NAILBITER: BBB heads back to the House, Trump racks up the W’s, and God Bless the USA

And we're live. Welcome back to LOOPcast. We are joined today by Rachel Bovard in for Tom Pagasic, who continues his well-deserved vacation. Rachel is Vice President of Programs at the Conservative Partnership Institute and former Executive Director of the Senate Steering Committee, so she's going to explain to us exactly what just happened on the Hill, and Josh will tell us what it all means. So, this is going to be a great show. We have the big, beautiful Bill, will Mike Johnson recognize it when that baby lands back in the house, or as it is today?

Are we hitting peak Trump? We're going to ask all the questions, Trump's approval ratings, and we're going to finish off the show with alligator Alcatraz, which, again, what a time to be alive. So, if all that sounds great, please like this video right now, subscribe, hit the notification bell, and share it with your friends, please. That would help us out tremendously. But before we get into our sponsor... Wishing you a happy July 2nd. Josh, what is the significance of July 2nd?

Well, I mean, this is my good news section, of course. Oh, am I blowing your ... Okay, I'm sorry about that. Let's just do it now. We'll have more good news. Well, I mean, for historians, July 2nd is the day, actually, when the Declaration, they voted on it, and they announced it to the American people on July 4th. But to me, July 2nd is a bigger deal, because my wife, Lori, and I are celebrating 20 years of matrimony. Today?

That is my good news. That is right. Congratulations. Oh, my gosh. 20 years. Here, you got to show the photo. It is in the good news section there. Come on. It is in the good news. All right, let us pull up that photo there. Got to get Josh and Lori. That is a really big deal. I mean, come on. Yep. Celine's on it. What's good about it, too, is that she's agreed to a multi-year extension, so I'm very happy about that.

Fantastic. Excellent. Close the deal. Yep. Going to extend that bargain. I like it. Okay. When I was married, I did not have a beard, so this is, you know, you can see the photo here. I mean, yeah. I mean, I lost it up here, so you got to grow it down. Yeah, it just fell down. That's all. Every dad does, right? The old joke, right? All right, Celine's going to try and get that for the good news section, so we'll have the picture of baby face Josh marrying the love of his life.

Congratulations. What a great day. We could call it No King's Day, I think, too. I mean, why not? All right, but before we get into all the Senate stuff, a word from our sponsor, Charity Mobile. Now more than ever, it's important to buy the way you believe and do business with companies who support what you stand for. That's why you should switch your cell phone service to Charity Mobile, the pro-life cell phone company. They send 5% of your monthly plan price to the pro-life, pro-family charity of your choice at no extra cost to you.

Unlike some mobile carriers that resort to gimmicks to retain customers, Charity Mobile doesn't do three-year price locks because they have never raised their mobile plan prices in 30 years. That's crazy. That's longer than Josh has been married. And all plans start under $50 before... Taxes and surcharges. You can even save more on every line you add, making them a perfect choice for growing families. Also, very attractive. New customers can use promo code LOOPcast, it's on your screen, to get a free phone with every new line, plus free activation and free shipping, or you can bring your own compatible devices along.

You'll enjoy the same nationwide coverage as the big guys, and their live customer service is based right here in the U.S. of A. To get started... Visit CharityMobile.com and use promo code LOOPcast. That's CharityMobile.com, promo code LOOPcast. Thank you so much. Charity Mobile, our tried and true. All right. So, the big bill has passed the Senate, but we're not done yet. We have a really sweet video. Let's just play this. Trump finding out that it passed. He was in Florida at the time at a press conference with Ron DeSantis, opening Alligator Alcatraz, and here's his reaction.

This is so Trump. You know, I am waiting, listening to these wonderful words, and they are music to my ears, but I was also wondering how we are doing, because I know this is prime time. It shows that I care about you, because I am here, and I probably should be there, but we do care. Thank you very much. He is so good at flattering his audience. He is. Good job, Trump. All right. So, the bill passed. Oh, you can shut it off.

The bill passed by a margin of... 51 to 50 in the Senate with Vice President J.D. Vance casting the tie-breaking vote. It now goes to the House of Representatives again, which passed the initial version by one vote margin back in May. Vance had to break the tie after three Republican senators voted no on the measure. They were Rand Paul of Kentucky, no surprise there, Tom Tillis of North Carolina, who is on his way out, and Susan Collins of Maine. The GOP was able, by the skin of its teeth, to rope in Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska by including provisions that provided a tax exemption for fishermen in western Alaska, some whaling captains a deduction on more of their expenses, and put more federal dollars behind the Alaskan healthcare providers.

So, she came in under the wire at the last minute. So, the question is, I have some notes here. Is it even recognizable? What left the House that now left the Senate goes back to the House. A couple of things changed. So, Planned Parenthood defunding was reduced from 10 years to one year. We talked about that on Monday. Not ideal. Not ideal.

Could have done better there, but it is the first time in decades there's been any defunding of Planned Parenthood, so, you know, better than nothing, I guess. Defunding gender mutilation of children was in the base bill, though it was considered birdable, if you remember our birdbath discussion on Monday.

The Democrats never offered an amendment to strip it, but Republicans maybe stripped it themselves. I'm going to ask Rachel if she knows what happened there. We had education tax credits. They went out, but now they were back in, but with no religious freedom protections included in them. So, that was kind of a strange thing. We also were phasing out subsidies for renewables and EVs. We'll get a little bit of Elon Musk's reaction later on in our conversation. But, bottom line, the 2017 tax cuts were made permanent.

Thank God, because that would have been a shocker. Mercer? Well, and also, just on the child tax credit, I wanted it $2,500 like the House did, but the House would have had it revert back to $2,000 after four years, and so the Senate said, we'll do $2,200, and we'll make it permanent, but it also adjusts for inflation, so on that specific note, I'm actually okay with that. Yeah. So, Rachel, where are you landing right now in terms of the state of the bill, the state of the senator's sanity up on the Hill?

Well, I think the senators are really struggling, because keep in mind, the average age of the Senate is 65, and they were up for 24 hours, so... Yeah, the voter-rama. Okay, so what is... Everyone's talking about the longest voter-rama in U.S. history. What is a voter-rama, and what happened during that time? Yeah, so a feature of both the budget resolution process and then the attendant reconciliation bill process that comes out of that, well, they are... It's interesting. We say they're not subject to the filibuster, which is true.

You cannot invoke cloture on them, so they're not subject to 60 votes, but what they are open to is filibuster by amendment, right? There is an unlimited amendment process, and that's what we call the voterama, and senators could just keep offering amendments.

To infinity. There's literally no limit, and so, you know, what you saw here, I need to go back and check. It was the longest Voterama. I don't know that they offered the most amendments. There was just so much active negotiations going on. Yeah, the votes were held out for a long, long time. Right, and so that's, yeah, and when that happens, when you see those votes that go on for a really long time, that's exactly, Josh is right, what's happening is there's, if you watch C-SPAN 2, I do not know if anyone finds this as fascinating as me, but you will see different scrums of members, these different groups of members huddled in various structures throughout the Senate floor, and that is active negotiation that is going on right there.

