"One Address Was A Shipping Container" RFK Jr.'s Shocking Testimony on Migrant Child Trafficking

And we're live. Welcome back to the LOOPcast. Brought to you, of course, by The Loop, every American Catholic's favorite morning newsletter. It's Tom, Erika, and Josh, as always. We have a fantastic Friday show planned for you. RFK Jr. has been on an absolute tear. Speaking of digging into what exactly happened to all of these migrant children who, unfortunately, were trafficked, we're going to get into that first. But he also had some good wins elsewhere, Gavi, etc. Another point of contention here, we had a major Supreme Court ruling actually dropped not too long, maybe about a half hour ago.

Before recording the show, but major implications there. We're going to get into all that. Well, two so far that are pretty awesome. Two, yeah. We're waiting on a third. Two for the price of one. Got a little bit of Supreme Court infighting, which is always interesting to see. Yeah. And good news, as always, you know how we do it here, but then, yeah, some reflections on New York City potentially putting a socialist in power. A lot more thoughts there, but it's going to be a great show.

And, yeah. And it's Friday, so it's a great, and it's a solemnity. Today is the solemnity of the sacred heart of Jesus. He's like, does this mean? Yes, Josh, it does. It is what you mean. It means it's bacon Friday.

Woo! Look on your face, man. Burgers on the grill for the sacred heart. Meat Friday. See, I'm not like a hardcore traditionalist. I'm a conservative on liturgical things, so I'm not like hardcore where they don't do any meat Fridays unless it's Christmas.

Right. Uh, but yeah, those celebrities, you better believe it. It's pretty great. Can I just give it a go? It's going to be Valhalla in the Mercer house today. The Valhalla Vikings. That's great. Super pagan. Josh, fun tidbit from the comment section. Someone said, wow, Mercer's analysis of Brooklyn was so accurate. Does he live in New York?

I was like, is this one of Mercer's troll accounts? I mean, I've been to Brooklyn, and I know what I'm talking about. Yeah, I guess so. I mean, Brooklyn in the 50s was awesome, but not so much now.

Can I just do one before I go? Personal? So, tomorrow is our 22nd wedding anniversary, Todd and I, so we're the big 2-2 palindrome year. But the other cool thing is that the year we got married... The Sacred Heart of Jesus was also the Friday, the day before we wed, and then we were married on the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, which always follows the Sacred Heart. So, this year is sort of like a little return for us to the beautiful concatenation of circumstances, to quote P.G.

Woodhouse. So, happy anniversary to me. I just want to put that out there. Please pray for us. Beautiful. That's an anniversary gift. Congratulations. Thank you. Okay, so we prompted the start of this episode. This was included in the loop, and it was just as shocking to me. So, I'm going to play this video from a testimony Senator Kennedy gave in front of Congress. Here we go. The major reason that the Biden administration lost track of all those children is because they were emphasizing speed over security.

And there were political reasons for that. They wanted to get the kids out of U.S. custody, so they were handing them off to anybody. It didn't require background checks. It didn't require identification, even. I've watched horror stories of the same person picking up child after child after child, using different names and different addresses. One of the addresses was a strip club.

One of the addresses was a parking lot. One of the addresses was an empty lot that was filled with shipping containers, and this character was getting all these kids. One person got 42 kids to one address. What we're doing now is DNA testing on every sponsor. We're doing personal identification, we're doing background checks, and we're doing income verification. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

That sounds bad. That sounds like probably even worse than the kids in cages whole trope there. I mean, sending them to shipping containers? Just letting it go? It's not an exaggeration. Yeah, go ahead. I mean, I don't even know if, you know, is what was said on the forms true, and that they sent them to these places, or did they just like... Start randomly throwing addresses down that they needed to. You know what I'm saying? Like, I don't even know what it is.

Like, I have no confidence that I'm getting the truth here. Yeah. I'm not saying that against RFK. I mean, the governing agency involved there. And whatever it is, it's terrible. I mean, it's really hard to wrap your mind around how horrific the previous border policy was. I remember talking to Mark Morgans in particular, like, why are we seeing, you know, strip clubs addressed or like multiple people in the same house? How do we not know where 300,000 children are right now?

Right. And I think the explanation that I was given, or the official one as of now, was that the Biden administration wanted a marquee accomplishment of making sure they don't get in a kids in cages situation. So, they tried to turn over kids when they came to the border as quickly as possible. And so, to do that as quickly as possible, they cut a lot of corners. Namely, some of the places they were sending them to had 40 kids in them.

Some of them weren't relatives that they were sent to, but they cut down the time waiting in detention. So, I think about like 20 some days as opposed to 90 before. And of course, they were overwhelmed because so many people came to the border that they didn't, first, they didn't have the space for it, one, and then it was bad in the detention. So, just all around, I mean, a horrific situation. It feels like one of these things where Health and Human Services before.

Clearly, we're not doing, I think it was Javier Becerra, we're not doing what they need to be doing. And so, RFK comes in now and is like, look, we just need to acknowledge what's going on here, that these kids are still out there in our own country, we need to solve it. So, the first problem was, okay, close the border. Fantastic. Now, we need to go solve some problems. And that wasn't the only one. It was on the human trafficking with HHS was great, but I see freezed funding to Gavi.

Yeah. Yeah. So, this was amazing. So... A little bit of background here. He announced, and this came out yesterday, he had a video address to Gavi that they are going to freeze all funding. First of all, what is GAVI? Why is this so important? So, GAVI is the Global Vaccine Alliance. Basically, it was founded by Bill Gates in part with partners, and it's spent decades basically pushing mass vaccination on the developing world. Good things have happened because of GAVI. Bad things have happened because of GAVI.

Again, from From the HHS point of view, the case that RFK made was that Gavi has focused on giving the unshot volume over safety, right? So, a lot like the Biden administration's approach to these migrant children, the unaccompanied migrant children, Gavi also, we're just going to vaccinate everyone. We're going to do billions. They claim having vaccinated over a billion children over safety and treating public concerns and challenges to those vaccines. As PR issues, rather than legitimate scientific questions to be addressed about these concerns.

