"Horrifying" Investigation Uncovers Organ Harvesting on Living Patients, Josh Solves Gerrymandering

And we're live. Welcome back to the LOOPcast. It's Tom, Erika, and Josh. I am back from my secret travels, and when I return, I hear about organ harvesting on people that are alive, and their secession in Texas. That's bad, right? I think that's bad.

That sounds bad. Correct. Yeah, so we're going to have a great show. I was looking into the investigation from HHS. I was looking into the lawsuit, leveled back against it from the organ harvesting. They don't call themselves organ harvesting, but it's kind of what it is. But it's what they are.

And the money behind it, their rationale, it's all very fascinating. We're going to be covering in depth, and Erika is going to be my specialist on that. And then Josh is going to be my specialist on political games in Texas, which I think will be very fun. I will talk to you about my top secret trip that I took. I can reveal what I can. I had a fantastic time, especially as someone who started this show in a closet, and where I was was pretty unbelievable, but I'm glad to be back with all the people joining us here live.

I really appreciate you guys. One thing that you could do to help us out, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, reviews. If you guys just want to hop over, those help us out a ton, and we appreciate it. Go ahead and hop over to YouTube, too, if you'd like. We have extra content there. Coming to, potentially, from my secret travels. So, if you want to see that, go over there. And before we get into today's show, we got to thank the reason we can do it, Charity Mobile.

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Thank you, Charity Mobile. Erika, we got to get into some organ harvesting now. So, to me, it starts with the probe that I saw from the HHS. So, if you just want to set the table, what was revealed in this probe? Yeah, so I shared this last week on Good News About RFK that he is looking into these abuses. of organ donation processes in the United States, and so HHS is doing this probe into the whole system, and this is under RFK's direction through the Health Resources and Services Administration, and there have been these disturbing reports of practices, which I heard like way back in the 80s and like 90s when I was getting my license, but it was seen as like this evangelical Christian conspiracy theory that people were harvesting organs from living people, but I never...

Never checked that box on my driver's license as a result. So, the investigation examined 351 cases where organ donation was authorized but not completed, focusing on a specific OPO, Organ Processing Organization, in Kentucky, Southwest Ohio, and parts of Virginia. So, if you're from there, take notice. The probe was prompted by concerns. The findings of the probe.

There were signs of life in some of these donors. Of the 351 cases, 103, or almost 30 percent, ...showed, quote, concerning features. Specifically, 73 of them exhibited neurological signs incompatible with organ donation. They were not brain dead. As in they were alive. That is the most insane euphemism for it, they were alive. Yeah. Incompatible with organ donation. They were incompatible with organ donation. Well, actually, I mean, they were alive. I mean, they're just trying to, again, with the study, you're trying to use the most precise terms.

Sure, I'm not. I'm a human being, and I'd like to not be harvested if I'm alive, but go ahead. I'm using precise terms from the study itself. Thank you. But, yeah, let's just call a spade a spade. They were alive. So, at least 28 patients probably were not deceased at all. And so, again, I go back to the Princess Bride, like they were only mostly dead. They were not totally dead. So, the HHS, of course, is like, maybe we should have some more regulation.

So, there were corrective measures put in place, which we reported on last week, for the organ processing organization. It was ordered to conduct a full root cause analysis of its protocol failures, have stricter adherence to protocols like the five-minute observation rule, system-wide reforms, HRSA-mandated national-level changes as well, not just for this region where the study was done, including important safeguards and monitoring. This involved requiring the organ processing organization, the OPOs, to report data. On safety-related stoppages of organ donation, if the doctor's like, hey, we got to stop the process, I think they're alive, the OPO people who are in the room need to say, okay, we'll stop.

That's just like plain speak for what they're trying to do here. They need greater transparency and enhanced oversight. So, yes. Actually, the title of the report from HHS kind of moved me. I think it must have been written by a Catholic, because it was titled, quote, HHS finds systemic disregard for sanctity of life. I mean, is that a Catholic phrase or what? In organ transplant? Yeah, I think we all know that one.

Yeah, that was pretty good. That was pretty good. So, immediately, what do we get? The organ donation groups, the ones who profit off of this and oversee these harvestings in hospitals, they sued to block the reforms from HHS, specifically the certification system that HHS under RFK wants to put in place.

They are suing to block them from using the new method to evaluate their work, saying it violates federal law and will cause many providers to lose their certification. Yeah, you think? That's the point. You shouldn't be certified to do this if 30% of your people don't meet the metric. If we're reckless, then we might not get certified. Yeah, I was looking into it. I was trying to do my best to be like, okay, see it from their perspective. I'm like, okay, well, first off, let's just say it's insane that we're harvesting people that are alive, right?

Okay, this is balance. But I was like, let's just say non-starter. Sounds like a bad thing. Insane, bad. But I was like, okay, what are these? I think they call them like OPOs or something. OPOs, yeah. There's a technical name for them, and they actually are non-profits. So, the only groups that can do this in the country, you can't do it for profit, I think, for good reason. That's not to say there aren't financial incentives here. There are plenty of them for these OPOs, but they, I believe, get payment from Medicare.

So, because who else, I guess, would be paying for them? I was going to say, I think they said there's over 103,000 people that are waiting on the national transplant list, 13 people dying daily from waiting for a transplant. So, clearly, if you can do it, the tight needle thread of... Getting an organ that's usable from someone that has died, that has expressed intent for it, their family's okay with it, great. But I think it'd be impossible to acknowledge that there aren't financial incentives here.

And interesting, it's not all for just the harvesting of the organ itself. Most of them actually are like skin harvesting or things that aren't central. So, like, think kidney or heart. Those are actually much more rare. But it's not just the transplant itself. It's the reimbursements from the hospital, the tissue recovery profits, the transplant procedures. So, it's not just the OPOs that are making money off this. It's hospitals, largely, are making a ton of money off of the process itself. So, it's bigger than just the OPOs, where I'm glad that we got to the root of it, right?

That there's financial incentives to harvest things from people that are alive, which is like, whoa, alarm bells. But this is actually a review of the larger... That is the question. The incentives are perverse for this type of procedure to happen too quickly. So, that was my read on it briefly. Yeah, and I'm glad you brought up the recipient list because there is a need for healthy organs that can be transplanted. Actually, a really good friend of mine, her son is alive today because of a live heart transplant.

And so, the reality is there are financial incentives. But not all the incentives are perverse. There is that good incentive that we want to be able, we want to have the freedom as these non-profit organizations to be able to harvest, and often it's a matter of seconds, right? They have to make these calls before the organ is now no longer usable. So, it's a high-pressure situation. The problem is that The perverse incentive seems to have overshadowed, perhaps, some of the real ethical concerns that have been around since we started harvesting organs.

So, for example, thank you, Pogo. This is our segue into a New York Times opinion essay that came out on July 30th. So, this was last week, and the title is, for those of you on the audio, Donor Organs Are Too Rare.