Then they will pop into the cloakroom, get a beer, have a piece of pizza, come back out. Yeah, and again, when you are talking about the dynamics of it, I have a feeling that You never were going to get Rand Paul, because he says it is not going to be good enough for him. I get that. Well, Rand Paul's issue was very specific. He did not want to raise the debt ceiling, and there is a massive debt ceiling increase in this bill.

So, as long as that was included, he was going to be a no. Right, right, right. Not that you could not get him to a yes, but yes, I understand that. But for example, I think the way it was looking at, the senators were looking at it. My guess is that.

Actually, Collins was not a hard no. It is just that she was probably thinking, hey, I am actually going to be running for re-elect next year, and she is the one. It is just like... They will study her for decades, how this woman can get elected. Everyone complains, conservatives complain she's a liberal Republican, but you're not going to get someone much better out of Maine from her, honestly, and how she could continually win. The liberals spit nails. They could get so angry at her.

So, I think, basically, she's like, I need to be able to vote no on this because I want to run for re-election. So, if you can bribe Lisa voting yes. That would make me happy. And so, they make these kind of horse traits behind the scenes, you know, and yeah.

Yeah, and I think for Collins in particular, you know, she had concerns about some of the Medicaid issues that people just didn't address. You know, and I do think that that is the most demagogued portion of this bill, is what is happening to Medicaid. And it's not, you know, you've already seen Democrats go out and say, oh, they're taking Medicaid away from all these people, people are going to die. None of that is true, right? We're making it like necessary reforms to the programs.

But for Collins- from medicaid into heavily subsidized obamacare it's like it's not like you're throwing them on the onto the curve am i right well and you're also instituting Very basic work requirements. 20 hours a week for people that don't have kids and are able to work, and some of that, and the 20 hours could be volunteer work, right? It's just community engagement, right? You just have to be out of your house, off your duff, right? Yeah, and there's, you know, that language got watered down in the Senate even further than in the House.

These are very basic reforms to the program, and I will say something. You know, on the issue of Medicaid also, a lot of what Republicans are trying to address are reforms that were made under Obamacare, because the basis of Obamacare was giant Medicaid expansion. And the program that exists now, and my feeling is that it is immoral, the way the program is set up now. The federal match to states to provide Medicaid coverage. For single, able-bodied people is $9 for every $1 spent on that population in the States, versus single pregnant women, disabled people, sick kids, they get paid out at $1.33 for a federal match.

So, you have such distorted the program, to the extent, again, I feel it's an immoral program at this point. So, fixing this is actually a moral imperative for Republicans. You have incentivized states to expand the program to cover this, you know, able-bodied, single people population at the expense of the poor, the sick, the disabled, the single mom. Right, and I think that's a super important point for Catholics, because what we're seeing on, you know, reactions from the Catholic left media today is, oh my gosh, this is an immoral bill.

Like, Father James Martin has been tweeting out Matthew 25 ad nauseum for the last 24 hours, and like, you're taking healthcare away from the poor. You're taking food away from the poor. And when you really dig into it, the question is, were these programs that were in place? They're actually doing what they were purported to be doing, and I think for Medicaid, absolutely, the answer is no. It's a terrible program. The other one that people are tearing their hair out about is SNAP, right?

So, the food eligibility, but yeah. So, what the bill does, they're like, okay, they're cutting out food. They're taking food away. Oh, my gosh, the food banks are going to be overwhelmed. Well, they're already overwhelmed, the food banks. You know why? Because SNAP is one of the most fraud-ridden programs. I was talking to a woman on my flight to Kentucky a couple of weeks ago who works in SNAP, and she's like, you would not believe since COVID how many of our resources go to paying out fraudulent claims.

So what this bill does is it requires some states for the first time to cover a share of the cost of SNAP benefits, which are currently completely funded by the federal government, if they have a payment error rate. Of 6%, or above 6%. So, what it's trying to do is incentivize states to police these payouts that we're giving to people who are invoking fraud on the system and literally taking food through SNAP out of the mouths of the poor. So, if you're out there and you're hearing people saying, oh my gosh, we're taking away food from poor people, I'm like, no, that's already happening.

And these states, and if you look at the list of the states there, it's all deep blue states that are just not overseeing. This program. So, again, if you're a Catholic and you're hearing from family members or you're hearing from coworkers that this bill is on the backs of the poor, look into what it's actually trying to do. Will it be successful? I don't know. What do you think? Is this actually going to work? Do we see reform on the horizon?

What do you think, Rachel? You know, you are actually hitting on, I think, In the debate in the House, you're going to see conservatives come out and say what the Senate has done is watered down this bill, because they view this bill, right, in the trifecta that Republicans have in, you know, the White House, the Senate, the House, as an opportunity, a generational opportunity to actually address some of these issues with this program, right? Absolutely. There's two tracks with this bill, right?

The first is to implement Trump's agenda on the tax side, on the border funding, but then they see this as an opportunity to really get their arms around what you're talking about with the waste, fraud, and abuse. And what I'm talking about, which I think is the, frankly, immoral construct of Medicaid, thank you, Barack Obama, fix these issues, and this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do it, they feel like we aren't, as Republicans, they are not taking The bull by the horns and really trying to address a lot of these issues in ways that will have generational impacts.

Whether or not, you know, there's arguments on both sides of that, right? Like, oh, well, you couldn't get a bill like that through the Senate because of people like Susan Collins is the argument, right? Should we try a little bit harder is what you're going to hear from House conservatives, and I'm not sure. I'm not sure if they'll be successful or not. Yeah. So, Josh, Representative Andy Ogles, he suggested an amendment to replace the entire Senate bill with the original House plan.

Is that like a thing? Can we actually do that? The House can do whatever it wants, obviously. But then it would have to go back to the Senate, and the Senate could just say, go pound sand. Yeah, ping pong. I don't think that's going to happen. I mean, it sounds like with that... Congressman is trying to do is express deep frustration at the Senate, and then Trump or Vance will have to, you know, try to say, okay, what can we do to make you happy and get you a yes on this bill?

And I think, you know, Donald Trump. For better or for worse, has deep loyalty with the Republican voting base because they've, Republican voters feel like this is the first guy that's actually done anything and accomplished anything remotely conservative in our lifetimes as a president. I mean, you know, I'm 48. I don't, I never had a chance to vote for Reagan. So, like, you know, you're talking about people that, you know, what do we have? We had people running for president like George W.

Bush. What did he do? Get us into war and not much else. You know, and screw up the economy, and then you have, you know, McCain and Romney, and so, like, Trump is actually somebody who's like, you know, wait a minute, I could just move the Capitol to Jerusalem.

He would just do things, the energy that he had. I don't know what other Republican president would actually sue CBS News, and then get an out-of-court settlement like he did yesterday. It is just amazing. Don't forget, he shut down USAID. I still can't believe it.

