There is a lot of biases, though, in polls, because sometimes they don't ask the question right, and sometimes the only people who answer it are people who are super excited. They're the school monitors in high school. Yeah, and people, you know, the average Joe Sixpack is like, screw you, hang it up.

See, there is some of that selection bias. That's what I would do. But I would say. Oh, I answer every one. Oh, really? Oh, great. Here's another poll, and I'm on the horn for 20 minutes answering every question. I love filling those out, too.

I'm obviously a random sample of the Michigan border. No, but here's the thing to take away from this. The best thing to look at is not the polls. Polls you should look at, don't immediately discount them, but the number one thing to look at Where are the parties?

So, I saw this thing that, you know, our friend Tinfoil Tom posted on the note like this. What is the Senate makeup going to look like if the election were today? You know, what would happen? And this prognosticator suggested that Democrats would win 51 seats in the Senate. And I'm like, no, I'm sorry. That's just not the case. I do think if the election were held today, they retain Georgia. They do flip North Carolina. So, I agree. They definitely gain one seat.

Maine, it's just too hard to tell. Maybe, let's say they get Maine, though, because it has been a very blue state for a long time, and they finally think that they can finally knock Susan Collins over the edge. So, if I grant them those two, they still need to win two more, and that means they need to win in states like Ohio, or Texas, or Iowa, or Alaska. Those are four states that all voted for Trump by 10 points or more.

Now, sometimes, yeah, you have a weak candidate on the Republican side and a strong candidate on the Democratic side, so you can make it a race. But the fact of the matter is, if you look at the way people are spending money, The different parties. This does not tell you that this is going to be a blue wave. Like, on the House side, it's Democrats are freaking out because there's certain seats, like Michigan 7th, where the Looney Tune Democrat is probably going to win the nomination there, instead of a more establishment candidate that would actually have a chance of flipping the district.

Stephen? If you actually look at where the Democrats are spending their money and where Republicans are spending their money. It would tell you that, yes. Democrats will probably do well in the election because it's a midterm election. Historically, they do well. Do they have the chance to win the House? Yes, I've said this all year.

It's theirs to lose. They still might lose it, but it's still theirs to lose. But the Senate, they would have to be performing much better in the polls than they are right now to be able to win two Senate seats in four red states that are very red. I just don't see it happening. Now, do we have... Kelsey agrees with you. Yes. Kelsey agrees with you. I just have to put in the prediction markets, because we've got spending of the money, we have the polls, and we have the prediction markets.

Thumbs down on prediction markets. So, how would Josh, how would the Oracle of Petoskey rank those three sources of... That prophetic gesture. Well, someone could make a really good case that the betting markets would be better than the polls, because this is people putting their own money on what they think is going to happen. But then you look at some races, like Wisconsin First, and I'm like, they're selling dollars for 66 cents. There's no way Democrats are flipping that race. Give me a break.

You guys are idiots. So, sometimes people are dumb, but they're spending. No, look. The media does their polls, right, and they want to try to get the news, and they want to try to reflect what's going on. They do, let's say, let's just say they want, but if you're the Democratic Party, and you've got millions and millions and millions of dollars on the line, if your guy wins or not, right, with this Senate seat or that House seat, they don't rely on whether or not the economist has got a true poll or not.

They do their own polling. And based on that, they make millions of dollars of decisions. Not like some guy on Twitter is like, I think the Democrats are going to do great, and they bet $100 on some Senate race. No, no, no. I'm talking about the people in the know who see the numbers, and then they make decisions based on it. So, absolutely, where the parties are spending the money is the number one. You know what they say in real estate?

The top three things to look at in real estate, location, location, and location. Well, when it How are the parties doing? How the parties are spending money is number one, two, and three. Is there a place to find that easily accessible for people that want to look past these places? I mean, easily accessible, I mean, I guess. It's not like super easy, but like you can look at, I mean, the FTC reports. All these parties have to do is spend their money, and there's people that follow this stuff.

This is why you look to me, because I follow the guys who track this stuff. That's right. And I see, wait a minute now, why are Democrats spending a ton of money in this district? Do they think they can flip this one? Like, hold on. And then you start to find out stuff, and then what happens is, this will happen occasionally, where the Democrats might say, hmm, we're doing better in this district than we thought. Our candidates are resonating with voters, and so they start spending a bunch of money in a race that we think is, you know, Republicans think is safe.

And then usually what happens is the Republican House Committee comes to that member and says, yeah, dude, you need to start spending money, and you start spending more money in your district, and you start spending more time in your district with voters. Because you're cruising for bruising, and what happens is sometimes the policy is like, no, no, no, no, I'm totally safe. I've got nothing to worry about. You need to go over to that district, and then they lose, and they're like, see, I told you.

So, the parties, like, they're ruthless. They want to win. And so, it's sometimes, you know, so I look to that. I think that's the better route. Okay, you look there, and so if that's so important, taking out collateral on your headquarters is not a great sign for... It's not a great sign. Well, I mean, again, here's what you have to ask yourself. The Democratic Party wants you to vote for them.

For the House, for the Senate, for government, right? And they can't even manage their own party's finances. So, what do you think they're going to do if they run the government? Like, it's not a good sign. We've already done it. We know. Was part of this the $1 billion in spend on Kamala, and they just haven't recovered from that? Like, why are they so broke right now?

That's a good question. I mean, I think, again, I do wonder if there is some of this underhanded corruption kind of stuff going on. You know, like, do some of these bigger donors, like Soros, did they funnel money through?

ActBlue, you know, the website stuff, did they, I kind of half-jokingly said USAID, I wouldn't be surprised. But like, I just, I think some of the bigger donors to the Democratic Party aren't really hit with what's going on right now. They're kind of holding back a little bit because they expected to win in 24. And then now you've got like this.

There's craziness with the DSA candidates taking over the party. I think there's a lot of Democrats going, I don't know if this is what I want. Well, you have DSA and you. We had news this week that Kamala Harris is indeed contemplating announcing her candidacy.

I instantly send it to Josh. It's my favorite. And what else happened in the news this week that elevated her chances of winning? The Democratic Party decided on the calendar for their primaries. And, you know, this is where they pick the six states that are going to be the first six to decide who will, you know, cast their ballots to decide who they want to run for president on the Democratic side. And the first state is not Iowa or New Hampshire.

It's South Carolina. And South Carolina has a massive Black vote in the Democratic Party. And that's what Joe Biden was able to resurrect himself from the death. He was, what, fifth place? He got like 7% in New Hampshire. And James Clyburn, the black Democrat, the congressman from South Carolina, resurrected his career and pulled Joe Biden across the line, and then he was able to revive his campaign. Well, they're the first state to vote this time. So, I do think Kamala Harris is going to be in a great spot to perform very well in South Carolina.

And then the last, you know, then there's a few other states like, you know, New Mexico, Nevada, and that kind of stuff, and then it ends with Virginia, and Virginia is another state where they vote for the establishment, the Democratic voters in Virginia are going to vote for the establishment. They all work for the establishment. Virginia is literally the establishment. It's the suburbs of D.C. So, Kamala Harris will do very well in Virginia. So, that actually increases her chances. I mean, again, I'm not...

I also, like, there's some Republicans and conservatives like, oh, this is awesome. Kamala Harris is the nominee. She'll obviously lose. She's not going to obviously lose, but she's a flawed candidate. So, yes, I would prefer a flawed candidate, but I never take anything for granted. Right. Okay, speaking of 2028, you got to take a look at the other opponent. Obviously, lots of talk about Rubio and J.D. Vance. I saw funny people were analyzing the pictures when Netanyahu was in the Oval Office, and then when Zelensky was in the Oval Office, and J.D.