We need a new definition of death. So, the solution is, yeah, it is just unbelievable. I am just going to read some of it because I do not think I can summarize this in a fair way. The need for donor organs is urgent. An estimated 15, POCO said 13, range people die in this country every day waiting for a transplant. We need to figure out how to obtain healthier organs from donors while maintaining strict ethical standards.

Or just moving the goalposts. That was in the editorial. New technologies can help, but the best solution we believe is legal. We need to broaden the definition of... Death. So, these three doctors who wrote the op-ed, they argued that the current definitions of death and actions from HHS, of course, to try and enforce these definitions of death, limit organ availability. Yeah. Specifically, nearly all donors must either meet strict brain death criteria or wait until circulatory death, both of which dramatically reduce the number of usable organs.

Right. So, they propose broadening the legal definition of death, here we go, to include, quote, irreversibly comatose patients on life support. Don't love that. Don't love that at all. Nope. Even if some brain activity or cardiac function persists, with prior consent, organs could be harvested immediately, as in while they're still alive. Mm-mm. The rationale is that this will- That's a terrible idea. Okay, let me keep going. I'm going to finish, and then you can react. This is so bad. Expand it.

How did they even write that? This is crazy. The expanded definition would eliminate delays in ethical, and it would eliminate ethical debates. Aren't you happy? Around techniques like normothermic regional perfusion, which is restarting circulation to preserve the organs without restoring brain function, and thereby increasing the transplant pool. That is the proposal on the table, to eliminate ethical debate by just not having a problem with Are we sure this isn't like guerrilla marketing the other way? So, it's like if I wanted to scare people into getting off this list, I would write an article saying we need to read a fine test for people that are coming to us.

Maybe, but it's near time, so I don't know. I mean, that's like eliminating the debate. I mean, they're eliminating the debate. Yeah, that would eliminate the debate. That is like eliminating, saying we got rid of Down syndrome by killing all the babies. Like, no, this is not how we win people. This is terrible.

I mean, actually, by the way, the whole thing about organ donation is a helpful reminder why pure free market libertarianism is a bad idea. You know what I'm saying? Like, well, if you're Jeff Bezos, you're, you know, a trillionaire or whatever it is, and you need a new liver. Then you just buy it, right? And then someone who, or a kidney, let's say, because that... You know, people do on black markets. On black markets, they do, but of course, libertarians don't believe there should be black markets.

Everything should be an open market. So, you could just get on there and say, you know, I need a kidney. Is there any, you know, hungry person who's 35 years old that's out of a job and wants to sell me a kidney? You know, it's like, no, it's good that we have a country where we don't allow that kind of perverse, like... You know, system, right? Is there still corruption? Yeah, I mean, I remember back when I was, you know, in college or whatever, Mickey Mantle got a liver when, you know, probably shouldn't have, you know, they're pretty rare, and he got it, and then dies two months later anyway, like, ro-ro.

So, is there corruption? Yeah, there's some corruption, but, you know, again, we're trying to perfect the system. I mean, I don't... I mean, you don't even have to think of negative perverse incentives like the profit mechanism. We've got that out of the equation, but I do feel like a lot of these doctors want to help the next patient, so they're maybe a little too eager, and it's like, listen.

Whoa. I mean, so I don't think they're necessarily just doing this for, you know, they got money, dollar signs in their eyes. Yeah, not all of it. I don't want to demonize everyone in the industry, for sure. That's exactly my point. Like, there might be some bad apples, but for the most part, the people, I feel like... They really care about the next patient that they're trying to get this organ to. I believe them, but like, hey, we have to do it in a manner that's ethical and make sure we're not taking them out of bodies that could all of a sudden pop right back up.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, how many stories of long-term coma survivors do we have at this point that 13 years later, they wake up and no one can explain why? I think, too, For me, we know that there's a problem. We know that there's a shortage. We know that a new heart could save this person. A new liver could save this person. We're also on the cutting edge of being able to grow embryos to term in artificial wombs. We are literally months away from that in countries that, like, oh, China, are unregulated.

How is it that we are able to, that we're moving toward that perversity, but we can't, like, Grow a new liver out of liver cells for someone. To me, it's like, let's pour these resources and this energy into being able to solve this technologically. That would be a good use, perhaps, of something like the CDC or the FDA. So, let's not ignore the problem, but let's not kill people on the table or hasten their death. Or create a matrix inside of a lab where you have all these little humans that you're...

Uh, yeah. Like, we're growing embryos to harvest their livers. Like, that's disgusting, too. Like, let's just grow livers. Well, and it's important to have... I'm guessing China's doing this, is what you're saying. Like, to me, this is just horrific.

I don't... You know, who knows? This is just doctors a little bit high on their own supply, basically, of like, I'm going to write this article, you know, and it's going to be great. Like, I think this is great, and they just don't realize how this reaches the broader public. But it's important to have ethicists in the room, and that's why they exist. And to actually be having the metaphysical conversation, or at least like the common man perspective of, oh wait, what is consciousness?

What is the people of a soul? Like, the sanctity of life is an important phrase to use. It reminds me a lot of, you were talking about technological problems. There's a homelessness problem in Canada. The answer isn't made. It isn't euthanizing them. That isn't an answer. And it's, I almost feel like it's cliche to say at this point, it's a slippery slope. And so, this is one that jumps off the page, because you're like, okay, these people are alive, right? But there's a lot of smaller decisions made in the medical industry under euphemistic terms, such as MADE, which is euthanasia.

Selective reduction. This is what? Selective reduction of MDAs. So, why do we engage in politics? Why is your vote important? Things like that. We voted, so you engage in politics to organize the society towards the common good for people in that country. And this is a small stand on an obvious issue that I hope extends into the broader medical community and decision-making of, no, actually, like, life is sacred, and anything that would violate the sanctity of that life is unacceptable in public, like, public policy.

And so, you do this kind of probe, you make these decisions, and then you take that stand against the slippery slope of, well, we have a homelessness problem, euthanize that. It's essentially, I'm not exaggerating, that's in Canada, that's the situation. You know, it's Bobby Kennedy's HHS that's trying to make these good reforms, you know, and you would think, actually, Democrats would be all in favor. Democrats, for the longest time, were for the little guy, the person that has no representation at all, and, like, why are they on the side of?

These billion-dollar corporations and large hospital networks, but again, it just shows you the parties have changed. It is crazy talk. I would think this should, though, this should be bipartisan. Everyone should be like, let us make sure we do not harvest people who are still alive. Hello. It seems like we could come together on that, right? Erika, I saw you had a nugget. I do. I have a little nugget. So, I actually was looking up the history of organ transplants. Of course, it came around in the 60s, and like most things that came around in the 60s, super fraught, a lot of emotion and feeling.

But Guy Alexander, a guy named Guy, there he is, a guy named Guy, a Belgian transplant surgeon. He just died last year, and this was his sort of obituary in the New York Times. In the 1960s, risked professional censure. By removing kidneys from brain-dead patients whose hearts were still beating, a procedure that greatly improved organ viability. He died at the age of 89. And the story of how he got into this, he was 29 years old, so not much older than our beloved Pogo.