Oh, my gosh. I know. Yeah. So, I think he's got a reservoir of goodwill amongst Republican voters, and so even when something like this, which you're like, oh, it could have been so much better, and there's stuff in here that really does kind of smell, you know, Trump's going to be like, hey, look, we got to get this done. I need the 800 new immigration judges that this bill is going to give me. I need the border money, you know, for the wall and for more, you know, border agents and all the other stuff.

And so, you know, He is probably going to get this bill passed through the House. I would be surprised if it doesn't happen. Yeah. Andrew in the chat is bringing up the point about the national debt, which you touched on, Rachel. Obviously, that is going to be a big issue in the House. So, we have got the debt, federal deficit spending seems to be going up with this bill. I mean, is it worth the trade-off to just get it done as it is?

Well, I think that is where you are going to see a friction point, and you are already seeing it with some of the conservatives. Obviously, Rand Paul has said, no, it is not worth it. Under no circumstances do I lend my vote to this. But I think there are other people who are saying, the reason we have this vote to raise the debt ceiling is because it is a leverage point. Can we get fiscal savings on the other side of it?

If we allow this to happen, can we demand fiscal clawbacks in exchange? And that is what many in the House tried to do. With the Medicaid reforms, with, in particular, the Inflation Reduction Act, if you remember the whole Green New scam, you know, all of the Green New Deal tax credits that were part of that, billions of federal dollars going out the door.

They wanted to claw some of that back, and that's substantial savings, and really could have offset a lot of that spending. The Senate really watered that down. And so, I think that is going to really... Curdle the stomachs of some of the House conservatives, because that was the trade-off, right? If you're going to have this additional spending, if you're going to raise the debt ceiling, it will be worth it to me if we can claw back a lot of this mandatory spending on the IRA side, and we didn't quite get that calculation done.

But to Josh's point, does this still sail on the momentum and the goodwill behind Donald Trump? That's a very, very credible point, and we could see that happen regardless. And I get that getting, you know, what's the deadline, July 4th, why does it matter? I mean, I think the reason why is because if you don't, then they're gone for like a week or so because of the Independence Day, and then it drags out another three weeks until, you know, August recess comes, you know, so like you have to get this thing moving.

Because if Trump wants to be able to get the enforcement numbers and deport as many illegals as he wants, he needs more judges, he needs more border guards, he needs more funding at the border. So, that is absolutely his number one agenda to the voters, and this bill does, in many ways, amplify his ability to do that. So, ultimately, I think this thing gets through.

Yeah, it would be great to have the signing on July 4th. I was told by the young ones, our Gen Z representatives on the show, that we needed to talk about Elon Musk and his reaction here. So, things had been pretty quiet with Elon until a couple of days ago. It seemed like they'd shot off some fireworks. The Elon Trump bromance was… They had words. Elon apologized. It seemed like things were smoothing over, but then he absolutely came out with all guns firing, lambasted the big, beautiful bill in a Twitter post, which I think we can pull up there.

Did someone grab that for me? And hinted at the possibility of forming. Get it? His own party, and he will also fund it. So, now we will have that third party run by Elon. He says every Republican should be ashamed of themselves, and yes, time for a new political party. And then I think this one came across just as we were going on air. He did a poll on Twitter, which of course is where everyone goes when they're making major life decisions, and 80% of the people who follow him said, yes, we want you to do a new party.

And he said, Vox Populivox Dei, which is only part of the quote, but we'll get into that. So, what say you, Elon? Mercer, are you on board with this, American Freedom Party? Let me think. What was the last time an eccentric billionaire poured a bunch of money into a third-party run? Oh, gee, 1992. Thanks, Ross Perot. Yeah, for giving us Bill Clinton. No, I'm not at all thrilled by this prospect. I mean, again, it's like, anytime there's this initiative for a third party, by the way, it...

It's one thing if you have money, because then you actually can do some damage. You know, he is a billionaire, so it could do some damage if he does this. I have a feeling he won't. I feel Trump will find some way to kind of get him at ease or whatever. It's such a vanity project.

You know, you get these people, you bring out the, you know, the old hired hands from each party that sort of passed their prime. They jump on board this. Oh, yay! I mean, this is what happened in Minnesota when Jesse Ventura was governor. You get like, you know, it is not like it is suddenly this great epiphany. It is like it fades out after a while. What you do, you get, I mean, like, you know, Dan Lipinski.

Okay, pro-life guy, I like him. He's like, oh, this is interesting. It's like, yeah, of course, because you have no home in the Democratic Party. Of course, you're interested in the third party, because you can't bite the bullet and actually become a Republican or whatever. You know what I mean? So, this is the kind of thing that you're going to, you know, it's, no offense to him, but like what you're going to get if he starts his party is an island of misfit toys, you know, and with a lot of money, potentially a vanity project, it just would be, I think, disastrous.

Yeah. Rachel? Well, Elon Musk, it's remarkable. He's having the, like, 30-year Republican experience, but like truncated into like six months, you know, like massive excitement. Yeah, it took my whole life into it, yeah. Like confronted with the utter incompetence of Republicans, paired with the just like total domination of Washington bureaucrats, utter devastation, form a third party. Like, usually it takes 30 years to like complete this arc, but. Elon is an overachiever. I mean, he just is, but it's just his arc in life in every facet of his personality.

Yeah, but third parties are the tried and true, right? They are tried, and then they fail, and they usually harm us irreparably in some future election. So, do I think Elon is still going to be a political player? I do, but I think at some point, his You are already seeing the brand of his businesses suffer, and at some point, I think his boards are going to be like, dude, come on now, pull it back. Let us focus. Let us focus.

Well, I mean, and so far, it is just an empty threat. We will see what comes of it. Yeah, he tweets a lot of things. He carries chainsaws out on stage. Yeah, he gave an interview a couple days ago, and the interviewer actually asked him, they're like, are you regretting bringing the chainsaw out on stage? And he totally blamed Javier, the president of Argentina. He's like, I was just off stage, and he handed me a chainsaw, and I ran with it.

Yeah, I shouldn't have done that. It was so funny. Anyway, Elon Musk and Trump's suggesting that maybe we need to doge Elon. So, we'll have to- Didn't he suggest deporting him? He did. Well, a reporter asked, and he was like, well, I have to look at that. I have to look at that. A reporter called me this morning breathless, like, did you see? Did you have a comment on this? I'm like, how many years has Trump been in the public eye, and you guys are still thinking this is literal?

Yeah, there he is. Here, we can play it. Go ahead. That is that he's losing his EV mandate, and he's very upset about things, but, you know, he could lose a lot more than that. I can tell you right now. Elon can lose a lot more than that. I don't know. We might have to put Doge on Elon. You know what Doge is?

Here is the thing, too. The media, they love to ask these questions like, would you rule out X? And Donald Trump will never rule out anything. You know what I am saying? So, like, the media goes, oh, my gosh, oh, my gosh. Because they like to put everyone in their boxes. And Trump is like, no, screw you. I hate your questions, you know.

And he does. And, again, he does these kind of things where he just. He is the original internet S-poster, if you know what I'm saying. He's the funniest president we've ever had. He is very funny, and I love listening to his speech patterns. I could just objectively listen to those all day. So, moving on into our Pete Trump segment here, it just seems like we are watching him at his, this is Pete Trump, this is his prime. And history-making is one way that some of the CNN even is covering this.

