Minneapolis ICE Shooting: Facts And Fallout, Pope Leo RIPS Surrogacy, And New Food Pyramid

We're live. Welcome back to the show. Happy Friday. The LOOPcast is brought to you by The Loop, every Catholic American's favorite morning newsletter. It's Tom Erickson and Josh. We've got a great Friday show prepared for you. We have a kind of, out of this really sad tragedy, I think is the only way to put it, in Minneapolis. It's kind of a Rosark test, and I think at this point... Rorschach? Rorschach. I mean, come on. Look at that spelling. I think I've always just called it Rosark and been wrong.

Yes, you have been. So, maybe it's kind of meta because you look at the word and then you take your own interpretation of the spelling. Anyway, I'm not here to talk about that. People are watching the same thing and taking something completely different, and this has been kind of, unfortunately, a common theme, and so at this point, we're not going to go. The video is really hard to watch. Trump himself said hard to watch. We're not going to go break down all the angles, that kind of thing.

We're going to just talk about what happened, who the victim was, a lot of the political fallout, so we heard from a lot of different political leaders on this, and then we're starting to see some activity kind of go across the country at this point. We also had a situation in Portland with DHS. I think that is not going to have the legs that this story has, for a couple reasons I'm going to bring up here. So, we're going to cover that up top.

Second thing we're going to be covering today is Trump, the administration, doing some pretty obvious things, banning institutional investors from home buying, which I think is long overdue, an interesting political play. We also have the food pyramid flipped. Who would have thought? South Park All the maha moms went crazy.

Yeah. My home mom is getting two victories in two weeks. Seriously. So, yeah, we are going to talk about that. Pope Leo had a great address to diplomats, got some great clips out of that. Very strong words. I know someone was there. Surrogacy, abortion. Oh, yeah, was Brian kind of speech writing there a little bit? I don't know. I don't know.

He is not going to. Don't even want to throw that out there. We will get him in trouble. He is not taking credit for that. Yeah, no, no, no. Someone is going to clip that. No, I have no insider knowledge. I am an idiot.

And then we have good news, Twilight Zone. It is going to be a great Friday show. You know, some heavy stuff today. But we're going to try our best to get through it, keep it light, and keep you guys informed.

But up top, if you want to help us out, go ahead and subscribe on YouTube. Erika just put out a great edition of The Deep about why suddenly college students can't do math anymore, and it is... It's a banger. It's a banger. We had that one in the video. Actually, in the thumbnail, there is a math problem for you to try, for all the math heads out there. If you could solve that, you were at the college level, according to new math standards.

I got to tell you, when it came to math, I loved it as a kid, all the way up to about 10th, 11th grade, and then they're like, let's do cosines and tangents. I'm like, peace, I'm out. Come on, man. You're pretty obtuse. Stick to my long-distance.

Oh, that was funny. Fun, uh, fun, pogastic lore, my dad and my... Grandpa, we're both math teachers. My dad taught for 30 years. Nice. In order for me to get an Easter basket, I had to solve a grade-appropriate math problem to get a clue that would lead me to another grade-appropriate math problem to then give me a clue to lead me to my Easter basket hidden somewhere in the home. I'm not exaggerating. I was doing calculus problems in high school, so.

That is awesome. Math was around. Your Easter basket scavenger hunt was math. Yeah, we had to do, like, we would play pick-up basketball, and he'd throw up the, instead of throwing up a jump ball, he would ask a multiplication table question. Whoever got that first got the ball. So, that was what I was dealing with. That sounds like my house. That's great. In the home. Wow. Shout out my dad, for real. So, okay, we are going to be like, okay, who won the 1876 election?

Yeah, exactly. We all have our different ways to find out who gets the ball first. Who was Andrew Jackson's vice president? Quick! Yeah, okay. So, yeah, I'm not going to show. I would say this is the clip that got shared around, and just to set the scene a little bit, this is the main clip that got shared immediately. The interesting thing is we got tons of angles because everyone's submitting their footage, and so kind of the point is you can take whatever angle you want from this exchange.

It wasn't spontaneous, and there were at least three or four people recording this. Yes, there were people recording it. I'm just going to get to the top here. So, this happened Wednesday, January 7th. Let's see. This was during a large-scale immigration enforcement. So, interesting, I haven't even really seen this reported, but there was 1,500 arrests in this region. So, the Trump administration sent 2,000 federal agents. That's where we get the kind of Hilton scandal, where you can't stay here. They sent 2,000 agents because of one of the reasons being this fraud on recovery with the early learning child care situations, the daycare.

And so, we get 1,500 arrests. This is what was going on. The woman who was killed, Renee Nicole Good. So, please just pray for the repose of her soul immediately. What I thought is, you know, she has a kid. She had a six-year-old. Really tragic that she lost her life. It's tragic that the ICE officer was put in this position to have to take her life. Really just sad for everyone involved, so just pray for the repose of her soul. She was a 37-year-old U.S.

citizen and mother of three. She moved to the Twin Cities from the Kansas City area. She actually moved from Kansas City to Canada and then back from Canada here. She moved to Canada after the 2024 election, if that gives you... Some insight into her politics. Not a Trump fan. No. Local officials described her as a, I saw this going around, legal observer, whatever that means. I've also seen reports that she was a part of this ICE watch, so they'd be a part of reporting where ICE is, and potentially showing up in either, I guess, a legal observer, watching and reporting, or obstructing in certain cases.

They're kind of a loose collective of people that are just tracking around ICE wherever they go. Some people are doing things that are perfectly legal, where they're just... Even though it's a nuisance, and there's others, you're right, that are crossing the line, so I don't know about what she did before this in terms of that. Yeah, there's people digging into that now. I think we're kind of getting a slow roll. She enrolled her children at a really crazy charter school that...

It was like a social justice charter school, so a lot more rolling out, but that is kind of beside the point right now. So, the shooting took place at 9.30 a.m. at the intersection of East 34th Street and Portland Avenue in South Minneapolis.

Ironically enough, a few blocks away from where George Floyd was killed by police in 2020. So, the official, and I am not even going to relitigate that, but it is right by where George Floyd lost his life. Official federal account from the DHS. So, they said that... She was in her car, she was obstructing ICE activity, ICE officers came up to the car, and she disobeyed commands from the officers. Either, I believe one was pulling at the handle to say, hey, you got to get out of the car here.

So, there's one on her left by the driver's side, there's one in front of the car, and then she used her vehicle, Honda Pilot SUV, as a weapon in an attempt to run over a Ram ICE agent. That is coming straight from the DHS account. And then, according to Christy Noem, committed an act described as domestic terrorism. It's interesting, actually, to hear Tom Holman speak on it and Christy Noem. There was varying degrees of how they wanted to present to the public what happened.

Based on what I saw, she backed away from the agent as he was trying to get to the door, and then she hit the pedal to go forward, and her wheel actually spun, but there was an ICE agent to the front left of the car. And, again, you get all these angles, so you're not, you kind of see something different, but the car made contact with the ICE agent in front of the car, to the front left of the car, and moved his feet, it slid, and he took a couple shots, hit her, hit her in the head, took her life.

Really tragic, car went off into a bank, and there was a lot of people around, so everyone was either recording this, there was people shouting, and... Including her partner, and that was one of the videos that we had. The first video that came out seemed to have been recorded by her quote-unquote wife, is what she called herself, Rebecca Good, and she is screaming and saying things like, it was my fault, I told her to come down here. And just another note on...

If they weren't, and those wheels would have gained traction, It would move forward much faster, and that agent might actually be dead. There was a police officer in front of a car in Baltimore in 2023. She had pulled her gun and fired a shot, but the driver in that case actually killed the police officer. So, we are talking about something very serious here.

Well, Josh, we actually know, too, because the officer was doxxed by the Minneapolis Star. Someone ran for the Minneapolis Star. And then people found out that he was... Yeah, Mayhem was Star Tribune, I know, because that's my own newspaper. So, he actually was involved six months ago in a similar incident, and he was by a car, and he was dragged, I think, like 600 feet by a car, had to go to the hospital, get treated for injury. So, anyone involved in law enforcement knows.