Gavi is a close partner with the World Health Organization, but also, of course, with Big Pharma, which supplies these vaccines. And the United States has been giving hundreds of millions of dollars a year to this organization. In fact, since 2001, the United States has given $8 billion, with a B. to Gavi. So here's what RFK said. During COVID, the big concerns came up, big red flags, because Gavi was working directly with social media platforms to suppress any kind of, you guessed it, vaccine questioning over the mRNA vaccines and over government mandates of vaccines.

So a couple of quotes from his address, he said, a major concern that I share with the president is that the government is not doing enough to keep the vaccine in place. So I think that's ...is how the World Health Organization and Gavi partnered together during the pandemic to recommend best practices and silence dissenting views. In addition, he said, Gavi has continued to make questionable recommendations encouraging pregnant women to receive COVID-19 vaccines. And he basically says, he's like, look... I'm not saying we're not going to fund you.

I'm just saying we're going to freeze it until you can reestablish public trust and justify that $8 billion that America provided to you in the last 25 years. And until that happens, we won't contribute any more to Gavi. Basically, unaccountable and opaque policymaking, that era is over. And I invite all of you at Gavi to join Maha, to join me in a new era of evidence-based medicine, gold standard science. And integrity, end quote. So, Gavi's response was, Surprisingly, not surprisingly diplomatic.

They said, thank. We thank you, Secretary Kennedy, for bringing these concerns to our attention. This is ridiculous. They already knew this. They put out a case for the DTP, the diphtheria tetanus whole cell pertussis vaccine that has come under scientific scrutiny recently. They put out a case for that, but they said, we look forward to further engagement and a continued partnership with the US government. So, what that says to me is they really want that funding, and hopefully, the threat to freeze it and to put a pause on all of this pushing of the vaccines will actually result in that it's a stick that will result in some more actual probing of whether these vaccines are safe and effective before we just spend billions on vaccinating kids all over the world with them.

And kids are going to die. Everyone's going to die because, you know, third world children are going to die because we're freezing this funding, and Gavi's not going to be able to get all the vaccines to all the kids in the next few months. It seems to me that there is an actionable way for them to get their funding back, and that is start being more transparent about where your science is coming from, and if the science is bad, let's try and do some good studies on this.

Wait, level with the American people? It seems like that's a fair demand to make of a company that... ...has been partnering with the World Health Organization and Big Pharma. That will never work. It will never work. No, the transparency is great, and I think this extends to, and Erika, you got together this list of what the FDA has been up to, and there's two points to this. Like, the FDA has been so busy, and then it seems like major food and beverage companies in America have actually been quite receptive and willing to work on behalf of American health, which is fantastic.

I think, like, that's the goal, right? It would be... Exactly. Both companies and the government work to make our country healthier, because clearly, we're not in a great place. Right, and I think, like, just to put a bow on that, like, I think that the refreshing thing about RFK at HHSS is that the guy clearly just wants to get stuff done. Like, let's do the things, and that's the approach with Gavi, and he's like, look, if the only way that we can get these people to actually be transparent, actually show us their studies, if they exist, is to To say, we're cutting your funding if you don't show it to us, then that's what we're going to do to get the stuff done.

And his approach has worked with the FDA so far. I mean, this is an incredible record. So, just in April, so we're talking two months ago, we're at the end of June. In April, the FDA under HHS took the following actions. They established a national standard and timeline for the food industry to transition from petrochemical-based dyes to natural alternatives. They initiated the proc... ...process and revoked authorization on these synthetic food colorings. We covered this, red dye number two, orange B, they're eliminating six other dyes.

So, this will just start, the ball starts rolling in April. To date, I have the list for you. The following major food and beverage companies have put out their timelines for... We are complying with the new FDA regulations on petroleum-based chemicals in foods by the end of the year. We have PepsiCo. We have Dannon with the yogurts. We have Treehouse Foods, Tyson Foods with your chicken nuggets. We've got General Mills, Kraft Heinz, and just yesterday, Nestle.

And you look at all of the foods. I mean, this is a huge chunk of the foods Americans and the middle class, lower classes consume. So, yay, stuff can get done, and I'm really excited. I'm waiting on the generic brands because, to be frank, my food budget is such that we only shop generic brands. I'm like, it would be nice if I could afford Nestle. That would be great, but with seven kids, we definitely shop the Walmart. So, when Great Foods hops on, I will be very excited.

Yeah, get on board, Walmart. Yeah. Hat tip to the Walmart franchise, though. Sam's Club, their Members Mark brand, has also pledged full compliance by December of this year. So, yeah, stuff can get done when you do stuff. Go RFK. Hashtag winning.

Trump quote, you can just do things. I think about that a lot. Yeah. Ron DeSantis also has this approach. You can just do things, like create a prison for illegal criminals who are here that is surrounded. Did I just shoot someone's Twilight Zone? Did you hear about this? Alligator Alcatraz? You can just do things. Alligator Alcatraz is a detention facility for criminals who are here illegally, and they get to go sit there, and it's surrounded by 50 miles of swamp infested with alligators and crocodiles.

And to me, I'm like, yeah, I wouldn't try and escape from that at all. That's a real thing that's going on? Yes. I assume there's buildings, right? We're not just dropping them off. Peter Doocy just did a whole piece on it at Fox News this morning. So, he's down there. He's doing the tour of Alligator Alcatraz. Yeah, the left is losing their minds. They are losing their minds. They're like, how dare you put criminals somewhere they can't escape?

Mm-hmm. Alligator Alcatraz. I had the wood one escape. They are kind of stealing all of California's flow. Like, they're stealing people, they're stealing Alcatraz, you know what I mean? Like, this is, I didn't get it, but what are they gonna have left at the end of this, you know? It's just, it's all gonna go to Florida. Yep, pretty much. Might be getting some New Yorkers very soon too, but we'll see. I should have bought in Florida in 2019. I mean, I should have bought.

Florida was sick. Lived there for four years. Okay, on to B-Block now, and this kind of broke this morning. So, well, two things did, not this morning. So, you get the universal injunction ruling somewhat. It was on the- No, it was. I mean, it was about the cases surrounding birthright citizenship. The Supreme Court didn't talk about birthright citizenship necessarily. That was not decided, but what they did talk about was the injunction stuff, and they said, yeah, the president can have relief from this idea that district judges can just- Very cool.

