Mamdani Socialists Sweep NYC Primaries, Starmer OUT in UK, And Paglia Expose

And we're live. Welcome back to the LOOPcast. It's Tom, Erika, and Josh. Josh, back from Secret Assignment. I legit thought it was something for the organization. I think it was just vacation, right? You're hopefully enjoying some well-deserved time off. That's how I'm going to refer to all my vacations going forward as a super secret trip. He didn't tell me to say that. I just said it off the cuff. You just made it up.

Josh, welcome back. It could be both. That's true. Very true. But we're happy to be with you guys here live. Welcome to everyone here on the chat. We've got a great show prepared for you today. A big DSA sweep in New York City. All three Mamdani-backed candidates won their races last night. Two against incubates. One was heavily entrenched. I guess what?

Incumbents. Yes. I thought you said incubates, and I'm like... They were incubating in their seat for many years, and then... Sure, sure. Okay, so we got that one. We're going to cover all the angles there. We are going to hop over to the UK. Kirsten Summers, out. has resigned. Josh loves parliamentary politics. We got some fun parliamentary politics going on right now, and Erika has the explanations for why we should care as an American. I sure do. Outside of the World Cup, of course.

That'll be in my twilight zone. Don't worry. And then, finally, we have some church news. The German bishops got a little bit of a smackdown from Pope Leo in terms of lay people preaching, and then we also have an expose on Paglia.

Colonel Paglia, he was at the Pontifical Academy for Life. Yeah, the John Paul II Institute. Yeah, and so we got an update there. We got good, Josh, on record, not a fan. So, we got good news. We got Twilight Zone. It is going to be a fun show. Happy to have Josh back on the program, but before we get to that, we got Charity Mobile. Now, more than ever, it is important to do business with companies that stand with you and your beliefs.

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Wow, we got a lot to get to here. Top of Docket even got a message from Josh this morning. We're talking about the socialists in New York City. I'm going to do a little bit of a run-through, so you got to forgive me. There's going to be a little explanation of the races and what's going on. I want to get into a little bit of the commentary afterwards. So, all three high-profile Zoram Mamdani-backed House candidates won New York City Democratic primaries on Tuesday, June 23rd, 2026.

That's last night. This includes two incumbent. Upsets. Incumbent. Incumbent. I'm really struggling with that word today. Incumbent. As in they were there before. Correct. And they are no longer there. The results are being framed as a major proof point that Mamdani's 2025 mayoral win translated into durable citywide machine, not one-off protest votes. Now, I want to be explicitly clear. This is not right versus left. This is not general election. These are primary elections in a very progressive part of the country.

So, I just want to be abundantly clear before we get into this. They all agreed on abortion, LGBTQ, trans max positions. Opposing ICE, Medicare for All, Green Energy, anti-Trump, raising taxes, right? Like, these are not, you know, too super radically opposed, so I really tried to pick out areas, comparing their platforms, in which there was actually disagreement, area where one candidate went further than the other. We actually have a little bit, they were all on DSA. These districts are so blue, they're Navy.

Yeah, exactly. That's a good way of putting it. So, they're all backed by DSA in one form or another, all the three winners. They want to win radical reforms like single-payer Medicare for all, defunding the police or refunding communities, Green New Deal, more as a transition to a freer, more just life. That is straight from the DSA website, DSA USA.

So, now I will say, before I get into the individual races, the winners differentiated themselves by going further on completely abolishing ICE and just completely opposing anti-deportation politics, Sanctuary City, etc., Palestine, Gaza, and opposition to AIPAC. It was a huge part of this. I think there's no way around it. I'm going to get into the DNC autopsy a little bit later, but this is just a huge taboo topic going on right now everywhere, but especially for Democrats. Rejecting super PAC and donor class politics, universalist economic policies, so even further on Medicare for all, housing as a right, rent control, public housing, stronger unions, and a more confrontational posture towards Democratic leadership.

I have a little bit more on their popularity as we go, but the races that happened were Brad Lander. And Dan Goldman. So, if you may have heard these names, Brad Lander actually ran for mayor against Mamdani. He garnered a decent amount of support. He was not in the top two. It was Mamdani and Cuomo. And then Dan Goldman, you might remember him because he was spearheading the impeachment effort against Donald Trump. So, again, these are not like... It's not like this guy is some Republican or centrist or whatever.

These are progressive. Not even moderate Democrats. No, not even moderate. Both on the left. So, Lander 166. There's the left, and then there's the commie left. Yeah, so Lander 166 to Goldman's 34. That was according to ABC 7 with about 90% reporting, so that should be pretty accurate. And interesting to look at who supports institutionally. This is like a little Petri dish, because this is over to the other side.

Goldman had establishment support from House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Kathy Hochul. Lander had Mamdani, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and much of the city's organized left. So, the interesting thing that everyone's talking about this one is it seems like a proxy fight over Israel and AIPAC. Brian Lander, they're both Jewish, so it kind of is dispelling a little bit. And then also, I was looking up in terms of support, Jewish support for Lander during the primary election and the mayor. He garnered a significant...

Amount of support. It wasn't an insignificant number. So, it was two Jewish candidates. Brad Lander is certainly the Jewish progressive, critical of Israel's war on Gaza, aligned more with ceasefire Palestinian rights, wing of the Democratic left, criticized AIPAC's role in Democratic primaries. Goldman did receive support from AIPAC. He's a Jewish Democrat, and more conventionally pro-Israel, defended his pro-Israel stance as compatible with progressive values, accepted AIPAC's endorsement. And position himself as critical of Netanyahu at times, but broadly supportive of Israel's security framework.

So, that was the main proxy there. Claire Valdez won New York 7. I think it was, is it Chevalier was the most extreme. Valdez won 56 to 36 against Reynoso. That is with about 92% reporting. It is notable. Reynoso was a progressive with major support, including from Letitia James, the Attorney General there, showing that Mamdani's endorsement could even split among super progressive. I mean, Letitia James, I would not consider a centrist. She is very far left, yeah, that is for sure.

And then finally, we get the most surprising, I think. We get Chevalier against... Chevalier. It is Chevalier. Chevalier, with the Hispanic names here. And then, what is the other one? Espalier. No, Espalier is Hispanic, right? Chevalier. No, Adriana Espalier. She is Hispanic. She is Latina. Right, but Espalier is... Yeah.

It is all right. It is Chevalier. No, no, no. Chevalier, and then who did she run against? Pronounce that name. Oh, gosh. Espalier. I think it is Espalier. That is what they were saying on CNN. She went 49 to 46, and she was probably the most extreme of the three, and ran super hard on Israel-Gaza immigration.

And then, this was also interesting, because Espalier has been around for a long, long time, was kind of seen as the Hispanic power broker of the region. Not just that. He's chairman of the House of Representatives. He's chairman of the House, what is it called, the Hispanic Caucus. So, I mean, this guy's got a big power broker. I mean, it's just amazing that they keep unseating. These very strong, very liberal establishment Democrats, and I think you hit it on it right from the top there, Tom.

I mean, absolutely nailed it. We're seeing a major chasm inside of the Democratic Party with very liberal establishment types like Chuck Schumer, like the congressman- Hakeem Jeffries, yeah. Hakeem Jeffries, exactly, and that on one side, and then you have AOC and- Now, this new Congresswoman-elect surely will be DAC, let's call her, because I'm not as good at the French pronunciations. Hey, that was a smart dodge there. You really laid me out to die. The DAC. I like that. You know, and you look at this, and you think, how is Chuck Schumer going to survive another election in New York?

I just don't see it happening. I don't see him surviving another. Democratic primary. And yet, there's no doubt, there is absolutely no doubt that the Gaza, Palestine, anti-Israel issue is the most notable, but it's not the only one. I mean, but it's the lightning rod, because basically, I think it's a litmus test amongst the hard left.

And they think of it, because I, you know, we've said on this program many times, we very much, we're all pretty much in agreement that we think the Israeli government is going way too far and way too aggressive, and they need to pull back, okay? And then you and I have disagreements about... What, you know, Israel is and all that kind of stuff. I'm not exactly a fan, but I'm not as opposed to it as you are or whatever. But, you know, we have those sort of agreements and some disagreements there.

Yeah. But it is a litmus test inside of the Democratic Party right now, and it becomes like the lightning rod, you know, but it's not the only thing. And so, like, you look at these candidates, Brad Ladner. Of course, he wanted to abolish ICE. He wanted to expand the Supreme Court. That is what a lot of mainstream Democrats... He also wants to forgive every single student loan. That is like nearly $2 trillion worth of money just gone. Like, wait, what? And Claire Valdez of the 7th District, she wants to grant citizenship and voting rights to illegal aliens.

She wants to use taxpayer funds on all transgender treatments. She wants to eliminate every single private health care insurance plan. I mean, these are radical stuff, and then you get the DAC, right? Our new soon-to-be-Congressman-elect. I mean, she's obviously going to win the November election, so it's just, you know. She wants, obviously, to abolish ICE, abolish borders, defund the police. We've heard all those things wrong. She says all deportations are wrong. She wants to abolish prisons. Right. Like, what? She called the United States an effing disgrace, and she said one time in a social media post, I forgot to get napkins, so I just wiped my hand on the American flag behind me.

Smiley face. Right. I mean, if nothing else, just become a poster child. A new breed of candidate. Yeah. What was that? Well, this is going to be, if you're hearing about it now for the first time, you're going to see these tweets up and down the wall. Every political ad ever is going to be, nationally so, like even if it's not in that specific race, because they're most likely going to win, they're going to be touted as the new breed of DSA socialists that hate the country or super extreme.