Vance was not. In the one with Selensky, if anyone remembers the last time JDS was in the one with Selensky, it went that way. He was in there with BB. But yeah, Lindsey Graham funeral, lots of people in town, especially those two, so we're going to see. We're at somewhat of a standstill in the Iran war, although I saw that we reported a sneak attack. CENTCOM reported a sneak attack last night that all the missiles were shot down, so we'll see what goes on there.

But I thought I'd bring this up. This kind of made the rounds. I don't know if this is too niche, but... So, there's a pretty coordinated political project to attack J.D. Vance, just from a casual observer. It seems that way to me. So, I'll play the clip, and this one made the rounds. Lots of opinions going around. Let's see.

If you destroy everything that is, what comes next is never better. I don't think we're necessarily going to get Hitler 2.0. We might. We might get Stalin 2.0. We're in a really tough spot. They have called forth a demon of white identity politics. It's here. I had hoped J.D. Vance would be the guy- With whom you were friends. I don't know that we're friends anymore. People like J.D., maybe Marco Rubio, whoever runs for president, they're going to think that they can bring these radicals on side.

They're going to think that they can bring these radicals on side. They're making the Frans von Toph and mistake. His relationship with Tucker Carlson is very troubling. When Tucker told the world that he had been attacked by demons, people laughed at him. I didn't. Within a year becomes one of the most outspoken voices for anti-Semitism on the planet. I think this is going to be the major civilizational question of the rest of our lives. If the things that Rod Dreher has tried, Beard of Four has failed, what do we do?

We stop listening to Rod. That's what happens. That's what we do. That's the Jeremy Boring. The Jeremy Boring interview. Yeah, and just to give a little more... We're just two individuals, Erika, if you'd like to set them up. Yeah, so Jeremy Boring, of course, one of the co-founders of Daily Wire with Ben Shapiro, was ousted and has sort of reappeared on the public stage and has all sorts of explanations for why he hired Candace. Make him still look good. Yeah, makeup looks great, nice leather couch, very cool.

But in this interview with Rod Dreher, and Rod Dreher, of course, those of you, most Catholics know Rod Dreher for his book, The Benedict Option, which I believe was 2019, where he argued that Catholics and Orthodox Christians, and basically to preserve the West, we need to found these sort of Quasi-monastic communities, not to shut out the world, but to preserve what has been lost in the West, and what is under attack, in order to then be able to go forth and rebuild civilization.

So, he's best known for that book. Benedict of, you know, nursery Italy, yeah. Yeah, very, and it's a great book, actually. I highly recommend The Benedict Option. He also wrote Live Not by Lies, which was... I highly recommend reading the book. Exactly. I recommend the book as a way to understand, like, conservatism and all that. Okay.

That being said, in this interview, Rod Dreher aired private conversations that he claims he had with J.D. Vance last fall. He went to D.C., he got a lunch with the vice president, and he says that he warned J.D. Vance against the rise of the Gropers in D.C., and that in his visits to the city, he observed that 40% of the young Republican men in the city were anti-Jewish. Not just anti-Israel, but anti-Semitic, and that since then, he's been very disappointed to see that J.D.

Vance did not take his advice and seems to have doubled down, referring, of course, to the Rogan interview that we covered last week or two weeks ago, where Vance suggested that The state of Israel maybe has too much influence sometimes, and as Tom likes to say, in the gentlest of terms, I'm not pro-Israel. The most milquetoast critique of that sometimes our interests diverge with another country.

I mean, you could argue about how, you know, on a scale of one to ten, etc. But what Rod Dreher did here, to me, was... It's just tasteless at best, unwarranted attack at worst. Like, look, I had this conversation with the Vice President of the United States, and I had this high moral ground, and he hasn't lived up to it since then. And, oh, I have a book coming out in next month that explains how, because of guys like Vance, who used to be my friend, we're living in Weimar America.

And I'm sympathetic to arguments that we are analogous to Weimar America. I think we're probably closest to 1960. Russia, if you want to. I'm not. Okay, but wait, that's again, another thing. You can make an argument is the point. You can make an argument. You can offer historical evidence, but this particular attack on Vance came across as.

Tasteless, highly moralistic, and certainly guaranteed that Roger Ayer will not have a seat at the table in any kind of political decision-making, because he betrayed a trust. And it's odd, too, because he left the United States to go to Hungary to be a part of the Orban project, and that failed. Like, demonstrably failed. There's tons of corruption. It didn't work out. And I don't know if this is kind of a... Like a revenge or something? Because JD went out there to go campaign on behalf of Orban, and it still didn't work.

He was taking money from the Danube Institute, basically. It's like a Hungarian think tank that was funded by... They hired him. He worked for Danube. Yeah, he worked for them, paid them, he worked out there. Fine, right. But I guess my point, and what's been so annoying about this is... Like, anyone that's paying attention, right? Like, Jeremy Boring, if I could be as charitable as possible, strange individual, clearly carries the same political project that Ben Shapiro is engaged in currently, which is we need to gatekeep, and we need to cut everyone out, and anyone that holds this opinion or listens to certain people sometimes need to be cut out of the party that I'm somehow deciding.

Total gatekeepers. And it's not a successful political project because, of course, you need to build... Collisions. And I recognize the same things that, it's so odd that other people can't see, where I remember living under 2020 to 2020 to 2024, where we all were said, like, anyone that was mad about BLM, right? Like, BLM, they're burning down our cities. They're clearly stealing money. It's corrupt. Like, I don't have problems with black people, but this is a problem. Was instantly slandered as a racist, you know, akin to someone in the KKK.

Literally, that reached the level of mainstream news. Right. Here in 2025, and I'm watching the same thing being done, and they're using this, you know. He's basically a UN model debate nerd that was radicalized because he was shut off or whatever. I'm speaking of Nick Fuentes, but they're using him as that same extreme to try to slander people that are non-interventionist positions on Israel. If I could speak on behalf of someone that shares that opinion, what's most important to me is immigration, the economy, and national sovereignty.

And when he went over to D.C. and he got all this hysteria going about... 40% of the administration's groipers, yada, yada, yada. You realize you're doing the same thing to people that are on your side, like people that are actually trying to work towards those three goals, even if you disagree on the sovereignty bit or intervention bit. We should be working towards the same thing, and I felt like Charlie Kirk, not to open up a whole other can of worms, but he was very savvy at navigating these differences, right?

Building the coalition. We're not going to agree on everything. We have these open conversations, and we're all working towards, hopefully, similar goals, even if not all the same goals. And as soon as he died, rest in peace, it's just been this ridiculous, you know, you can't listen to this person, you can't listen to this person, evil, demons, yada, yada, yada, and it's like... Guys, let's get on the same page here. I really appreciated this from Nick Solheim. He's the CEO of American Moment.

I'll share it briefly. He said, Rod Dreyer is back in the U.S. for five minutes and is airing his private conversations with the VP, which falsely claiming that 40% of the people dedicating their youth to public service are groipers. At American Moment, we work daily with staff who Rod slanders and know them better than he or anyone parenting his dishonest claim ever could. Over the last few years, thousands of conservative men and women have flocked to D.C. to serve Donald Trump and J.D.

Vance. I interview them every day. They care about the future of their country and responded to Potus and Charlie Kirk's call to take responsibility for their inheritance. These are men and women of character that answer the call to serve the country, yada, yada, yada. The GOP establishment class hates them and will take any means to slander them and deny them the power to shape their country. Young men we bring to DC are not groipers. They think Nick Fuentes is a black pillar and a charlatan.