I mean, of course, immediately, you can go and find all this footage of people either, unfortunately, not taking action... Or we're like this close to getting killed because, obviously, a car, if it gets going, it's like, it'll kill you. It'll kill you. And you're talking split-second decisions, you know, and this was after she was repeatedly told to get out of the vehicle and stop the car, and she decides to drive forward. So, it is tragic. No one wants this to have happened, but, you know, this was, unfortunately, a decision of her making, sadly.

Yeah, I think that Tom Homan, actually, of all the immediate reactions that came out Wednesday evening, he was asked, and I mean, Kristi Noem comes out and says she was attempting to run him over. She was very much projecting or assuming what the woman's state of mind is, and sadly, we will never know because she will not get her day in court because she's dead, and that is absolutely a tragedy. And what Tom Homan came out and said... He basically was like, look, we have to let the investigation play out.

Our job is to enforce the law, and when incidents like this happen, it is not my job to comment on her state of mind, on the officer's intentions, on the officer's decision that he had to make in that split second. It is my job to continue to enforce the law, work with ICE, and let the investigation play out, which I...

I have my own biases. I have my own way of seeing all those angles, and it's manifestly frustrating because We have the luxury of hindsight where we can take every single angle and slow it down and drag that millisecond out where the officer has to make this decision, this life-and-death decision of whether to discharge his weapon. We can drag that out and analyze the car and the tire and the skidding, but you have to, and this is when the Supreme Court ruled on how we adjudicate these kinds of situations in law.

We have to, the only question there is, from the point of view of the officer who discharged his weapon in that millisecond, was it in any way reasonable for him to assume there was lethal force involved? And I think that what we're seeing now in the reactions on both sides is this tendency to... To adjudicate it in a way that is not in consonance with the law, and therefore just stoke, and I'm not going to say this is like a both sides problem at all, because so much more so on the left, like we're getting people like Ilhan Omar and AOC and the Minneapolis mayor saying things like, this was murder, this was execution, it was an assassination.

That's so much worse, I think, than what Kristi Noem is saying. But I appreciate Tom Homan keeping his head straight. When he was asked to react to this. Well, the difference is, Kristi Noem, you know, she's a former governor. She likes to play and engage with the press, which Tom Holman is a cop by his very nature. Lifelong police officer, and he's got, I think, some humility there to understand, like, hey, you don't know. But you're right in this sense, that you can't pause time.

There is no ability for a police officer in this situation to, you know, like... Would it have been better in retrospect for him not to have fired? Maybe, but you can't know this. Like, the fact is, she had been blocking traffic, letting other people go, preventing ICE from going. She, you know, was asked repeatedly to stop the car, get out of the car, and she refused, and then she moves her car forward, and there's that split-second decision where this guy's like, I might, you know, I have to use the other force to protect myself because we've seen police officers die.

There's one I saw taped at Bismarck. We've seen ICE. ...catapulted by somebody over... Josh, we're not even talking about the police. I mean, obviously, this is an enforcement action, but, like, think about your life as an ICE agent doing your job over the last, you know, since Trump got into office. You're getting shot at. You're getting demonized. People want to document your identity. They're harassing your families. They're openly calling you Nazis, encouraging people to kill you. We've had a lot of people shoot at ICE agents.

Like, I just, I guess I'm really sad. Like, it feels like a lot of this... Everyone is looking at where to lay the blame and the feet on this. Once you're in that situation, whatever had been done to this woman, you know, super tragic, she lost her life, to think that she, like I saw her described as a, quote, ice warrior or something like that, like you move from the realm of kind of like online LARPing to real life, to men who actually have to either arrest really dangerous illegal immigrants or criminals, people that take people's lives, and they're in that frame of mind, surrounded by a mob, knowing that they're being documented, and you're putting your car in there.

And then you don't, so she could have even been in that situation and not been intentionally trying to kill anyone, but she's like, oh my gosh, freaked out, you know, panicked, and then. Put this guy in harm's way, and he had to make the call. Like, she should have really never been in that position to begin with. She's a mom of three children. What could possibly have been done to you ideologically to think that somehow you're at better service, you know, putting yourself in a position that you have no business being in, a very dangerous position, putting yourself in danger, and putting ICE agents who are democratically elected activity, like this activity of the federal government, and then It's just all around so tragic.

You should be with your children. In what situation would you be a better service to your family or the people around you rather than being with your children? Best case scenario, she is alive, and she's arrested when she should be with her family. It boggles the mind, but again, you had Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan saying, people in our community are being disappeared. You need to go out there. You need to be out on the front line. So, we have left-wing radical politicians, including the mayor of Minneapolis, who has completely lost his mind, Jacob Frey, and the governor whose political career is appearing to disappear right before our eyes, Tim Walz.

This guy could have been a heartbeat away from being president. He could have been vice president of our country, and he is absolutely acting like a total moonbat. And instead of, like, you know... I think about, like, people may not remember, I mean, this is before my lifetime even, but when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, so many of the cities went up in riots, and people were understandably super angry and upset because he was an inspiration for so many people.

But RFK Not RFK Jr., but the real RFK, not trying to be real, was giving a speech in Indianapolis, and he brought it, you know, he did sort of an impromptu speech. It was like late at night, and he goes, I have terrible news to tell you, but unfortunately, you know, Martin Luther King has been shot and killed in Memphis, and he just then implored on the people, please.

They want you to be angry. They want you to foment. They want you to just go home peacefully, please. What we need now is to love each other more than ever, and Indianapolis did not burn like so many other cities did, and that is what it takes. It takes political courage. Now, here is what I am trying to get at.

It's easy to be courageous and tell the other party and the other side what to do. Okay, so I get that. I'm asking of something that's kind of easy. No, I know. I know it's hard, because sometimes conservative people go a little bit crazy. We don't usually riot, but we have to be like, okay, we got to take care of our own, and that's what we've done before when we said people on our side have been doing things that are crazy.

We said, you know, this is crazy. This is not called for. You know, we are not going to be into Jew-hating and that kind of stuff. But that means that Jacob Fry and Tim Wallace and Peggy Flanagan and AOC have to do the hard stuff of saying, you know what, actually... Peaceful protests. Let's let the investigation play out. Don't call them murderers. Stop doxing federal agents. I'm sorry, if you think you can win an engagement against federal officers, are you out of your mind?

Like, this is reprehensible and extremely risky behavior that you're encouraging. Do not do this. Yeah, here's Tim Waltz right after. I almost couldn't believe my ears when I heard this. Our history. When things look really bleak, it was Minnesota's first that held that line for the nation on that July 3rd, 1863, and I think now we may be in that moment that the nation's looking to us to hold the line on democracy.

No, not really. Do you know what he's referencing there, Josh, history-wise? I do. I mean, I'm born in Minnesota, Minnesota First, based out of Fort Snelling, where my dad still goes to help out with the VFW. Minnesota First fought valiantly at Gettysburg. They lost 77% of their men. In fact, I learned about them. You know, when I first learned about the Minnesota First, I was walking down the streets of Washington, D.C., and I ran into former Speaker Newt Gingrich, and I was only 22 years old, and he goes, you're from Minnesota.

Let me tell you about Minnesota First and how brave they were. And this is a guy from Georgia. That's awesome. You know, we were fighting against you. But, no, I didn't say that. But the thing is, you know, these were brave men. It was a civil war. We don't want a civil war, Tim. Yeah, no, Tim. The people elected Donald Trump. No one can say, no one can say, we had no idea Donald Trump was going to enforce immigration laws. Right, he ran on a mass deportation platform that won the popular vote.

He's been talking about this for 10 years. This was the centerpiece of his three presidential campaigns. You cannot pretend like he is not in favor of immigration enforcement, you know, and what he had done in the previous administration was, like, to let cities, like, burn, including Minneapolis. Right. Let Minneapolis burn in 2020, and I called him out back then. I thought that was dumb. I thought, oh, you're probably just doing it because maybe it'll help you win a re-election, but you know what?