So, I think the right probably embraces this. I mean, so, obviously, there are staffers at the House Republican, you know, candidate committee who are just doing keg stands because they're so excited to run against candidates. It's like when Mamdani won, everyone was like, yes. However, I would just warn, like, this is seriously bad news for America. It really is, because it's one thing to have, I mean, like, you know, like, if they got elected to some, like, state legislative district, you know, you'd be like, whoa, that's kind of freaky.

And it's easy to dismiss. You're like, okay, these people got elected out of Brooklyn, out of New York City, just like Ilhan Omar. Well, she got elected out of Minneapolis, and Presley got elected out of Boston. So what?

What's her name? Shaliv, Shaliv, I forget her name. All these Star Wars names, I can never get them right. She got elected out of Dearborn. Dearborn, right, the Muslim population. You know, and it's easy to dismiss this, but I would say, now hold on a second. What you have said at the beginning there, Tom. A divide between, it's a real, true, massive chasm between establishment, super liberal Democrats like Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer, and they call themselves democratic socialists. I mean, they're effectively communists in every way.

This chasm is getting bigger and bigger, and it's not just congressional districts and deep blue cities like New York and Minneapolis and Boston. Look who's winning. Democrats in Maine nominated Graham Platner to be their nominee, a guy with a Nazi tattoo. He's of that Bernie Sanders, you know, AOC wing of the party, and in Michigan, you have Congresswoman Haley Stevens, the establishment type candidate. She's very liberal, and she's not getting any traction. She's spending millions of dollars. Chuck Schumer's trying to bail her out, and...

What's going on is all the energy is going to, you know, Al-Said, and so the Democrats in Michigan are facing, you know, what, five, six weeks from now, they're going to have to decide who are they going to go with. Are they going to go with an establishment, super liberal type, or basically a DSA? Far left, Bernie Sanders-type socialist communists. So, it's not just in these, you know, congressional districts and deep blue left-wing cities that have gone crazy. Michigan, Maine, like, these are big-time things.

So, and again, in Minnesota, like, Peggy Flanagan, she's the lieutenant governor. She's totally psycho. Is she going to be the nominee for the Senate race in Minnesota, or are they going to go with the more... The establishment super liberal, Angie Craig. People need to keep their eyes on it. We already know what they're doing in Maine. Let's see what they do in Michigan and Minnesota.

These are statewide races. I want Erika, what's your two cents? I think that something that surprised me as I was looking into this phenomenon, as the results were coming in yesterday, too, is just how engineered this phenomenon is, and I was looking into the pipeline that the Democratic Socialists of America created, and we joked about how AOC was a failed actress, and she basically auditioned for her role, but for the two women who you mentioned, The DAC and the, oh my goodness, the other, my brain.

Claire Valdez. Thank you, Valdez. They were in this pipeline that the DSA has created, and it goes straight from, it goes from campus radicalism, these groups of students, from campus radicalism, you get to street organizing, so they're involved in, you know, all the BLM stuff the last five years, some Antifa stuff, and all that, and then the DSA cherry picks. The most talented public speakers, basically, the most intersectional, and they prop them up. The other thing to remember here is that these candidates are not beholden to their constituency.

They're not beholden to the American order or civil discourse or any of those ideals that we have. They're beholden to the DSA because the DSA creates these people. They create these candidates. And when they are. They're put into office. They're expected to be loyal first to the party, and you can go through campaigns, stump speeches.

To their party, not the Democratic Party. Yeah, which the DSA has said, they have spokesmen who have come out and said their goal is to use the Democratic Party as their vehicle for the eradication of the American order. And we can be like, oh, ha ha, how is little DSA going to ever do that? And we can look back at the 70s and be like, oh, you know, the Weathermen failed and all that. But they only failed. Did they? I know, exactly.

You were invited to Obama's presidential library. Exactly. They were there, and I mean, I made a whole video about this, that they're just sleeping for a while, and now they're coming back, and I think, you know, we can be, there was a lot of talk on the right after the election of, okay, we've passed peak wokeism, wokeism's dead, it's in the past, we've passed that. Well, I think we've passed wokeism, and now we've awoken, like, an even more extreme, if you can even imagine, like, well, what's Possibly beyond, you know, a man can become a woman, and a woman can become a man, and we are going to trans the kids.

Well, it is this, because it is this plus all of the, you know, abolish the prisons, bring in all the immigrants. The other point I want to make is that we talked about this when Mamdani won the election last November. He would not have won had it not been for mass migration and the influx, because among native New Yorkers, he lost. Right? He only won because he took 61% of recent immigrants. I believe it was like immigrants within the last 10 years.

And so, the same here, as you break down the numbers with these three candidates, they won. The Jewish candidate, not so much Lander, that's a whole other story because it's right, that district is like the highest Jewish concentration of voters in America. So, it's going to be a Jewish person.

The other two, they won because of immigrant voters. And so, again, you allow mass migration. This is why the Democrats love it, because this is what happens. Although some of them might be regretting it right now, like Hakeem and Chuck. So, I appreciate it. I don't know. Do they regret anything? Can they? I think the stats certainly bear out what you just said about immigration and Mamdani's rise. But I think an element to all of this that...

What is missing is just the weakness of institutional Democrats, unpopularity, because who did they put up against them? They put Cuomo up against Mamdani, who is scandal-ridden, barely running a campaign, old, out of touch, certainly not along the lines of what younger voters are looking for, and there's all these very legitimate problems for New Yorkers' cost of living, affordability, housing, et cetera, health care, that just were not addressed by that campaign. And then I'll take it a step further. You look at the favorability numbers of Chuck Schumer.

I mean, 17% favorable, according to the civics poll, 68% unfavorable nationally. That's as of June 16th. And then Hakeem Jeffries, same thing, 28% favorable, 51% unfavorable. And then I don't know if you guys are following this DNC autopsy story, which I think it's a good lesson because Republicans certainly are suspect of this too.

So, the DNC was supposed to release this big grand autopsy that was like, these were all of the reasons why Kamala Harris spent A billion dollars and lost, right? Like, how did this happen? We thought we had it, and Ken Martin was the DNC chair. That was, of course, after all the scandal about, I think, was it David Hogg briefly, and then he kind of got out identity politic, and then they ended up with Ken Martin, who's kind of like an institutional white guy, which is hilarious.

No, no, no. Hogg was for a seat on the greater council. Ken Martin was the chair. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ken Martin, you know, he promises to release this autopsy all the way leading up. Like, we're going to release it. We're going to release it. We're going to release it. You deserve answers. And then he goes on a major left-wing podcast and is like, we're going to focus on the future. We're not going to release it. We're not going to release it.

They're like, what? Everyone's just so shocked that you said you were going to release it, and that maybe it was their Epstein moment, I don't know. And then Democrats see, okay, we're going to release it, we're going to release it, but I'm not proud of the product. It was exactly what Ken Martin said. I'm not proud of this product. And they said, I believe it was like, critique on Kamala Harris and too much focus on identity politics was like, okay, you know.

That is why we lost. Maybe part of it. No mention of Biden deciding to run at 81, basically having dementia symptoms, Harris getting elevated with no Democratic input, and then Gaza. Not a word about Gaza. Now, I will just say for someone under 40 or whatever, especially on the left, probably even more so than the right, this was the problem.

Biden was completely cooperative with what Netanyahu was doing in Gaza. Democrats hated it for different reasons, moral reasons, etc., but it was just never addressed. Like, it wasn't even addressed in the campaign trail. And so, I think that, yes, the immigration certainly comes in, but I think the institutional Democrats are so weak. Like, it almost reminds me of, you know, how frustrated, I'm more extreme, obviously, in a direction I disagree with, but remember how frustrated, say, like the Tea Party was with the party at the time, or conservatives were frustrated with...

You know, the Romneys or whatever else, like, you know, we are just going to say nice things, but we are not going to touch immigration, right? Like, immigration third rail. We are not going to touch non-traditional means. Culture war issues. Culture war issues, great point. And then Trump comes in and completely obliterates. He was the lightning rod that they all wanted, and I say, like, I am feeling similar things with Mamdani on say what you want about whether you agree or not.

He is talking about what people want to address. In his party. Yeah, in his party, and the institutional Democrats are so feckless, ineffective, and out of touch that they aren't even providing people an excuse to be like, well, you know, these guys are a little too extreme. These guys will be fine. It's like, well, you haven't done anything for us or anything that I wanted for so long now. I'll roll the dice somewhere else. It almost felt like that for Republicans.

It's like, I'll roll the dice. Who knows about Trump? I mean, at least he's saying what I want. I totally agree with what you're saying because There was actually a famous autopsy report after the 2012 elections in which the Republican Party said the problem with Mitt Romney was he was too anti-immigration, which actually he was. He was very anti-immigration in his platform, but that's not the reason why he lost. In fact, the reason why he lost is because he was out of touch with blue-collar workers in the Rust Belt.

He had no chance in Ohio and in Pennsylvania and in Michigan. Because he looked like the guy who would fire you. Because that's exactly what he did. He hired, he was with a venture capitalist organization that came in and shut down factories. Like, I'm sorry, there's no chance. Whereas people looked at, you know, Mitt Romney, the rich man, the guy who wants to fire me. They looked at Donald Trump, the rich man, as a guy who builds buildings. I get that.

He's the guy who hires me. Right. It's not a finance thing. Like, he hires workers to build buildings. So, that was a major difference. You know, and Donald Trump, it's just so easy to forget, like, the recent history, but like in the, excuse me, in the 2016 campaign, man.

He was violating every golden rule that Republicans had. Republicans were still operating on like a 1980 playbook, and he just came along and said, the war in Iraq was dumb. Yeah. What we're doing is dumb. And voters were like, thank goodness we have someone who is refreshing and different. And I agree, that's what Mondami and the Democratic Socialists are doing for Democrats. The only difference I would say is, and it is a very big difference.