And with implications beyond just the birthright citizenship, right? Like, we're looking at all of these universal injunctions. And so, we're looking at wins for life. We're looking at wins for LGBTQ, you know, trans surgery on kids kind of stuff, right? Yeah, I think we have a good summary here from Fox. Yeah, this is actually really good.

This is at least a partial, if not a full, and we're reading this because there are several concurrences here, but it's written by Justice Barrett, which goes against the ruling that I just gave the guidance because she's one of the least junior justices, but she was assigned to write this opinion, and essentially what she says, she says some say that the universal injunctions give the judiciary a powerful tool to check the executive branch, but she says federal courts do not exercise general oversight of the executive branch.

They resolve cases and controversies consistent with the authority Congress has given to them. When a court concludes the executive branch has acted unlawfully, the answer is not for the court to exceed its power, sounding very much like they are limiting these injunctions. We know here that they have granted at least partially the stay to these preliminary injunctions, but they say only to the extent that the injunctions are broader than necessary to provide complete relief to each plaintiff withstanding to sue. They say the lower courts have to move expeditiously with respect to each of these plaintiffs says the injunctions are also stayed to the extent that they prohibit executive agencies from developing and issuing public guidance about the executive plans to implement the executive order if you remember part of this executive order on birthright citizenship the stay was that the agencies that would be responsible for actually implementing the change with birthright citizenship those agencies couldn't even start making a plan so that Part of it is lifted as well.

We do see that the dissent here comes from the three justices you expect. It looks like Justice Sotomayor filed the dissent. Kagan and Jackson joined that. Justice Jackson also filed a dissenting opinion, but there are a lot of concurrences here. Justice Thomas, Justice Alito, there are others, so we'll parse through this, but at its first blush, it looks like this is a win, and putting a limit on these nationwide injunctions, we'll see how far those limits go as we dig back through this.

Got it. Interesting. To say the least. I mean, here's the funny thing. Justice Jackson goes crazy on all this stuff, basically saying, like, you know, we have to follow the rule of law and all this other stuff, and Justice Barrett said Justice Jackson would do well to heed her own admonition. Everyone from the president on down is bound by the law.

To quote her, and she goes, yeah. She didn't say yeah, but she says, that goes for judges, too. And the best part about it, she's going, like Justice Jackson went on this big rant, and Justice Coney Barrett says, we will not dwell on Justice Jackson's argument, which is at odds with more than two centuries' worth of precedent, not to mention the Constitution itself. We observe only this. Justice Jackson decries an imperial executive while embracing an imperial judiciary.

I mean, Justice Gorsuch was giving the teeniest amount of shade on Jackson on some of his things, like respectfully, and Barrett just drops the hammer. I'm not even going to acknowledge your argument. We will not entertain. The ACB heads are rejoicing right now.

That's right. The ACB heads are having a day, because this has kind of been a tough go, I feel like. I feel like the Oracle's been vindicated. Yep. It's been a while, honestly. I mean, she was right on this, and then we had the other case that came down. Oh, yeah.

What was this? Medina v. Planned Parenthood? Oh, he froze. He froze. Yeah, we're on Medina v. Planned Parenthood. Well, that was yesterday, and then the other one that came down today was Mahmoud. Did it come down? Yes. The justices said, here, let me get Alito here on this one. I was watching for it. There's so much news, it's happening so fast. Yeah, it's all being released. So, that was the pride curriculum, right? Having to read. Yeah, that's Maryland parents. Justice Alito said, a government burdens the religious exercise of parents.

When it requires them to submit their children to instruction that poses a very real threat of undermining, quote, the religious beliefs and practices that the parents wish to install. Boom. Alito, the man. I love that guy. Awesome. Another massive, massive victory. And are we done today? Are we sick of winning? I don't know about you. I'm not sick of winning, because we just got another one coming down the pike here.

Oh my gosh. Wash off? Today? I've been busy. This is like as we're recording, guys, as we're live. Turning back to Free Speech Coalition. Yeah, that looks like another one where it's just 6-3, where all the conservatives went on board and said, yeah, in fact. Um, so again, this stuff is just happening in real time, so this was, was Mahmoud, uh, 6'3"? Yes, I figured. That's great. So again, it's just one of those things where, uh, like the people who are, who are very skittish of ACB, and they're losing their minds, and they're getting really angry, and they're frustrated, and I'm saying this is a process argument.

She's like, let us get to the proper procedure, and then she'll rectify it, and it was getting really annoying, because for the last five, six months, we were dealing with, An injunction every five minutes, and she was just not going to jump all over it. She wanted to settle it more kind of like once and for all through the proper procedure, and I totally understand that. Do you think this does? Do you think that this ruling actually settles the injunction system?

I mean, we're going to have to go through the whole opinion here to do more analysis on this, but it really does look like the Supreme Court took the air out of these nationwide injunctions. I love that the Supreme Court trying to return to some kind of constitutional order here, like she says, to reject the imperial court. I mean, that is exactly what they are meant to do. They have to get it back to the order. And yesterday's ruling, the Medina v.

Planned Parenthood, was also along those lines. I don't know. We did a lot more in this because the ruling actually came out yesterday, so we had some time to actually dig into the opinion of the court. But this one's really big, so I'm going to go through it a little bit. So, yesterday, with Gorsuch writing for the majority, they ruled that Medicaid's free choice of provider clause does not grant individuals the right to sue states when providers like Planned Parenthood are excluded from Medicaid.

So, what happened was South Carolina, which has an amazing pro-life heartbeat bill, right? Like all abortion, basically six weeks, if you can detect a heartbeat, no abortion. But they also had this 2018 executive order. That barred clinics offering abortions from Medicaid funding, even for non-abortion services. So, you offer abortions, you're out of Medicaid for everything that you do. The state argued that this, basically, they were saying that if this is something, sorry, back it up. The state argued this did not force patients to identify a specific right to choose such providers, but lower courts blocked that exclusion, and now the Supreme Court has reversed it.