There are people in those cities that cannot afford to allow reckless, lawless, chaotic behavior. We cannot have anarchy in the streets. It is not good for anybody. We cannot allow a bunch of hoodlums to go around and burn stuff down. Right, but it is manifestly obvious that the leadership in these places in Portland, Seattle, in Minneapolis now, that they are not interested in keeping peace in the streets. I mean, Jacob Fry, he went on CBS last night. And he was asked, how are you going to tone things down and get things back so that it's safe to be in the streets of Minneapolis again?

And all he said in response was, I am so proud of the way that Minneapolis has responded to this terrible execution by these killers. Like, he just amped it up again. He said, ICE, get the F out of the city. Yeah, he told ICE to get the F out. That was the first 24 hours. We're going to see what these next 24 hours are. I mean, you heard about the encampment, they started building an encampment. Yeah, it's Chaz again.

We have Chaz 2.0. If you remember Chaz from 2020, Summer of Love, Summer of George Floyd. They started that last night in Minneapolis, this idea of an autonomous zone where police officers, federal officers are not allowed to go in. But here is the news this morning, is that they took it out.

The Minneapolis police said, no, no, no. Oh, wow. Good. So, maybe they are getting the message that this time around, Trump 2.0, he is not kidding. And, you know what? Good, because, you know what? The last time, maybe he thought it was kind of a game, or, well, these people are crazy. Like, well, no, no, no. You cannot allow a mob to rule the streets. You can't do it.

100%. Yeah, it's, and I think, too, like, okay, what let us, you know, what? Not to lay the blame, but I'm just thinking about all the conditions that led us to where we are now. And one of the main ones is, like you saw in Portland, there was another, it was actually CBP this time, not ICE, but had a shooting incident during a targeted stop. And then the guy called the ambulance after it happened. And then it turns out his phone number is linked to like Trendy Aragua's sex trafficking ring or whatever.

So, you're not going to hear, let's just say you're not going to hear about it the same way you're going to hear about Renee Goode because it's going to disappear. They're serious criminals. They're serious criminals and gang members. We knew about these people. They came over the border in 2023, they'd been arrested already, and then they get let out.

Travesty to justice and just making the country unsafe by not cooperating with the federal government on known criminals. Minneapolis is a major player in this, and then Portland is the other one, and it forces the hand of someone serious about public safety to have to go in these dangerous situations like Minneapolis. Why did Minneapolis have to have all these people sent? Because they had a horrible fraud ring that wasn't addressed by Tim Walz, by the leaders that should be addressing it.

So, I get frustrated with the people that are like, they shouldn't be here. Get out. You know, we don't want them here. Are we back to the Civil War? Are we back to secession? Well, this is creating the conditions for a powder keg in which now you're going to try to rally the country. Like, I just saw there was a rally in New York City. People were chanting to hang Kristi Noem.

Yeah. That is sedition talk. You know, the last time I heard that, I hate to bring it up, was like when J6 happened, and then people were chanting to hang Mike Pence. Horrible, should have been denounced then, terrible, never should have happened, right? But it is the same spirit now, which I feel like- I mean, there are different points in my life where you get radicalized. When you see how the Samir campaigns against Kavanaugh, that radicalized a lot of people. I remember the first time I got one of the first radical moments for me, radicalizing moments.

Was when I heard about this concept of sanctuary cities, where we just allowed, somehow, in our country, cities to say, oh, no, no, we're not going to participate with federal law enforcement officials regarding immigration, Chicago, Minneapolis, Portland, Seattle. And I'm like, wait, excuse me, I'm sorry, wait, what? You're not going to cooperate?

You're not going to let ICE know if someone, you know, you've apprehended for a crime, happens to, and you can tell, he's got, you know, no papers, he's got no identification, you find out he's a foreign national. You're not going to tell federal law enforcement officials because people in your city want him to be protected, and you're just going to allow that? It was so radicalizing for me. Do we live in a country anymore? Like, wait.

Does this only apply for illegal immigrants? Can I get away with committing crimes and you don't tell the feds about that? Like, I can cheat on stuff? It boggles my mind. And then yesterday, we have the mayor of Minneapolis and the governor of Minnesota demanding That the Department of Homeland Security cooperate with Minnesota on their investigation in the shooting. And I'm thinking to myself, you don't want to cooperate with federal law enforcement officials to get rid of us. That's a no.

In our country, illegally, and you're going to sit there and demand that we cooperate with you? I mean, again, if they... It would be double standards. I suppose that means they have at least some standards, but it is so asinine, and it is frustrating because we are talking about real people, real lives, people being harmed because you will not deport somebody who is a thug. It is insane.

Yeah. Interesting thing came from Erika, and I want to hear a little bit more from you on this, but J.D. Vance came out and did a press conference on this, had a lot of strong words for this, talked about, you know, really, it is a tragedy in that she was radicalized into a position to put herself there, kind of made a lot of the points that we made here, I think. But he also announced that there's going to be a new assistant attorney general position specifically for fraud, and then putting Scott Bessette.

So, this happened, but the reason that this happened is because there's ramped up enforcement and fraud that led to Tim Walz literally stepping down from, you know, To cruise to a win, stepping out of the race. So, what was he talking about there? I saw he was at the Economic Club of Minnesota.

Yeah, so we had two sort of responses from the Trump administration yesterday regarding the fraud. And so, first, we had Secretary Scott Besant. He was at the Economic Club of Minnesota, which sounds like a joke, given everything that's happening here. But he went on, he confirmed that...

From his calculations, from the Treasury Department's calculations, we're looking at Americans being defrauded $300 billion to $800 billion every single year. He threw out another number, the average could be around $6 billion, but he said it's probably around 10% of federal spending is actually just being sent to fraudulent claims. So, he suggested then that, of course, clawing back those funds would be how Trump could get that defense budget jacked up a little bit. So he talked about ways that the Treasury Department is going to start cracking down on this using the IRS and other departments.

Then we had the White House press corps briefing with President J.D. President, look at me, wishful thinking. A little bit too fast. Vice President J.D. Vance. And yeah, he announced in response to the fraud, we're going to have a new assistant attorney general for the United States. Entirely dedicated to fraud. And if you want to just play a little bit of the tape. You're a young parent.

Struggling to afford childcare in the United States of America, there are programs that we have to make it easier for your kids to get in daycare, for your kids to get in preschool. Those programs should go to American citizens, not be defrauded by Somali immigrants and others. Make it hard for you to get the access to the resources you need, but number two, make it easier for people who shouldn't even be in this country to fleece the United States and our taxpayers to begin with.

We have... Actually activated a major interagency task force to make it possible to get to the heart of this fraud. We have Department of Agriculture resources that are focused on SNAP fraud, so that people who need food benefits can get them, but illegal aliens and other fraudsters don't. We have over 1,500 subpoenas that the Department of Justice has issued to get to the heart of the fraud ring. We've done almost 100 indictments, mostly Somali immigrants, but also a few others. And of course, we're looking in with Broad investigatory authority to a number of the instances of wrongdoing that we've seen in Minneapolis, but we also want to expand this.

We know that the fraud isn't just happening in Minneapolis. It's also happening in states like Ohio. It's happening in states like California, and so what we're doing in order to help coordinate this remarkable interagency effort from the Trump administration, but also to make sure that we prosecute the bad guys and do it as swiftly as we can, is to make sure that we prosecute the bad guys and do it as swiftly as we can. So, what happens next is we will have a new assistant attorney general position who will have nationwide jurisdiction over the issue of fraud.

Now, of course, that person's efforts will start and focus primarily in Minnesota, but it is going to be a nationwide effort because unfortunately, the American people have been defrauded in a very nationwide way. Amen. And he went on to say that Senate Majority Leader John Thune has promised him swift confirmation when he makes the nomination in the next couple of days. So, this person will be supervised directly by Vance and Trump, which is also another interesting little tidbit there. And you can't go to that position anymore.

Yeah, exactly. So, there we go. We have the Vice President of the United States addressing the fraud, and hopefully, we start to claw back some of those funds. I just try and imagine if someone just came up to me and said, I'm going to take 10% of your family's budget next year. What would that mean? We start cutting out. It just boggles the mind when you start to think of it in terms of what is lost because of... What has been stolen from the American people?