That I think Donald Trump's platform was actually better at trying to win a majority of Americans to vote for him. In other words, he came by, and I think all the Republican politicians at the time were sort of ossified. He came by like a prairie fire and took out all the brush, and the policy platform he came up with, which is don't run away from... Trans and stuff like that, people don't like this, and populist economic policies, and he won voters.

He won voters in Michigan and in Pennsylvania. Whereas you look at Mamdami, yes, I agree, he's coming to the under 40 set, and El-Said, in Michigan, he's got... Like, 70% of Democratic voters under the age of 40 who want to vote for him. We will see if they come up to the polls. That is the big question. Right. But the difference here is that the Democratic Socialist agenda, even though it is ripping through the Democratic Party right now like a wildfire.

Is that, I think, is going to be, at least in the short term, toxic for the Democratic Party. Obviously, if they do get elected to nationwide office in 2028, I think it would be disastrous for our entire country. But just look at what is going on. You have Josh Shapiro, a very popular governor, who is going to get reelected by like 20 points in Pennsylvania.

There is just no way he is going to get nominated for president or even vice president of the United States for the Democratic Party. So, again, I would just say that the DSA, the Democratic Socialists of America, that policy agenda that they have is part of the reason why they actually might.

Democrats lose this November, even though they have, you know, just looking at history, midterm elections, you would expect the Democrats to win, and they're up in the polls by like five, six, seven points or whatever. But you get candidates like this who want to wipe, you know, their hands on the American flag and say, you know, screw America and all this other kind of stuff. You know, DAC was an organizer with the Columbia University Apartheid Divest Group, and this organization, they say they want to Their organization's stated intentions is to, quote, undermine and eradicate America.

Right. And they mean it. We should probably believe them when they say that. But yeah, if you go, like you're saying, Josh, 100% agree, if you go down all of the 80-20 issues, the DSA is on the 20% side of every single one, from boys' and girls' locker rooms, to open borders, to prisons, and crime reduction, all of these things. Maybe Medicare for All could be closer. Maybe healthcare. Maybe, but everything else, yeah, I agree with you. Like, healthcare is so bad now, I feel like most...

People aren't willing to roll the dice. I just have to say. Yeah, like, let's just do anything different. Anything but whatever is going on, so it's an opportunity for Republicans. Until you talk to your friends who live outside of London, and they're like... They hate it, too. I know. They're like, I found out that we were pregnant, and the first OBGYN I can see is when I'm seven months pregnant. And you're like...

What? Seems unusual. So, let me ask here, because again, it is helpful to just be like, this is the left of the left, the left outflanking the left, the left winning. Institutional Democrats, you know, not been successful. You brought up Haley Stevens and Al Saeed. I think that is a perfect example. Even if you just are kind of casually observing on the internet, if you look at the two candidates, Stevens feels like a plant, like an institutional corporate plant. Al-Said is taking a much more...

Hard-line position on Israel-Palestine, not taking money from AIPAC. Like, that is the lightning rod issue. He probably has a score of young people paying, oh my gosh, Michigan, but also nationally as well, especially for the left, and it is becoming that on the right. So, and funny, Erika, you're like, well, the DSA owns these people, and I kind of had to chuckle because I'm like, well, how much corporate money is, you know, Chuck Schumer, whoever these institutional candidates, they're getting tons of money from super PACs that, of course, want favors as well.

That does not negate the fact, that doesn't negate the fact. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Doesn't negate the fact. And then also, I think- Just looking at it from a strategy angle, I think Josh, you said this too, the kind of tryout for charismatic people to toe the line is smart. It's smart politics. It's a good way to earn people's votes. You want people that can project a camera. You don't want awkward people that get pushed through by corporate money. I think the good recent example would be in Kentucky, Ed Gellerin was just an empty suit.

No charisma, I don't know. He got pushed through by money. That can happen sometimes. For sure. And by the way, Mamdani backed three people. There weren't non-institutional Democrats or closer to institutional that one. There was some that one. And not every place is going to be like New York, as extreme as New York, so they're going to have to run different lanes. I mean, this is just politics. But you see, like, you know, Graham Platner. You see what just happened there with Mamdani Sweep.

You see all the energy and enthusiasm. Is there anything... Is there anything for... Let me just put myself in a separate category, because I'm very frustrated with Republicans, right? I'm very frustrated with Republicans, if you can't tell. As someone that loves my country, has traditional values, wants to see free market, private ownership, if you want to get to the principles, what can be done to... Keep that tied. Do you think they're just too extreme and people are just going to toss it out, or there's enough failure from the people in power to actually deliver on, say, lower inflation, affordability, housing, no more foreign wars, like those kind of things?

It seems to me like... Is there anything that can be done now to kind of tide some of these people from coming in? And the DSAs are going to have such a small block. It feels like in Congress right now, we're talking about like two or three people. Is that enough? I think it's more than that, though, because this is what I'm getting at. It's one thing to have DSA people elected out of congressional districts in Boston and Brooklyn and Minneapolis.

I get that. But in Minnesota, for example, you have an establishment, very liberal, Angie Craig, Congresswoman. Run for Senate. Like, in normal circumstances, normal cycles, she would be the nominee, she would get the nomination, and she would be senator for... 18 years, or however long she wanted to be in there, because Minnesota is a blue state, right?

But she's being challenged by the lieutenant governor, because, I mean, Tim Walz is a total psychopath, and his lieutenant governor is even more crazy. She claims to be Catholic, but she puts on a hijab, or whatever it's called, and campaigning for Muslim votes, and she's like hard, hard, hard left. And Peggy Flanagan might just be the nominee. She's got the momentum of the Bernie Sanders, Liz Warren, AOC wing of the party. So, In Minnesota, which is a state that would, under normal circumstances, almost every time, vote for a Democratic candidate.

Now, they're looking at it and going, wait a minute now, and Republicans have the opportunity to nominate somebody, Michelle Tafoya, who's not perfect on the issues, former ESPN broadcaster. She's very sensible. I would prefer a more conservative candidate, certainly if I was living in a state like, you know, Indiana, but it's Minnesota, so she might be about the best you could probably get, and Minnesotans will have a decision. Are you going to go for a DSA communist, or are you going to go for, like, Someone who's like totally down the middle.

Okay. So, what's your instinct in that race? Well, that, I think, again, that's going to, I mean, if Angie Craig is the nominee, then I think she wins. But the question is, are Democrats going to go with that, quote, safe establishment pick? Angie Craig is very liberal.

But I think the heart of the base is going to go for Peggy Flanagan, just like they're going to go for El-Sayed in Michigan, just like they went for Graham Platner instead of the more liberal but safer Governor Janet Mills. So, I think Democrats blew a chance to win the Senate seat in Maine. I think they're going to blow it in Michigan by going with El-Sayed, and they have a chance to lose it even in Minnesota. So, you don't think they win?

You think they go the extreme candidate? You don't think they win in the general? I mean, Minnesota might just, you know, might just elect the socialist in the general. We'll see. But I don't, I just, I have a tough time seeing El-Sayed winning a Senate seat in Michigan.

I do not like this gamble. I do not like this. We really need the other side. I think I will say you would win, so I will go on record. Oh, my gosh. Just to be the other side of Josh. What are we talking about? We are talking about someone that he is a doctor at the University of Michigan. Everyone is like, oh, he did not practice. He is clearly very credentialed. He is well-spoken. He speaks to the issues of young people.

If you put up someone who is just kind of an empty suit from the Republicans, I think young people are not going to turn out. You are going to get your traditional support. And if you look at the demo of Michigan, it is clearly becoming very Arabic. So, why would they not? This is like a perfect candidate, I think, to really run a challenge in Michigan. Yes, he has progressive policies. He is not as like.

Crazy, crazy. Like, he's closer to a Mamdani, to me, than he would be to, I don't know, like, someone that's real crazy. Like, who's the lady we were just talking about? Yes. He's closer to a Mamdani than a DAC.

Mamdani's pretty crazy. No, why did he win? That's the thing. Why did he win? He's well-spoken, he speaks to the issues of the youth, and he's a great communicator. I understand, but he's also very extreme, right? Like, in terms of policy and how he thinks we get from... Point A to point B. I think that we need to listen to ourselves, and we're saying things like, well, they're not extreme. They're more like Mamdani. And you're like, oh, wait, no. But Mamdani won.

That's like Overton window happening in your brain in real time over the last three years. What Mamdani is maybe, okay, this is what I'm saying. One second. What Mamdani is accused of being is not true. Him being like a crazy Islamist, total communist, sees everyone's property. That's like the worst characterization, and I think that's a mistake. When people internalize that. Miami, like Obama, is not Islamic. Exactly. That is what I am saying. I think El-Sayed is closer to that mold. That is all I am saying.

Okay, but so, Michigan. This is what I would say. Long-term trends are a different story. If the trend of this Democratic Party continues in the way that it does, what do their politics look like 15 years from now? It is very scary to think. But in the short term, they might get a real drubbing at the... Ballot box, and I say this because, you know, I live in Michigan. You were born in Michigan, Tom. Yeah. Here is the difference. Michigan is one of the states with the highest population of people who, you know, who reside in the state, who are born in the state.

It is like number one or number two. It is way high up there. Yep. And it's also much, the population of Michigan is much older than average than other states, and so El-Sayed is absolutely energizing, under 40, Democratic base, but is he going to be able to win statewide? Like, if he ran for Congress, I had no question he would be elected. No doubt, like, he would win, but statewide?

We'll see. I think he loses. Maybe my bias is because I grew up in the metro Detroit area, and I've seen the demographic change. I still see it. Well, the demographic changes in Metro Detroit with Dearborn are unbelievable, you know, and I think we're going to start to see a backlash. I mean, you know, Catholic Votes, Steve Cortez did polling in Michigan, which showed, like, you know, what do you think about, you know, Islamic immigration? And there's a lot of Michigan voters who feel very apprehensive about it because, you know, like, we saw all this news about the World Cup guys, like Freddie from Germany, and just talking so glowingly about the country and driving through small towns.