He's 29. He's fresh off of his fellowship at Harvard Medical School. Here's Harvard in the 60s. Okay. When, in June, a young patient was wheeled into the hospital where he worked in Louvain, Belgium, she had sustained a traumatic head injury. The head injury in a traffic accident. I had so much coffee this morning. I am buzzing. Sorry, guys. She had sustained a traumatic head injury in a traffic accident, and despite extensive neurosurgery, the doctors pronounced her brain dead, though her heart continued to beat.

The doctor, Guy, he knew that in another part of the hospital, a patient was dying from renal failure. And he had assisted on kidney transplants before at Harvard, and he understood that the organs begin to lose viability soon after the heart stops beating, and so he pulls in a chief surgeon, Jean Morrell, and made his case. Brain death, he said, is death, and so we should pull her kidney now.

um to give to this other patient and so you're you're you kind of can put yourself in the shoes right that they have this woman dying they have this woman who's they are quote-unquote brain dead he's like i can fix this and in the moment he's like we're gonna say brain death instead of death on the certificate so yeah and harvest it and um you So, the story, the way that the New York Times... The criteria, in other words, changing the criteria from the heart stopped beating as death to the brain having no activity being dead.

The brain dead. That is the distinction. Actually, by the way, I get... I get emails every few years from people, Catholic theologians, who still have a problem with this, and they know a lot more of this stuff than I do, but it is still contested, by the way. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, so it was very controversial, very contested, but that one surgery, it ended up giving the other patient 87 more days of life, so she eventually died from kidney failure anyway.

But the two doctors in this hospital in Louvain, they kept on doing it, kind of under the table, because... It had succeeded in giving her three more months of life, so they just kind of keep on doing it, and then it is sort of a fate accompli, gets accepted by the broader medical community, they redefine death, and that is sort of how we get where we are at today with brain death. Really interesting. So, this has happened before, that we redefine what death is in order to save more lives.

Yeah, I will shoot that in the chat. Tough. Yeah, put that in there. Really interesting story. Of course, the times... That is my little nugget. That is the history. I am trying to bring nuggets to this show. You told me that, so I made an effort. Hey, I threw a nugget in there, Mickey Mantle. Thank you. Great nugget. When I found the Trump Broadway production, nugget. We need nuggets on the show. That was amazing. That was a great nugget. I sent in my paper, and I am going to audition.

I am excited. Female Trump. Female Trump, Erika, female Trump. Just got to move the hands, keep them moving. Um, okay, and now... Explain what's going on, and then say, wow. I love the view. I'm just looking around, just looking around from the roof. I can't believe it. Oh, yeah, him on the roof killed me. Oh, my gosh. The best part is, like, even Libs are kind of like, unfortunately, this is hilarious, but he's just walking around on the roof. And it is.

It was funny. What are you doing up there, Trump? He's like, I'm just walking around. I'm just looking around. I'm having a little look, he said. That's unfortunately hilarious. Like, whatever you think, unfortunately, he just keeps doing it. Okay, someone made me watch Dom Laman, and I didn't think I would have to watch Dom Laman ever again. My second nugget of the show. So, listen, listen. I was, you know, having a good time on secret location, and...

So, I was a little bit out of it. I think this was addressed on Monday, but Josh, now is your time to shine again. I'm going to show this clip, and I'll set it up afterwards. This is what I saw. And then integration happened, and everybody thought they accept us. They don't accept us. They are showing us who they are. We should believe them, and we better have the courage to stand up. Otherwise, we will fall for anything, and in this country, we will be defeated, deported.

I mean, we will lose all of our rights. And if you think it can't happen, it can. And I will liken this to the Holocaust. People are like, well, how did the Holocaust happen? How is somebody in a position to kill all them people? Well, good people remain silent, or good people didn't realize that what happens to them can very soon happen to me or somebody I love. And so, even if you made it, man, you have an obligation to help people who can't, because God forbid they end up targeting you.

So, I saw this clip, and my thought was someone is murdering people en masse, you know, some insane human rights violation is occurring that I'm unaware of. Back in chain. She is referencing that they are gerrymandering in Texas, and that is... Akin to the Holocaust, and Democrats, to my understanding, and Josh, I want to clarify this, just decided, I am going to secede briefly from Texas, flee to blue states, and not do my job, not vote on a new redistricted map that California has done many times, other states have done many times.

And they're hanging out with J.B. Pritzker. Is this what's going on, really? Like, this is what the elected representatives of Texas are doing right now? Well, I mean, you carried on the grand tradition of me. When I'm not on the show, I don't watch the show. So, you didn't watch me explain.

I didn't. I was out of pocket. Democrats in Texas all fled the state. Because the legislature was considering redoing the maps. Right now, you know, there's 38 House districts in Texas, so 38 people get elected to Congress out of Texas. The map is, you know, Republicans have 25 of the 38. If they redo this map the way they want, they could get it to be as high as 33, you know, so there would only be five Democrats elected out of the entire state.

Jasmine Crockett, bye-bye. Her district would be just... Gone. So, Democrats are like, well, wait. The Democrats in the legislature in Texas, if we all jump on this private plane, private plane, and fly to Illinois, then they won't have quorum, and they can't- Who's paying for the plane?

You know what? No one said anything, but I wonder if it wasn't J.B. Pritzker, because they flew to Illinois, and there's the governor. Of course it was. Let me look that up. We'll see if that's out there. And they hold a press conference. As Lori Darby says in the chat, have you seen the Illinois map? Yeah, this is why this was so rich. There are 17 House seats in Illinois, and even though Republican congressional candidates got 45%, 46% of the vote last time, they only got three House seats of the 17.

Because, Illinois, it's even better than JB. Any guesses? Oh, man, this is going to be great. Is it George Soros? Elizabeth Warren. George Soros. No. Matthew McConaughey? Nope. Someone who, a notorious Texas politician that has never won anything.

Beto. Beto O'Rourke. No. He paid for it. No. That is a nugget. Nuggets. You got nuggets in the show. Beta, O'Rourke. Wow. This is why we do what we do, for moments like that. That's right. That was a great payoff. And then the governor of Massachusetts, she wants the limelight, too. She can't just let only J.B. Pritzker, the governor of Illinois, make a mess, so she gets out there, because Gavin Newsom says, well, if you do this, we'll redistrict it, which is funny.

I thought you had an independent commission that got rid of all the bad stuff. But then the governor of Massachusetts. She's like, well, if Texas does this, then we're going to do this in Massachusetts. Girl, there are nine districts in Massachusetts. They're all held by Democrats. You can't get more than nine. You can't get more, Jerry. You literally cannot do any more. I mean, what are you talking about?

They just must not know. Massachusetts is a very, very, very blue state. Only like 40% of the state votes Republican. Usually, in a blue state like Illinois, it is like 45. Massachusetts is down to 40%. It is so gerrymandered that all nine of the districts are blue, and in fact, in the neighboring states of New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, every district that those districts touch are also blue. There is no ability to touch grass, and in fact, with 40% of the state of Massachusetts voting Republican, zero members of Congress are Republican, and 12% of the state house districts in Massachusetts.