It does feel a little bit like Doge 2.0, or like a better, like there's more. Political will, this time. 95-5 issue. You know what I mean? It was popular, but, because what they always say is, when you find out fraud, especially within the federal government, when you cut off the spigot, the fraudsters are the ones that cry out the most, because they're losing the gravy train. That's their entire existence, is the fraud. But now, it's like, you get this specific, it's like the perfect, the $600 hammer, is like a daycare with no children.

Is the perfect silver bullet of like, okay, what are we doing here? What are we doing here, people? Yeah, and then everything that you come up with in this assistant attorney general position, you blast it out on Twitter like, hey, we found this specific person that defrauded this amount of money, and you can easily publish it. It's got to be like the most popular thing ever. As you said, 95.5. Who would be mad about that other than people committing fraud?

Well, there was an individual from Somalia. stood before a public forum in Lewiston, Maine, and he warned the city council members not to try to go after fraud, because then he'll tell everyone in the smaller community not to vote for Democrats.

Is that real? It's like amazing. Oh my gosh. Telling on yourselves. That's what this is about, votes. Let us steal from the whole community, or otherwise we won't vote for you. Or we won't vote for you. That must have been the whole game. I mean, even a lot of these organizations in Minneapolis, they get paid per person that they bring to the country. That's why there's so many Somalians here. Well, look, I grew up in Minnesota. I've known about the way the vote goes.

Minnesota, yes, it hasn't voted for. A Republican president since Nixon in 1972, the longest streak of any state. But it did elect Republicans to the Senate when I was a teenager or whatever. It wasn't crazy. They had Republican governors or whatever, and then in the last 15 to 20 years, just as a state by other states would have trended red and elected a Republican governor here and there and maybe a senator here and there, it just got really solidified to be kind of blue, and that is because you had 80,000 Somalians that have come into the ...

I left Minnesota in 1995, and since I left, 80,000 Somalians have moved to the state, and now, I mean, it is not a large state population-wise, you know, and so that could really, you know, so that is why Keith Ellison, if it weren't for the Somalians, Keith Ellison, the Attorney General, the corrupt guy there, he would not be here. He would have lost, because he won this narrowly, you know. It would have been a different Attorney General. So, this matters. This has so many consequences.

You know, Tim Walz, I mean, this guy, I mean. He's dumber than a bag of hair. He has no hair. I just think it's a huge admission of how widespread and intense the fraud is that he wouldn't even run.

Like, he's done. He's done. I mean, he gave up. He quit. You know, apparently, Amy Klobuchar is going to run for governor now, although it's not. For certain yet. I think she's kind of holding back and watching how the poll numbers go, because if this thing doesn't wrap up soon, and it keeps continuing to pivot and get larger, but Amy is about the only Democrat who could unite their party, and she would have the advantage in winning, unfortunately. But, you know, it's time to clean house.

Look, Minnesota needs to, I mean, you, again, even if you're not, even if you're not like inclined to vote Republican. I'm going to tell all my friends and neighbors back home, like, you need a change of parties, just a clean house, and someone in who can come in. I mean, I would say this if you were talking about another state government, like, you know, if an Indiana had this kind of a corruption, it's like, yeah, maybe it would be time to clean house.

Like, if a political party has been in power for so long, and they refuse to do anything, and when they're caught, they make all this kind of squawking noise, but... No, this is an absolute outrage to steal from your own people. Unbelievable. Yeah, it's an unsustainable system, and it's an unsustainable civil polity. Like, you cannot have an entire system where fraud is baked in, and then also this tolerance of challenging the civil order, that there's this encouragement to that. So, like you said, Josh, it's a cancer that has just metastasized in Minnesota, and you have to eviscerate it.

You have to take it out. Root and branch. By legal means, like voting. So, Minnesota, come on. All right, I do say this. We need Republicans to be clamoring. For like the SAVE Act, where we require people to vote with IDs. If you want to go to the Democratic National Convention, they need an ID. They require for you to enter into that arena. Well, of course, you should require an ID when you vote. Like you need to buy cigarettes or alcohol, but like voting, which is the most important, you know, impact you have on society.

Hello. Okay, on to obvious things that I can't believe have not been done. Things that just make sense. Here's a true story from Donald Trump. This got BlackRock stock moving down pretty quick. For a very long time, buying and owning a home was considered the pinnacle of the American dream.

It was the reward for working hard and doing the right thing, but now, because of record high inflation caused by Joe Biden and the Democrats in Congress, the American dream is increasingly out of reach for far too many people, especially younger Americans.

It is for this reason, and much more, that I am immediately taking steps to ban large institutional investors from buying more single-family homes, and I will be calling on Congress to codify it. People live in homes, not corporations. I will discuss this topic, including further housing and affordability proposals, and more at my speech in Davos in two weeks.

Yeah, this got people moving, for sure. Tom, you and I have been talking about this forever. We have. Yeah. And I think it is interesting to me because, actually, So, large investors like BlackRock, et cetera, own a very small percentage of homes. So, it's used as a boogeyman issue, but I think it's properly used as a boogeyman issue because it shouldn't be happening, even if it is at a small scale. So, to me, this feels like kind of a political win.

Like, only 3% of homes right now are owned by these large institutional investors. So, it's not really the biggest issue. Just a quick correction, though. It is a regional issue. So, while it might not be... Sure. As much of an issue in northern New Hampshire, for example, there are parts of the country, including South Florida, actually. I was looking this up yesterday, where the percentage can actually grow 7% to 10%. You are talking like a real issue in those markets. So, it is limited to certain regions, but I would say it is more than just the 3%.

Is upwards of nearly 20% of single-family homes in Charlotte, North Carolina, are owned by investors. Yeah, I understand the regional element, which is, it is a significant thing, and I mean, I guess the stock activity would suggest, like, stocks went down for BlackRock, etc., pretty quickly, up to as much as 9%, I think, Blackstone, Pretium, similar firms, and it's partially because, so after 2008, after the financial crisis, a lot of these institutional investors started ramping up the buying of single-family homes.

Because people got mortgages that they couldn't afford, and then homes were put out at a... Which is... To talk about the levels of scandal of all this, in which none of the bankers got thrown... Like, Larry Summers should be in jail.

In my opinion, but because who got bailed out? All the big players got bailed out. Wall Street got bailed out. The average American did not get bailed out, and so that is why we have this problem. We got the bill, and because they were all bailed out by tax money, but what happened was a lot of the houses got foreclosed, and so a lot of these institutional investors swooped in, got a lot of these homes at an absolute discount, and then now can bump up rent on people and have no consequences.

They can also buy things, as you guys are saying, regionally. They have basically unlimited money compared to the average American. So, they're going to be able to swoop in with a cash offer immediately and give you no chance if someone's going to make a decision based on how much money they can make instead of another decision. So, that's the situation we're in, and if you look at it like most investors, there are some mom-and-pop investors, actually most of them, owning one to five homes.

That's 14.5 million homes as of Q2 2025. So, it's a small... Institutional investors, as of 2022, owned around 450,000 homes. That's about 3%, and that's according to the Government Accountability Office. And then, if you go back to where they are now, they're saying that they're actually buying much less. And, woe is me, I'm not going to be defending these large institutional investors, partially because of the point that Trump made in the True Social quote, is that we're not talking about, you know, some widget or some stock that you can kind of trade.

We're talking about people's homes. Like, a home is much bigger. than such like a tradable asset that you can kind of live with one day and not live with another day. Like, a home is a key part of living a good, flourishing life, at least the American dream, as we were sold at one point. Right, both materially and spiritually, I would say, like for a family to have a home. Yeah. And I think, too, if you think of it this way, so what is the housing shortage?

So, if you go on like Zillow, for example, but also J.P. Morgan. Pew Research, commonly the figure is 4.5 million single-family homes. That is about what the shortage is. So, when you look at how many of the investors have bought up homes, that is a significant portion of that shortage, that if we could get some of those back on the market to be owned by families, it could go toward eating up the shortage. I mean, yeah, sure. It is not like the houses are empty.

They are certainly renting them out. What we need is… To remove 15 to 20 illegal immigrants from the country, that will get the market back to normal. That will also help. We do need housing, regulations on housing to be a little bit more standardized across different markets and sectors to make it a little bit more affordable for cheaper house production, because we have added so many regulations locally. The regulation is the biggest issue, in my opinion. I don't even think we need to make that.