And eating at a Buc-ee's at one in the morning, and it's like, I love these guys. I love America. But the question is, is Islamic immigration compatible with the principles of a free society that we've come to understand in Western civilization, coming down from the Magna Carta all the way down to our own constitution? And I have a feeling that... No, in fact. What is strange about Islamic is that it is good for our country if Catholics are very Catholic. It is good for the Republic.

For the, but for Islamics who really take their faith seriously and treat, you know, infidels in the manner that they do, it really does seem incompatible. Like, Muslims have no problem living as a minority in a Christian country, but Christians have every problem as a minority in a Muslim country, and why is that? I think we don't.

Yeah, yeah, I struggle with that because I do know. You know, good Muslims, but I'd say your point is correct in that no one should become a minority in their own country. And you're talking about, we're going to talk about the UK with Keir Starmer. And it's like, these are the main arguments against, I wouldn't actually argue that there's a difference in kind in the type of immigration. So, like, would someone from a European country come over and immigrate, you know, assimilate more smoothly than someone that comes from a theocracy?

Of course, no question. Do we have all kinds of minorities in the country right now because of immigration policies? Yes. Should those people become majority? No. I mean, you see what's happening in Dearborn. Absolutely not. That is theocratic center.

So, what I will say is, and we see it in the UK now, is we should not be having, we as a home country, as Americans, should have the right to determine who comes into our country on what balance. And there should not be like arbitrary limits placed on, okay, from the outside, what you can and can't accept. No, it's actually my natural right as an American to be a part of the process to decide what's going on. And it just feels like, I mean, we're talking about what happened in New York City.

Certainly, Erika, we're talking about what happened in Dearborn. The national trend, certainly going this way. And for whatever you say, you know, all my problems with Trump, I mean, the biggest thing was just, like, he shut down the border. If anything, he's not deporting aggressively enough, but we need to reassert sovereignty over the country. Immigration is a part of this. Foreign policy is a part of this.

By the way, what percentage of the population in Michigan do you believe is Muslim? I'm going to be overrepresented because of metric. Yeah, probably. So, not Arabic, Muslim? Muslim. Because Arabic is different, obviously, right? Right, right, right. It is smaller.

Because there are Chaldeans. I love Chaldeans. Chaldeans have their own set of issues. We love the Chaldeans. Oh, man, I am living with two of the minorities, man. I know them all too well. It is like if you work in sales, you kind of know everyone's stereotype.

Whoa. 8%. It is 2.4%. What? 2.4%. But that is still 240,000 people, and they all live basically in Dearborn and the Detroit area, and it is like, wow, it is a big, you know, it feels, because there is not like, you know, there is not like there is a ton of Muslims who live, you know, in Alpena, Michigan, or in Petoskey, or in the UP, or something like that, you know, and Illinois has a higher percentage. I mean, so whatever, but I mean, the The point is, these questions about what kind of people we are allowing into our country do matter, because Catholics in the Detroit area saw the Polish village of Hamtramck, where Pope John Paul II visited in 1987, totally transform into being a Muslim majority city, and it is kind of a stark reminder.

It is, whoa, what is going on? Do they really believe in religious toleration? Do they really believe in everyone having inherent rights and that everyone is created in the image of God? According to stated teachings, yes, in various ones. Someone is asking what a good Muslim is. Yes, there are good people that are Muslim. I just completely push back against the notion.

I know them, too. I am not talking about whether or not they are virtuous or not. The question is, do they vote for candidates and policies that would restrict the rights of non-Muslims? And I think, overwhelmingly, the evidence has been that they do. Well, we would restrict the rights of people that, you know, different religious factions that we disagree with. It's a demographic. No, no, no. The difference being that fundamentally, the theocratic Islamist political philosophy, whatever kind of coherence it has, and that's one of the problems of Islam, is you're like, well, Islam teaches this, and it teaches that.

Well, there's no teaching body, but the overwhelming number of Islamic states that there have been, they have Several tiered applications of the law. They have multiply tiered justice systems. The difference being that when you say Americans restrict Muslims' rights or something like that, it's that we have standards and principles of law, and the goal is for there to be one law for everyone who's there, regardless of who they are, regardless of their religion, regardless of this, but that we all have one standard.

That is not the assumption. Of Islamic states and Islamic political philosophy, writ large, again, there are exceptions to that in history. All the philosophy majors can go, blah, blah, blah. I mean, oh, Christians aren't doing so bad in Jordan because, well, yeah, because the king is probably married to a closet Catholic, but like other places.

The Qatar, yeah, like Iran, no. Yeah, but I guess my point would be, too, like Indians come from a caste system. We don't have a caste system in America. If Indians become a majority, they could change the laws. I agree. So, therefore, the country should not become majority Indian immigration. This is my issue in general. We've got to shut down immigration as a whole. I'm not a pro-anything else other than American. Moratorium. I don't need a moratorium on data centers. Maybe we'll get there, but right now, I need a moratorium on immigration.

Calm down. Stop and think. My dad's favorite saying, stop and think. This is what people in the UK are dealing with. Time's at 10. Yeah, let's get into UK. Before we get into that, we have Nazareth Organics. Okay, I love this one. This is one of my favorites. All right, from God's hands to your skin. Nazareth Organics is a Catholic family-owned skincare company that handcrafts nourishing balms and serums using clean ingredients from nature. Check out their summer combo sale to get you through the heat of the summer.

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Following it up really fast here with Christendom College. Love Christendom College. Beautiful campus. You've seen the headlines. You have felt it in the classroom. More and more, schools are trading out truth for efficiency and social engineering, speaking of the DSA. You're searching for a better path forward, and you don't have to walk it alone. Christendom College has launched a new self-paced online course completely free, Education at the Crossroads, taught by Dr. John Kerwin. You will trace how schools stopped forming souls.

...and started managing outcomes, and discover the Catholic answer, the classical vision of learning as a journey toward God, guided by the wisdom of the Church. Don't let the noise of modernity decide the future of education and our culture. Equip yourself with the clarity and confidence to bring truth, goodness, and beauty back to your home and community. Start Dr. Kerwin's course free today at educationatthecrossroads.com. That's educationatthecrossroads.com. All right, Erika, it is your time to shine. All right, here we go. It is going to take a minute to get through this.

Let me just give you a little quick rejoinder, a little tease for this. Do you know about Larry the Cat? I do not know about Larry the Cat. Who's Larry the Cat? Sixteen-year-old tabby cat who's been living outside the prime minister's place. Oh, number 10 Downing Street. And this cat now has been there for 16 years. He's now going to see his seventh. Prime Minister of the UK. So, everyone's just like laughing about this cat. It's outlasting, like seven prime ministers.

Oh, my goodness. Yeah, here we go. So, hail Keir. Keir is now on the outs. He announced on Monday that he would be stepping down after less than two years in office, and yes, to Josh's point, this is opening the door for the seventh prime minister in 10 years. To put that in some perspective, We think of prime ministers, we think of Margaret Thatcher, Winston Churchill. In the previous 37 years leading up to Brexit, there were only four of them.

So, Britain is having a little populist upheaval, really tough time post much turbulence here. Well, what happened 10 years ago? Ten years ago, on the same day he resigned, the Britons voted to exit the EU in a movement known as Brexit. The Leaves won the day, and they were out. Now, however, a majority of UK citizens say they think it was a mistake, and I'll get into that in a minute. But what happened to Keir Starmer? Donald Trump is taking all of the credit for this, but in fact, this is months.

Of course. And months of collapsing approval ratings. I mean, Donald Trump, his approval ratings, he looks like a prom king compared to Keir Starmer, who I think was at 9% a couple of weeks ago. So, he leads the Labor Party, or he did. They had disastrous local elections last week. Massive internal party unrest, again, kind of parallel with the Democratic Party. There's now like three or four factions in there, all trending left. Continual fallout. We remember, of course, the Epstein-related scandal with Lord Peter Mandelson, who was the ambassador to the U.S.

Is he still Lord? Didn't they strip him? I think they stripped him. Just Mandelson. Lots of stripping going on in the deep state. Yeah, but also the stabbing of schoolgirls, the stabbing epidemic. You remember that last year. We talked about, at length on the show, the stabbing of Henry Novak, and then his subsequent death in police custody as the police mocked him for being a racist. And, of course, this other report, we didn't even cover it, because it's so dark, it makes Epstein look like Pollyanna.

But this was the rape gangs report that exposed that over 250,000, a quarter of a million British girls have been victimized by this mafia-like rape gang. And, again, just crazy two-tier justice system. Google with your discretion. Yeah, it's so bad. Also, government censorship. Arrests of dissenting political voices, not just with COVID, but with anything having to do with the government's sort of DEI America, parallel to American DEI impetus. People praying outside of abortion facilities have been arrested? Yeah, for example, Isabel's, I forget her name, not Isabel Brown, that's the Danny Wire girl I was about to say.

She was not arrested in London. She's out of jail, yeah. But basically, Keir Starmer's out, people are jumping up and down. Don't get too excited, however, because it looks like... It is almost certainly he will be replaced by a former Manchester mayor, Andy Burnham, who entered Parliament last week in a special election, and he will almost certainly swing even harder left than Keir Starmer. He wants to raise taxes in one of the most taxed populations in the West, and really bolstering up the welfare state.

Britain has become a nation, I would say, That it prefers compliant citizens, let's just put it that way, to subjects. They like subjects, very royal language. All right, so we're changing prime minister, but it does not appear that we're really changing course. I think Constantine Kissin likened it to, we're just going to replace the captain on the Titanic, but no one's actually going to steer the rudder any differently. We're still headed straight for the iceberg. So, why should we care?