So, the oral arguments are, well, it's not going to work. It's not going to work. It's not going to work. It's not going to During oral arguments, Chief Justice Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh, they had expressed skepticism about whether Medicaid patients, so what happened was Medicaid patients sued the state of South Carolina, and it goes all the way up to the Supreme Court saying that they were blocking them from getting care, and they were saying, I don't think Medicaid patients actually have a private right to sue to enforce their provider choice, which was the key issue in the case, and Roberts questioned whether Congress ...intended for lawsuits like that when it wrote the Medicaid law.

And Kavanaugh was saying that allowing states to exclude providers could lead to broader restrictions, like barring Catholic hospitals from Medicaid for not providing abortions. So, it would have gone the other way and have it become a religious issue.

The dissent, of course, was like, basically, the Constitution says we can't do anything to limit abortion, and so abortion... So... Right, there it comes. So, of course, this is wrong because Medicaid should pay for abortions, which is not an argument at all. But this decision...

Not only is it a win because, yes, you can defund Planned Parenthood at the state level, and it's reinforcing the state's authority, but what Gorsuch said was he said, we need to end this private enforcement thing where the battles are all in the courts, and the courts get to decide what the laws all mean. He said private enforcement, so the right to sue over who your provider can be, doesn't always benefit the public. Not least because it requires our states to divert money and attention away from social services toward litigation.

So, millions of dollars have gone into this case that should have gone to providing Medicaid for people who need the services. And he said, balancing those costs and benefits poses a question of public policy under our system of government that only Congress may answer. These sorts of things should not be litigated in the courts. Our legislatures should take the reins back. And determine what the laws mean. So, again, like, all of these Supreme Court cases are saying, this shouldn't be imperial court land.

This should be American Constitution, Articles 1, 2, 3. Like, let's get it back to the order intended, guys. Do your job. Yeah, like, do your job, Congress and state legislatures should be allowed to do their job. Do your job. Yeah, exactly. And speaking of which, again, that was the last. A case today where the Supreme Court said that the state of Texas does have the legal right and authority to have age verification. If you want to access SMUT websites, the state of Texas has every right to put, again, another one of these cases should be 9-0.

Was it 9-0? No. Was it 6-3? Was it 7-3? 6-3 again. Wow. Okay, that is a crazy one because it is crazy that instead of complying, like the largest pornography company in the world was like, we are not going to comply. We are just going to leave. It is so damaging to us. We would just rather not. Yeah, because it was too much of a hindrance. They want minors to be able to have access to their pornography. Of course. And the one you're talking about, that company, I don't want to name it, but their business model is like they make money by any visitor coming.

It's not like necessarily a pay site anyway, through advertising of other stuff. And so, they want as many people on their site as possible, including minors. And they also don't want to verify that the content isn't also of minors. I mean, they're... It's an absolute mess. If anyone really wants to go deep in any of this, just look up MindGeek and go into the history of MindGeek. It is insane. I'd love to send a B-2 bomber into Montreal and take out MindGeek.

Drop some mops on MindGeek. And actually, that's really where... I keep coming back to this with libertarians. To me, the fundamental flaw of libertarians is they have no answer for children. Like, there's no... 1,000% the right answer. You know what I mean? So, I keep coming back to that as like, yeah, this shouldn't be available to anyone, let alone children, but there's no way to safeguard. So, okay, some people are saying it feels like we're in the good news, low-key. I mean, it's a good day.

We've been in the good news. Let's go to stay. Erika, you're up. Okay, well, I just have, I have a tearjerker that I just wanted to share with anyone. Anything that goes with like Special Olympics, Special Athletes has super soft space in my heart. I just, I love it. I love being Christian because it means that we really believe that these innocents, people with mental disabilities, and Limitations are the most precious in God's sight, and we just had this moment in the Oval Office.

I mean, this is Trump meeting with some Special Olympics athletes, so just roll the tape. How did you feel about winning? How did you feel? I did good. I did five. Over. Funtime. War. Funtime. Over. Whoa. That's not bad, huh?

Mr. President, Jane was telling us beforehand, we were waiting in the Roosevelt room, she was sharing that she was so excited that her dad and she both have the same color hair as you. I hope he has a beautiful head of hair like you.

He is better. My dad has a lot of hair. He likes the hair. That's very interesting. I'm going to have to think about that. Gets better. No, I'll tell you why. My dad died, and my mom, too. You're in the Oval Office, and they're looking down on you, and they see gold, right? That's gold. That's really something, and they're very proud of you, right? So, congratulations. Wow, well handled on Trump's part. Throw that curveball. He was ready for it, and he hit it out of the park.

Wasn't that awesome? I was ready for that. I actually cried when I first saw that. All the feels came out. It was so beautiful. They're looking down at you, and that's gold. Beautiful. Very cute. Go for it. All right, Josh, what do you got? Well, I mean, look, I mean, the good news for me is just all these Supreme Court rulings today. That's the good news. You know, again, I would just like to offer just a reminder on it, like when we get mad at You know, sometimes, like, you know, Gorsuch, him for Bostock, you know, Barrett was on procedure stuff, not great.

But overall, like, the legacy of this Supreme Court is going to be that it returns the proper authority and power to institutions that deserve it. If it's supposed to be this agency under the executive, if it's supposed to be for Congress over here, or if it's supposed to be for the state of Texas for Age verification and stuff. It is a court that is the absolute opposite of what we experienced in the 90s and 80s with...

There's Souter, Kennedy, and O'Connor, where they would say, no, we are the nine kings and queens, and we will decide everything. And they try to split hairs so perfectly, and what they ended up doing is, you know, just assuming and assuming more power, and they got to be involved in everything. And it did start with a little bit with Roberts, but it's really, of course, I say it's Clarence Thomas' quote. The goat. Yeah. And he is the goat. The GOAT. And I'm very happy.

Do you have a favorite Supreme Court Justice of all time? Of all time? You can't say that, but go back further. Do you have any that really just have a place in your heart, Josh? I mean, Thomas and Alito are just rock stars, and they've done so well. I like Alito for the decision on Dobbs, but to me...

It's, I still have a soft spot in my heart for Rehnquist. I mean, he was the guy who just a tour de force. I mean, the court was so left wing. He gets in there by Nixon, you know, and he just works diligently all through the 70s and the 80s to try to build the case of like, no, we need to go to the original.