They want to see order restored in their country. They want mass deportations, no new wars, and the American worker and family uplifted. These are the issues which propel them to vote for the president. These are the issues that make them loyal to him and the conservative vision of the future. I would say, Bradley, that is an experience. I love that. And I have known guys that were like, during the whole heritage purge thing, it was so ridiculous. Like, you know. And also, Kevin Roberts, who, like, I really like Kevin Roberts, and I think he handled this, not perfectly, but he's shown a lot of moral character, I think, in trying to just navigate the crazy fever pitch to still move forward and move the football in a tough time.

But the purge and the leaked stuff and the accusations, it's just like, this is just so disgusting. I don't know who's responsible for the slander, and it's not productive. Like, well... Basically, J.D. Vance, he's come closest to articulating a sensible policy towards Israel and foreign wars to me. And I'm a 28-year-old white guy who experienced the last four years. If you think that he, if you're going to slander him as too far, as too extreme, who's going to work with you?

I'm way more extreme than J.D. Vance has articulated. And if you can't accept that into the right, what are we doing here? Who are we going to beat? It seems like there's way more unity on the other side, in which these ideals that you say you're scared about, but you need to have room for disagreements in terms of foreign policy. Of course, not excusing actual racism or total craziness, in which I don't think anyone in my position does, but you can't slander the rest of the people that have good arguments and want to have that out as this group of people.

That's why I really commend that quote that you put up by Nick Solheim. I think that really nailed it on the head. Countless number of people that are America first patriots. They want to see a country that has a sensible foreign policy, that has an immigration policy that actually doesn't undermine the American worker and citizens here at home, that believes in law and order and peace in the streets, instead of this kind of crazy stuff with the BLM and what they did.

And by the way, the BLM riots. I mean, remember the whole protest? I mean, just to go COVID on this, like, you know, we had to be six feet away from each other, but then they could march down the street altogether. You know, and the guy wants to go parasailing, and you're going to arrest him. Yeah, on the beach, yeah. But, I will say this about, okay, so I think if you're Rod Dreyer, and you really think that the young right is a major, has a major problem, and that they're way too open to anti-Semitism and, you know, Hitler-loving and all this other kind of stuff because of charlatans, I think, like Nick Fuentes.

And you bring this up to the Vice President. What if, gosh, I don't know, Rod, what if the Vice President disagrees with your assessment? What if he thinks more like Nick Solheim, and you're like, yeah, there's a few nutjobs, but for the most part, no, actually, most people are actually just America First patriots. They're not neocons that just want to bomb the hell out of Middle Eastern countries, and they actually, you know, so... And I have to give credit, like, as we're speaking, Michael Brandon-Doherty is giving it to him online.

Yeah, he's doing it. And Rod is just, like, the textbook definition of super Mr. Online. The guy publishes, you know, like, what, 5,000 words a day. I mean, the guy, he doesn't even have an unpublished thought. And I'm not going to, I think Sean Davis went a little too hard on slamming him the other day, but, you know, I get it.

The thing is, Michael Brandon Doherty points out, you asked him to do something in private, and then, according to you, right after this, you publicized your action in the press. This means whatever he says afterwards, you've preemptively taken credit for it, and any gesture he takes is seen as bowing to your public pressure rather than being his own conscious. So, you basically put, you know, the vice president in a no-win scenario. Yeah, exactly. The only way to win is to ignore you.

And so, again, Rod Dreyer, maybe he's got some concerns or whatever, but he tripped on his own ego, and he got in the way of actually, if you actually really wanted to do something, you just absolutely flubbed it. Because, you know, your own sense of yourself got in the way. I'm skeptical he actually wanted to do something. I don't know if he's calculated enough to do that, but the funniest thing is, like, for anyone that's been online, Nick Fuentes hates J.D.

Vance, and there's tons of people that are super skeptical of J.D. Vance's past with Peter Thiel, how his campaigns were funded, his previous jobs. They see him as somewhat of a Manchurian candidate. J.D. Vance was not his enemy. Right. J.D. Vance is not the enemy. Which makes me think that it's potentially, you know. Personal, or he's engaged in something, or he's completely ignorant. I don't know, but I'm like, I almost feel like at this point, this is kind of pushing, and maybe it's working if this is not, it's pushing me a little bit more towards JD.

I'm like, if he's got these kind of enemies... You know, there is that thing, this has been a problem for, you know... For 60 years, where there are people who are on the right or conservative-leaning or whatever, who find it necessary to attack people and slander people and say, see, I'm a good Republican, I'm a good conservative, I'm not like them. It's like the very definition of George Will. It's such baloney. I forgot about him. George Will. That's why I love you, Josh.

You know, it's like, what are you doing? Like, no, I'm the virtuous. They're signaling their virtue. Like, oh, no, no, I'm a respectable conservative. Ha, ha, ha. That means I do what I'm told when the left passed me on the head, and I'm a, you know, I'm controlled opposition. I'm the Washington generals against the Harlem Globetrotters, and let them win every time, and all you got to do is.

Put on your uniform. No, actually, you know what? I have a country to save. Thank you. Yeah, like, it's today's Nevervancers rhyme with, and in some cases are the same people as, the 2015 Nevertrumpers. And yeah, the reason why we got Trump was because the Nevertrumpers lost.

And if we need to get J.D. Vance in there so that the Nevervancers lose, let's do it. As you said, Tom, pushing me more and more, making me more sympathetic. Well, and actually, even on the... I mean, there are some people that, what is their animation? Like, there are libertarians that just despise Vance because he is willing to question, you know, like, wait a minute now, maybe I should help a working man. Like, that just makes libertarians, like, explode.

Then there's the neocons who are like, oh my gosh, this guy really hates war. We hate him. And so they want Rubio because they see Rubio as a neocon. But the thing is... I don't even think Rubio is as neocon as they think he is. I mean, yes, he's probably more in favor of war than the others, but guys wake up. The whole party has shifted to the right. Now, there's people that are trying to cling to power in the Beltway, like the Cornens and the McConnells or whatever, but there's a new day in town, people.

We're not going back. We're not gonna. Yeah, we'll see. That's our 2028 update. Let's get into good news now. Erika, what do you got? Yes, we have a great announcement for someone I will call my friend, Ross Douthat. So, CBS News announced yesterday, and the New York Times announced, that the Ross Douthat, New York Times opinion columnist, the only reason I still pay for a subscription, host of the only podcast I actually listen to every week except my own, Interesting times.

Ross Douthat will be leaving the New York Times and headed to Barry Weiss's CBS News 60 Minutes, making this possibly the greatest media upgrade of the year. They went from Scott Pelley. Quitting slash being fired in a tizzy to Ross Douthat. What do you think he's going to do with the pay bump? Is he going to get like a sprinter van for all his kids? Yeah, seriously. I mean, just congrats to the Douthat family. Yeah, a little insider information. I know that Barry Weiss has wanted him since she left the New York Times and finally got him in there.

But again, great upgrade for CBS. I am sad, though. Interesting times. Was probably the greatest interview show, and it was only up for a year. I immediately started getting texts from our good friend Peter Wolfgang, who's probably watching right now, eager to see if I will mention that he has a sort of, like, in memoriam, a morning piece of the Catholic culture today about why this is, like, a total loss for the country, perhaps equal to the death of Richard John Newhouse.

But I'm hopeful. I don't think Ross can stop writing. I think he has a passion for it. He will continue to write, and... Maybe I'll start watching 60 Minutes for the first time ever. Oh, you grabbed the clip. I was going to say, the greatest moment. I did. Yeah, so this is my farewell to interesting times. This is probably my favorite. There's Peter Thiel right up on our screen. This is my favorite Ross Douthat moment from the whole history of interesting times.