And part of what... You know, the reason why, I mean, I have no love lost for BlackRock, you know, I love to see their stock go down, but the fact is some of these investing companies went into housing. Because it's a safe place to park their money when you have a high inflationary environment, and so now that Trump is going to make this not an option anymore, they'll just shift over to golden silver a little bit more, which is fine by me.

I also just want less of an inflationary era, please. That would be great. But yeah, I mean, I largely think this is a good thing. I mean, this The problem isn't like, you know, mom and pop investors that might have five or six houses that they're renting out or whatever. The problem is when, like, nameless, faceless corporations are gobbling up a bunch of these things. And like you say, it's only 3% nationwide, but it was larger in certain markets like Charlotte, 20% nearly.

I mean, that's a lot. This is great. And from the renter experience perspective, I don't even think anyone debates this either. It's horrible. Like, if you want to get help on your home. You've got to call a call center instead of a human being that actually rents you the home to actually get things done, and so there's plenty of complaints about it. I just think in general, and maybe this is just an ax I have to grind against private equity, but...

There's people in the country, I don't even know how we solve this, but there's economic incentive to, of course, become a monopoly, and then actually make things worse for the consumer to squeeze more money. Oh my gosh, don't get restarted. Seriously, look at every chain restaurant ever, as soon as they get acquired by private equity. There's no soul to it. They don't care about you. They're shaving things off for investors, and I think the same thing exists in housing. If you rent to a human being, you actually kind of care about their condition, and sure, there's disputes, and there's places to dispute that.

But if you're just a massive, you know, equity firm, and you're just making decisions based on the dollar, you don't care about the people in there. That's not a priority to you. It's about how much money you make. Yeah, I mean, part of that, I mean, like these, you mentioned the chain restaurants. There's a much more ability for people to respond, because I remember, like, what was... Very true.

I don't even remember what restaurant we went to. We were like, this just tastes terrible. It's not like the way it used to be, and so people stop going, and then their sales will take a dip, and it's, you know, no harm, no foul, but when it's your house that you're renting from some nameless, faceless corporation, you're right. Like, press, you know, one for English. It's so dehumanizing. I have black bullets. I need something done about it. I think it would be very easy to get bipartisan support for legislation.

It's already out there, actually. Democrats are big on this. And basically say, hey, listen, if it's, you know. LLC, partnerships, you know, mom and pop stuff, fine, but these nameless, faceless, private equity, no, no, no, or tax, like, 80%, so, like, no, we don't want it. Yeah, there's some really encouraging signs already on the economy. Like, one of them, I think the deficit is the lowest that it's been. The trade deficit's been the lowest it's been since, like, 2009. So, our GDP is, like, up to 5%, a lot of people are saying, because people are still buying American goods, and we are exporting, you know.

The deficit's much smaller, which is, I'd say, a win so far. We'll see how it plays out. Tariffs are working. Tariffs are working is the main lesson. Yeah. U.S. home prices have risen 75%. That is more than double the increase in overall consumer prices tracked by the CPI, but home sales price increases have eased substantially over the past year. 75% since when? Since Trump's first electoral victory, so since he started. But that's less than, say, the COVID era, 2020 to 2024, so it's eased.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency last week reported that the national home sales prices had risen just 1.7% in October from a year earlier, the lowest in more than 13 years. And then, as of November, annual shelter cost inflation, which had shot to as high as 8.2% in the COVID-19 pandemic aftermath. ...had also eased to 3%, the lowest in more than four years. So, it does seem like some really encouraging movement on the housing side. I know that people are actually... It's not frozen anymore.

There's a point where no one was moving, no one was getting rid of their houses, and that's changed a little bit. So, I'm really encouraged to see Trump focusing on this. I'm keeping my eyes on an upcoming possible Supreme Court decision. I mentioned this, I think, last year, where... They're going to consider rent control prices, like preventing people from Renting out their apartment for a market rate. No, you have to keep it low. That's basically the government taking money from you, and it was kind of hilarious that Mondami actually basically confirmed that because there was an apartment complex that said, we can't rent these out.

We can't rent our apartments out. We're going bankrupt. And he's like, no, you can't go bankrupt. We need you to be able to rent out so we can, you know. It's like they just basically conceded the argument. What are you guys doing? You're not even the bride. They're not sending the brightest. How long? No, and the difference with that is we are just leveling the playing field in a capitalist environment with houses. You're someone in the playing field that is so far beyond the average citizen and their ability to buy a house.

It's unfair. It's like unfair competitive advantage to large institutions in which no one benefits from on the ground level, other than, I guess, shareholders, potentially, if they invest. Most people don't have access to that. We have this imperfect market.

Crazy. So, it's like, you know, we allow these big investment companies to buy houses, but we don't allow businesses to build houses affordably because we put so many regulations on them. It's the same thing with cars. The problem isn't even the investors per se. I mean, like, if we could actually build houses affordably again. Then, it wouldn't be a problem if a few percentage of them bought a few houses or whatever. But ultimately, yeah, I would like to create the incentives for the like, go invest in gold and silver and leave the housing market to actual people.

To the people, the real people. Okay, second thing that was obvious, probably should have been done a long time ago. The food pyramid has changed people. I love it. I love it. But first, can we just review? Yes, this is what we grew up with, Josh, right there. Look at that baby.

Got all those greens. This is from the 70s, right? I think this one was actually in 91. Okay, I've updated it. I used to eat a lot of grains. Yeah. And I got fat. That's what you get for listening to the government. You got to have three bowls of catfish brunch. Here's the new food pyramid. Here's the new one. Flip it over. Flip it over.

It was great. Protein, dairy, and healthy fats at the top. As Maverick would say, inverted. Yeah. Did you see the south part? Oh my gosh, I love it. Can we just play this now? Yeah, we'll watch it. I just love it.

It's upside down. The pyramid doesn't work. We've already tried it. It's upside down. What? Sir, the pyramid is upside down. Turn the pyramid upside down. You can't be serious. That would put butter and fat at the top of the... Flip the damn food pyramid!

Tell him to have some steak with his butter. So, all very fun, and then, I mean, the government website is hilarious, too. Oh, I know. I cannot believe this is something produced by the federal government. Yeah, let's start. The boys have been busy. This is a great website. As we watch this, there's actually real world. So, like, does this affect government policy? Because everyone's joking about this. I've actually eaten this way for a long time, like ever since I took a nutrition class.

I mean, you think of, like, maha mom culture, gym culture, like, Jordan, what, Huberman. On the ground, anyone paying attention is eating this way, yeah. Yeah, but this actually does inform policy, and so that's why I think people are really excited about it. It informs school lunches. School, right, school lunches. It informs how we feed our military on military bases. Yes. And other. Even in prisons, like prisoners should eat well, too. And so, this was actually really, really encouraging. We also found out it's going to affect SNAP benefits and what people from a federal regulation standard are able to get through their SNAP benefits.

Secretary Rawlins came out, and she announced, right, when RFK made this flip of the pyramid, that the USDA is doubling its stocking standard. And no, that's not socks, but it means that... If you, as a corporation, like a Walmart or a Publix, if you take SNAP dollars, then you're going to be required to double your stock of healthy foods, like whole grains and vegetables and raw meat, as indicated by the new pyramid, because we have these food deserts she talks about in the United States.

Right, right, that's good. Right, these big corporations just don't stock that, but now there's going to be these regulations. There are neighborhoods where it's like a bodega or a small little... You know, convenience store or whatever, and they sell a bunch of snack food and pop, and people come in there, and they use their snack benefits, and they get this stuff. But some states, as we mentioned before, are saying no to, you know, you can't use sugary pop and a snack to buy that stuff.

But did you see the vice president decided to weigh in on the pyramid? I did. Me more. He said, yeah, hey, Secretary Kennedy, this new food permit is solid, but you forgot to include one dietary staple, cookies and cream ice cream.