This is what Tom asked me when I pitched this story idea. Yep. So, I think that Britain is, in a way, a cautionary tale, and that the United States... This sort of, for me, it solidifies the reality that America's sort of mission on Earth is to continue British, is to, like, wave the British flag and continue their policies. I mean, we go back to them in terms of our structure of law, our founding fathers looked to the Magna Carta, the Mayflower Compact, all this, and we're really the ones preserving.

British rule of law, because Britain has abandoned it. So, 10 years ago, we had Brexit in Britain, we have Donald Trump coming down the escalator, and both of these sort of as massive populist moments, right, in both of the countries. When Britain voted to Brexit from the EU, what they hoped would happen was that they would come back to controlling their own laws. That they would be able to secure their borders, revive the fishing industry, because you might remember Brussels, Belgium, had decided that the EU couldn't kill all the fish.

Sorry, England couldn't be fishing, and it just totally destroyed that whole industry. They could spend more money at home instead of sending it over to the mainland, that they could strike their own trade deals and have an independent relationship with other countries around the world, and again, be their own people. Instead...

The conservative government who came in and pushed through Brexit utterly folded to progressive ideology. And so, you have these conservative prime ministers, starting with Theresa May. And then you get Boris Johnson, who was totally broken by scandal, Liz Truss trying to bring in austerity measures and people just losing their minds over being deprived of their welfare, and then, of course, Rishi Sunak, he just lost massively for many of the same reasons. But this sort of like cuddling up with the Davos set.

What was the Boris Johnson scandal, if you don't mind? I forgot. Boris Johnson was, oh my gosh, Josh. I can picture his haircut so clearly. Yeah, his hair was incredible. Well, I mean, the big thing here is, the bigger picture here with all these candidates, like you could have a scandal and then replace them with someone else if they just got on the right program and responded to the needs of the people. And each of these prime ministers from, you know, Theresa May to Liz Truss to, you know, Boris to Rishi Sunak, they all were basically just like.

What the Republican Party served up to the voters here. It was like, no, no, no, no, no. Shut up. Sit down. Eat your vegetables. We're going to tell you what you should be voting for and why you should. This was like George W. Bush, John McCain, Mitt Romney, and they're going to serve up another serving of Jeb Bush. It's like, are you out of your mind? No, we don't want this. And thankfully, the voters of this great republic said, no, actually, we get to pick our people.

And we're going to pick the leader of our party, and that was nice, but that doesn't happen in a parliamentary system. Yes. Okay, I was going to ask that very specifically. Is this a function of failure of the parliamentary system where whoever builds a coalition comes to leadership can't actually govern as boldly as, say, the president who gets elected for four years and has the freedom to actually make somewhat unpopular positions with different parts of the coalition? I'm going to answer that a little bit slightly different.

Okay, so Would you agree with me? That Donald Trump came to power as the standard bearer of the Republican Party, and then president, completely against the wishes of establishment Republicans, right? Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay, and so my point is, if there's people who want to reform and make the Conservative Party in the UK to actually be responsive to the populist needs of the people, to say no to...

This insane migration, which has resulted in the raping of 250,000 white girls in the UK. It's absolutely abhorrent, but there's no one to do anything about it. Like, the same kind of stranglehold we have in our country on political speech that we had in DEI and in the workplace, and you're not supposed to say this, and you're supposed to act like a robot and say, put your pronouns up, right? Even if, like, wait, this population of Pakistani people... Are raping our women like crazy?

Like, let us get them out of here. And it is like, oh, you are racist, and you are the problem. He would arrest the dads. The dads were arrested when they would try to get the daughters back. Exactly. No, it is absolutely insane. And so, there is no, you know, the politicians that are in, that were in parliament, the conservatives.

They kept serving up more and more Jeb Bushes, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Theresa May, Rishi Sunak, and the voters were like, what the heck is this? This sucks. No, I don't want this. And so, what you saw then is we are seeing two new political parties come to surface in the UK.

You've got reform, and then you have restore. And so, these new parties are like, you know, saying, no, this isn't enough. The conservatives are dead, goodbye, gone. We need new political parties, because the politicians in the party are not responding to the people. And so, these other political parties are taking much stronger stance against illegal migration and all this other kind of stuff. And we'll see. I mean, If there's any future, one of those two new political parties has got to forge away.

Yeah, and I think it is interesting, too. So, the EU just passed this week the right to expedited extradition for countries. So, even the EU, which has been, I mean, oh my goodness, you think of Germany just 10 years ago with the welcoming, and this was one of the things, is that right when Brexit happened, Theresa May and then later Boris Johnson, they start cuddling up to Germany, and Germany is like, oh, we are just going to send all of our...

You know, refugees, Afghani refugees up to Britain. It was just it was like you said, Josh, we they left the EU. And then the Conservative Party is like, well, we're just going to be Brussels. We just are British Brussels. And it was they didn't really trade out the policies at all. So.

Yeah, strengths and weaknesses. I do think that the American order, the fact that we have the four years of the executive who we elect, it provides a little more stability for change to happen, but change is going to happen, and it is. Well, and here is an interesting point. A lot of people in our country… Get very frustrated. The two-party system. As if the system itself is inherently wrong. No, actually, I'm a loud and proud advocate of the two-party system. The idea that the two-party system can never change, you know, we can never get political change because the two-party system is obviously a canard.

We know this to be true. It is true that the two-party system does create more long-term stability for a government, which in general, stabilities for governments are in general a good thing, obviously. But it doesn't mean you can't have change. Donald Trump proved that by winning, you know, the nomination. You know, he was, he ran completely against the establishment of the Republican Party, and he won. That happened in a two-party system. Mondami and the three communists out of New York City just won in a two-party system, you know, and I think they're bad for America.

Bill Clinton, same thing. Like, you can go through all of our history. There's major shifts in the parties, almost on a decade basis. Glad you mentioned Bill Clinton. His party, you know, the era of Bill Clinton is so dead, you know, so over. Well, yeah, remember, was it our favorite Cajun? What's his name? He wrote that book, like, 40 Years of Democrat Rule. James Carville. Carville? Carville, because he ran the campaign. He's like, Democrats are never going to lose again.

He didn't write that one. The emergent Democratic majority, he didn't write that one, no. He didn't write that book. You're thinking, you know, no, I mean, it's, but it, you know, it is true, though. Like Bill Clinton said, the era of big government's over. He railed against illegal immigration, you know, but the book you were thinking about is the emerging Democratic majority that was written. No, I'm not. It's 40 more years. And John Judas, that was the big. 40 more years, how Democrats will rule the next generation, James Carville.

Well, when did he write that book? He wrote it in, I have it up on Goodreads right now. We find it. Because the most, the big one that was written, this thesis in 2002 that became a book, The Emerging Democratic Majority, that was the one that really kind of shook. It was published in 2009, so I said it was about Bill Clinton. He did, he was the mastermind behind Clinton's campaign, but this was more having to do with Obama. Yeah, I think he was just running on the tailwinds of the original book, what I'm getting at, the emerging Democratic majority.

But, I mean, whatever. I'm not trying to discount what you're saying. Okay, okay. No, but I mean, and that thesis was like, you know, Democrats win like 92% of Black voters, and right now they're winning 80% of Hispanic voters. And so, if these trend lines continue, given how fast the...

Given how fast the Hispanic population is growing in the United States, the Democratic Party will be a majority party for decades and decades to come. The entire United States is going to look like California, and Democrats are like, this is awesome, and Republicans were completely scared out of their mind. And it has affected everything, really, in the last 15 to 20 years. And, you know, that's why immigration has become the number one issue, because Democrats are like, we'll just import our, you know, the next generation, and we'll change the, you know, you can change the country that way.

Imagine how they would have felt if they hadn't killed all of the Black babies in abortion. I mean, think of the number of Black voters who aren't alive now, because... Their party is so crazed by abortion. Yeah, I mean, it's so tragic. We've made this point before, you know, like Democrats kill their own voters, but of course, there's Republicans who commit abortions too, and that's sad. But overall, when you look at demographics, like, you know, there are Latin mass Catholics, conservative Catholics, Amish.

There are, you know, Republican demographics. Wait a second. You just rolled out all three? Amish, Catholic. Orthodox Jews, you know, there are certain, you know, Oh, sorry, you're talking about birth rates. I thought you were talking about, like, political coalition. I was like, we're in with the odds. Sorry, sorry, continue. And Muslim populations. Yeah, true, Muslims, man. They were, yeah, for sure. Oh, my gosh, so funny. Indians are also kicking out tons of kids. Like, yeah, there's just... And then also, the Latin American population, a lot of times when they get here, they become kind of like, quote, conservative, because they're like, wait a second, I just got here, and I'm reporting to these other people.

There are a few trends like that that become, yeah, I mean, you know, Donald Trump, when a majority of Hispanics were born outside of the United States, were citizens now. That's just one of those things where I would, it's like, what? Yeah.

Harder. All right, let us roll now. We have to skip over Latin America for sake of time. We have good news now. Erika. Well, let us just do one second. Can we do one second? One second. Josh. Wait, Erika, you were excited about this one. I want to give Erika the time. Well, I am excited about this one, but I am going to let Josh just do the commentary, but I will just drop the story. So, Colombia. You have heard of Javier Millay in Argentina, Chainsaw Man.

We talked about Bukele in El Salvador, getting all the guys in the prison. On Sunday, Columbia. He elected a right-wing lawyer, Catholic Abelardo de Espriella, to the presidency, narrowly, by just 1%. There he is, up on the screen, pumping the fist. He's got a soccer jersey on. Viva Cristo Rey. Yep. So, this is in recent years, much of Latin American left. So, the previous government had totally taken on the progressive left of America ideology, and they were pushing policies. On green energy, the outgoing president halted all novel oil exploration and drilling because the planet was going to die or something.