Can we try and get that clip up here of the, yes, CNN. Let's see if it works. It was giving us trouble earlier. Yeah, Harry Enten is on a truth bomb quest. Yeah, it's history-making. It's history-making. What are we talking about here? So, why don't we look back? We have all the presidents, Republican presidents, going back over the last 35, 36, 37 years. What are we talking about? GOP, who strongly approved five months in. Look at this. George H.W. Bush, Bush 41, 46 percent.

Bush 43, 59. You see Trump, the first term, 53, but look at this, 63 percent. He beats all the other Republicans on the board here, and I was looking... even back since Reagan and get this Donald Trump beats Ronald Reagan when it comes to the strongly approved five months and of course Reagan was coming off that high after that assassination attempt so the bottom line is Donald Trump is making history with the Republican base he is more beloved by this Republican base than any Republican base loved any GOP president five months and it is history now actually I don't think that those numbers are too super helpful because He should have compared Bush as well in 2005, because this is effectively the fifth month of Trump's second term.

Granted, it's not consecutive. So, I mean, was it better? Was it worse? You know, who knows? I don't know. But I'll let that go. Yeah. And then I was looking at the RealClearPolitics polling as well for like overall across the board, all Americans. They have it as approval ratings for Donald Trump, 46.4 percent disapproval, just over 50 percent. Looking at, you know, pretty narrow margin there, a spread of 3.9 points. These are the most recent numbers. So, it seems that in.

Despite of the mainstream media and the left's very negative coverage about, you know, and the No Kings rally, which was very effective because we, in fact, have No King today, the overall... The overall push seems to be, as you were saying, Josh, in approval of Trump's performance so far, and just looking across the board at his wins, things that he has gotten done. In domestic, the inflation rate has declined since he took office. Gas prices are the lowest they've been in four years.

The unemployment rate has been stable at 4%, which is just where you want it to be. Last week, S&P 500 hit a record high. All of these things... We were told it would be impossible under the tariff regime when Liberation Day hit there, that this would never happen. We would be sunk by now. Foreign policy, we've got the NATO nations on board and calling him daddy and committing to 5%. The Iran Operation Midnight Hammer, he is saying we're going to have a potential Gaza ceasefire this weekend.

I'll believe that when I see it because it's the Middle East. The SCOTUS wins last week. I mean, it's the Middle East. It's the Middle East. It's the Middle East. This seems like a massively successful presidency. Rachel, what's the buzz on the hill in terms of these wins? Well, I think, you know… It's remarkable because what he is doing is not just accomplishing all these things, he is changing the expectation, I think, that Republican voters have for every Republican president going forward.

I clearly offend Josh. Yeah, Josh just left. He's like, forget it, Erika. Clear, bright-winged extremist. All right. So, he's changing the expectations. Yeah, no, because I think, you know, for so long, at least in my lifetime. Republican presidents have won on these talking points, then they get to Washington, and it's like, oh, they give a lot of speeches, but nothing really changes, and it's like head-patting a lot of things, but at the end of the day, the structure underneath them has remained this left liberal entity that pretty much undermined everything they wanted to do.

Donald Trump has come in and completely... Just with kinetic energy, reformed the town, and I do think going forward now, the Republican base expects Republican presidents on day one to come in with 100 executive orders. They expect a Republican president to...

They dismantle the federal bureaucracy or structurally change it in some very foundational way, which is what he did with Doge. They expect the, you know, hand-to-hand combat that the Trump administration has been doing on Capitol Hill to get its priorities through the Congress, and they expect, you know, this. larger-than-life personality that is just doing basic things like enforcing the nation's immigration laws, because that's another key issue where for 30 years, the Republican base has been voting for massive immigration enforcement, massive change to how the structure has been run, and every other Republican president has been either too scared or undermined by Congress, right?

They just haven't done anything. Trump, for the first time, is walking in and saying no. We're enforcing the laws, and on top of that, we're doing things like alligator alcatraz. We're talking about deportations at a level henceforth unseen, and I do think the predicate for that was the Biden administration providing a literal invasion of the country. I don't think you get the support for what Trump is doing without Biden doing that first. But anyway, my larger point is that he has foundationally changed.

I think the relationship that the base has with their presidents. They now expect this level of responsiveness, which has been the most responsive president in my life, and the most effective. Now, in Trump 1, he was undermined in a lot of ways. I think he learned a lot of lessons from that, and that's made him very effective in Trump 2. But, you know, going forward, you cannot have another George W. Bush, right? That's just like... Giving lip service to things we care about, but not really doing anything.

That's over. That era is over. Right, and to me, that's the most foundational win of all, and it's the bottom line reason why I voted for Trump this time around, because we need someone who will actually get stuff done. I know you have to leave in just a few minutes, and apparently, you'll be leaving me all by myself to just pontificate. Whatever I want to say. But I did want to ask you about your thoughts on the foreign policy angle of the Trump administration.

When Operation Midnight Hammer dropped, And everyone went crazy and said, oh my gosh, we're in World War III. What was your reaction that day, and where do you think we are now as a result of Trump's diplomacy? Yeah, it's interesting. I have an essay on this, actually, that went up in the Federalist. Yeah, we'll put that in the chat because everyone should read it. Yeah, and because I was very distraught, if I can describe my honest reaction, when I saw these strikes, I was… Almost sick to my stomach.

Yeah. You're a mom. Yeah. I have sons. Right. Me too. Yeah. And also, You know, my entire adult life has been distorted by the politics of the Iraq War, the country's failure to reckon with this. 100%. You know, I lost classmates of mine that died in the desert for, in my opinion, nothing, right? The devastation of these Middle East conflicts has really defined the politics of my entire life, and Trump ran on never doing that again. And I trusted him, and I believed him.

And so, to watch this, I was terrified. Not necessarily because I didn't trust Trump. Because, and I talk about this in that article, the entire town is wired for war. If they get a toehold in, the drums start beating, the intel agencies start pushing members of Congress to demand regime change, and they provide intelligence that we haven't quite got done, so we have to go back in. The inertia in this town is so focused on war that I was genuinely concerned that that was the direction that we were going to go in, because they try to make everything seem inevitable.

They try to make the conclusion of Any action, any kinetic action, even if they say, oh, just one and done, it becomes, you know, no, no, no, no, right, we haven't finished it yet, we have to go in, and suddenly, you know, there's a retaliatory strike, and one American soldier dies, 24 hours later, we have boots on the ground, and we're there for the next 20 years. So, I was genuinely very worried. I am delighted at this moment to have been proven wrong, and that is a...

You know, that is maybe the biggest accomplishment I've seen Trump do from my perspective, is to stare down the entire infrastructure of Washington, D.C. that is no doubt pushing him. To go in there, take Iran down, regime change, rebuild the country, all these things, because they haven't learned the lessons of Iraq. They haven't. The people that planned Iraq got promoted and are still on the speaking circuit.