A Republican. I'm sure she probably looked up Jerry, like she saw that other people were getting attention for this word called gerrymandering. She's like, this is like labubu. It's trending on Google. It literally started, gerrymandering started in the state of Massachusetts. Right. This is like the new labubu trend. Like, how do I get in on this? I mean, come on, dude. Gerrymandering, even if it doesn't make any sense. This is like how it runs. And someone said that Republicans in Oregon did this.

They walked out and then they didn't make a rule against it. I'm happy to be bipartisan here. Do your freaking job. Are you serious? This is so stupid. What a coward. You're leaving your own country, or sorry, basically your own people that you represent, your own state, to go to a safe... What is this, like the Civil War? You're elected and you live there. Stupid. The thing is, so, these House Democrats that are flying to...

Illinois to complain about gerrymandering. I mean, that's just kind of rich to me. You're flying to one of the most gerrymandered states in the entire union. Of course. And then this black lady saying it's like the Holocaust. Like, give me, what, murdering 6 million Jews is like drawing maps?

Is Illinois Nazi? I mean, what are you talking about? Is Massachusetts Nazi? I mean, this is, again, you throw these terms out so stupidly. Yeah, we need like a thousand percent tariff on using Holocaust references for anything not related to the Holocaust. Yeah, we need tariffs on that. So, okay. Spare me the one-sided outrage, okay? If you actually want something, if you want a solution to this, I have an idea, and I am serious, like a bipartisan solution. You could actually go to Congress and say, here is the deal.

Here is what we are going to do from now on. First of all, I think we should expand the size of the House, but we are not going to get into that right now. Yep, different nugget. What you could do is you say, every state in the entire unit, all 50 states.

Everyone votes for the candidates, and the entire state's representation is, you select what party you want for the House. You vote Republican, you vote Democrat, you vote Green, whatever, and then at the end, so let us say you are somewhere like California, and you got 53 seats, and Republicans get 40% of the vote, well, then they would get 40% of the seats, and Democrats got 58% of the vote, they get 58% of the seats, and maybe the Green Party would squeeze out a seat there, maybe, and most states, so then it would be the same rules nationwide.

There would not be this arms race to more gerrymander it. You could not. It would not matter how you drew the lines. You would just have a fair representation. So, Illinois, you would have 45% of the seats would be Republicans. Massachusetts, it would be 40%. But also, in Texas, you would not have only five of the 38 seats. You would have, like, probably, you know, 20.

Josh solves gerrymandering. I like it. You have solved it. Term limits and self-gerrymandering. And tariffs on Holocaust references. Oh, my gosh. See, now remember, I'm not for term limits. I'm for age limits. Age limits, sorry. Age limits. 80 is enough, bro. Get out. Yeah, the 80 is enough law. That would be a great, actually, like from a marketing perspective, that's catchy. I think that has legs. 80 is enough, bro. Yeah. And listen, again, I've made Josh some nice things about boomers.

All I need to do is talk to him. I made him say it, so I don't want to hear it from the boomers. I swear, the boomers hit my email line every time. Like, no, I have nothing against you. I love boomers. My grandparents were boomers. They're fantastic.

80s enough. Are you serious? Like, let's get in some young blood into politics. Although, funny, people brought up that Elizabeth Warren is, like, really embracing Mamdani at this point. Oh, Zoran Mamdani. And talk about popcorn, and Josh, I want to get your two cents on that, because the read for me is that... Mom Donnie is going to win because he deserves to win, because the other candidates are so bad, and he's run a good campaign, and his message has attracted many people in New York City.

Do I think his ideas are good? No. But at least he's focusing on New York City and focusing on issues that actually matter, for the most part. And now with the Democrats, they, like Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, they basically want nothing to do with him. Read between the lines. They're not endorsing him, not talking to him. He's a threat to them politically. And then the people kind of on the outskirts of maybe that institutionalized Democrats, like Elizabeth Warren or whatever, are like, no, I want him.

He's all us. He's us. This is the future of the Democratic Party. And I think a lot of younger people are thinking that, too. But the Chuck Schumers and the Jeffries are scared of scaring away these kind of in-the-middle voters. So, it just feels like a no-win situation has basically been presented, too. Is this the read, Josh? What does this mean for the future?

Say that question again? Sorry. Okay. Brief description. The institutional Democrats want nothing to do with Mamdani. They think he is going to scare away middle-of-the-road voters, swing voters. Right. Elizabeth Warren feels the energy of the future of the party and is a little bit on the outs herself, so is fully embracing him, and the youth love this guy. So, farther left. Elizabeth Warren is a blue, ultra-liberal senator, communist senator from an ultra-blue state, Massachusetts, we just talked about. So, she's not having to worry about making sure she's not too aggressive.

Like, for example, there is that Congress, the Senator from, Ruben Gallego from Arizona, he represented Tucson in southern Arizona, a very blue district, and he had a super communist voting record, right? And then he gets elected to the Senate, and ever since then, he has been trying to, like, you know, he is still a super liberal, but he has got to throw, you know, wow, we are going to talk about the murder, and I do not know about boys and girls sports.

So, he does some of this rhetoric that makes him sound like he is not a. But he did bunt with two outs. He bunted with two outs and two strikes at the end of the game, down 10. Let it go, Pogo. Let it go. I know. I know. When I bunted a wiffle ball, we did not. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That fired everyone up. Yeah, go ahead. Okay, so, but Elizabeth Warren is in a state where, you know, it would take a miracle for a Republican to win.

And remember, it literally was, they were on the verge of getting Obamacare elected, and that was the only reason why, and you had a perfect candidate on the Republican side. For the state, it was like a perfect storm. But normally, that doesn't happen, and Democrats in Massachusetts can do whatever they want to. So, she's got, like, this is what I like. This is communism. Yay. So, she's all in it, and other Democrats who are more concerned about, like, hey, we need to actually win in Georgia.

We need to win, you know, in Arizona. Why are you doing this? You know, and so, but she's like, well, this is what I love. I love communism. So, and the Democrats are like, but yes, but, like, if he wins mayor of New York City, We'll probably lose, for sure, the governor's race in New Jersey, and actually, we might help J.D. Vance become the next president of the United States, because you've got this radioactive communist destroying New York City. Right.

So, in a sense, I certainly think it would be bad for the city of New York to elect somebody who would ruin their city. Yeah. Yeah. That would be terrible, but... There probably will be blowback as people flee the state. You know, like, if you're living in Staten Island, New Jersey is looking a lot better.

Yeah. Yeah. All right. Erika, good news. Oh, this was a great story, highlighted by Lila Rose. It was a local TV, but I think it's worth. So, we have doctors in the state of Georgia performed a rare partial delivery surgery. They placed a breathing tube. There is a little baby girl. She had this mass on her tongue developing in the womb, and so they knew that when she was born, almost immediately she would be unable to breathe because it was constricting her airway, and she would probably die or have severe brain damage while she waited for oxygen.