He also embraced this criminal justice reform, which sounded like the city of Chicago, and basically turned Columbia into the city of Chicago in terms of crime rates spiking, reducing prison sentences for murder, and building basically anti-mass incarceration. So, all of these policies. Turned into a swing to the right for South America. Josh, take it away. What else is out there? Here is the thing. When Elon Musk and Donald Trump decided to cut funding to USAID, and thank you, Marco Rubio, for this, we have had seven elections in Latin American countries, and so far, the left-wing governments are 0 for 7.

What we had before Donald Trump got elected in 2024 is we had a government in the United States of America that was taking money from hardworking American blue-collar workers, sending it down to Latin America to elect communist governments.

That's not happening anymore. Like, this idea of USAD, you might as well call it CIA ID. I mean, it's just like, it's so obviously the establishment trying to prop up left-wing governments all over the world. It's horrible. You know, I saw an interesting analysis about this.

So, Trump is kind of returning to a more like classic gangster style, like negotiation, front-facing negotiation with countries. Like, obviously, you know, snatching Maduro would be a great example of that. And then the left is kind of like, well. This is wrong, we shouldn't do this, but don't acknowledge that this NGO complex basically has worked as a form of gangsterism by saying, well, we're going to withhold medicine or food unless you, you know, promote this policy or you agree with us here.

Like, it was the same thing, just less honest in many ways, a little bit harder to track. Unless you let us spend millions of dollars on transgender opera. Exactly, like if you actually go into the documents of like what USA. I mean, some of it was like soap operas in which they denigrate men in Muslim countries, because that was some, it's just like the craziest use of funds you could possibly imagine.

It's the same thing, like, because I look at this, and I would, you know, Monroe Doctrine, whatever you want to say, it does make a ton of sense to defend our hemisphere, to have positive relationships with these countries, and strategically, and you could say morally, you know, is it good or bad? I don't know. But, I'm not even going to weigh in on that. I love it. I'm not going to weigh in on it, but from a strategic perspective, that's what we were doing with NGOs, to a more left-leaning, you know, all these progressive governments.

We're now doing it in a much more straightforward, gangster, like I was even looking at the former president of Colombia, would check polymarket to see if odds spiked on him getting snatched. Like, that's where we're at with these countries, which is so crazy, but I mean. The proof's in the pudding here. Look at these maps. I mean, right-wing parties are saying it.

Anyway, keep an eye on Polymarket, I guess, if you're the leader of a small country. Okay, on to good news now, Erika. Okay, it is SCOTUS season, and I love SCOTUS season. We will have more next week. We're still awaiting some of the really hot ticket, like the birthright citizenship ruling. We're awaiting the boys and girls sports ruling. Hopefully, those come out tomorrow, Friday, so we can cover it next week. But, we did get two SCOTUS wins for the Trump administration in light of its...

So, in 6-3 decision, you can guess who the three were. The Supreme Court ruled that border officials can treat returning green card holders with pending criminal charges as applicants for admission, even before proving those charges in court. So, in other words, you have the green card. If you have committed a criminal offense, or you're under investigation for a criminal offense, they don't have to honor the green card just like de facto and let you into the country and release you. They can say, hold on, we need to investigate.

And, yeah, we don't have to let you in. So, this was Judge Clarence Thomas wrote for the majority on this, just total common sense. He said, immigration officers must often make quick judgments on the spot when they're handed a green card, adding, we decline to read into the INA an additional clear and convincing evidence burden on border officers. So, in other words, let them do their job. Which is enforcing the border and preventing criminals from coming into the United States. Sometimes that means slowing down a process, and that is okay.

So, love that decision. Trump administration was pretty pumped. Then the D.C. Circuit Court revived the expedited removal policy. The summaries are all saying this was the Trump administration's policy, but it actually is just allowing, I believe Congress passed this, Stephen Miller was talking about this this morning, that there was a law Congress passed in 1996 that created a special fast-track deportation or expedited removal process for illegals, right? This was Congress, who have been inside the U.S. for two years or less.

But it was never applied outside of very limited circumstances, and in 2004... The Bush administration removed the expedited removal. They limited it to 14 days. So, if you don't get them after two weeks, they're in the country. You can't do expedited removal, which is against what Congress said. This was idiotic. So, the D.C. Circuit Court, the Trump administration has been trying to enforce this law that our Congress passed in the 90s, and the court ruled that, in fact, yes, the executive branch.

Can't enforce the law. Fancy that. Return to constitutional order. So, this judge, Judge Greg Katsas, he rejected this due process challenge because the side that says you can't do expedite removal, they're like, well, they don't get due process. He's like, there's no evidence that the designation memorandum, this rule, strictly restricts the right to notice and an opportunity to respond, so they have due process. As far as it goes. But basically, this is good news for the Trump administration, having the ability to continue to pursue not only the closed border policy, but also the removal of illegal aliens who are here in an expedited manner, which is good.

It's what I voted for. Okay. I love it. Josh? All right. So, my good news is... I mean, we had written, talked about a few months ago when Kelsey Reinhart wrote an article in First Things, she's CatholicVote president, suggesting that the bishops need to, like, take another look at immigration with a fresh set of eyes, you know, and listen. And I think that was great. There's another article that came out in the Catholic Herald by Patrick Neve, if I pronounced his name correctly.

I met him in Indianapolis, great guy. He wrote an article, he said, J.D. Vance, Vice President, represents an opportunity for the American church to reach a population that it has avoided. If the bishops want to maintain their commitment to synodality, I recommend that they work with him. Unlike many of my fellow conservatives, I choose to believe the bishops that mean what they say. I trust that they want to reach out to the peripheries and are committed to listening to the cries of the poor.

Given that commitment, I ask the bishops, consider the plight of the American poor, the often maligned basket of deplorables who voted for Trump. And so often offend the sensibilities of the coastal elite in our country. These people deserve to be heard despite being a little rough around the edges. If they know that the church is willing to hear them, they may be willing to listen to us in return. They may be willing to hear the bishops correct the vices that they see in them.

I think this is an outstanding article. And, of course, Left-wing Catholics, super much, did not like this. Super much. Rachel Enders tweeted, one of the dumbest and most hateful takes I've seen in a while. The inclusion of native-born is such a dog whistle.

And Patrick was just so good for the, you know, goose. He's like, we should listen to poor people. No, not those ones. Yeah. And then Christopher Hale is this left-wing Catholic activist who is trying to convince Catholics, no, no, the Democratic Party is wonderful for you, despite its embrace of abortion, transgender surgery, basically hating everything about America and the church ever, taking down statues. No, no, the Democratic Party is for you. Christopher Hale, man, he's something else. And his response to Patrick's article, which I thought was very well-reasoned, and Patrick did work to try to say, I understand the concerns, like, you know, he's a political figure, but then, you know, bishops like McElroy and Supich have no problem talking and meeting with Democratic, you know, politicians, so why should we not talk with Republicans?

I don't understand this. And so Christopher Hale's response to this is, Posting a graphic, it's saying 38% of Catholics hold a favorable view of Vice President J.D. Vance. I just love Patrick. He's just so good at this. He's like, I'm actually grateful to Chris for making this point for me. Catholics have a disfavorable view of J.D. Vance because he advocates for the type of poor person we have been conditioned to disdain. Show no partiality.

Patrick Nebb, man, this guy, he is fighting it out and duking it out. And that is some serious good news. I am thankful, Patrick. Are you saying, wait, wait, let me just get this clear. Are you saying that he proposed that all Americans should be embraced by the American bishops and Are certain Americans with political persuasions immediately freaked out and said, no, no, no, no, no, therefore proving exactly correct the point of his article?

Yeah, pretty much. Yep, called it. Just wanted to make sure I got that one, clocked it. Yep. Yeah. J.D., whoever, good news, J.D. has the greatest publicist of all time. I genuinely cannot get over how many things he's appeared on in the last two weeks. It was like every single podcast. Every single, like everyone. I actually don't think I've ever seen.

Yeah, The View, he was on Diary of a CEO, he was on New York Times, I mean, he was everywhere. Allie Beth Stuckey. Stuckey, I could not believe how many places he was. I was like, this is crazy.

Good for J.D. Vance's publicist. And he's now, of course, super unpopular because he rightfully is pointing out, like, hey, Israel, stop bombing southern Lebanon so we can do a deal with Iran, and maybe these people we should work with. And I was like, aw. He's become a lightning rod with the Israel crowd as well, so. And their baby is due next week, so that's kind of cool. Oh, yeah, he's a busy guy, for sure. Busy guy. Yeah, the neocons really hate Jeannie Vance right now.

They hate Jeannie Vance. I mean, some of the smears I've seen thrown his way. Oh, my gosh, John Thune. Oh, my gosh, he is, like, enemy number one. And I'm like, you know what? I'll throw the same insult back. Why don't you sack up and go criticize Trump directly? If you don't like this deal, you know, we got a grand show about how independent and wise Trump was when he went to war, and now all of a sudden, he could be so easily manipulated by his vice president and all these shadow forces that he's just being misled.

No, no, no, no, no, Trump's fine. If you disagree, say it, because I had to take all of the political hit among the other Americans that were very frustrated and saw this as a disaster. And now it's like, oh, all of a sudden, you know, someone's choking on the neocons. Yeah, you're right, though. The neocons won't attack Trump directly. Yep. And so they're going after Vance. It's easier in their mind to target. Why? Because they want to make Vance toxic so he's not the nominee in 28.