So, you know, if Trump can really do this, you know, this one and done, he is setting up an entire new foreign policy paradigm for the Republican Party, which is we are strong and we are muscular and we will act when warranted. But we do not engage in this, you know, regime change seeking or moral imperative for changing countries around the world. We come home and we protect our people in addition to making the world safer. That is something I have never seen before, and if Trump, you know, God willing, can maintain this, I think that is a massive, massive accomplishment.

Yeah, amen. Nobel Peace Prize levels, like. Remember when Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize? For not doing anything. For not doing anything yet, or he never did. Yeah. We got Benghazi and stuff like that. Yeah, that was fun. Yeah, I think I had much the same reaction the day of and the day after, and every day I go and check, and it's like, oh, the ceasefire, still going. So, yeah, everyone should go check out Rachel's article. Rosie dropped it in the chat there, and we'll make sure that we put that in the show notes as well.

Really great. I know you have to go. Teach people how to be senators or something. In years of teaching Senate procedure, ask me anything. Oh my gosh, it's great. Well, as always, it was just delightful to have you, and yes, thank you for all the work that you do there in the swamp.

My pleasure. Thanks for having me, guys. We'll chat again soon. Yes, very much. All right. So, it's just us, guys. It's me. Josh has apparently, his internet got heat stroke, and so you're stuck with me. I think Rosie might be joining me if her internet didn't get heat stroke, so you'll get, and that is her. That is Rosie herself.

Welcome to the podcast, Rosie. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. Yes, and I honor your humility in being willing to get on camera in front of hundreds of people with no warning at all. That is a strong woman, right, Tara? You know, I did improv in high school.

No, don't tell anyone you were a theater kid. I know, I'm about to get lambasted in my own chat. That's right. It's going to be awesome. All right. But it's great having you here because, yeah, Emily's like, Rosie, yeah, this is good. All right. So, we're going into the good news section, and we had great news yesterday. So, UPenn, that's right, UPenn of William Thomas, a.k.a. Leah Thomas fame, they caved absolutely to sanity. They have agreed to apologize for allowing male, quote-unquote, Leah Thomas to compete on the women's swimming team.

They will now vacate. They have agreed to Linda McMahon, the Secretary of Education's demands that they post on all of their female sports teams' websites. They post all over their sports websites that they are committed to preserving women's spaces, women's locker rooms, women's bathrooms at their campus. This was a massive win. And I have to admit, I got a little emotional watching the announcement yesterday. There was a big rally. I believe it was in the White House in one of the big ballrooms, and Linda McMahon came out.

There were female athletes from all over the country, including Riley Gaines, and I just want to take this opportunity to do a great shout-out to Riley Gaines because she swam against this guy, and if she had not said, Something is wrong here. This is an injustice to women athletes, and honestly, you know, taken a lot of flack. She put herself out there. She suffered a lot, and it was her pushing this and other female athletes like her taking a stand that got this moment done, and I would like to play this clip, Paula Scanlon.

Both Riley and Paula have been on the show before, and I remember the interview with Paula, long, long ago, right when she had decided to come out and put her name out there, and she was genuinely frightened at that point. This was before the Trump win. This was back in the Biden era, but she said, you know, I know that this is going to, you know.

Probably make it harder for me to get a job someday. It could ruin my life, but this is a matter of truth. And here she is. We could play this video reacting to the news that UPenn would be restoring women's titles.

That was awesome. All right, you can cut that off, Celine. Yeah, again, she gets very emotional. It was a beautiful thing, right, Josh? My good news? That's what I voted for, too. That's who you came back to comment on, right? Absolutely. I'm so glad you're back.

Anyway, can we pull up Josh's good news, Celine? We got this now? Yes. Yay, here we go. You guys are so cute. Oh my gosh, 20 years today. So, did you get married on July 2nd on purpose? Can I just ask, because of the significance for our great nation?

Well, I mean, what happened is, it was a Saturday, it was available, and it's July 4th weekend. I thought family and friends from all over, from Minnesota to all the way to D.C. would have a great chance to make it there, so I thought, why not? It's a beautiful day. Beautiful day. It's also the midpoint of the year, by the way.

There's as many days before it as there are after it. Well, and Brian gave me a heart attack in our private Slack channels today, which I'm not supposed to say, but he just dropped a comment that we are now closer to 2050 than we are to 2000, and my life kind of flashed before my eyes. I was like, I need to repent and believe in the gospel because time's ticking, Erika.

It's like one of those things that kick around the internet every once in a while where you're like, you know, if they did the wonder years. Today, it would be about 1982, and you are like, what? You know, or something like that. Yeah, crazy, crazy stuff. Who reminisces about 1982? I do not know. Right. Oh, my goodness. All right. So, moving into our C block, we are going to do some patriotism stuff, but before we get into that, there was a massive controversy on our social media.

Yesterday, I believe Celine, who is our social media, she... Yeah, she posted this reel. Is there sound to this? I don't know. No, it's not. Okay. Oh, it's just sad world's smallest violin. Yeah. Okay, so for those on the audio, we have a man weeping vociferously. Do you weep vociferously? And it says, Catholics, when they realize they can't enjoy their hamburgers and hot dogs on the 4th of July this year. And the guy's crying because the 4th of July is a Friday.

And our very devout Maronite, Celine, doesn't eat on Fridays. I'm calling you out. And so, we got some blowback here. Mercer, do you have thoughts about- Oh, I do have thoughts. I mean, the thing is, the traditional code of canon law, the way Catholics operated on this was that you would abstain from meat every Friday of the year, not just Lent, all throughout the year. And it used to be the only exception for this was the nativity of our Lord. If that December 25th landed on a Friday, yes, yes, you could eat meat on that day.

No penance that day. In fact, that is what I talked about in the Libcast a few weeks ago when Francis, you know, the other brothers asked him, Francis, look, we cannot eat meat on a Friday. And he's like, it's the nativity, guys. And if the walls could eat meat, they would eat meat. And he took meat and he rubbed it up against the walls. I mean, that's a guy, I like this guy. That is a Franciscan gesture, for sure. And so, I started talking about this with my kids.

I said, you know, we want to be more traditional, right? We think of the things more traditionally. And they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And like this idea of only, you know, observing a fast one hour before the consecration, that's kind of lame. We should go at least to three hours before, if not. You know, maybe going back from midnight was too not good. Now, we need more traditional. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I say, you know, the old school way was as.

I said with the Franciscans, you would not eat meat any Friday of the year, not even solemnities, unless it was the nativity of our Lord. And they're like, oh, yeah, yeah, that sounds, yeah, that's tough. I go, so on Independence Day is this Friday, so we should not have hot dogs and hamburgers because it's Friday. And they all went, oh. Their zeal was tempered. So, they suddenly saw the wisdom in the Latin rite, as we have it, to observe. Another form of penance, going to Mass or doing a rosary.

So, that is still the option for Catholics in the Latin Rite. I am not talking about Latin Mass. I mean, Roman Catholics in the United States under the normal Latin Rite, which is 90% of Catholics. I am not trying to say people who aren't that aren't that normal.