So, what the doctors did, they did a C-section. They deliver her partway, so she is still attached to the mother and getting oxygen that way. Wow. They inserted a breathing tube into the baby, and then delivered her the rest of the way.

And this is like medicine gone right. This is what I'm talking about. For sure. Yeah, and I mean, it's such a beautiful thing. Erika delivers with good news. Oh, I get it. That was a good one. Good one. Pun intended. I do. Also, sorry, Erika, before you get back into it, is there anything better than after seeing a distressing medical story? The parents holding the baby of the person. The baby, and when you do the sound, you can hear her crying, like the little newborn cry.

Oh my gosh, it's every time. You look at this dad holding his child, it's like, oh. Yeah, I cried. I legit cried when I watched this with the sound on. It was so beautiful. So, this is the story we want. This is like...

The opposite. This is the opposite icon of the partial birth abortion, right? You deliver the baby partially, you save her life, and then give her to her very happy parents, and it was wonderful. I just had to share. And shout out to the surgeons, shout out to the doctors. I think it was in Charlotte.

Or, no, Georgia. Georgia. Humans have worth. Babies have worth, whether or not the parents think they do or not. Amen. Dude, I could, yeah. We should just change the good news section to prominently feature, like, a cool birth story. Yeah. I think I did the most premature. Beautiful baby section. The most premature baby ever was born in Georgia, I think. And talk about just total miraculous medicine with the NICU. 21 weeks. And then you get to see the baby be one, and you're just like, this is, and the baby's like the happiest kid ever.

You're like, this is so insane. Amazing. Josh. Okay, so. The Trump administration just hits different. I mean, this is an administration that actually knows how to exercise power. Like, other Republicans just don't know how to do this anymore, okay? They came ready to play. It's different. I'm just telling you, like, when it comes to, you know, most of the time, you know, George W. Bush, all these other Republicans are like, what am I supposed to do? I can't exercise power, even though the other side uses it all the time.

The good news is the Trump administration, they learned how to play ball. Yesterday, the Department of Homeland Security implemented visa restrictions against trans-identifying athletes to protect women's sports. They announced that foreign biologically male athletes wanting to enter the United States in order to compete against women will be refused a visa. I voted for this. That is what I voted for. It is different, as the kids say, and as Josh said, about the Trump administration.

That is good. All right, the moment we have been waiting for. I have some pictures to share. Tom shares all. I cannot share all, unfortunately, but what I can share is, I was down at the Chosen set for, I found Jesus. There is the boy with me.

Yeah, yeah. I was in the Holy Land, for sure. That is where I found Jesus. Not really. This individual remarkably looks like Jesus is Jonathan Rumi. Shout out. It was funny talking to... So, I was sent to the set of The Chosen to cover, as a journalist, their working on the next season. Right now, season five is out, so I would highly recommend go checking it out.

Season five is about the... Leading up to the crucifixion, I believe the week leading up to their crucifixion is the exact... It has like the Last Supper in it, right? Yeah, and there's... I will speak on the general experience, but... So, I got the opportunity to interview some of the talents on set, and so here's Jonathan Rumi, here is George, I believe her name is Vanessa, she played Mother Mary, and then Noah James, who, hilarious, but I was down there.

And, Short King, by the way, lots of Short Kings on set, so I felt right at home. Like, the camera makes it look small, and I was like, I was happy to approach fellow Short Kings. I get it.

But, so, funny story was, you go down, you're with all the press, and I will say, people kept telling me, like, this is not... Um, this is not how it is. Like, a lot of people went, and they cover different major film productions, TV shows, secular media, and they're like, it's so rare that you would be at a dinner, and members of the cast would just be there, brushing shoulders, talking to people. So, immediately, I saw Noah James, great head of hair, and I really like this character, Andrew, on the show.

So, I went up, and I just started a conversation. We talked for like an hour at this dinner, and we kind of, he's like, oh, I'm gonna grab some food, like, it's really nice meeting you. And then I go away, and I was eating dinner with a journalist from the UK, and then all of a sudden, who sits down? Noah James sits down next to me again, and we are talking about football. He is from Arizona. He is a Cardinals guy, and then this guy, George, who is sitting on the left, is from Australia, and it was hysterical hearing an apostle with an Australian accent.

It completely broke my brain. Just thinking of an Aussie apostle is so funny, because he tones down the accent for the show like I could not tell at all. He does great accent work. Trust me, going to heaven is better than going down under. Yeah.

Man, we had some of the best conversations outside of what I was able to do for the interview, but even this guy, George, he's Greek Orthodox. His mom was there. His wife, he just had a son. He named him Leo, which was like, oh, man, it's kind of a moment for Leos right now. And Leonidas is his full name, which is awesome. Oh, that is cool. That's the full name of my dog. Yeah. He talked about just... We talked about St.

George himself, and then some of the other apostles on the show have really gone on deep dives into where their apostle was buried, and they've been able to visit a lot of it, and it was just really amazing. Watching these guys have really fell in love with their characters, and all around, just an amazing experience. And these two characters, we got Simon and Matthew, so Shahar and Paris, and these two cracked me up. I mean, as you can see, we got a muscle tank from Simon, my first question was, I mean, it fires me up that St.

Peter is jacked. Were you doing bicep curls off camera? What was the situation? He's like, oh, you know, I just wanted to embody a fisherman. I was like, makes sense. Dude, you'd be ripping nets. You'd probably be pretty jacked back in the day. Yeah, that's probably true. Great sense of humor across the cast, and really just... That is so cool. I didn't post the one. I got one with Eric Avari, too, who plays Nicodemus. And we just had this opportunity where, and he's had a long career in Hollywood, where we were off, and we were just talking about, he lives in Florida now, and I was like, oh yeah, you spent time there.

We're talking about bird watching, we're talking about cigarettes. I said the most random long conversation with him is just this warm guy, super personable. So, yeah, I got the opportunity to cover. What I can say is, So, I'll say, too, I was really honored, and I'd like to give some thank yous to Kevin. He was with the PR group. He did a great job, Common Communications. Shout out to them. They really took care of us. Everyone at The Chosen with their team, Birgitta, phenomenal.

And when I got there, I had some interesting conversations. They have such a desire to reach Catholics, and I'm going to make a longer video on this when I get access to a lot of the footage that we took. Which is embargoed right now for good reason. They're filming something that hasn't come out yet. But I can say from my personal experience, when I heard that I was going to go to the show, I had not seen The Chosen, but I had heard two things.

One was people saying, the type of people that do not watch Christian media, who are Catholic, for good reason. A lot of it, maybe subpar, whatever. Like, you need to see this. Like, it's completely different. It's caused me to think in a completely different way. I loved it. You need to watch it. So, like, okay, like, there's that. And then the other thing was. I saw some, like, comments or, like, reaction videos of, like, the Chosen is, like, heretical, it's this and that, it's this and that, and so I think it was enough to give people pause maybe to not watch it.