You know, text the Constitution to figure out what's going on, and now we're all Rehnquist. We're all originalists. In fact, Kagan would try to say, no, we're originalists too, and this is why you need to support this crazy thing, and she does it about as effective as anyone. The problem for Kagan is that she's got two other total idiots.

Sotomayor and Jackson are so stupid and left-wing psycho, and Kagan's like, dude, I'm trying to win over Kavanaugh and Roberts and sneak them into the pool, and you just go out going, crazy, and we're losing it. And so, that's why the left is on the wrong side of 6-3 decisions today, I mean, because, I mean... Sotomayor and Jackson, they're like the kids at college who are screaming at you. I mean, literally.

Do I need to ask you who your least favorite are, or do you think you're right? Jackson's the least favorite. I mean, she can't even tell me what a woman is. Give me a break. She should be out in court.

That's idiot. You're making a strong point. But, okay, mine is... I didn't get Rehnquist in real life. I did. I'm like, that's cool. I was sitting on a plane behind him, and there was a federal marshal on the plane, you know, and I just said to Rehnquist, I go, I knew, like, literally, the marshal was the only other person on the plane that knew who, I mean, oh, there's a VIP on board. No one knows who this guy is. He just looked like a guy who was going to go fishing.

I said to Rehnquist, just so you know. I'm praying for you. Ah, nice. Every day. Nice. That's really cool. I think Josh's version of like a make-a-wish would be taking an RV trip with Clarence Thomas. Dude, absolutely. That would be so much fun. That would be awesome. We hit every Buc-ee's, you know, let's go. If we ever could, if we needed to set up a sweepstakes, it'd be like take a cross-country road trip with Clarence Thomas, and you just get to pick that man's mind.

That would be living the dream. I mean, honestly, can you imagine the discussions you would have? Couldn't. It would be, yeah, I'd probably leave much smarter, I'll tell you that. That's even better than Valhalla. Okay, mine. So, I brought this up previously. I can't believe this is ever a thing, but yes, we had a USNS Harvey Milk. The military is making efforts to rebrand into a warrior crew, not naming.

you know, alleged pedophiles to naval ships. Alleged, he lived with a guy. Yeah, yeah. Confessed. Confessed pedophiles. Proud pedophiles. Listen, some are going to say this is a panderpick because I was recently accused of being a member of the Ayatollah by a listener here, which is kind of insane. I've always loved our boys in the military, of course. I know many of them. So here we go. Here's the video of P explaining. Well, I'm pleased to officially announce that the Department of the Navy is renaming the Fleet Replenishment Oiler, formerly known as the USNSR.

Harvey Milk to the USNS Oscar V. Peterson. We are taking the politics out of ship naming. We're not renaming the ship to anything political. This is not about political activists, unlike the previous administration. Instead, we're renaming the ship after a United States Navy Congressional Medal of Honor recipient. As it should be. People want to be proud of the ship they're sailing in, and so we're renaming it after a chief, a Navy chief, that during the Battle of the Coral Sea in May of 1942, Chief Water Tender Peterson led a repair party on the USS Neosho.

The ship was severely damaged by Japanese dive bombers, and the entire repair party was either killed or severely wounded. Peterson himself was gravely wounded, yet he managed to single-handedly close the bulkhead stop valves, thereby helping to keep the ship operational.

In performing his historic actions, and heroic actions, Peterson received additional injuries and burns, which tragically resulted in his death. But his spirit of self-sacrifice and concern for his crewmates was in keeping with the finest traditions of the Navy.

And for his heroic actions, Oscar Peterson was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. So, I would like to officially welcome the USNS Oscar V. Peterson to the Navy's Vessel Register. Awesome. It is crazy how slick the productions of this have gotten. There are two camera angles here. You have super soft lighting. These are clearly high quality. The Trump administration knows what they are doing, especially on the media front. Again, they got the memo.

People with TV experience, that is helpful. Like, Trump himself has a lot of TV experience, and then Hexeth was on the weekend show on Fox. So, yeah. I mean, the idea that it is not just that you should be good at your job, but that you should be good at being able to communicate what you are doing, huge. Yeah, you have to. A hundred percent. It is a whole new era. Great communicators. One more piece of good news. I was just, I was, bonus good news.

We have We have a new product. We have LOOPcast Deep Dives, and one of them is now named The Deep. Kind of a new product? Kind of a new product, but... We have been doing it. Go watch our old ones, but... I am going to be doing Deep Dives every single week. We're going to drop them on Thursdays. They're on the LOOPcast channel, though, so make sure you subscribe to LOOPcast, hit the notification bell, and our first one that's officially launching, The Deep, went up yesterday.

We're going to link it in the chat, and yeah. It was super fun. Great. Shout out to the team, Stephen, Simon, Pogo, everyone who went into this marketing. We're having a lot of fun putting these out there. Here's what's going on with this, by the way. We get so many emails. We want more Erika. We want more Erika. Okay, fine. She's going to get her own show every week, and then stop sending these emails, okay? Because she's totally egotistical and can't handle all this.

All right, let us get a little sample of how modern society actually created a Catholic boom. All the scandals of the Catholic Church in the last 60 years, despite the mainstream medias and Hollywood's mockery of her greatest saints, despite record-breaking Christian persecution worldwide, the youth of all people are knocking down the doors to get into the church.

Why? It turns out every generation from Cain and Abel to today's young people face some pretty primordial questions. Who am I? What's the point? What gives meaning and purpose to our lives? Today, we're watching Gen Z choose between two rising forces, Catholicism and radical gender ideology. These forces occupy fundamentally adverse moral universes.

They are not merely divergent trends. They are rival answers to the questions we all have to face sooner or later. Welcome to the battle of the trans, where transcendence and transgression are fighting for the soul of the world.

There you go. Check it out. Simon, you're outdone yourself this time. Yeah, Simon was the master of his craft, that guy. Shout out, Simon. No. All right. So, on to the next section here. So, we were talking about this a lot internally, because I think a lot of people, especially if you're paying attention to politics, are somehow curious. How did New York City, you know, one of America's largest cities, elect someone who's so openly socialist? I mean, he ran as a socialist, considers himself a Marxist, and we went over, I think, some of the political reasons why.