So, you have an option for an additional, a different penance, other than abstaining from meat. You can substitute something. So, do something else to honor the Friday, you know, the day of the week, which every Friday has, it is like. Christ's death is so big, every Friday is never the same anymore, and so we recognize it. Just like when he rose from the dead on Sunday, every Sunday is different after that point. I mean, Jesus Christ, our Lord, changed it. Some people in the chat asked about St.

Patrick's Day. Yeah, so there's a lot of Irish that live in my area. We do not eat meat on Fridays. In my diocese, if it is on St. Patrick's Day, it is not a Friday. Now, Boston, their patron saint is St. Patrick. So, the archbishop there kind of bit his teeth and bit his lip and allowed for them to eat it, because he basically had to. It is their patron saint. Yes. You get the feeling that Cardinal Malley would not have done so if it weren't for that.

So, anyway, those are the customs. As you mentioned. Was she Selina's Mary Knight? Is that what it is? Mary Knight, yeah. So, the Mary Knights do not observe that, I guess. They do not observe that option for a different penance to make up for it. Yeah, highly recommend if you end up eating meat on a Friday out of charity, maybe you're a guest somewhere too, to just sub in a rosary for our country, because our country could use more rosaries. We could use it.

Perfect, like your 4th of July party. Eat the hot dogs. But say the full rosary as a family for our nation, and that brings me to love of America. So, and there's, just to point out, there is a great question in the chat right now about the church's teaching on what freedom really means, and I think it's going to come up in our talking about this poll that just came out. So, this is a Gallup poll. If we could pull up the visual there.

And just to understand, one of the great values of what the Gallup poll does is they'll ask The same question pretty much year after year after year after year, and so you can watch how that same question changes opinions over time.

Yeah, very much so. So, this poll showed us that... Only 58% of U.S. adults report feeling extremely, 41%, or very, 17%, proud to be American. That's down, you can see on the graph, those of you who are in the YouTube, and I would recommend everyone head over to YouTube and check this out, down nine points from 2024, and five points below the previous record low, which was 2020, when no one was very happy to be anything. But the proportion describing themselves as extremely proud.

It remains statistically similar to recent lows, but the very proud category fell sharply, causing that overall drop that we saw. So, yeah, I mean, the pride in being American peaked predictably in the post-9-11 era. You'll see those numbers were way up between 87% and 90%, and it's been kind of a gradual decline until this sharp drop-off more recently. So, Josh, you brought this up. Thoughts on causes, and where do we go from here? Well, first of all, I mean, I used to have, you know, like all these people on Twitter, like because of Ukraine, they put the Ukraine flag in their username on Twitter or whatever to show how much they support Ukraine.

I mean, look, I'm not, to me, I always felt awkward. Like, I'm not going to put the flag of another country in my biography, you know, like my little avatar thing, but I did put the American flag up there. You know, it's sort of like a counter. Like, this is the flag I actually care about. I did take it down, by the way, about three or four years ago, and the reason I took it down is because our lawmakers passed the so-called Marriage Act, which allowed for gay marriage to be concretized in law.

I'm like, you know what? I'm just going to go ahead and take that flag down for a little while. But I remain very patriotic in my country. I mean, I'm 11th generation American. My family has fought in the Revolutionary War, World War II, Vietnam, you know, that is not the only, I mean, that is not the only way to show patriotism, but the fact that you would be willing to die for your country, to me, seems like a pretty high up on the marker there.

I do feel like we have seen a high watermark, like a high wave, tidal wave. Of left-wing progressivism unchecked because they had Biden in power for four years and the media, and they were going in for the kill. They tried to drown us in the Rainbow Jihad. They tried to do all these other progressivist pushes, curtailing speech, enlisting the FBI to crack down on the free speech of Americans on social media. And so, I really feel like this was their attempt.

Really, to make that death knell, to make that kill shot against traditional-minded Americans, and it did not work. We rescued back, we rallied back. I mean, they tried to murder Donald Trump, but he came back, and Americans came back, and we won, and it is like, for all his faults, Donald Trump, He hugged the American flag. I mean, you get it. Like, this guy actually loves the country. I have one friend who's like, well, that's not appropriate flag etiquette. You know, traditionally, maybe it's not.

It's a step up from Joe Biden, right? Yeah, but when you're looking at what's going on in the country right now, like, I'm happy to have someone to, you know, I'm done with the Colin Kaepernick's of the day, like, kneeling. We don't want to stand for the flag. I mean, like, give me a break. There are so many people who have sacrificed so much, and I think we have... A selfish culture that only thinks about themselves, and they do not think about their posterity, because they often do not even have kids, or they have only one kid, or whatever.

We need to think a little bit less about ourselves, and more about the future that we are leaving for children and grandchildren. And so, I look at it, and Trump is the embodiment of, I think, a lot of good people pushing back against this.

Left wing coming at us, trying to smother us, and he's the one brash enough to push back and say, no, we're sick of this crap. And you look at the numbers there, and they start nosediving when Trump gets in there.

Left-wing Americans are like, oh, they're so embarrassed by our country. Oh, my gosh. Why don't you feel the same guilt and self-loathing of our country as we do? Right. Because we're not Haiti. We're not a s-hole. I'm sorry. You can't call Haiti crap. Haiti's wonderful. And then Trump says, okay, well, then we'll send them back. No, you can't do that. You can't send them to Haiti. They're refugees. Oh, I know.

Yeah. Well, and I think, too, like looking at the graph there, the Democrats' pride, yeah, sorry about that, Celine, thank you. The Democrats' pride in our country, you see 2015, so Trump gets elected, 2016, nose dive. Just go right back to the beginning of this thing, like in 2001, and even before 9-11.

It's pretty much universal. Everyone's proud to be American. Yeah, the differences between independents, Democrats, Republicans is largely the same. And there's been some slide amongst independents, there's no question, some erosion, because some independents are really lefties, you know what I mean? Just like some independents are conservatives, they just have grumps.

Against their parties, for whatever reason. But the Republicans have stayed that way, you know, and Democrats have just collapsed. Yeah, it's really disturbing. They also had a statistic dividing it by age, and it says that among Gen Z, so anyone born after 1996, only about 41% report high pride in being American. That's well below, to contrast the millennials, and I'm like a geriatric millennial. So, our high pride is at 58%, so above more than half. Barely above water. I know. We're treading water here, geriatric.

Gen X. Which I believe you are a baby, young, youthful Gen X. 71% still for you all. And the boomers, about comparable, 75%. Silent Generation at 83%, of course. Well, Silent Generation having the most obvious remembrance of the sacrifices of the World War II generation. Silent Generation was not old enough to fight in that war, but they... They knew about it because they were very young, and they fought in Korea, obviously, but, you know, yeah, again, I almost, I mean, look, I get, you know, the trends that we have.

Someone commented in the politics. I mean, I do think the politics, you know, can exasperate this at times, but it used to be that, you know, both, again, there was an understanding, both parties, that you wouldn't go for the kill. Because you realize two years from now, four years from now, the other party is going to be in power, and they can use that same thing against you. So, that acted as a form of restraint. But then the left was like, no, no, no, you can't show mercy.