Let it rip. This is my very specific question for you, right? You're an investor in AI. You're deeply invested in Palantir, in military technology, in technologies of surveillance, in technologies of warfare, and so on, right? And it just seems to me that when you tell me a story about The Antichrist coming to power and using the fear of technological change to sort of impose order on the world, I feel like that Antichrist would maybe be using the tools that... That you were building, right?

Like, wouldn't the Antichrist be like, great, you know, we're not going to have any more technological progress, but I really like what Palantir has done so far, right? I mean, isn't that a concern? Wouldn't that be the, you know, the irony of history would be that the man publicly worrying about the Antichrist accidentally hastens his or her arrival?

Look, there are all these different scenarios. I obviously don't think that that's what I'm doing. Yeah, you can stop there. I mean, to be clear, I don't think that's what I'm doing. Do you get to, like, is it your hope that the human race? Okay, yeah, we can keep going. Yeah, I don't think that's what you're doing either. I'm just interested and willing to submit to...

But, again, is this so the nation has submitted 50 of these since you've submitted? Yeah, I don't think it gets there. But, yeah, later on in the interview, he asks him, is it important to you that the human race survives? And Peter feels like... You bricked that one.

Yeah. I love how that is a tough question for him. It was. It was a really hard interview for him. Alan stumped him. It was crazy. He is posted up in his Argentina bunker right now. Yeah. No, Interesting Times has been a boon for The Deep, and it has been a blessing to LOOPcast. There was also the interview with Father James Martin, which I believe was one of his first Interesting Times interviews, where he asked him, if you are not going to change church teaching, Then what are you doing?

And basically, he finally got Father James Martin to say, well, I actually just want it to change. He was like the only interviewer who ever did that. So, yeah, farewell to interesting times, and hello, 16. Well, and that podcast was probably the proof that Barry Weiss had that he could go to adversarial people in an interview on tape because they record it, and he could get it done. So, maybe he can deliver for 60 minutes. He hasn't been doing just columns.

In other words. Yeah. He really rope-a-doped everyone. He starts off, his line of questioning is really good, and it kind of gets people comfortable, and then all of a sudden, he'll come in with a little bit at the end. Do you love the human race to survive?

Awesome. Shout out, Ross. What a gotcha question. I mean, it shouldn't be, but it was. It's so easy to do that show. He's literally just interviewing lizard people. He's interviewing Peter Thiel. Did he do Zuck? Zuck's another one that I saw his interview on Theo Vine. Sam Altman. I don't think you're human. Sam Altman, for sure. I got questions about some of these hombres, but okay. Josh, what do you got? So, my good news. Okay, so one of the worst... Left-wing policies is providing reduced tuition, or in-state tuition as they call it, to people who are in the country illegally.

Yes. They passed such a law in Illinois, that meant the legal citizen from North Carolina would have to pay more in tuition to attend the University of Illinois than someone who entered the country illegally, but just resides in Illinois.

Well, thankfully, the Trump administration fought this injustice, and they sued. And the even better news, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois agreed. This court declares that this provision violates the Supremacy Clause and is unconstitutional and invalid.

Thank you, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanch. Yeah, we call that a laugh. Time for you to be confirmed, time for the Senate to confirm him to be Attorney General, but of course, John Cornyn and, you know, other dinosaurs in the Senate are trying to... Delay that. Yeah, we call that one a layup, for sure. But like this, I mean, it's just like, the left pursues radical policies. If they would hold themselves back a little bit, they could actually govern for another three generations.

But sometimes we only succeed because they go too crazy. And this is one of those things where it's like, wait a minute now, what? You want to give someone who's in this country illegally a better deal? Then a U.S. citizen that was born in North Carolina. Oh, there's two Toms. Two Toms. Uh-oh. It's a good day. Twice the Tom coverage. One of the Toms is frozen, and we ended up with the frozen Tom. All right, Tom, if you're not with us, I'm going into Nighty Night Tobin.

Go for it. And he's not with us. All right, Tom has some great good news, and we were going to listen to Pope Leo, but since we can't listen to him, I will tell you what Pope Leo has done lately. So, Cardinal Tobin, the one from New Jersey, not the one from Rhode Island. So, Cardinal Tobin, known as confrere of Cardinal Cupich, confrere of Cardinal McElroy, his term on the Supreme Tribunal, which is the Vatican's Highest court expired. Now, it's expired before, but previous popes renewed it.

Pope Leo has chosen not to do so. In his place, or just in addition, he has also appointed one of our absolute favorites, the Archbishop of San Francisco, the Lionheart, Archbishop Cordilione, who should be a cardinal, has been named to the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, and if you don't know what he's going to be doing, Archbishop Cordilione, and no longer Tobin, will be adjudicating decisions made by bishops that make it all the way up. So, this is where a bishop closes a parish, maybe removes a pastor, suppresses an association or a religious community, or issues other administrative decrees.

We can think of Bishop Martin in Charlotte, or annulment proceedings that are being appealed up the chain of command within the church, up the hierarchy. And the signatura is like the last place. It's like almost... It is a terrible analogy, but for Americans, it's like the Supreme Court. It makes it all the way up there.

But another reason why it is so important is that when these very difficult cases come before it, it is interpreting church doctrine, and it is applying it to specific questions of church governance that have real impact on people's lives and on the faithful, and also set precedent for the way other bishops will understand, okay, how do we decide when a parish needs to be suppressed? What is the bishop's power over lay religious organizations or religious orders? So, this is a very important seat in the Church for how we understand the Church's teaching doctrine on faith and morals, and how it affects our lives.

So, great appointment, and of course, Cordelion's statement, so gracious. He says, I'm deeply grateful to the Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV, for appointing me. I receive this responsibility with a profound sense of stewardship. And he references St. Francis of Assisi, as we commemorate the 800th anniversary. So, for anyone who is wondering, he is going to stay the Archbishop of San Francisco, so we are not losing him, but he will also be fulfilling this very august and important role in the Church.

So, another massive upgrade, Scott Pelley to Ross. Tobin to Cordelion, and am I allowed to say that as a laywoman? Is that okay? Is this like too much pants? I think so. Yep, okay. I think you're all right. Okay, thanks. And maybe this would be controversial to say upgrade, because it might not be in every case, but Josh, you shared an article about Gen X bishops are kind of becoming under a spotlight here, so the previous generation are kind of, you know, Well, it's just, it's a natural evolution.

I mean, obviously. You know, some of the baby boomers are getting to the retirement age, and they're needing to be replaced, and they're being replaced by people who are naturally, you know, it's like, we're at the time, we're like... Yeah, if you scroll down, Todd, to the pie chart. Like, this is just like another case where you know you're getting older, because it's like, you know, it used to be that, oh my gosh, that Major League Baseball player is older than me.

Oh my gosh, that member of Congress is younger than me. My doctor is younger than me. Where's Mitch McConnell? Where is he? And then members of, you know, the Vice President of the United States is younger than me right now, so, and now we have, you know, I think I am still younger than the Archbishop of New York, but he is closer in age to me than the previous one was, clearly.

And so, we have these now bishops that were born from 1965 to 1980. That is sort of like what we call the Generation X. And, you know, this great article, I commend people to go check out the National Catholic Register. Jonathan Lytle has this great report on it. He did a pretty good deep dive on this. He just talks, I mean, there are things, these are kids that, that generation, not necessarily each of these, you know, bishops or whatever, but it is the generation, the latchkey generation.

You know, the moms left the house to go work. So, kids are at home, they're watching MTV, you know, and there's a whole culture there, maybe a little bit more cynical, but they're independent, fiercely independent, Generation Xs. So, it is interesting. And for the church, one of the major things that Jonathan Lytle points out, and I think he's very right.