Hey, Josh, is this your burner account? Yeah, and then Kennedy weighs back. Caution, do not take dietary advice from this guy, and it is the J.D. Vance fat boy meme. I love it. Which is actually funny because you know J.D. Vance was ripping Mountain Dew back in the day, like back when he was chubby J.D. Vance. He said that.

He had it for breakfast, yeah. It's great. Yeah, shop at the outside of the grocery store. I'm telling you, I got so radicalized in college because I had extra credit, so I took a nutrition class, and I was like, you know, if you've ever seen The Hangover, it's like when all the numbers are going around Alan's head, like everything that he knows is a lie. I'm figuring it all out right now.

What? Pop-Tarts aren't good for you? You shouldn't have them for breakfast? What? It's like, we joke about this, but the people that know, know. But then, of course, when it comes to policy with SNAP and stuff, like, my brother's a firefighter. I'm here for it. In the Detroit area, let's just say. He sees, unfortunately, how people are eating in the inner city. It's not good. And they get called all the time by people that have no regard for their own health, that are like 300 pounds.

He's like, this is a huge, like, you're wasting resources. This could go to actually save someone's life. But because you can't move your pee bucket or whatever, you know, I'm here, so it's crazy. Yeah, well, first of all, junk food is not even food. That's what we need to start to realize. But, well, food is, you know, that fresher food and good food for you is more expensive. No, that's what the price of food is. And the junk food is cheap, but it's not good for you.

But I do want to say something. This is where I can be a little generational here on this, Tom. Do it. So, you grew up in an era where, you know, 9-11 was when you were a very young child. But, you know, the economy melting down in 2008 was, you know, you were a teenager. My parents stayed together. That's awesome. Yeah. That's good.

And you've seen unending, you know, government debacles in your, I'm not trying to make you sound like a youngster, but like, obviously, Afghanistan. Paint it, baby. Okay, so it's been disaster, disaster, disaster, disaster on, you know, by our federal government. Okay, and so you're like, well, obviously, the federal government is a disaster and run by buffoons and all the personal scandals, but I just want to help you understand. I thought Mitt Romney was going to be the savior of the country.

Okay, well, that was where you went wrong. To start with. But anyway, think about it from the perspective of somebody who was, let's say, a member of the Greatest Generation. They liberate, you know, Europe from the communists, and they raise the flag at Iwo Jima, and they prevent Imperial Japan from taking over, you know, East Asia, right? And 50-50 if we went to the moon, but sure.

Okay, so, but let us just assume we went to the moon. Thank you. 1969, we land on the moon. So, you are talking about… Government that was accomplishing great- Wins, wins, wins, Ws. In the 1950s, we had one of the most ambitious public works projects known to man when we did the interstate system- I love our interstate system. Fast and affordable travel all across the country. I see so many times on social media by these lefties, like, wouldn't it be great if we had high-speed trains like they do in Europe?

And it's like, well, I'll tell you why we don't have public transportation like what they do in Europe, because we saw that- Young white woman get murdered in Charlotte. That is why we do not have public transportation along the lines that you wish that we had. But in general, just think about it. Iwo Jima, we saved the world in World War II. We land on the moon. We build this massive interstate system. Our federal government was doing a lot of great, grand, good things.

And then, yes, the 21st century has been a story of colossal mistakes and failures. And so, when Donald Trump talks about, I want to make America great again, that is what he is getting at. Like, why do we have to have airports that look dumpy and haven't been improved in 40 years? Why can't we finish things? You know, I will tell you, Ron DeSantis and even the Democratic governor, I will give him credit, in Pennsylvania, even though he is a bad guy, Shapiro, fixing the roads and bridges like within 10 days.

Like, that is the kind of America that I remember. We need that kind of America back. That's an interesting thought, because I feel like the real chair in the top was COVID. Which was the biggest of all the debacles, maybe. I don't know. Maybe we could have a good debate about that. One I forgot, but yeah. Talk about the government lying to you and then doing things, unbelievable things. You're like, I didn't think this was possible. So, yeah, that is interesting to think about, like, my political upbringing.

The entire 21st century is riddled with these, like, the southern border being wide open and allowing 20 million people to come in here. Yeah, factless. So much red pilling, so, yeah. Like, I mean. But Obama looked great in a tan suit.

Oh, my gosh. But we had so many generations of Americans, millions of Americans, who had decades of experience where, you know, yes, we would disagree or squabble here or there, but for the most part, we had a functioning, rational, you know... Yeah, no, you know what's funny? And I've got to be brief because we've got to keep the show going, but I was thinking about that in regards to the military operation in Venezuela, like, hot topic, you can debate about it, whatever.

But... To me, like, what's happened under Trump is two very contentious but very successful military actions. One was the seven-day war in Iran, and then also with this action in Venezuela. Different because we're not in prolonging who knows what happens with these. It obviously remains to be seen, so I'm not saying it too soon. But the military doing highly complicated, successful, impressive missions. And then I flip back to what I've seen from the military before was just almost like it just felt like defeat.

The way that they... The pullout of Afghanistan, and I think I'm starting to realize how much of a difference that is. Oh, wait, the American military. It isn't just talk. It actually can do things. It actually is really impressive, and I almost like, even just as an American, to think that way about my own military, instead of having to constantly be frustrated with, like, why is it being run this way? Why are we advertising this way? Why are we failing? Aren't we the greatest military in the world?

Either we are or we're not, and you can say one thing, and then I see another, and that's not true. So, yeah, that's just a small part of what you were saying, and a larger, I guess I'll have to think about that more, Josh. And I guess, just, I don't know if we have to move on, but think about, like, one of those problems was massively solved in a matter of four months, and that was the southern border, and Donald Trump did it.

Yeah, true. And so, just, like, getting things, being able to get things done and to be productive and... We need more of those wins. Yeah. All right, on to good news. Erika, what do you got? Oh, boy. So, speaking of awesome food news, this is a little update from my live, free, or die native state of New Hampshire. And they passed a bill in the House that says it allows farmers, so small-time farmers. In New Hampshire, I believe there were only two USDA-approved slaughter facilities, which they had 18- to 24-month backups to get your animals from your small farm approved.

...checked and slaughtered and packaged for selling, and this was causing farms to go under because it meant that they had livestock that they had to continue feeding for months, if not years, past when they were ready for slaughter, and they couldn't cash in on that. So, it was a big reason why small farms were dying in the state of New Hampshire. Well, just this week, they passed a bill saying that farmers can butcher their own livestock on their own farms. ...or small non-USDA facilities and sell the meat then directly to consumers within New Hampshire without requiring...

So, this was a massive slash in regulation for the farmers of my home state, New Hampshire. It still has to go through the Senate. It's probably going to pass. The governor will sign it into law, but I love this common-sense deregulation. It is funny to think, like, what would the founding fathers think if they were told, hey, you can't butcher your own cows that you raised on your own place? And you can't sell it out of your own, like, how far we are from craziness.

Well, this whole situation was total Massachusetts creep, where all these people move from, like, taxachusetts up through the southern end of the state. They elect a bunch of Democrats who are like, let's regulate the farms out of existence. Exactly. So, this is a sign that perhaps New Hampshire is returning to a little sanity.

And now the cows can die peacefully in their own beds. I love it. I think I say, New Hampshire is nationally ranked for the healthiest place in the country, I think. There was a rankings that came out. It is a beautiful place. Congratulations.

It does make me get on one of my hobby horses. Uh-oh. New Hampshire is great in the sense that they have 400 people in their House of Representatives in the state. Yeah. That means they have a lawmaker representing literally just 300. 3,300 people. That is awesome. Talk about being close to the people and understanding what they want. That is magnificent. I wish we had something like that. We could not do that scale on the U.S. House of Representatives, but more like New Hampshire than what we currently have would be great.

Okay. Josh, what do you got? Well, you know, Cardinal Dolan is, you know, doing a little victory lap here. His time is starting to wind down here in the Archdiocese of New York, and he had a really good suggestion. And since it's Friday, let's roll this tape. This is a big comment from you, by the way.

You sticking with me, everybody? Cardinal Timothy Dolan. I've been talking about practices that are worth recovering. What about penance on Friday? Some act of mortification, some act of self-sacrifice every Friday. Why? Because it's the day Jesus died on the cross. We kind of want to be close to him on the cross. We take upon ourselves some penance, some mortification, some sacrifice every Friday. Used to do it, you old timers like me, I'm almost 76 now. Used to be that every Friday, Catholics gave up meat, all right?