These people are white supremacists. They're evil. You need to kill them. Right. And I think it started with Obama, the politics of, you know, if you can do it, do it no matter what. Scorched earth, right? And scorched earth, never worry about the long-term consequences. Now, Mitch McConnell, a lot of conservatives don't like him, but he did warn the left. He was like, You may come to regret this, and it may be sooner than you think, but the Democrats, they just couldn't help themselves.

They're like, go for the kill shot. And so, they keep amping up their politics so much, no mercy. Let them rot. Smash all norms, destroy it, doesn't matter. And, you know, we're paying for that consequences. I mean, again, the right has said, we don't think this is a good idea to smash these norms. We think it makes sense. Don't go for the kill shot. Don't just do it just because you can, because you may come to regret it. And then they do it anyway.

And then three or four or five years later, when we get the power, we return in kind, because it's like, once you've enabled something, it's like, we're not. We are not going to fight asymmetrical warfare. We have to have an agreement. Like, if these are the new rules because you smashed the old ones, well, then we are not going to, you know, we are going to use these tools against you because the only way for the left to understand you cannot do this is for them to suffer from their own morals, suffer from their own smashing of the rules.

You need to make them pay. And, you know, again, social media, I think, exasperates that. You know, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, everything is curated to provide only the information that you like, and to show the other side is weird and goofy. So, you get some of that exasperations. But honestly, even then, yes, actually, I am going to kind of put a little bit to my side on this one.

I would say the left is much more inoculated from the ideas and opinions of conservatives than we are from them, because they dominate the culture. How can you honestly say you can be a conservative living in a small town in West Texas, and you still know what the left thinks, because they dominate the education system, they dominate the media, they dominate advertising, and Madison Avenue, and even Wall Street, corporations are all woke. How could you not know? What the progressive left thinks, but they do not encounter conservative viewpoints, and so, you know, again.

There have been some really interesting studies on that, and I think, you know, looking at these graphs, for me, it was such a massive indicator of the leftist takeover of the educational institutions, because I remember getting to high school, so even in, like, 1997, 98, studying for, like, the AP exam, the American History exam, and for the European History Museum. I remember that the vast majority of what I had to read for those was America is based on racism, America is based on stolen land, America is hateful, white, Christopher Columbus is evil.

That was already happening at the high school level when I was there, and so you think of just the snowball effect and sort of the building of that through all of education for the last... 40 years. Of course, you're going to end up with a population that doesn't love its country, because we've been being told since we were knee-high to a grasshopper that we should hate America, right? That we should be apologizing all the time. 100% agree. Yeah, and so, again, how do we promote patriotism?

How do we turn this thing around? CatholicVote has a great option for your high schoolers. I just have to plug this, since we don't have a B block. Sponsor today, we have a scholarship. It's the Constitution Scholarship and Foundation for Restoration of America, partners with CatholicVote. This is amazing. The deadline is the end of this month for the coming term, and all they have to do is complete Constitution Studies with a free online course from Hillsdale College. Hey-o. Massive fans here of the Hillsdale College, and I guarantee you, your student goes through this, they will know more about...

The American Constitution, and why they should be proud of the country that we belong to, than 90% of American adults. Like, this is a fantastic, probably, maybe 98%. This is, like, great stuff. So, I would highly recommend this. Your student will learn stuff. They are eligible for these scholarships.

And it's not just one scholarship. There's two at $10,000, two at $5,000, two at $3,000, and 32 at $2,000. So, let's make it happen, folks. CatholicVote Nation, get your teenagers involved, and Peggy, yes, Hillsdale, woot woot. You're looking at an alumnus right here. And a mother of, mother of Hillsdale. You are, yes, a Hillsdale mom. Student, I am, I am. My daughter stole my shirt that said Hillsdale mom, so it's kind of weird. She's like walking around, and I'm like, a little off.

Brand, okay. People will be like, what? Teen pregnancy? What? What is going on? I mean, we really have a baby bust, so we are ... No, I'm just kidding. Not even close. Okay. The link for the course, if you want to take the Hillsdale Constitution 101, you can just go to hillsdale.edu, and they'll have the link to Constitution 101 there. Yeah, all of this is really good stuff. I took their course- Or just Google Hillsdale courses. You'll find it there, too.

Yeah, it's all free. I took their course on the rise of progressivism in our country, through the early- 20th century through today, it is so good. It's phenomenal, and it's like a nail-biter, too. The production is awesome, and you learn so much, and it's, yeah, it's better than Netflix, guys. Come on. What are you doing? All right. Mercer, Twilight Zone. Okay, so I know you think of MS-13 as ruthless, vicious. They kill kids for fun, like to get into the gang, right?

Well, according to ABC News, they're a clique. What? Wait, what? What? ABC News tweeted out, the leader of an MS-13 clique in the suburbs of New York City faces sentencing Wednesday in a federal racketeering case involving eight murders, including the 2016 killings of two high school girls.

What is this, like, Mean Girls or something? Yeah, they're just a clique, you know? They're just a clique? Who's this reporter? It's just a clique that happens to murder high school girls, you know, whatever. Unbelievable. I mean, there's the adage that goes around the internet, you don't hate journalists enough. And I gotta tell you, that's probably true. Now, the exception here...

Is the good journalists at, you know, right-thinking organizations. CatholicVote, we have top-notch professional journalists. I am not trying to paint everyone with a big brush here. We have really good people who love our country, love our church, who write for CatholicVote. So, I am not trying to say everyone, but dude, the mainstream media, they are bonkers.

Oh my god, a click? A click. MS-13, a click. Like, fed it into chat GPT and was like, what's another word for murderous gang? Yeah, I got to come up. Unbelievable. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Okay. So, skip ABC. Make sure you're subscribed to The Loop, because that's where you'll get great journalism. Hey, we have an amazing series in The Loop, right, just the last two days, of original interviews with Christians in the Holy Land. Our colleague, Stephen Herriot, did these interviews with people who are living there, whose homes are being destroyed, and it gives just, I mean, it's gut-wrenching.

But if you're wondering, like, How can I get original boots on the ground reporting? He's been doing that for us there. I mean, just stunning stuff. So, definitely check out the loop. So, go to CatholicVote.org. And also, I have more advertising for CatholicVote today. Here we go. All right. So, everyone in the chat, I did a debate slash conversation with an atheist last week, and it was two hours long. I learned a lot. And it was very eye-opening for me.

It was a crazy experience. I would love to hear what you think about it. So, that's coming out tomorrow on The Deep with Erika Ahern. That's me. But it's going to be right here on the LOOPcast channel in The Deep playlist. Yeah. Oh, thanks, Simon. Who picked that thumbnail for my face? That's awesome. That's about how I felt after two hours.

Yes. For those of you who are on audio and didn't see that, praise God. Okay. So, my twilight- It's really hard not to get a wonderful, beautiful picture of Eureka, so I'm a little surprised that they're able to find something.