Is that previous bishops had at least some memory of the pre-Vatican II Church, even if they were only like, let's say, 10 years old when the church switched over or whatever, or they were teenagers. But for Generation X bishops, they're like, there's no memory. There's no memory. They were born either You know, either they were two years old when the church changed the liturgy, or they were born after it. There is no before and after Vatican II for them. It was all just after.

And for them, their experience in the faith was growing up in the 70s and in the 1980s. Where they felt the church was very watered down. Yeah. And I left the faith because, you know, this is what this faith was. It was garbage. I'm like, if this... Wait, Josh, you're Gen X, right? You better believe it. This is like you. This is like if you became a bishop.

I'm here for it. The Pope knows how to get a hold of me. That would be quite a change in title from VP of Advocacy to Bishop of... Would you be Bishop of Petoskey? Hey, Chicago's coming up soon, right? That's right. Yeah, hey, checking my watch on that one. I wonder when that one's going to come.

Follow that one. There are things that won't happen, but... No, I do think, you know, I think Generation X is that first generation is like, wait a minute now, like, I felt like I wasn't even taught the faith. And the, you know, John, you know, he talks about these bishops now, the Generation X bishops, but then also a lot of priests, that so many priests are being ordained in the last 10 years are all Gen X priests, you know, a lot of them, not all of them.

And I think, you know, I think they kind of resonate with what Pope Benedict, at the time, Cardinal Ratzinger said in the Ratzinger Report, which I just think, when I read that, it was just like a thunderclap. He talked about the Second Vatican Council, and he talked about how that just became this opportunity for anything and everything to change, completely change everything. And he said, this is in 1984, he was head of the Congregation for the Defense of the Faith. And he said, what is needed now, in this moment of the post-conciliar church, is a reform of the reform.

Because the first reform was off. And this is a guy who is no super, super trad conservative. He was writing for Communio in 1972. He was not a knuckle-dragging, conservative type, traditionalist, whatever. I say that with a tongue-in-cheek. I was going to say, yeah. Be careful. We're going to get so many emails. I say that affectionately. Don't get, don't. Don't spam our email, people. Don't spam our email. No, but I mean, so I do think a lot of the Gen X, they looked around and they saw the effects of the spirit of Vatican II, which was invoked, and it wasn't the Holy Spirit, let me tell you what.

It was used to, oh, you don't need to do devotions, you don't need to pray rosaries. Oh, come on, we're beyond that. We're just going to hold hands and sing Kumbaya. And it had enough of it, you know? And so, I will say the catechesis that our kids are getting today, light years, light years ahead of what I experienced in the 80s. My goodness. Do you have anything that sticks out to you that you were told in catechism that was, like, shockingly, you know?

Oh, I do. I mean, I think it got me so frustrated. Eric will probably have a better example. But, I mean, here I am. You know, like 12 years old or whatever, and I'm talking, I just love my country, and I'm talking about, you know, America and the pioneer spirit, you know, that we settled the West, because it's Minnesota, and the rugged individualism, and she's like, we're done with rugged individualism now, and I'm just like.

What are you talking about? I'm expressing my love for my country and the heritage, and you're saying that's not in compliance with what you're saying Catholicism is? What did you do? You pushed me out of the church. Now, I did it with my own two feet, yes, but that was amazingly stupid. Bless her soul. She was a good woman, but she was off. Erika?

Yeah, so my favorite, this more has to do with homilies of the 90s. When we entered the church, our family entered the church in 1994, and one of the homilies that really sticks out to me, as a young evangelical, like, Jesus lover, I know my Bible, and then, like, we go to some church, I think we were on vacation, and it's the feeding of the 5,000 and the fish, and the priest gets up, and he says, well, Jesus didn't multiply the fish.

All the people had fish in their pockets. But it was Jesus' preaching and encouraged them all to share the fish that they already had, and then it turned into this socialist Mamdani grocery store homily. Wait a second. I'm not kidding. No, no. That's so bold. I can't even believe it. That's like a fresh take. No, that was the first time. That's the first time. That's like, I'm 16, so it's like 1997, and then I hear it again. In, like, 99. And then we're in a Boston parish in 2003, and then I hear it again, and I'm like, wait, this was a thing.

They were actually talking. You were in a Boston parish in 2003? Wait, what? I was in a Boston parish. Boston parish in 2003. The first year we were married, we lived in Boston. Yeah, I was there. So, you were, like, ground zero for the... Ground zero, yeah. No, I was ground zero for the sex abuse. So, what was that like? So was I in Minneapolis, too, by the way. Like, was that a... Oh, yeah, true. Both you guys were, but... Yeah.

Was that something that, like... How about this, Tom? The parish I was baptized at... And our family was there only for nine months. They had two priests. One was a molester. Then we moved to St. George's in Long Lake. That guy was a molester, and they didn't catch him. But, yeah, so, like, I mean, this is just crazy. Now, thankfully, he died off before he could do any damage, too much damage. But I just, I guess a broader question, especially Erika being on the ground there, because the Boston Globe thing comes out, and it was like...

Everyone read it, I'm sure, and this was definitely pre-social media, but I'm sure that spread like crazy. We saw it on the internet, yeah, it spread like crazy. Right, and then did the priests at the parishes in Boston have to come out and be like, How did they even address it? Did they say, like, hey, we know this came out, you know, what's going on, or was it all just kind of, like, left untouched, and people kind of sorted it out outside?

So, I was there. So, we arrived in Boston. We got married in 2003. We arrived there August 2003. So, this is now two years out, basically, from when the bombshell happened. So, I was hired as a youth minister in a parish. It lasted three months.

That's crazy. When I arrived at the parish, they were already, like, the pews were. Like, 60% of the pews in this parish were empty because people just left. They were so angry, and people who remained were so angry that it's hard to... It's hard to even describe what it was like to try and have a ministry or to be in charge of a catechetical program. It was like, all we're going to do are junior high dances.

There was no, like, we're going to try and keep our kids in the church, because I remember coming in, guns blazing, JP2 Catholic kid. I was on fire for my faith, and like, we're losing the kids. I have this survey. Our kids don't believe in the Eucharist. We need to teach them about the Eucharist, and they're like, I wouldn't try and keep my kid in this church. These are conversations I had with the priest and with the parents, because they were so burned and angry about this.

It's hard to describe, and that's just one parish. So, it is hard to be like, but that was what I observed. That is what I experienced that fall. Like I said, I was gone in three months. Again, it is tough. I mean, you know, the church had... The shepherds have failed its flock. The shepherds have failed the flock, so it was tough. Now, are there some people who just use that as an excuse to leave? Sure, but there's a lot of people like, wait a minute now.

If they're off on this, how can I trust them? And so, I mean, I get it. It's a scandal. Yeah. It's almost worse than failing in a way because of all the cover-up, and then you go deeper and deeper, and you realize that the higher up you go, the more people kind of knew about it, but didn't do anything, and they got elevated, and it took a long time for punishment. I mean, I'm only talking about this. academically, because you guys might take it for granted, but like, I wasn't a lot.

I was four or five. So, I never, I guess it'd be interesting to talk to my own parents about what that was like. I don't know how intense that was, but I was baptized by someone that's no longer a priest. So, you know, read between the lines on that. Like, it was around. But by the time I actually kind of came of. Age of Reason and all of that, I was in a great situation. I was in a place that actually, because you got to imagine with that situation, and I know we're kind of going off script here, but the only thing that could survive is the absolute most potent.