That faded, if I'm not mistaken, back in 66. But even then, Pope St. Paul VI that relaxed the Friday abstinence said, every faithful Catholic will do some act of penance or mortification or sacrifice on a Friday. How about it? Friday sacrifice. How about it? How about it? I love it. Big coming from you, Josh. Big. I saw this. I love meat. I hate fish. I hate eating vegetables, but I do it.

I saw this video, and I thought to myself, you know, I saw the video after I had. Ham and eggs. But you know what? It was leftover quiche, and the ham was terrible, so it still felt like a penance. Okay, yeah. It counts. It counts, yeah. But I'm with Cardinal Dillon on this. You know, the thing is, sometimes we can be almost too clever by half when it comes to the faith, and saying, oh, you know, you don't have to give up meat on Fridays outside of Lent.

Obviously, you still do in Lent. Outside of Lent, just... You know, you can make up your own thing. Well, then we sort of forget it, and then it just becomes a regular thing. And we just don't. So, you know what? It would be better to say, there's no penalty on Mike and Lent. But yeah, you should really just not eat meat on Fridays. And that is why the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast always makes sure to have their breakfast not on Fridays anymore.

That is awesome. Wait, do they really? One time they did. It is like, okay, we got to make sure. It is the only way to get the venue. But then ever since then, we are not going to have it on Friday. And then the one time they had it on Friday, it was something else. Yeah, fish for breakfast is no good.

Oh, you just get eggs with no meat. I know, I was joking. Okay, for mine, Pope Leo. Pope Leo delivered his annual New Year's address to the diplomatic court accredited to the Holy See on January 9, 2026 in the Hall of the Benediction of the Vatican. Beautiful room, by the way. This is a traditional event where the Pope offers greetings for the new year while providing a broad state-of-the-world overview from the Church's perspective. Maybe a little bit of like a State of the Union type thing for Catholics, but this is being shared around.

Always nice to hear something like this from the Pope, so I'll play it. In light of this profound vision of life as a gift to be cherished, And if the family, as its responsible guardian, we categorically reject any practice that denies or exploits the origin of life and its development, among these is abortion, which cuts short a growing life and refuses to welcome the gift of life.

In this regard, the Holy See expresses deep concern about projects aimed at financing cross-border mobility for the purpose of accessing the so-called right to safe abortion. It also considers it deplorable that public resources are allocated to suppress life Rather than being invested to support mothers and families, the primary objective must remain the protection of every unborn child and the effective and concrete support of every woman so that she is able to welcome life. Likewise, there is the practice of surrogacy. By transforming gestation into a negotiable service, This violates the dignity both of the child, who is reduced to a product, and of the mother, exploiting her body and the generative process, and distorting the original relational calling of the family.

Amen. Amen, brother. Love it. Come on now. Watch out there. I know what you meant. I meant it affectionately. He also did have a... Tom, you know what's the difference between this one and last year's? I mean, I'm not trying to... I'm not trying to plug in me.

Sure, okay, sure. But, I mean, popes in the past, you know, like Francis did it in Italian. And Pope Leo did it in English, not because he was born in the United States, by the way. It is the lingual frank of our time, so most of the diplomats are going to know English. It actually makes sense to say it in English. That is interesting. I thought you were going to talk about, he spent a lot more time on life issues. I listened to the full speech.

He did talk about Christian persecution around the world, which is true. It is happening. But I personally was surprised, because I am not typically tuning into this. I am a bit new to the state of the church address.

A lot of it, a lot of it was really strong on family issues, like the nuclear family, abortion, surrogacy, euthanasia, and when he's talking about euthanasia, Orwell had, he's talking about George Orwell, he's talking about suppression of the conscience for medical professionals that are forced to do things against their conscience. Yeah, man, I just.

It's always great when one of these pops up, and then you're like, I didn't even know this was a thing, and then I watched it, and I just love how specific, because it's like, okay, what, the Pope is Catholic? Like, ha, ha, ha, ha. But, like, you can't even take that for granted, I feel like, a lot of times, and I just love the way that Pope Leo goes about it. Really? Not me. So, yeah. Pope Leo went about it in such a specific, calm...

You know, it wasn't theatrical. It just felt very pastoral. I thought it was beautiful. I really liked it. It encouraged me. That is my good news. I loved it. He did a great job. He did. Great. Yeah. Awesome. All right, we will go straight to Twilight Zone now. Josh, what do you got? Well.

I do have to give the warning. So, if you are listening to this with children, you just got to turn it off for a second or whatever. This is really nasty stuff, but I feel like we do have to let our audience know about some of these things and raise awareness of evil stuff that's out there. Of course, pornography is a massive scourge. We all know that. But in particular, certain websites that allow users generated videos to be placed on their website, this is just an added evil.

And the reason why, well, let's allow Layla, this anti-porn activist, to explain why. Yeah, she's great. We found out that they only had one person, so they had 1,800 employees. They hired one person five days a week to be reviewing videos flagged by users as terms of service violations, including rape and trafficking and child abuse. One person. They had a policy where they wouldn't even review a video unless it was flagged 15 times. Think about this. You're a victim. Say there's a child victim like Serena.

She would have to flag her video over 15 times. Because it had to be over 15 for it to be reviewed, in order for that to even be put in queue for review, and they had a backlog of 706,000 videos.

706,000 videos. And one person assigned to it. That had not been reviewed. Wow. Maybe the whole website should just be shut down. Well, you remember the whole stinkover state level, like... The ID, the age verification, 18 or older, and then they just decided, well, we are not going to do that. We are just going to pull out of the state, and then try to pin it on politicians, and like, this is going on in the background? Of course, in a just society, all pornography would be illegal because it is not speech, and it is grotesque.

But in this case... This is just the added evil of allowing users to upload content because it's not reviewable. I mean, it's just a reminder to people that Instagram, Facebook, all these social media companies that you use, they hire teams of people to make sure that this kind of stuff, illegal content, isn't on their stuff, and some of the stuff is still gross, I can give you that. But this is a company that doesn't have a problem with it out there because they know People are watching it and enjoying it, and they make money selling ads to these people.

It needs to be shut down. Yeah, 100%. Yeah. Even if we could just get user-generated videos to be stopped, that would be like a step in the right direction. We tried to do like a deep episode on OnlyFans, and I mean, it's honestly so dark. It was like we couldn't even... We'll see if we get something out at some point, but whatever. Pornhub's horrific. OnlyFans is like a hundred times worse, because it's all user-generated, and then they're like, no, we're actually empowering women because they're allowing them to make money, as if somehow that's a proper trade for debasing yourself.

And enabling a lot of the abuse. We need God. Yeah, facts. Okay, Erika, what do you got? All right, speaking of needing God and Twilight Zone, like, are we really doing this again, guys? So, this week we find out that in Arizona, if you're from Arizona. Pay attention. There's proposed legislation. This was pre-filed December 4th, actually. It just came into our attention a couple weeks ago, that a Democrat wants to do away with the current religious exemption for the seal of confession.

Yes, indeed. Once again, we have now in Arizona, we want the statute on mandatory reporters to apply to priests in the confessional. Clergy would be required to disclose information if there is a reasonable suspicion quote to believe. That the abuse is ongoing and will continue or may be a threat to other minors. So, this has popped up in Arizona. It has been defeated multiple times, so we've seen similar measures in the last few years. Most recently, I believe, in Washington, where CatholicVote was very active in defeating this effort, but also Delaware, Vermont, Wisconsin, Montana, and it seems like this is just going to keep on coming up and happening, so pay attention if you're in Arizona.

That this is an issue, this bill to violate the seal of the confessional. I mean, we're keeping on top of the issue, of course, you know, with the story there at CatholicVote. Thankfully, Arizona has a Republican legislature, so I believe this Democrat's bill is not going to pass like it would have if the state were blue like Washington state. Washington is scarier, for sure.