There's been a lot of different answers offered. You know, Cuomo's a bad candidate, probably true. Yeah, I think. Right, but it doesn't... So, Cuomo is a bad candidate. You know, politically, there was an increased turnout of white New York progressives, not in Manhattan, but around in places like Astoria, and then siphoned support from the Asian community. There was some Hispanic support that they got. Right, so there's like the hard political answers to that, but I don't think there's been a good enough explanation for why socialism is becoming more popular, and this really came on my radar.

I saw Peter Thiel actually had a good, and for people who are wondering just like how crazy. This guy is, like Zoran, slickly produced, did very well, but I mean, he puts out part of his platform. Shift the tax burden from overtaxed homeowners in the outer boroughs to more expensive homes in richer and whiter neighborhoods.

You said it. Whoa, whoa. Did you say whiter? Like, some people do this without saying it. He's saying it, and he's confident in saying it. I mean, his dad was a Marxist from Uganda, Indian immigrant. They actually got kicked out of Uganda.

He's very... I don't think the, what I see misdiagnosed, I don't think he's like a jihadist or anything. This is a guy that's talking about like, you know, the cops, they need queer liberation or something like that. He's a Marxist, right? He's like, he's taking a look at these cultural intersections, and he's saying, okay, how do I use these grievances to build a coalition to then get into power to then do what I want to do? I mean, he's a socialist.

Right, the same thing about what they said about Obama 15 years ago. Obama is a Muslim. Like, dude, no. No, no, no, no, no. He's a total secularist. He's a communist. He's a lefty. He embraces the rainbow stuff. No, yeah, worst Muslim ever.

So, I think the broader question, though, is why is socialism becoming popular? 70% of millennials say they'd vote for a socialist. This is a YouGov poll by generation, and if you take a look here, these lines are pretty opposite, very somewhat.

A favorable opinion of capitalism, you have silent generation up at 77%, Gen Z down at 49%, and then somewhat extremely likely to vote for a socialist candidate. Millennials at 70%, Gen Z up at 64%, silent generation and boomers down at 33% and 36%. So, something is happening here that I don't think we can just dismiss. As, and I'll even quote directly from Peter Thiel in his analysis on this, is, when 70% of millennials say they are pro-socialist, we need to do better than simply dismiss them by saying that they're stupid or entitled or brainwashed.

We should try and understand why. Amen to that. And from the perspective of broken generational compact, there seems to be a pretty straightforward answer to me. Namely, that one has too much student debt, or if housing is too unaffordable, then one will have negative capital for a long time. and or find it very hard to start accumulating capital in the form of real estate. And if one has no stake in the capitalist system, then one may well turn against it. I would encourage everyone who's over the age of 50, I'm only 48, see I'm a youngin.

Everyone over the age of 50, to really take what Peter Thiel said there to heart, because you get so many people. I've talked to them. They're my dad's age, and they're boomers, and they're like, oh, I just got to climb up from my bootstraps, and I had to save a lot, and you guys are entitled. And you look at kids who are in their 20s, and not kids, really, people in their 20s and 30s and stuff like that, and you're like, oh, well, you've got these wonderful cell phones that are amazing.

And you get coffee, and food can be delivered to your house, and then you're complaining about stuff, and it's like, there have been some marvels that we've had technologically, right? I mean, the smartphone is, yeah, it's interesting. It's awesome, sure. But at the end of the day, you're not, you know, housing.

So, education, healthcare, these three things have gone up way, way, way, way up, and they're not really capitalist reasons. There's a lot of government reasons for it, but Republicans have done a really crappy job in the last 25 years of trying to address these and to try to lower prices. Shouldn't prices go eventually lower over time? Why do they keep going up and up and up? Well, we got to do something about that.

Tom, I think this is awesome. Keep going. I'm sorry to go on a little longer. No, no, I really appreciate you caveating that, because if I start going into it, you know, I sound kind of like the entitled 27-year-old complainer or whatever, but, you know, I'm really the last person. Everyone in their 20s complains about this, and they've done that every year for the last 70, 80 years. I get it, but there's something different. Yeah. And so, our systemic problems that we do need to address.

So, and I like that you made the point, too, of like, yeah, there's some marvels and some things are better, no doubt. But I think Constantine Kissen made this point, too. Like, not all goods are created equal. Right. And so, like, I would trade a cheap LED TV for a house for $40,000 tomorrow. Like, but that obvious trade is not available to me. I know. I'd get rid of so many of these things, dude. Like, if I could just, you know, because Constantine makes the point, too, like, When people feel like they can't have kids until they get a home, until they can settle somewhere, and if you don't feel like you can even reasonably afford a home, like there's a lot of people I know, you're just not going to be able to buy a home.

Average age of a home buyer in America now is 35. I think it's going up. It's going up. And, I mean, these are the reasons why, like if you take a look at the medium home sales price, this is 1973, median home sales price adjusted for 2023 inflation is $37,202.

And then, if you look at 2023, we're talking about $426,000 for a house. Median rent, it's not much better, $913 adjusted. Oh, we lost Tom. Come back, Tom. That's what I'm trying to make a point, huh? Yeah, that was all right. Go back to the median rent. Yeah, median rent, not much better. 1973 adjusted for 2023 inflation, $913.

2023, $1,406. Now, this one, I like to talk about, too, because I think there's the misnomer that all college kids are just taking on outrageous, irresponsible amounts of debt, and I actually think there should be laws implemented so that people can't do this, and people can't take advantage of that very well. They are making some of those changes. So, for example, when my daughter went to college, I'm the one that co-signed it. She was only eligible to get on her own.

$5,000 from Uncle Sam, you know what I'm saying? And then the other amount that was needed because it was a private school, I mean, whatever school, it doesn't matter if it was private, but it was more than that, I had to co-sign on it. You see what I'm saying? So, they've started to make some of these changes already, but what I would actually like to do, I think it would be kind of a crazy idea, but I would think, can you imagine if Trump came up with a big deal and said, look, I am willing to wipe out 50% of the college debt that people have to the government if we get rid of all these subsidies to these colleges and reduce it, because what's happened is The ability to have massive debt to borrow so much money to get to a college is part of the reason why we've had the prices keep going up and up and up, because people don't feel the sticker price at the time of purchase.