Yep. I thought Vance has done a pretty good job, if you ask me, in terms of negotiating a very contention hostile situation, while giving everyone their due. It's like, yeah. Getting out of this Iran thing, if this works. If he gets us out, huge win for Vance. Massive, massive. Well, now they rolled Marco Rubio out, too, so Marco's taking the next shift on it, and he's just like, same message. We're going to do this deal. We're done. Good, yeah. No, the rollout's been very interesting to watch.

Very interesting. Okay, mine, Pope Leo on touching grass, always a good reminder. When the family is together, it is not enough for everyone to simply sit there, each looking at his or her own phone. It is very important to learn how to talk with one another, to have conversations, to enjoy being together, to play together, and also to pray together. Even if we can have the Bible or some prayers on our phones, God does not want to look at our phones.

God wants to look at our hearts and our lives. So, we need to be free from these things, which in themselves can be entertaining, helpful, and even good, but it is far more important to develop our humanity. Through friendship, conversation, and all the activities you are doing here during these weeks.

I'm actually not sure where exactly you said this, but I do think it's awesome that we have a pope that actually understands phones, like cell phones. Yeah, I love that. Francis might have understood a little bit. Probably, yeah. But Benedict, for sure, probably did not understand cell phones. How could he? It wasn't even like big. This is a Pope. Right now, Pope Leo plays Wordle.

He competes with his brother on Wordle every day. But he also understands, you know, that along with the good is some of the bad, and you can get addicted to it. So, it's good. This is good. Pope Leo knows ball, man. He knows ball.

Midwest is up. That is one of the things that conservatives would do well not to nitpick on this. There are more important things to talk about, like abortion. It does talk about abortion. It is also important to talk about the things that affect family life. It is important.

Yeah. Yeah, just to be able to enjoy things. That is a big qualm I have with conservative media, is just nitpicking. Well, you often say, Josh, it's like, whenever you want to critique an issue, someone will be like, yeah, but what about this? What about-ism, yeah, I can't stand that. It's just like, okay, just take the Holy Father at his word of what he's talking about. Some things he's going to say, maybe disagree with. Some things are probably going to be good.

As a Supreme Pontiff, it's like, maybe we should try to gain some wisdom. I don't know. I've been really grateful for Pope Leo. I think he's been, in public polling, bears it out, but even personally. I look back on Pope Francis, and I for sure have my frustrations, but I think I definitely let that, kind of like, I don't know, I just viewed him through political lines. You could say that's his fault or my fault or whatever else, and now it's like, I just want to have a different approach with Pope Leo.

Maybe there is a change there, so it's wishful. Yeah, Josh, I'm going to have you hold, because I think we'd have to go a half hour on that. Let's go church news. Speaking of Publio, here we go. Speaking of the good, the bad, and the ugly, we have church news. So, as it always is, the Vatican, so just to lay it out a little bit, Germany, you might have heard, the German bishops are slightly left of center when it comes to orthodoxy, perhaps, a generous way of putting it.

And in Germany, it has become the practice in some parishes. To allow laity to give the homily. So, immediately after the reading of the gospel, it is not the priest who is preaching. But someone gets up who's been appointed by the local pastor or whatever. So, the German bishops petitioned the Vatican, the Dicastery for Divine Worship, and the Discipline of the Sacraments, a very long name, to allow commissioned lay people to preach in quote-unquote exceptional circumstances. Yeah, right. Exceptional circumstances, meaning just whenever we want, and they said they have pastoral needs, and there's just not enough priests to preach.

I'm like, But they're saying that. It's like the extraordinary minister thing, where it's like, oh, only in extraordinary circumstances would I have one. Should you have a lay Eucharistic minister? You're like, okay, that's like every Sunday is extraordinary, I guess. And the Vatican came back with, the Diocese came back, and it said, no. It said, this was, I love how it's put, so gently, like a good dad, while expressing appreciation for the pastoral concerns that inspired the request. The Dicastery reaffirms that the current discipline cannot be dispensed from by means of an indult, since the reservation of the homily to a priest or deacon is not merely a disciplinary norm, but derives from the very nature of the liturgy itself.

Then it goes on, the homily forms an integral part of the liturgy of the word, and is intrinsically linked to the proclamation of the gospel, and constitutes an exercise of the munis decendi, so that is the office of teaching that belongs to ordained ministers, or is entrusted to ordained ministers through the sacrament of holy orders. So, the preaching of the homily ...is tied to the sacrament of holy orders. It's not just like, oh, we read the gospel, now let's share our thoughts, and then I feel like what we think it's about.

It is actually linked to the same holy orders that gives the priest the authority to consecrate the Eucharist, is to preach the homily. Big difference between Protestant denomination. Even if you think of the sermon, it is different in kind than what's supposed to be accomplished by the homily. And it is good to have that kind of catechism reminder. Yeah, it is really important, and Heidi Schlumpf, a God lover, again, like Chris Hale, endless content coming from Heidi Schlumpf, but she wrote the case for lay preaching in Commonweal Magazine as a response to this, and she quotes, proclaim is a program for like, basically it is you go through the program, and then you have the credentials so you can preach in Catholic.

Circumstances, because they said so. Proclaim said so. That has nothing to do with, like, a bishop or anything. But the head of Proclaim told Heidi Schlumpf, quote, the hunger for a woman's perspective is very deep. Josh, do you feel it? No, I don't. Quote, we hardly ever hear the gospel preached through the lens in life of a woman. Women don't talk enough, you see. No, no, stop. I knew that was coming.

Yeah, on this program, I don't talk enough. That's what they're telling me from last weekend. Thanks, Josh. No, but we got to get this perspective. We hardly ever hear the gospel preached through the lens and life of a woman. We are missing so much. We need all the voices, ordained voices, lay voices, men's voices, women's voices, the religious and the married.

And two thoughts. I couldn't help but contrast this with a hit book a couple of years ago from Cardinal Seurat called The Power of Silence, which I think I'm going to send Heidi. I'm going to buy Heidi a belated Mother's Day present and send her The Power of Silence.

So, are you telling me that 80% of all parish staff worldwide isn't female? Because it is. There are so many women's voices, for heaven's sake. But it is just this fundamental misunderstanding of what the Mass is for, what the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist are for, and it is very sad for me. Very sad, yeah. It reminded me. Power of silence, my dog. The whole thing reminds me of this quote that Josh brought to my attention.

From the late, great Cardinal Francis E. George of Chicago, and I believe Michael Heinlein, who I have interviewed before for this program, thank you, Michael, brought, he put it up on Twitter this week, in response to Cardinal Cupich and McElroy competing for Father James Martin's hand in marriage or something. They were just, like, fawning over his outlet. They were like, no, me, pick me, James Martin, you're amazing. Oh, man. But he says, liberal Catholicism. He's on a heater, bro. Liberal Catholicism.

I'm just, I'm... I'm done. I'm cooked. Liberal Catholicism is an exhausted project. It's also exhausting, right? Okay. Essentially, a critique, even a necessary critique at one point in our history, it is now parasitical on a substance that no longer exists. It has shown itself unable to pass on the faith in its integrity, and inadequate, therefore, in fostering the joyful self-surrender called for in Christian marriage, in consecrated life, in ordained priesthood. It no longer gives life.

And that is about where I am with the German bishops. Nailed it. And all of that. Thank you, Cardinal. And Christopher Hill had a problem with that quote, too. Well, I mean. Take a bow. Oh, my gosh. Erika, can I even do another alley-oop here? I mean, here we go.

Case in point, liberal Catholicism is exhausted. This interview was actually, it happened last week, but we finally got the English translation, a trustworthy English translation, this week. But you might remember when we covered the head of the John Paul II Institute.

Basically, those of you who are familiar with the Institute, John Paul II, as you might have guessed, he founded it for the study of marriage and the family, and a furthering of the understanding in the modern context of Catholic theology, and the theology of theology. And moral teaching on sexuality, the sacrament of marriage, all things having to do with the fact that we're made male and female. Right? Yep. So, Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia was named Grand Chancellor of the Institute, and he served from 2016.

This is Francis' pick to 2025. Horrible. And he basically just undid. So much of the Institute gutted the faculty, like ripped apart course offerings and requirements and degree and everything. It was very traumatic for friends of the Institute, and in this interview last week, he confirmed that, in fact, the changes that he made during his tenure were intended to start a quote-unquote profound reform, you might say transformation, of the actual idea of natural law.

And for those of you who are in the know, natural law... It's basically the idea that there are universal moral principles we can discover through human reason that tell us how to do good and avoid evil, to put it in its most simple terms. He wanted to transform that understanding and basically take all the reasoning out of it. We can't know these things through reason, but the primary way that we come to know good and bad is through listening to people's lived experiences.

And you might have heard lived experiences. From your liberal pastor, if he's preaching about it. Relatives or what have you. But I loved this response from Bishop Robert Barron. I'm not going to read the whole thing. I would recommend you do, so you can kind of understand how we saw the man behind the curtain in this interview. And Bishop Robert Barron said, in a recent interview, Archbishop Paglia confirmed the worst suspicions that many of us had all along. And to his credit, Bishop Barron has been preaching warnings about this, and he's been called radical and ridiculous.

Many bishops in the United States, as a result, Paglia admitted that the changes he made were designed to initiate a very profound reform of the idea of natural law. Instead of absolute moral norms grounded in a keen understanding of basic goods, he and his colleagues were proposing a moral theory rooted in historical discernment of subjective and cultural experience.

Operating within history and within people's lives. Of course, this is the language of postmodernism, and it is dangerous indeed. And then he went on to explain, well, let's take the case of slavery. Under this framework that was proposed by Paglia to understand human sexuality, you couldn't even say slavery was wrong, right? You couldn't say that anything was intrinsically wrong, because everything is wrong or right depending on your historical circumstances or your lived experience, etc. And he points us back to John Paul II's Veritatis Splendor and urged Catholics, like, we need to, quote, rid ourselves.