So, heads up. Okay, I'm dipping my toe. This headline, I believe, was picked up by the Vice President of the United States, but this is making the rounds, so I'll just read it. This is almost like Monty Python.

Yeah. The United Arab Emirates announces it will cut funds for citizens who want to study in the United Kingdom out of fear of Emirati students being radicalized by Muslim Brotherhood Islamists on British campuses. Oh, my gosh. An Arab state now views a European state as a dangerous Islamist radicalization hotspot. I think you can't even make this up. Not just an Arab state.

The UAE is a Muslim state. No, no, no. No, the UAE is a Muslim state. No, I know that. So, it's not just like, oh, these Arabs that aren't Muslim. They are Muslim, and they're like the Muslim Brotherhood. It's such a big problem. In the United Kingdom, we're not going to do it. I was digging into this a little bit.

So, I was like, what is their beef? And then I was like, okay, who's designated the Muslim Brotherhood, which they're kind of like, from what I was reading, they're a bit like shapeshifty, like they try their best to not be directly tied to a lot of terrorism events, but they're connected to ISIS, they're connected to Al-Qaeda, a lot of the main, Hamas, a lot of the main suspects.

And they're officially designated a terrorist organization by Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Jordan. And those were done in like 2014, by the way. So, maybe someone knows more about this than me, but if these Arab nations are like, yo, the Muslim Brotherhood is such a big problem, we're going to designate it as a terrorist organization. You would think the United Kingdom might follow suit.

No. The United Kingdom has not designated them as a terrorist organization, and they routinely host Muslim Brotherhood speakers, lecturers on their campuses, and stuff like that. And I think that the UAE issue with them is that they had a local affiliate, al-Isha.

That we're accused of secretly fomenting like a military wing recruiting officers to try to overthrow the government. So, they had a very personal problem, whoever the current leadership of the United Arab Emirates are. And again, this is a Muslim country, so there's this faction within the Muslim country that was trying to overthrow the country. So, like, we're done with that. They continue to have problems.

And I found this clip from the United Arab Emirates foreign minister. It almost looks like satire, but it's true. It's crazy. So, here's the minute. This is the United Arab Emirates foreign minister warning in 2017 about something like this. Here you go.

And let me say this in English, so you can understand what I'm saying. I have translation. No, I know you have translation, but I just want to make sure you get it right. There will come a day that we will see far more radical extremists and terrorists coming out of Europe because of lack of decision-making, trying to be politically correct, or assuming that they know the Middle East and they know Islam and they know the others far better than we do.

And I'm sorry, but that's pure ignorance. Yep. I think that day has come. The prophet has spoken. That is a crazy story. I would love to have UAE and some of these other, you know, non-crazy Islamic states to try to do something they can to, you know.

Get the fire out of these, you know, because right now, these radical Islamists are going through countries in Europe, and it's just like cordwood. They're just, you know, they're taking over. Well, there's no mechanism for defense, because they're entering into, say, a liberal democracy, and there'd be no, there's no, like, defenses on the inside towards that. They're the strongest, most unified political interest group, and then they take over. And I'm like, I'm concerned in a similar way. They have money. I mean, like these, like the UAE and all these guys, they should set up, like, moderating institutions in London to try to, you know, pacify these, you know, these extremists and try to, you know, root them out.

I don't know. I feel like America suffers from similar problems, though. Like, look at Dearborn, look at these other places. We don't have any internal mechanism within our Constitution to actually do anything about it. We have pockets, but I think we're nowhere near, hopefully, we're nowhere near where, like, the UK, France, and Germany. I mean, we saw... I don't know. We just elected one as mayor of New York City. That's true. Although, he's a fake one, in my opinion, but... Yeah, he's not quite there, but...

No. Not Muslim Brotherhood yet, but I think Europe is just… They're so hollowed out that there's no political will there. Like you said, liberal democracy, but not just that. It's liberal democracy that's been hollowed out of any sort of Christian masculine sense of virtue or right or pride in their identity as a people. And yeah, so it's the radical Islamists who have been rooted out of places like the UAE and the more moderate Islamist country that They want nothing to do with them.

I saw a Keir Starmer quote. It was like, what makes Britain British? And he's like, oh, it's our diversity. Yeah, no. I'm like, can we just stop for a second? It's actually not true. Maybe like, that's not an answer. First off, that's like, I love America because it's not a country. It's the same thing happening here.

England is British because of British people. Is that racist to say, like, why, who would even make that, who would even accuse any country, why is Japan Japanese? Because the Japanese people are there. I always go back to Japan, because no one seems to give them a hard time about it. Who would even make that argument against- It's not white, and there are a lot to do it. Yes. Apparently, Norway- What makes Russia Russian? The Russian people. Yeah. Why can, why do we have Europe that is so embarrassed?

I mean, Germany's like- uh like ground zero for this in my opinion because they're so thoroughly humiliated after world war one which of course then led to hitler and then humiliated again after world war two and i'm not again not here to re-litigate all of that but it's made the german people they're germanic people embarrassed of who they are yes what are the what are the results of that is you just get flooded in with people who know exactly who they are right it's a suicidal civilization and yeah we see it we see it in the the eu and almost everything coming out of that governing body That their policies seemed designed, like Sia Weaver in New York City with the tendency, that they're designed to drive down economically, spiritually, and culturally the native peoples who are in Europe, and open the doors and say, come and get us to anyone in the world who wants to come in and take it.

It is, yeah, the downfall of Europe in the chat. That is a very long story. Probably out of time for that, but yeah, got to pray for the Christian. It's sad. It's a spiritual death, and the same thing is not. I feel like, look, we have our issues. I don't think we have the same kind of spiritual death in the same way in America, and we don't have the same, like.

We do. We do. We don't have the same. I think we're on the fulcrum. Right. A year ago. It's not the same, though. It's not the same yet. But the story's not over, and it could go either way, which is why we need to watch what's happening in Europe as a cautionary tale, as what will happen if good men and women sit down and just let it wash over us. But go back to, like, I don't know. I go back to, like, George Washington and the Virginians and the early revolutionaries.

Like, there's something that still is kind of a part of the American character where it's like. You see this, we're on the verge of it, and you kind of instinctively, as an American, go the other way. You're just like, screw that. That's not going to happen here. We're not going to do it. I don't want people to just sit on their haunches because they're like, oh, that exists, so therefore I don't have to do anything. I just really do believe there's a revolutionary spirit in America, that there's a DNA to the American people that just resists something like that.

And we'll see when that actually has to come out, but the Americans knew exactly who they were, and they were frustrated with the British. For many different reasons, partially because they were treated as less than of the British, or not as English, or not as important as English people, and then they fought a huge war that led to where we are today, and so, I don't know. I think there's something to the American spirit that uniquely goes against, where in Europe, I just see such a defeatist.

I feel like the one exception maybe is Poland a little bit. And they still have their problems. Hungary, too. I would be hungry, too. Yeah. There's some places that are like not fully accepting that. But anyway, don't have time for a full episode on that. But great show. Great week. Great week of shows. We made it through.

If you want to help us out, go ahead and subscribe over on YouTube, and then you can join the Champions Club, CatholicVote.org slash champions. Best way to support us. Thank you to all of our champions that hang out with us here, support us, allow us to do what we do. We are so grateful to you.

So, we are going to end with our daily prayer today. We have the St. Joseph's of the Worker prayer, one of my favorites as well. It is going to start in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

O glorious Saint Joseph, model of all those who are devoted to labor, Obtain for me the grace to work in a spirit of penance, for the expiation of my many sins, to work conscientiously, putting the call of duty above my natural inclinations, to work with thankfulness and joy, considering it an honor to employ and develop by means of labor the gifts received from God, to work with order, peace, moderation, and patience, never shrinking from weariness and trials, to work above all with a purity of intention and detachment from self.

Keeping unceasingly before my eyes death and the account that I must give of time lost, talents unused, good omitted, and vain complacency and success, so fatal to the work of God. All for Jesus, all through Mary, all for that example, O Patriarch St. Joseph, such shall be my watchword in life and in death. Amen.

Amen, Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Amen. St. Thomas More, St. Fidelis, Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us. Have a great weekend, everyone, and we'll catch you guys next week with new shows. Peace.