You're 18 years old, and you're like, I want to pick this college because it's got the coolest things or whatever, and you're not making that difficult decision. You're just like, oh, whatever, I'll pay it eventually. Right, you don't think about it. Anytime, that's it. If you look at both healthcare and college education, Those are the two biggest things that keep going up and up and up, and the reason why those two are going up is because it is believed to be third-party costs.

You are not actually writing the check at the time where you want it. You are paying it five years from now. Well, gosh, five years from now when you are 18 feels like forever. And so, again, trying to get those adjustments.

It's great. It's great in the chat, too. It's like, I hear you, Josh, but at the same time, are these 20-somethings working as I did from 16 on to 40 hours a week every summer and weekends while I was in high school? Yes. Like, my wife and I, like, I work on the weekends. Like, you know what I mean? Like, I'm a 27-year-old. I did all of these things, too.

There are some people that are lazy that are not. There were some people that were lazy in the 90s when I wasn't. Exactly. But the problem, I think, and I was listening to Peter Thiel talk. He was on Ross Douthat's show. And super interesting guy. I love listening to him because his ideas are crazy, but I think he's pretty right on a lot of things. And one of them being, they were asking him, was he the lone tech billionaire to back Trump?

Because he's somewhat of a political venture capitalist, right? He backed J.D. Vance, he backed Trump. Very successful political venture capitalist. PayPal guy, right, yeah. PayPal guy. And he's like, I needed someone to sound the alarm that there's been stagnation. And that there's real significant problems, and I saw Trump, at minimum, basically doing that for the country, even if it is disruptive, even if he is crazy. And I'm actually happy in a lot of ways that it ended up being Trump, because I think it's very possible that you get this iteration of a Zoran socialist that comes forward, addresses the root problems, as we're saying here.

He went around New York City, and he was addressing the cost of living problem. He talked about the concerns that people had. I don't agree with the solutions, but at least someone is giving me, that is where I would say George Bush's honey coat, everything is great, that kind of thing, isn't working. Bush, McCain, Romney, give me a break. It was a joke, but we are at another inflection point. So, in the late 1970s, it was really hard to do family formation.

Let me just give you a picture. Okay, so yeah, my mom and my dad bought a house. They bought it the year I was born, so 1977. Oh, it was only $40,000. Yeah. You know what, though? The interest rate was 14%, and inflation was about 12%. And so, they were getting hammered, and it was really hard to do family formation at that point, because every month to feed, it was really expensive.

That was, you know, again, stagflation from Nixon, Ford, and into Carter, ramping it up even more so. You had a full decade of just abysmal economic news, right? And Reagan came in, and with Volcker, you know, he was the Fed chairman, like, taking that, just wringing out the inflation, and it was tough medicine for two years. The Republicans got their butts kicked in 1982 midterm elections, but by 1984, the economy was kicking butt, and I actually put in the chat there an ad.

I think it's the best political ad ever. It's one that connects with everyone. You watch this ad. It was so powerful. The guy went on to win 49 states, actually 50, but that's another story. It's morning again in America. Today, more men and women will go to work than ever before in our country's history. With interest rates at about half the record highs of 1980, nearly 2,000 families today will buy new homes, more than at any time in the past four years.

This afternoon, 6,500 young men and women will be married. And with inflation at less than half of what it was just four years ago, they can look forward with confidence to the future. It's morning again in America, and under the leadership of President Reagan, our country is prouder and stronger and better. Why would we ever want to return to where we were less than four short years ago?

This is the country I live in now. See what we talked about? He talked about the issues that matter. You know, the cost of living is cheaper. People are able to, you know, 2,100 people are able to move into new houses.

You know, people getting married and starting their families and looking forward with, you know, hope for the future. This is the kind of thing, ironically enough, it might just be the billionaire real estate developer with crazy hair that is going to get that message in his own kind of way, but this is why he needs to get in the fight. You know, there's the big stuff over the parliamentarian and the big, beautiful bill, which isn't the most beautiful bill in the world, I get you that, but you've got to be able to do something.

You know, he's able, with tariffs and the beginning of his... We're seeing illegal immigration enforcement. We're seeing wages rise for working class folks. We have the opportunity, but we need more stuff to get done. We need to amp it up. We need to win more elections, too. We need to win those midterms. So, you guys will get a full, full breakdown, actually from Tom McCluskey, who's talking to senators who will be voting on this, congressmen who will be voting on this, congresswomen who will be voting on it, too.

Very inclusive. And then, also, members of USCCB, like, he's got the most access of anyone I know to what's going on, because stuff changes, has changed, literally, today. Like, in what ends up in the bill, what ends up not in the bill. So, Tom's going to give a breakdown on Monday of the big, beautiful bill. I will just say, I think, like, The, so, clearly, you look at these graphs that I showed you, like, we're not living, we're not in Kansas anymore, in terms of what things cost, buying power of Americans, the situation with people that want to own homes, start family, that kind of thing.

And I think people forget how catastrophic socialism is, and people are bringing up, like, well, why did people that were lower income in New York not vote for this guy? A lot of them actually, depending on where they're from, where they immigrated from, if they experienced socialism. Right, they're like allergic, no way. Totally, and it makes sense. So, my frustration is the system that brought us this, if it gets lumped in with capitalism, I'm just promising you, the 70% of millennials are going to blame capitalism for it.

I think the right approach is directing the frustration in the proper areas. Yeah. Like, to me, some of the biggest- Don't lecture these kids. Don't wag your finger at them. It's not going to help. No, it's not going to help at all, and I think if we can all kind of agree together on Like, I never felt more sold out in my country than over COVID, because the Inflation Reduction Act, the recovery bills, when they're just handing out checks to people, that was actually such a small part of the actual full bill that just printed money like it was nothing.

Inflation through the roof, forcing the jab on everyone, all the money that went into that. And then I look back and like bailing out big banks, like in 2007, that was horrible, that inflated our dollar, and it just bailed out a lot of people that are doing very... Predatory things in the financial district. So, I, Scott Bessette actually has a lot of great on this. Socialism bailouts for big corporations, but then the average Joe Sixpack gets stuck with the bill. Yeah, it's crony capitalism.