Of these, oh, sorry, Paglia is saying we have to rid ourselves of absolute moral norms in the name of freedom, but that this will render moral discourse dysfunctional, just as relativizing the basic principle of logic would render any rational conversation impossible.

And he said, this was the last little cherry on top, Bishop Barron says, the interview, frankly, reminded me of the discussions I had at the Synod on Synodality with some of my German colleagues. Full circle on the segment. Boom. Boom. But, again, it's good to understand. I know it's dark. People will be like, oh, I'm so depressed. Like, the church has infiltrated, smoke of Satan and all. You're like, yes, that is probably true. However, it is absolutely incumbent upon us to understand what is happening so that we can also resist it and cleave to the truths of Jesus Christ and the teaching of the Catholic Church.

Don't be afraid to look the darkness in the eye and say, be gone, Satan, because that's pretty much what Bishop Barron is saying. Haglia. Boomer's going to boom. Oh, sorry. Did I say it? You said it. You said it, not me.

Josh. Twas on what you got. Well, this is, I mean, sometimes, you know, you get circumstances where the news just gives you a headline. You couldn't dream it up in a, you know, in a conservative laboratory or factory. So, the New York Knicks were super excited, the fans there. This is the first time the team has won the NBA title, like, in 53 years or something like that. And outside Madison Square Garden, they had these trash cans that were purple and blue, the team's colors.

This woman comes by, and well, this is the headline. Woman who emptied Nick's trash can on street, then stole it, fired from JPMorgan Chase, was a DEI executive. I mean, you couldn't design... In, like, a Republican laboratory, a headline more perfect than this. Here she is. The color coordination is unbelievable here, too. She's a super fan. I mean, she's exactly coordinated with the trash can.

She's stolen. I mean, I understand that she did something wrong here, that she stole. I mean, obviously, first of all, she created a mess on the street by dumping the trash, and two, she stole something of value. I almost feel so sorry for the shareholders of JPMorgan Chase. They are losing out on this executive over just one mistake. Think of how much productivity JPMorgan Chase is going to lose by firing her.

That is terrible. That is terrible. Oh, man. This is like the New York episode. I wonder who she voted for yesterday. Check the voter records. Okay, New York Times, Erika. Yeah, New York Times. Okay, so it was Father's Day on Sunday. I love Father's Day because I love my dad. I love all my spiritual fathers. Shout out to you two. Happy Father's Day, belated to Tom and Josh. And Father's Day, the New York Times celebrated with four pieces about fatherhood and masculinity with six authors, three women, A trans man, which means a woman masquerading as a man, and two childless men.

The icing on the cake was this opinion guest essay. They call it an essay, but it was actually like a comic strip. To my daughter, my gender was never complicated. This is the trans man. Hey, Erika. As we scroll, yes, sir. Quick question. Oh, sorry.

I understand why they would do three of them, but what was the rationale for the two childless men? I think they were reflecting on their daddy issues. Ah, okay, gotcha. I was really trying to figure that one out. Like, I get... You know what? No, I take it back. I don't get any of it.

Three women? Yeah. One of whom, her thesis was, Father's Day is really all about mothers. And I was like... That's awesome. That's an awesome reframe. That's awesome. Actually, no, I'm not even mad about that one. Go ahead. So, anyway, the graphic novel here was by a woman who thinks she's a man, and she tells the story of how she never came out to everyone as trans, but then her daughter that she had with her wife kind of forces the issue, and it's all these awkward moments.

But to me, and it concludes with... I thought I was teaching Elliot, her daughter, how to be happy and secure, yet all along, she had been doing that for me. So, in other words, fatherhood or trans fatherhood or motherhood, it's really just all about producing children who can affirm us in our identity and help us with our insecurities, because it's not about the kids. It's about you, Tom. It's about you, Josh. So, how did you spend your father's days?

I'm not even going to lie. I found a Ford Ranger, 2004 Ford Ranger, 96,000 miles on it, out in the country. It drove two and a half hours. It was an Amish country, so no one was buying it because they all have horses and buggies. So, I got a project truck. Well, not a project, because it's in great shape, but I'm looking forward to getting my hands dirty, changing the oil, doing all the stuff. So, that was pretty awesome.

That's pretty awesome. Old trucks. I was firing a shot at my wife. She rolled around with me with the kids, which I don't know how we did it, but we did it. It was really nice. That's awesome. How about you, Josh? Did you have a good Father's Day? Well, I had spent the previous week on vacation, so it was emptying out suitcases and stuff like that, but, you know, just a relaxing day with, you know, my six beautiful children, so I love it.

God be praised. Love it. Here's to the dads. All right. So, my twilight zone is going to be a little bit of breaking, a little bit of fun, okay? Josh, I don't know, you know much more than me about the inner workings of the swamp.

I don't know much about this housing bill, but Trump comes out this morning, says he canceled the signing of the housing bill until Congress passes the Save America Act. The truth, today's housing, news conference, and signing is hereby canceled until such time as we pass the desperately needed Save America Act, which I consider to be a national emergency. Thank you for your attention to this matter, President DJT.

I believe he also went on like a rant, said it was like an Elizabeth Warren bill, the Democrats. We were talking about it before. That is just a bad bill anyway. Now, I have a couple questions for you. Has this ever been done, number one? Two, if it was a bad bill, why did he get Republicans to sign it? And then three, I think I saw, you have to sign a housing bill within 10 days, and then it becomes law automatically.

So, what's the play here? Yeah, so, I mean, the last part first, you know, what he might just end up doing is what is called a pocket veto, and that is where if Congress passes a law and the President does not respond to it after ten days, I thought it was seven, but whatever, ten days, it becomes law even though, you know, he did not sign the law itself. It is a way for a President to allow for something to become law without giving his approval behind it.

That may end up being what happens with this bill, but I think he just, after what happened in New York, he sees this as an opportunity to say, this is why we need the SAVE Act, the elections in New York.

Deportations and the issue of, you know, making sure we actually have only citizens voting in our elections is at the forefront of Republican voters' minds, and 80% of the American people support this legislation and the principles behind it, and yet we cannot get the Senate to move on it. The House passed it already, but the Senate will not move on it, and that is because Democrats are filibustering it.

So, also in the same truth, he said Republicans should just get rid of the filibuster because Democrats are going to do it first. We should blow it up. That was also part of the truth this morning. But, again, I am a little bit confused. This is a bipartisan bill. The White House worked hard to get it passed.

Seemingly, everyone liked it. There was something in it that everyone liked. Tom McCluskey didn't like it, but he's like, there's the big flash. You were banning institutional investors from buying single-family homes, which is the flash point. And they got rid of some deregulations. Sure, sure, sure. I don't know too much about it other than that. I'm just going to say that. But signature issue for voters concerned about affordability would have been like a win if he signs it for his presidency, like he signs it.

It's like, great, it's something about housing. And now he's just like, no, I'm not going to do it. Because he can't pass this. I just don't understand. Has this been done? I'm serious. Well, canceling a bill ceremony, it's very rare. There might have been other reasons to do it, but the bill ceremony, whatever.

There was one time back in 1982, Reagan was going to do it at his Reagan Ranch, California, and the weather, usually sunny California, and the weather that day was very ominous. It was super cloudy, foggy, and it was like, oh, this is weird. So, things can go sideways sometimes.

We'll see. I mean, he's probably just realizing that this New York election stuff, news cycle, it's a great opportunity for him to hit it one more time, but he may just change his mind in four days and go ahead with the signing. That's not a bad thing that will happen.

Who knows? Oh, my God. That's been the status quo over the last... Whiplash White House. Did we win the Iran war again? I think we've won 20 times. We won that again this morning. The Strait of Hormuz was closed this morning, then it was open this morning.

I literally, it's so impossible. It's always open. It's just, you might get blown up if you go through it. Yeah, it's open, technically. Okay, mine is going to end on a little bit more fun. I've been enjoying the World Cup. My favorite is when announcers for the World Cup are clever, and here's one that did make me laugh. It was England playing Ghana, and they are playing in Boston, so that's a little bit of a background. Playing in Boston. But as we know, the English historically struggle here in Massachusetts, so what happens here today?

I didn't hear that. The English historically struggled. As you know, the English have historically struggled here in Massachusetts. I love that. England struggles in Massachusetts, 2026 versus Ghana, 1776 versus the American. As somebody said, to quote, I think, you know, one of the TV shows, if I had a nickel for every time the English were humiliated in Massachusetts, well, I would only have 10 cents, but it's weird that it's happened twice.

Ha, ha, ha. I love it. Happy 250th birthday, America. And it was so soccer, too, because they literally tied. They tied 0-0 was their struggles. They didn't even lose. They just tied with Ghana, and I guess that wasn't enough. That announcer had that one in the back pocket. Oh, for sure. You know, there's probably like a call sheet. He had that one written out ready to go.

They've got a list of lines. Oh, man. Yeah, it is funny to see England in it. I did see a lot of jokes about the English being in Massachusetts, for sure. Okay, we will end on today's prayer. So, we now have a new prayer. Now, we're off seal 250, although shout out Colonel Burke. But one today is Sean Burton, name of Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Amen.

Heavenly Father, we rejoice in the birth of St. John the Baptist, the herald who prepared the way for your Son, Jesus Christ. Ignite in us the same zeal for truth, the courage to stand firm in faith, and the humility to point always towards Christ and not ourselves. May we, like John, prepare the way of the Lord in our hearts and in the world, through Christ our Lord. Amen. St. Thomas Morris, St. Fidelis, Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us. Great show, gang!

Hope you have a great week. We've got a great episode of The Deep coming for you tomorrow, and Time Across America coming to you next week. So, have a great week. We will catch you on the next one. Peace.