I will say, and I can only speak from my personal experience, I am Catholic. I was raised Catholic. I love my faith. You guys know me on this podcast. I went and watched it in preparation for the show.

And I pray a rosary every day now, and it was, my experience was, I just watched the portrayal of many of these beloved passages and scriptures that I pray in the rosary and think about a lot, done with, The humanity that they inject into a lot of these characters that, in the Bible, because it is just someone writing down their experience, might feel a little bit flat or unattainable or not relatable, was just extremely charming, talking to everyone as professionals at the top of their game, and I will say Dallas, super intentional, and Dallas, the director, who they all had a lot of reverence for, I think put it well, we often think about the divinity of Jesus, but what has not been explored as much is the humanity of Jesus, in which he was And the people around him, at the time of...

All these events, there was no 2,000-year church. There was no Bible yet, even. None of it existed. It was just men who were following this man that they loved and believed was their savior, but they were bewildered, and it was strange, and it broke all of the conventions. Be brutally murdered in a way that was confusing and scary, and that changed their life forever. And so, he just explores a lot of like, what would that be if you were in those shoes?

And Jonathan Rumi described it as I'd be like, Peter, I cut the guy here off. Yeah. But it's like an Ignatian meditation. Jonathan Rumi described it that way. Someone in the chat said that, yeah. Yeah, Jonathan Rumi, our boy, our Catholic king, love talking to him. Very intense, such a star. You can just tell he is like a gravitas to him.

And he describes it as an Ignatian meditation. You put yourself in the shoes, and you think about it, and yes, there are creative license-taking, but even with a lot of the things that I looked into, They have Bible scholars that they consult on the script, and many of the things, I'm like, oh, did that actually happen? Yes. Like, there actually are historical accounts of certain things that I wasn't even aware of. They're like, oh, yeah, this actually did happen. It's phenomenal.

I can't say enough good things about. The production, the team, the professionals working there, there's something special going on here, so at minimum, go watch it. Let me know what you think. And so, I'm happy to reveal later my more in-depth coverage.

I will say a cool experience, too. I was there with a number of press, and this is my first press junkie, and again, I started the show in a closet with webcams. Like, what am I doing here? I really was like, what am I doing? I totally felt out of place. And there's a lot of mainstream media, like Amazon Prime, a lot of different representatives there, people who had worked in media in Hollywood their whole lives, New York, LA, the whole deal.

And I had this great conversation with someone who grew up Catholic. And works for this mainstream outlet and no longer Catholic, and has been away from his faith and is living a different lifestyle. And he's been covering the show for a couple seasons, and he said what he really loved about it was that it wasn't preachy, and he is fascinated with the human element of what's going on and the tension going on with it. It made him think about the gospel in a different way, and he said, he's like, I've been kind of fascinated ever since.

And to me, I'm like, isn't that the beauty of, like, Jesus is for everyone. It's not just for me personally. It's not just for Catholic is not just for Christians. Jesus is a radical call for everyone, and I think this show is really doing that, probably the best I have seen in a long time, where it is just like, you get to be invited into this historical drama. They are not claiming this is the Bible. They are not claiming that Jonathan Rumi is Jesus.

They are creating really a piece of art that spotlights Jesus, is the exact words from Dallas, and I think it does a fantastic job of that. So, here is my pitch. Go check it out. Let me know what you think. I have really loved it. And my mom was very jealous, let's put it that way. Yes, I can imagine. And then I got to hang out with the guys. What a cool opportunity, yeah, that's great. Amazing, amazing. Let's just make sure Disney doesn't get the sequel.

Oh, my gosh. Or the Hollywood Bowl. Let's make sure the Hollywood Bowl does not get the sequel. So, I'm kind of excited because 5 and 2 Studios is basically Chosen. The Chosen started out on a website. They didn't have major streamers. They didn't have major anything, and it's now the largest crowdfunded project of all time, which is insane and shows that there's just a hunger and desire for it.

And one of the cool things, I was talking to one of the writers, and he was talking about the dominance of the anti-hero. And I do think that he's correct. I think people are kind of getting tired of that. Like, it's so dominated for so long. It's like, we have characters make tough decisions, and in the end, they choose the hard decision and virtue.

And obviously, we're working with the most amazing source text of all time. And we all understand that. But it's great to show. Heroic virtue performed from, and then also showing the human tension of the ability to choose the wrong, to choose the right, and these characters at great pains choose the right, and that is something that they want to put out in the world in a way that is highly professional. Being on the set, that was my first time on a major set or set in general.

I mean, I was blown away. Down to the costume department, down to all the people working on set, it was insane. I will never forget it. It was totally... That is cool. Yeah, so that was the secret trip. That's about all I can reveal, I think. Hopefully, I didn't say anything I shouldn't say, but you'll get more coverage when I can. So, go check it out.

Okay. Oh, also, I wanted to hit this before we go on the Twilight Zone. I've also, and I ran this by Josh, too. One of the things I get a lot about the show is that they really appreciate the prayer aspect of it, and that we do this live, and a bit of a community has formed, and so I got this email, and I want to share with everyone for at minimum prayers, but someone in our little community that needs some support.

So, hello. The LOOPcast has been my one and only podcast to make time to listen to, and I'm so grateful for all you and Catholic Wood do. You cover everything I need news-wise and have such solid Catholic perspective, and I always appreciated the personal stories and prayer requests. I now have my own prayer request. My sister, ...has unexpectedly lost her husband on Sunday. He was only 31. They have three young sons, a five-year-old who has cerebral palsy, a two-year-old, and a newborn not yet one month old.

Please pray for the repose of the soul of Joshua Bayer's soul and for comfort and guidance for Emily and their boys. Her family and friends are gathered to support her, but we are all overwhelmed with an indescribable grief. Thank you for your prayers, and if you could share this link, I'd be very grateful. God bless Laura. So, I have a Give, Send, Go link here for the family. Honestly, it really upsets me thinking about myself as a young father and what that would mean if I wasn't there for my wife and my children and what their lives are going to be like growing up.

So, they have a Give, Send, Go link that I'm putting in the description, and then also the The chat as well. If you guys, at a baseline, please pray for the repose of the soul of Jonathan and peace and support. Or, sorry, Joshua. Joshua Bear for the family support, and then if you can, there is the Give, Send, and Go link. I am sure anything that you guys can contribute would be very much appreciated by this family in grief. One of our own.

I very much consider part of this LOOPcast family, so please, yeah, if you can, just wanted to bring that up and pray for the repose of the soul of Joshua. Thank you. Okay. Twilight Zone. Josh. All right. So, we have a congresswoman from Illinois who's really actually from Guatemala. So, she's in Mexico City, and this is what she says. Let's roll the tape. Roll the tape.

What is your Spanish? My Spanish is pretty good. Illinois Democratic Representative Delia Ramirez, at a summit in Mexico City, tells the audience while speaking in Spanish, I am a proud Guatemalan before I'm an American. Now, listen, if you just happen to be any old person in Chicago and you say something like that, I will roll my eyes at you, but if you are intending to write the laws of our country and your heart first beats Guatemalan, then not only should you be kicked out of Congress, you should be sent to Guatemala.