That's awesome, guys. Hopefully, it gets lots of attention and clicks, but I want to hear what everyone thinks about that. Simon. Simon's my bud. Okay, so that was my first Twilight Zone. Second, Alligator Alcatraz. I've mentioned it a few times during the show, but this was crazy, and I've been talking around the homeschool moms and dads to try to just get a read of the reactions to this, and it's massively mixed, but here we go. So, yesterday, President Trump flew to the Everglades, Florida.

He was joined by Ron DeSantis, Kristi Noem, and, of course, like... Benny Johnson and all those guys, but they toured Alligator Alcatraz, which is, yes, that's the actual name they are calling it. This post was interesting because people were like, oh my gosh, Alligator Auschwitz, which is super offensive to anyone who suffered at Auschwitz to call it that.

This was interesting. So, on the left-hand side, for those of you on audio, you see the cages that Obama built for illegals, and there are no beds. It is like just cages on a cold, hard floor with tinfoil blankets wrapped, and it is just piles of stuff, right? So, that is what we have been using. Republicans still got blamed for that, by the way. Yeah, and they blamed Donald Trump for it, of course. But then, on the right-hand side, we see the conditions at Alligator Alcatraz.

These are air-conditioned units. There are four bunk beds to an enclosure, which, yes, it is a chicken wire cage. But this is going to house illegal immigrants who have been detained by local law enforcement who are helping ICE in Florida. It's reserved for criminals who have a criminal record, but somehow they were let back out onto the street. The Biden administration said, come back for your hearing in three years. You know, we trust you. You will just show up for your immigration hearing.

The honor system. Yeah, the honor system. Ron DeSantis is like, no, we are going to incarcerate you until your hearing. At this facility, this was kind of crazy. They are going to have on-site judges, so they are deputizing members of the National Guard from Florida to be on-site immigration judges. So, instead of your court date, once you arrive there being like three years hence, it is going to be days. You'll be able to be processed, you'll get due process within days, and then hopefully deported quickly back to your country of origin.

So, alligator alcatraz, why is it called this? Because on all sides, it is surrounded by at least 50 miles of the Everglades, which is infested not only with Nile crocodiles, which some genius imported from Egypt, and now they're eating all the American alligators. Also American alligators. Oh, yes. No, there's giant Nile crocodiles there. I'm completely freaked out by the Everglades. But also, Burmese pythons are roaming them because also geniuses were like, let's bring Burmese pythons over and dump them in the Everglades.

They're actually like python hunts every year, and you can get a bounty on how many you kill. There's hundreds of thousands of pythons and black bears and a dwindling number of Florida panthers. So, Trump's whole thing is, look, this is the cheapest way to have security. Yep, there's a picture of it. There's the four facilities.

They're going to have medical care, they're going to have food and water, and they will be processed quickly. And you'll see also there's an airstrip, yes, for flights out. It seems very efficient to me, but alligator alcatraz is a thing.

Here we are. It has arrived. I don't know. It seems very efficient to me. I mean, you know, I just, I guess people... What is the problem with it? It just seems unseemly. Again, this is one of those things where people get first world problems, where they have air-conditioned homes, and they drive in cars to where they work. They have fast food every day, right. Yeah, and they don't really ever encounter the difficult and unseemly side of things, where people are vicious and mean and hurt people.

And so, you know, You don't have the ability to put up a jail super fast, so they put up this detention facility. It doesn't have bars like a normal jail does. They just have the fence, but they thought, well, let's put it around. You know, in the Everglades, so that they're not going to want to escape, because, you know, they'll lose their life. It seems like common sense. I just, you know, like, ugh, this is just so unseemly. Like, really? I mean, I don't get it.

Like, what is the problem? What's actually unseemly is the state that things have been in since the Democrats just opened wide the borders, and we've had just this massive influx. The other thing there, too, is, like, yeah, they're kind of touting it. They're joking about it. This is how Trump speaks, but it's a massive deterrent to me, and I would say, like, you don't want to go to Alligator Alcatraz. Well, there is now a CBP1 app that you can self-deport, and even get paid to do it, and have it all funded for you, and so I think the Trump administration is like, we need to put it out there that we are serious, we are going to build facilities like this, and we're going to get this job done, and you can...

You can either, you know, this is where you might end up, or you can leave on your own recognizance. Now, think about this. When we're talking about immigration, again, Trump has been so successful that it almost, you know, fails to be even a news story, and we should stop for a moment and recognize how much of a sea change we're talking about. So, April.

Of last year, under Biden, 129,000 illegal border crossings. 129,000. This April, down to 8,383. That is a 93% drop. Right. May 2024, Biden, 118,000 people illegally crossed into our country in one, you know, again, one month. This May, under Trump, 8,000. A 93% drop. June of last year, 130,415. This year, 6,000. Yeah. Now, just think about it. In three months of spring last year, you had the equivalent of the entire city of Minneapolis crossing into the country illegally. 400,000 people. That is insanity.

I mean, it is absolute treason. We talked about Trump being impeached twice. Joe Biden should have been impeached for what he did on the border, and it was all presidential. That is the change that we had. We did not need new laws. We did not need that new bill. We needed a new president. Joe Biden is an absolute disgrace. He is the worst president ever, and I say that despite how much I hate Woodrow Wilson, but Joe Biden should be in jail.

I am not going to go light on him, like, oh, he is only 83 years, why should we prosecute him, or whatever. Dude, criminal, what he did on the border. Absolutely. And on that note, happy 4th of July.

Happy Independence Day. That's right, Erika. It's not just a day of the month. Thank you for correcting me. I definitely needed that. So, happy Independence Day. It's not just a day of the month. It's like that's what the companies that want to sell you sofas say. Dude, it's our independence. Celebrate our independence. Yes, we celebrate our independence. We celebrate our great nation that is on its way to being great again. And I, yes. It's been a delight. We will not be on the air Friday, but please do check back in tomorrow and check out that debate.

I really do want feedback on that, so please leave comments, share it. I want to get feedback to see if we need more of that, or just like that was a one and done, Erika. So, do that, and please remember to, if you're not a champion yet, check that out. That's how we keep this show going and free.

We would love to have you join our champions. Thank you so much to anyone in the chat who's already a champion, and yeah, enjoy those hot dogs, or if you are so inclined, a veggie burger on Friday, and we will see you back here Monday. Oh, but before we go, real quick. Okay. We're going to keep the tradition going with prayers, okay? And I, many people don't realize this, but the month of July is dedicated to that. Most precious blood of our Lord.

And so, a nice prayer sent to us by someone on the staff here at CatholicVote. Awesome. In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen. Oh, Jesus, in union with your most precious blood, poured out on the cross and offered in every mass, we offer you today our prayers, works, joys, sorrows, and sufferings for the praise of your holy name and all the desires of your sacred heart. For reparations of sins, the conversion of all sinners, I am sorry, reparation of sins, and conversion of sinners, the union of all Christians, and our final union with you in heaven.

Amen. Amen. St. Thomas More, St. Fidelis, Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us, and we will see you on the next show, Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Thanks. Amen to that.