Truth, in any type of church organization, you mentioned, like, okay, you only want to do the dances or whatever, but anyone that would stay after that, in the belief, and then the truth presented, like, the places that thrive after have to be so committed to what you just described, Erika, of like, Belief in the Eucharist, living a sacramental life, having a thriving parish life, radical accountability for all these people, and then it almost is like kind of solace in some ways that these Gen X bishops were alive for that and lived and weren't in those authority positions to have that burn in their brain of like, we need to be so radically accountable and transparent.

Because I'm sure so many things changed after that, like priests are not going to be alone with, you know, whatever, for better or for worse, you know? For better and for worse. I mean, like, what you're saying is, like, again, accountability and humility there. You know, it can't be that the position of the church is just, I'm in authority, pray and obey. And again, you know, I just feel like that's what was so... I think terrible for our church to have had, as our chief shepherd, Francis for 13 years, because the people that were tried and true that showed up after this scandal and still stuck with this church, only to be attacked for being narrow-minded and all this kind of stuff.

Or to be breeding like rabbits. Being scolded at by your chief shepherd. It is like, okay, I am not asking you to endorse everything I want or whatever, but could you stop? But also, I'll go full circle on this one. Please do. The church did do acts of humility. I think they could do more. I certainly think they could continue with that. But they didn't keep saying, well, how dare you question me? I am the science. This is what the elites in our country should do.

There should be an accountability. Don't plead the fifth, Anthony Fauci. Say, you know what? I screwed up. I made some tough calls, and sometimes I was too concerned with the media, or maybe I went a little too zealous on the masks. Have accountability, and if he's not going to do it, we force him to do it. But the thing is, I don't consider that weakness, actually, to admit when you make a mistake. I've made some major mistakes in my life, and I own them, and I come forward with it.

And I think that's one of the things that, you know, Donald Trump, he doesn't ever like to admit he makes a mistake. I get it. Huge character flaw, personally. I think it's a major character flaw. I mean, in general, like, you know, and again.

We've seen in our church and then also in our government institutions, like, you know, just a lot of a lack of accountability, a lack of playing it straight. And that's what stood out for me, you know, like, you know, I just don't want them to hang their heads in shame. I want them to be like, you know, hey.

Thank you for sticking with this church, and let us see if we cannot remember why we are here. It is the love of Jesus Christ, and that is what we are here to do. We are here to worship Him, and to try to share that love that Christ has for everyone else on the planet. We screwed up, and we are massively, and here is why we are not going to do this again.

Amen. I'd love that for our government officials, too. Good lesson for everyone down to the individual, as well, as you said. Actually, it always feels like you're going to get... Works in marriage, too, right? Yeah, exactly. It feels like you're going to get reamed. Anytime you admit that you were wrong about something, and then when you do, every time I've done that, I always get met with more grace and intimacy than I had before. It actually feels like... It feels way different than you think it's going to feel when I do it.

And confession is a great example of this, but also in marriage as well. It's like, yeah, it's good to humble yourself. It pushes you forward. Sorry, I know we're kind of late on time here. I don't want to pontificate too long. So, Twilight Zone, Josh, what do you got? All right. So, there's a big election going on in Wisconsin.

Francesca Hong is a state representative in Wisconsin, and she's running for governor, and the Democrats have been tripping over themselves to try to find an establishment candidate that can defeat her, and things just keep imploding. Yeah. She calls herself a socialist. She's not even joking about this, okay? And we're less than two weeks. She's probably going to win the nomination.

Fox News did a story about the, there is actually a separate political party called the Democratic Socialists of America, and they put out their party platform. And they have endorsed her, right? We have talked about this. And the DSA party, it is not the Democratic Party, it is the Democratic Socialists of America party. But here is the thing, there are a lot of people who are running under the Democratic banner who are DSA at heart. They agree with the DSA. They call themselves Democratic Socialists.

And Francesca Hong is one of them. So, when Fox News does this story saying, hey, this VSA platform says they want to do all these crazy things like abolish the Senate, get rid of the presidency, all that kind of stuff. Well, a spokesman for Francesca Hong said, Representative Hong has never called for abolishing the U.S. Senate.

Her opponent is Tom Tiffany. Tiffany cannot produce a single statement where she did, because it doesn't exist. Rubber Reggie, here's a tweet from Francesca Hong herself. She didn't even delete it. She hasn't even deleted it. It's still there.

Oh, I know. It's not vague. It's three words. Abolish the Senate. Oh, I know. Okay, but that's not even the... That's not even the Twilight Zone, guys. Oh, bring it. That's not even it. Just in case you didn't realize these so-called fact-checkers in the media are obviously totally Democrats, there's a fact-checker thing called Wisconsin Watch. It's a nonpartisan, nonprofit investigative news for Wisconsin.

So, this reporter for Washington, Wisconsin Watch is Tom Kirshner. Someone said, hey, dude, look at this. You need to fact check this. Her campaign says she never said this, but she said it right here. This fact checker says, as always, thanks for the suggestion, but I think we're going to pass on this one, since it's one tweet, and this doesn't seem to be her position. Oh my gosh. It's her tweet. It's a tweet. She sent out the tweet.

It's not even like you can blame it on her campaign. This was five years ago. She wasn't even running for governor, and it's not like she doesn't delete tweets. So, here we are. We're in a full circle on this. COVID, right? There were people calling for us to don't do Thanksgiving celebrations, right? Yeah.

And she gets on to social media and says, yes, cancel Thanksgiving. In fact, it should have been canceled in 1621. But she had the foresight to delete that tweet, at least, but someone scared and captured it, so we have it. Nothing's ever deleted. It's all on there. But man alive, dude. Yeah, it's like the final judgment. Fact checkers.

This is, again, this drives me crazy, because they try to pretend like they're referees. They're just the umpire. They're going to call the balls and strikes, but they're wearing the Democratic team uniform. Wake up, people. I think the DSA is, you're nailing maybe the biggest problem in DSA, because they may be speaking to concerns of voters, they do have radical proposals, but you're saying like the recruitment problem is real, because it feels like everyone under that umbrella collectively lost their mind from.

2020 to 2023, and now people are trying to reel it back, right? Because most of the successful DSA candidates, like Zoram Mdani overcame that, but if you go back through all their public appearances and tweets, I mean, you're seeing stuff like this, right? Can you find a normal white guy?

That is a Democrat who held elective office during the great woke era of 2019 to 2023 or whatever, that does not have tons of statements where he is saying stupid crap. That is why you end up with, you know, Mondami is different because it is a super blue, blue city, but Graham Platner, there is no normal dudes. They all see this BLM, you know, crazy stuff, like, you know, it is all there. Trans kids, gender. Abolish the sentence, yeah. Trans the kids, BLM, all that, you know, and so...

Yeah, a lot of people, like, I'm for the economic solutions, but I kind of think the police and prisons are kind of necessary, you know? Abolish the police, abolish ICE, I mean, like... Not Francesca Hong! No. We need fewer prisons and more community therapy, I think was the discussion. Yeah, she was going to ask that question, but my good friend, Jason Calvi, was interviewing her, and she's just like, the staffer is trying to pull her away like two, three times, and she's just, Get out of the group.

Stop talking. She's like, I can't help myself. All right, Erika, what do you got? All right, I got, so we actually had a listener write in and ask us to take a look at Muslims. So, Islamic centers or mosques buying up old Catholic churches, and the most prominent example that I dug up is actually from 2024, and we have St. Anne's Church and Shrine in Buffalo, New York. So, these were sold in 2022, but it made headlines in 2024 because the plans for the conversion of the building weren't announced until two years after the sale.