This is a bunch of crap. Like, no, you have to make a decision here. Who do you love first as your country? Like, I mean, I talk about how I'm a proud Viking, you know, I love, you know, but I'm not, like, I ride or die with the United States of America. I'm not... Didn't Theodore Roosevelt warn us about this, about dual loyalties? Yeah, he said we can't be any hyphenated Americans. We got to be all in, and he was at a time.

The 1880s, we saw massive influx of immigrants, including Germans, like people in my own family, and he is like, hey, listen, we have to make a decision here. You need to say, I am a part of the United States. When we have these periods where the percentage of foreign-born people gets too high, then it starts to cause a little bit of unrest, and people start to wonder, where is your loyalty?

Everyone loves to, you know, oh, you're just a nativist. I just want people in this country who, like, actually love the country. Yeah, that's very minimal. Like, want to make it better, and don't run us down. I'm sick and tired of the Ilan Omars, and this lady, Ramirez, out of Illinois. Have you followed the Mexican City protests at all? I know that I've talked a little bit about it. Yeah, that's the protest in Mexico City, where they're upset that white liberals are leaving the United States and moving down there to Mexico City.

So fascinating. I watched a documentary on it, and then I actually talked to someone who is from Mexico City. I was like, what's the Mexican perspective on what's going on there? And I swear, it's like the MAGA. I don't know if they see it this way, but if you were to just summarize MAGA, it's what's going on in Mexico City. There is a class element to this. It's very wealthy people from America coming and living in Mexico City, and not paying taxes, by the way.

So, they're finding little loopholes to not pay taxes. Mexico City is adapting to accommodate for English-speaking people, very wealthy people that live there either part-time or whatever. They're snapping up Airbnbs and whatever, so it's made life unaffordable for people in Mexico City that have lived there always. And they also are arguing is eroding the culture, the rich culture of Mexico City. So, for example, on a small scale, it's spicy food is getting less spicy in Mexico City. I'm not even kidding.

That's an exact quote. Wait, really? That's the concern? Yes. They're making hot sauce less hot or less spicy because English speakers can't handle it. I can't. And there's entire parts of Mexico City where they don't speak Spanish, and they're not making attempts to learn Spanish because they're just very wealthy and live there on the cheap. And they've protested the point of, like, riding at certain points.

And what's funny about the situation is, like, I understand. The situation in Mexico wants Mexico to be like Mexico. One of the things they could do is bring back. Yeah, well, I mean, that's kind of the thing, right? It's like, I understand. I was like, I even talk about, like, Dearborn, Michigan, for example. There's entire parts of Dearborn where everything's in Arabic, and you're like, I'm all for. Proper immigration to America, if you're from an Arab country, to me, it's unacceptable for parts of my country to be in a completely foreign language and completely foreign culture.

Like, if you come here, you integrate into the culture, and you learn English, and you want to contribute in terms of taxes and the government and everything like that. Like, you wouldn't go. Exactly. So, like, we've dealt with this problem, and we are dealing with this problem. For some reason, it's thought of, like, somehow different in kind because, you know, America is a nation of immigrants. But as Theodore Roosevelt himself said, or I believe is like of Dutch ancestry, yes, everyone at one point in time did, but at a certain point, you're like, are you in on the project or are you not?

Right. And like, it matters, actually, who your loyalties lie to. And it's funny, people bring up for Catholics, it's like, oh, they're loyal to Rome, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, I'm American by birth and citizenship and whatever. Like, I'm not Italian, I'm not from the Vatican, I'm Catholic, my faith means a lot to me, but I'm thoroughly American, that's where I live. No, in fact, my lefty Catholic said I wasn't sufficiently loyal. To the Pope, right?

I think so. So, interesting times we live in, huh? Interesting times. Yeah. Erika, you're up. Speaking of interesting times. It's August. People go on vacation, and one person who went on vacation this August is Dave Rubin. You might know him as a comedian, a progressive YouTuber, a conservative YouTuber, or that guy that... I wouldn't use the C word. Yeah, he calls himself that now. Anyway.

His podcast gets about 2 million hits a day. Like, this guy is living large, but he wanted to go off the grid for the month of August. His solution was AI Dave. So, we're going to have AI Dave Rubin hosting the show every day for this blessed month of August, and the day that he left, he actually went on to show the powers of AI Dave and how to tell his viewers, it's going to be okay, you're in great hands, and he interviewed his fake self, and I just, you got to roll the tape here.

AI Dave, how are you, my friend? Hey there. I'm doing all right, just kicking it in the studio. What's up with you? Well, you know this is my last day being on the grid. I'm very excited for August. Are you going to be able to handle the show without me?

Going off the grid, huh? Sounds like an adventure. Honestly, I think we'll manage, but I'm sure you'll be missed around here. Just make sure you enjoy your time off. You deserve it. That's the plan. Now, AI Dave, one of the things that I understand is that you can actually see me right now. What am I holding in my hands right here?

You've got a pair of glasses in your left hand, looking sharp, my friend. Absolutely unbelievable. Can you tell me what I'm wearing? Do we have to go through the rest of this? I want to burn this. On the one hand, just the visual, it's kind of crazy when he pulls up. But then you start to hear the conversation, and every sentence ends in the same way.

And yeah, A.I. Dave, he can see, he can hear, he can react, but it's not- He's a direct copy. Real, yeah, unbelievable. And yeah, at one point, Dave Rubin asks A.I. Dave, what's your favorite show? And he says, Golden Girls, man, it's got classic humor, great writing, and those ladies have incredible comic timing. And you're like, well, on brand, Dave Rubin. So, he's really running this. For the whole month of August. Yeah, you can go on today, and you can watch how AI Dave did on the show.

What are the numbers? Did you look at the numbers? I have not looked at the numbers. People are like, oh my gosh. And they're waiting to see if it glitches and starts... Yeah, this is like the AI revolution is going a little too far, guys. Well, we didn't even get into that. The real AI Twilight Zone thing is not even that.

Go for it. It is CNN, the former guy from CNN, Jim Acosta, interviewing one of the kids. Okay, so in the Parkland massacre, the guy went in and shot all these people, right? So, this parent gave the go-ahead to do an AI compilation of his murdered child who had been murdered in that shooting, and so then now Jim Acosta interviewed this AI rendering of his kid with the voice and everything.

What in the world? Disgusting. It's so perverted. It is like... It's like asking the golem to come in and suck your soul out for you. Why would you allow that with your dead child's image? I mean, can we all just acknowledge, like, South Park has probably made this...

That is something, if I wanted to be an edgy animated cartoon, I'd make that up. That's better than what I probably would have made up. So, I'm just telling you, you do not have my permission to use my voice, my beautiful bald head. Josh, you'd probably be the last person I think AI could fully replace.

That's a compliment, brother. We'll see. That's beautiful. We'll just get an AI Josh that just says, that's garbage. That's garbage. Alright, see, I smartly predicted that the Twilight Zone would probably end in some depressing AI stuff, so something that is not AI can confirm. I would like to give a shout out to the Vatican Media team. These are actually old. I believe it is from May, but it kind of went re-viral again, and here is a picture of... A priest getting ordained.

We got Pope Leo in focus here with three priests, and this is Church of St. Peter, right? Mm-hmm. Chair of St. Peter, Holy Spirit window. Unbelievable. This, every time, the face down on the carpet gets me. Because we do this everywhere, right? This isn't just the Vatican. The prostration. Yeah, that's it. Sorry, you got to use all the official terms. I'm just from a photography perspective. I'll do the official. You just do the Gen Z thing, yeah. Great. Face down on the carpet.

Yeah, and the designs on the carpet. There's a... Here's what I'll say. I don't know if this is Twilight Zone, but... So, shout out to Rowena. She's on behalf of Guadalupe Catholic Readers. She gave me this book, When the White Smoke Clears, about Pope Leo's first. It's awesome, by the way. Dr. Michael Dauphine, a college professor of mine, was in it. A bunch of different writers, really awesome writers are in it. But, Father McSchmitz. So, I was reading it, and the two things stuck out to me is, so far with this pontificate, There's been somewhat of a return to the aesthetics that people really associate and love about Catholicism, but at the same time, I think his first words when he came out of the balcony were, peace be with you.

About Jesus being the central, like everything is basically to make me or everyone as small as possible so that Jesus can be the center of what's going on. And I've been thinking more about that, and those two are actually collaborative. They're not mutually exclusive. And I think there's a thought that It's somehow, you know, because Jesus was a carpenter and was humble, that you can't have, like, the aesthetics or the beauty of the Catholic Church, like you need to sell it all away or whatever, give it to the poor, and you can have both, and I think one of the cool things that I've just really enjoyed about Pope Leo's pontificate is he really has a simple, sincere desire to put Jesus first, have him lead, but also to humbly accept his role as in the chair of St.

Peter with all of the The mystery, the tradition, the aesthetics that come with it, and I think the combination of those two are very potent. Agreed. I love being Catholic. Yeah, this is definitely one of those moments like, gosh, man, I got to get over to Rome and see it for myself.

But now that, so I believe when I was out, Brian made it, right? Yes, he did. We had fun on Monday. It was great. Was there any, I don't know how much you could share, but was there any insider 11th hour concerns, or was it all pretty smooth?

I mean, you know, I didn't think there would be any, the question was whether or not he would get confirmed before the recess or not, because there's a lot of people that didn't make it into the deadline. Brian got through, and now there's another couple hundred people that are going to have to wait until September before any movement will be made. So, I know that Senator Eric Schmidt from Missouri is working hard to try to come up with some sort of solution to get these people confirmed in a faster manner.

He's doing a great job trying to get that stuff going, but yeah, there's still a lot of people that need to be approved and get confirmed, so we've got to move this along. We need a fully functioning government. That would be nice. Is Brian headed out ASAP? Dude, he's back in the bags, man. He's going to be in Rome in the 22nd or so, or something like that, yeah. That's so cool. Got to get the whole fam over there.

Yeah, I mean, I've driven, I mean, I've made moves, you know, I've moved my family hundreds of miles, but moving across the Atlantic. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, it's going to be a little different. Getting the kids set up with school, the whole, like, yeah, prayers. Well, I mean, that's why it was such a big deal whether or not it got confirmed on Saturday or not, because if we didn't, then it's like, okay, then you got to.

Get your kids registered to school in the Chicago area, or do you homeschool them for a while? Because it might be a month before they, you know, it would have been a nightmare. So, especially because he had young children, I think there was, like, let's get this guy again. Enough of these games. But, you know, I want to give a shout out to Catholic historian Paul Kangor, who made a really good point in American Spectator, that, in fact, this really should have happened in...

In May, so that Brian could have been in place with his post with the installation of a new pope, and because Democrats were playing games, they made it that much harder to do, and that was not good for our country. Yeah.

Agreed. Man, excited for Brian, though. It is going to be awesome. I was, yeah, and then the fact that... It is just weird. It is just not going to be here anymore. It is going to be sad. I am definitely going to miss him.

But, so he was appointed before Pope Leo was even... So, even just to take a step back, it is so crazy that he was appointed. He was nominated in December. Right, nominated. He testified in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 6th. April. He was... He was moved out of committee on April 30, and then April 20 or 21 was the day that Pope Francis died, so the committee was like, we got to do our part, get him out of committee, and then the full Senate could have voted on him May 1st if they wanted to.

Right. Would that have all been before Pope Francis passed away? Yeah, because Pope Francis passed away April 21, if I remember correctly, April 20, 21, right around there, because Easter was April 20, so April 21, and so the committee moved him out on the 30th, thinking, hey, we've got to get this moving along, because they were on recess. They couldn't do it too much earlier than that, so then they get April 30. And that was still, you know, there's the morning, and then there's the conclave.

So, he could have been there in time if the Senate would have got its act together, if the Democrats wouldn't have protested. You know, held up the vote? Yeah, shout out to Brian for that, because that was a sick anecdote that I got to drop to all the other news people, because they were like, oh, where are you from? I was like, oh, Catholic Vogue. They're like, first off, they thought I was saying Catholic Vogue, so not to give away insider secrets, but we need to rename.

We got to use that. No, we just need to open up a fashion magazine. Right, when anyone asked me and they heard that, they're like, wow, that's awesome. That sounds so cool, and I'm like, no, no, no, no. It is CatholicVote, not Catholic vogue. Although, the reaction to this really suggests to me that we need to hop on that IP.

So, anyway, there was that, and then you just realize how much... Well, mine is now Catholic vogue. Come on, vogue. So, hey, just something to think about. And then it was like, oh, yeah, the president of my organization is off to be the ambassador to Vatican. Whoa, that is crazy. I know, it is crazy to me, too. I never expected this. It is crazy. So, life is good. Life is good. Life is good indeed. Okay, we end with, well, first off.

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when it was a Friday. But above all else, we pray especially for Joshua and her family. If you can't keep them in your prayers, we pray the St. Joseph prayer today. In the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Amen.

St. Joseph, I thank God for your privilege of being able to walk to work side by side with Jesus in the carpenter shop of Nazareth. As a token of your own gratitude to God, obtain for me the grace to respect the dignity of labor and ever be to be content with the position in life, however lowly, in which it may please divine providence to place me. Teach me to work for God and with God in a spirit of humility and prayer, as you did, so that I may offer my toil and union with the sacrifice of Jesus in the mass as a reparation for my sins and gain rich merit for heaven.

Amen. St. Thomas More, St. Fidelis, St. Raleigh Guadalupe, pray for us, and we'll see you guys. Ready to rock. Erika's got a deep dive coming out tomorrow. We'll see you then. Erika, we'll see you then on Friday. We're going to be live back at it again. Peace. My Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Amen. Peace.