And so, you see these beautiful pictures of the church. Actually, it was an Ad Orientum mass going on there, a hundreds-of-year-old shrine to Our Lady's mother, St. Anne, closed in around 2020, I believe, and then the buildings were sold. And it wasn't just an isolated transaction in that diocese, but multiple other Catholic properties in Buffalo were acquired by this Muslim community, and they're being turned into a mosque and Islamic. Center.

I think, you know, Tom asked me to kind of strong our steel man it, so I think the most charitable take comes from Father V on Twitter, and he wrote, no anger should be directed against the Islamic community. The parish complex was made available for sale by the diocese. No doubt the changing demographics of the area and the inability to financially support the complex made the continuance of St. Anna's Available Parish possible. And we've all experienced this, right? I mean, you're from the Detroit area, Tom.

I'm from the Northeast. Minneapolis as well. I believe they've had to close a lot of parishes and sell off properties because of the shrinking Catholic population, and he points this out. I think that the economics of it are obvious, right? The Catholic Church and many of these dioceses cannot continue to operate with these older buildings that all need repairs, and it makes sense to sell them off. I think where the sadness, if not anger, comes from is why are we selling them to a faith that is inimically opposed to Catholic worship?

The Islamic faith, in turning this into a center where Allah is worshipped, and the Shal Allah is professed, and Sharia law perhaps even is practiced in these communities, why are we turning over former temples of Christ's body and blood to this religion?

And, you know, there was a statement made by the Bishop of Santa Fe this week, too. I can't find him. Yeah, I actually can't find the link here. If you could paraphrase. Yeah, I can paraphrase. So, he was also addressing this, you know, growing concern, why are we selling off Catholic buildings to Islamic communities? He's like, well. You know, Muslims have a constitutional and God-given right to worship as they see fit, but then he extended that, which is true on the face of it, right?

Yes, everyone of every faith has freedom of religion in America. Like, you don't need to say that. That's not what people are arguing who are concerned about this, but he goes a step further, and he says, you know, we shouldn't even criticize the Islamic faith, or we shouldn't criticize the Islamic people, because somehow to do so would be un-Catholic, un-Christian, or, you know, God doesn't want that. And I am like, you know, I think that some doctors of the church and saints of days past have criticized the Islamic faith and perhaps pointed out ways in which it is inimical to all things natural law, natural and divine law, and is actually detrimental to the human person to practice this faith.

There's nothing wrong with doing that. There's nothing hateful about pointing out that Islam as a religion. Is not Christian, and it is not the way to the true God. It is not the way to heaven, and it's okay to say that, but to sort of intimidate Catholics and be like, oh, it wouldn't be nice of you to point that out. No, we're supposed to point that out. We're supposed to evangelize.

Okay, there are thousands of mosques in the United States, and there are zero Christian churches in Saudi Arabia. Mm-hmm. And so, I mean... You know, it's fair to critique how Islam treats other religions. When they're a minority in a country, they demand their constitutional rights, as anyone should, but then they don't confer that same rights once they become the majority.

There's Muslim countries that do have Christian churches and Catholics in there that take care of holy sites. That's not completely true. There are some, yes, I know. Over human history, though, the vast majority of the times, and recently, we're getting some exceptions. I like that. I mean, I would like that to become the rule. I would like it to flourish in every country. And it's not just actually mosques. I mean, sometimes a Catholic church will be converted into like a brewery.

Yeah, I hate that. That's actually worse in my mind. Or a discotheque. So, to me, it's like, I do think, I wish the bishops would get together, because we're only going to be facing this. I think the Bishops need to come together and just kind of come up with some sort of guidelines that they all kind of agree on, and I think the guidelines should be something along these lines.

That if it's no longer viable for that building to remain, you know, having a parish there, and it can't even exist as, let's say, a venue for weddings. Like, there's that really beautiful church in New Mexico with that spiral staircase that some people think maybe even Joseph himself did. I love that church. That has now become so popular that it became a wedding venue. Like, you know, fine, whatever. That's what it is, right? Yeah, fine. No, I love that model, actually.

We work off that model, yeah. So, if you can do, you know, as a wedding venue, great. Or if there's some other purpose, like, hey, maybe we could give it to a local Catholic high school or university or something like that. If there's no viable opportunity, like in...

In my area, there was a very small church that used to be, you know, just the church in Gaylord, Michigan, but then all of a sudden, Gaylord becomes a diocese. Well, we need now to build a larger cathedral because this small little parish is, you know, a tiny little town, and it is an art gallery. I am like, okay, that is fine. That is fine. So, I have some sort of guidelines to figure out, like, what is the yeses and what are the noes?

You know, and you can do restricted covenants, even, on it. So, it's like, okay, you want to make this into an art gallery? Fine. But you can't become a strip club, or a brewery, or, you know, something like that. Yeah. Something profane. I mean, obviously, they go through a process of removing all the sacred stuff, and it's no longer a church, but it still feels like a church, because people were baptized there, people received communion there, they received the sacraments there.

And so, ultimately, you have to come up with some sort of... So, to some extent, it's like, well, there's just way too many churches. You know, I'd rather it be bulldozed. Yes. Yes. 100%. Raise it to the ground. You know, it would be a great tragedy. Like, in general, this is a great tragedy, I think, more than anything else. Because I would take issue with it being used. I hate when they're used as breweries. It just feels so wrong to me.

But if it became any other religions... If it became a Mormon temple, if it became a rabbinic Judaic, whatever it is, I'm Christian, and I believe in the Catholic Church and the teachings of the Church, and that that's a holy site for Catholics and Christians.

So, I think the great tragedy is you look at how gorgeous that church is. I mean, that church is literally breathtaking, and we're losing not only a piece of art, but, you know. Beauty that is literally divine. I mean, elevate your mind to God. I would sell a hundred of these 70 spaceship churches for one of these. Well, yeah, in Buffalo, that's the thing. They kept a lot of those. That's what I'll say first. But I think the greatest sadness, too, in all of this.

Well, it's also where the people are, though. You gave great practical advice. I think the greatest sadness, when I look at this situation, is that was built by immigrants that had a true Catholic culture and sacrificed their time, talent, and treasure to build literally a work of art. And... They failed in some ways. They accomplished creating the art, but they weren't able to gift the faith to their children, and then their children's children. And I look at some of these other quickly growing religions, Islam, and I'm jealous in some ways, because they clearly are able to educate their children in their faith.

They live it publicly. They practice it. Other fast-growing religions, because we're looking at this decline in Catholicism. Like, you mentioned... Dominion, Erika, of how we literally Christianize most of the world, all for this now to come crumbling down. We talked sex abuse, Christ, you know, whatever it's got to be, but the loss of faith and looking at this very visible symbol of Christ's glory have to be bulldozed. If that's the best case scenario, have to be bulldozed. Just makes me sad, and I think it just motivates me to try to cultivate this Catholic culture that I want to pass on to my children.

I'm going to evangelize myself and really put in my own money and my own treasure into keeping my own parish beautiful, keeping the parishes around me beautiful. It's truly a tragedy because I've been in these churches as a wedding photographer. People choose to get married here on purpose for a reason. Right. They don't pick the spaceship. It's not an accident. It's like a cheat code being a photographer because you look anywhere at the camera and it's gorgeous. It's the art. So, I think more than anything else, like, I just look at this, and I just get so sad.

Great, and I think the best possible outcome from this is that we will be jarred into a new commitment to evangelization, and a new commitment to passing on the faith, as you said. So, that's the best possible outcome here. Josh, that is exactly what I was going to say. If you can't, if you're going to sell it to Islam, to Mormonism, to Masonic people, like, bulldoze it. Just sell the land. Take the loss. Yeah, for sure. The brewery, you struck a nerve, because that makes me so angry.

People should not be drinking in here. I don't care if it's desanctified. Who's not built for this purpose? Excuse me. All right, I'll do a quick one for my final, because I know we're running over. Many have talked about this. It's the cycle of good men. Good men create good times. Good times create weak men. Weak men create bad times. Bad times create good men. So, if we're looking at this chart. We get some new data. Pot is a more popular daily drug than alcohol or cigarettes.

We got a new survey for 2025. We have 21.4 million daily slash mere daily marijuana users. And it is funny that there is even a decrease because this is shocking me. 19.9 million daily slash near daily cigarette users is nuts at how many people that is. I cannot even imagine what that was like when cigarettes were more popular. And then 17.2 daily slash near daily alcohol users. 2025 is the first time on record that marijuana is the most popular daily use addictive drug.

So, the cycle, I think, was nicotine creates good men, alcohol, and then that creates alcohol, and then alcohol creates marijuana. What is this? I saw someone put it in the chart. I'm like, dang, that's so true. Now we have potheads. But, I will say.

People have had lots of takes on this graph. I think that my takeaway is marijuana, typically people that are... It's lazy. It makes people lazy. It makes people dumb. It smells terrible. It's attracted to people that don't have really high drives. It actually kills your testosterone, so you have less drive. So, say what you want about nicotine, but it's kind of the opposite. It pumps you up. It gets you going. Alcohol, at least, I actually think the decline in alcohol is good in some ways, but bad in others, because to me, you use it socially, typically, and so it suggests that maybe there's less socialization going on, which I think is a net negative.

So, I would take the trade-off. For some of the negatives with alcohol. Is this a segue into an advertisement for the most recent Tom Across America? Oh, yeah, yeah. Bourbon was sick. That was sick. Yeah, I loved it. Yeah, I went down to Kentucky, and I did a video on the history of bourbon and what's going on now.

And, yeah, every character we ran into is awesome. I don't know. Maybe people would debate this because people are from all over the country, but I encountered the most. Commonwealth, because Kentucky is a commonwealth, pride of anywhere that I went. People from Kentucky love being from Kentucky, and they're super proud that they produce a special product bourbon for the rest of the world, not just the country. And people step in to take over generational businesses. I was shocked. Everyone I talked to knew the history.

They're like, oh, George Washington distilled back in the day, which is ironic because the whiskey rebellion. So anyway, it was super awesome. And the one thing... That I loved about it, and I was talking to one of the guys that started Whiskey Thief Distilling Co., and he was talking about why, because he had a pretty sweet job before, and he bought an old distillery and wanted to innovate or whatever, and he's like, whiskey is different than other spirits because it embodies a slow culture that's synonymous with the South.

You know, vodka, you take a shot of. Wine coolers, you know, you're doing just to get drunk. He's like, you have to sip bourbon slow. You have to sip whiskey slow. There's no other way to consume it. Uh, properly. And it takes a long time to age, it takes a long time to make, there's a lot of craftsmanship in it, and he's like, yeah, I remember, uh, you know, I always remember sipping my dad's favorite bourbon with him while he was listening to his favorite band, and he passed away, you know, four years ago.

And I was like, oh, gosh, you know, now that got me, I was crying, because I'm thinking about times I spent with my dad, you know? And it's just like, people use that to commemorate life in many ways, so. Let me just, uh... Accent what you just said, though, because if you look at all of our 50 states in this union, and you ask them, you know, how do you self-identify your ancestry? And, you know, German is number one in Florida, Pennsylvania, all through the Midwest, Minnesota, Michigan, whatever.

What's the number one reported one in California? Mexican. What is it in Kentucky? Kentuckian? This is what people self-describe their ancestry as, and in Kentucky, they say... American. Yeah. Tennessee and Kentucky are the only two states where American is number one. Well, story two of how Kentucky, because Kentucky was Virginia before, and then Thomas Jefferson's like, I'm sending boys to go check it out. And they had a really easy time because buffaloes created huge paths for them to just walk along, because otherwise you'd just be- That's crazy there were buffaloes there.

So, they just walked on the buffalo pass, and that's how Buffalo Trace Distillery got its name. There is an early map, and it just said, here lies a buffalo trace. It is the oldest operating distillery in the world. Maybe the world, definitely the country, over 200 years, and it survived Prohibition because everyone else had to close down except six, and they were one of the six because they got a medicinal whiskey certificate from the state to be able to continue. So, they went through Prohibition, they went through the Great Depression, they went through World War II.

Wow. It is really amazing. Yeah, anyway, tons of lore. Speaking of that medicinal thing. During Prohibition, Winston Churchill would travel through the United States, and he always had a little thing in his pocket from his doctor saying he could consume whiskey for medicinal reasons.

That's my guy. I love it. Love Winston. Oh, man. But yeah, that is American. Bourbon is America's native spirit. Amazing history, so I'm just happy. I'm looking forward to that episode, because I just got to say, I had a... I had a roommate once who was proud of being a citizen of both the United States and the Republic of Ireland, and he loved to rag on Americans and say, you don't have any kind of distinctive American culture. Can you name anything that's distinctively American?

And he got, you know, a lot of people go, and stammer, and it couldn't figure something out. And then he asked Josh Mercer that same question. I'm like, are you kidding me? Urban, baseball, western movies. And I just went on for about 15 things. I'm like, come on, man. Did you know that George Washington, the boys at Mount Vernon, invented baseball, or like an early version of it? That's the folklore. They had a name for it. Look it up. I'd have to Google it.

But yeah, and he distilled, and all the women from the temperance movement tried to like whitewash the Founding Fathers' involvement with distillation, and it didn't work. But that's the reason most people don't know about that. And so, the lady I talked to actually, as a volunteer project, got to run the distillery. There's a distillery at Mount Vernon, and she got to stay on Mount Vernon and stay in the porticos and stuff. And she's like, I think I was talking to her, is there a spirituality to...

Bourbon, because it all felt very elemental to me. You get the corn from the ground, and the land's important, and the water's important, how it shapes it, and it's just such a beautiful part of the country. And she was talking about being at Mount Vernon. She's like, I feel like I felt George Washington's presence over my shoulder. I was like, man, that's something that just fires you up. It doesn't get more American than that, you know? Shout out to America 250.

Shout out to America 250. So, go check out Time Across America. It's been a ton of fun. And I've decided, with Time Across America, obviously, we come on here and critique, and if you keep looking for bad stuff, you're going to find it. As anyone has experienced... It's not hard. It's not hard to find it. It's not hard. It's going to be bad stuff. And kudos to the people that, you know, find it out, we get justice, awesome. But there's also got to be someone looking for the good stuff, you know?

And it almost feels like... That's your time. You're so wrapped up in the... You want to get to the bottom of the injustice, but what about all the people doing really good things across the country, and there are amazing parts of American culture, and they're not in the spotlight. They're not duking it out on Twitter. They're not getting congressionally subpoenaed. They're just kind of living good lives and taking care of their families. So, anyway, I'm trying to find that. That's what I'm trying to do with Time Across America.

Shout out to Simon. He added to it. He's the GOAT. So, anyway, we'll end today's show with our daily prayer. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. Oh, Jesus, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I offer you my prayers, works, joys, and sufferings of this day for the intentions of your sacred heart in union with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass throughout the world, for the salvation of souls, the reparation of sins, the reunion of all Christians, and in particular, for the intentions of the Holy Father this month.

Amen. We follow you, Son of the Holy Spirit. Amen. St. Thomas More, St. Fidelis. Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us. Great show, guys. Always great to be with you. Go check out Time Across America, and then go check out Erika's episode of The Deep coming out tomorrow. It is going to be fantastic. Have a great week, guys. Peace.