Repacious, you know, capitalism for the little guy, socialism protectionist for the big guy. Yeah, and even think too, like, we were sold out, we were sold out with the World Trade Organization letting China in and NAFTA, like, so I think it's not necessarily. A capitalism thing? There's a lot of crony capitalism and socialists, because we don't live in a true capitalist society, for anyone that's curious. Even look at what's happened with Medicare. It's comparative to what it was in 1970. It's up 11 times what it was before, and I had the most insane conversation over a bill yesterday.

I had talked to three different agents, clearly from foreign countries. Neither knew what they were. None were communicating with each other. Insurance, hospital, different parts of the hospital, they lost a payment that I gave. What are we doing here? Like, I'm scared to go to a hospital, and I have a job. Like, I have a job. My wife has a job. I work. So, like, people always discount, like, oh, Bernie Sanders, he's a hypocrite. He is a hypocrite, but people like him, and he resonates because he's laser-focused on something that's increased by 11 times over the last- He sees that people are suffering.

He's got his villains that he says are the problem, and, you know, he has as a scapegoat. And they are a problem, right. Yeah, he's mostly wrong, but- People listen. Solutions are all wrong. Villains correct. But I think that that is what people are missing, and there's a whole lot of Hollywood flair to that campaign in New York City, Zorans. His mom was actually a Disney director. Talk about communicator, right? Even if you watch his videos, the color grading on it is so specific, and he tilts his head.

Go back and watch any of his videos. He's tilting his head. Apparently, psychologically, that communicates trust, almost obnoxiously tilting his head. So, yes, there's Hollywood magic. But I think this is a lesson for people who want to run. Yeah, exactly. Maybe you should tilt your head more. It is a lesson to take for if you want to have political success and potentially to communicate with people who are younger, because I am just telling you, if you are $50,000 in debt to get a job that you thought was going to pay well, in which you just got replaced by AI, and you are going to own a home when you are 60, there is just not a lot of buy-in into that system.

So, I'm really curious to see what happens here with Big Beautiful Bill, with more Trump priorities, because there are some elements in terms of like child tax credit, things like that, that are positive to me. But yeah, a lot of work ahead. A lot of work ahead. You'll have all the rundown. Big Beautiful Bill, Monday, 11 a.m. Eastern. Yes, and then my favorite, maybe my favorite, Mayor Comes to the Rescue, Eric Adams, is definitely the funniest mayor I've ever, I think has ever existed.

It's him and Lori Lightfoot, neck and neck, I think. So, maybe Eric comes back, but- Funny to watch, would not want him in charge of my day-to-day life. One of my favorite videos is when he rolled out garbage bins. He's like, this is the solution. And the composting, remember the mandated composting, and he's got a little bag of compost. Oh, my God. He's the best. I love him so much. I would not want him as my company, but he's so funny.

When he was searching the- The fictional room? Where's the governor? I think I've shown it on this show. I love him so much. He's hilarious. Okay, Josh, Twilight Zone, what do you got? Well, apparently, liberals now think book banning is kind of okay. Now, I'm using book banning in the sense that they use it. It's not actual government banning of books, but NBC News reports that a bookstore in San Francisco announces it will no longer sell titles.

By J.K. Rowling, including her popular Harry Potter series, due to the author's anti-transgender views and advocacy. Yeah, because she doesn't want, like, six-feet dudes playing girl sports. Suddenly, she's anti-transgender. And we can't sell her books anymore. Wow. I mean, this is one of those things where it's like, how brave, you know? Like, what happened was they had a few customers come in in San Francisco and say, why are you selling this stuff? And San Francisco is about as, you know, loony as it gets, and it's like, how many people are buying Harry Potter books anymore?

I mean, I'm sure they still sell some. But for their minds, it was just easier to announce how virtuous they are. Oh, my gosh. Wow. This is a generational fumble to make Harry Potter somehow right-wing. I mean... Generational fumble. How is that possible?

Like, the biggest fear of homeschool moms is now a symbol of right-wing sometimes. Oh, my gosh. Don't get me started on the homeschool wars. Yeah, where are you at on this? Where am I at? I mean, at this point, I'm going to go by all of them just because B.K. Rowling dug in her heels, and I'm a contrarian. Well, you can't in San Francisco. Just imagine the plot. How can we get homeschooled moms to buy Harry Potter? I know! I know!

We banned her books, and it's true. We will all go out and buy them now, just to express our solidarity with J.K. Rowling. I mean, it's just crazy. Yeah, I have very good friends who are anti, and very good friends who are pro-Harry Potter. At this point, I'm like, I don't know the answer, guys.

Is it? Okay, so the biggest critique I heard of it, which I think is legitimate and true, is that they use legitimate black magic as a part of the spells, or it was an inspiration for the spell. I don't know, that's just what I hear, and I'm just like, I'm out.

Yeah, I just don't need to play around with that stuff. We don't have it. We don't have Harry Potter in our house. I've watched a couple of the movies. I don't, I have never done the research because I'm like, I just don't need it. There is enough to read. Like, we have probably thousands, over a thousand volumes in our house. I'm like, once you read those, if you have nothing else to read, maybe we can think about Harry Potter and I'll do the research.

But, sorry guys, maybe I'll do a deep dive on it, but I'd rather not. This might explode the chat. There are certain... I'm willing to talk all day about, like, transgender surgeries. I will go to all the dark places, but I will not go into the Harry Potter. Wow, lacks the courage to take a stand on Harry Potter. I guess you didn't go deep on that one. You need, like, some major cojones if you're going to go into that with the moms, so...

Sorry, guys. The narrow with Erika Ayer. Yeah, I'm going narrow. Okay, Erika, what do you got? I don't even know what to pick, but I think I'll go with the California General Assembly. Because, well, one, the California General Assembly, they passed multiple resolutions on how Republicans and Trump are threats to democracy. So, I was like, gee, I wonder how they conduct democracy in the California General Assembly, and we got to find out this week. So, we can just pull this up, roll the tape, a little bit of context first while Pogo's getting that keyed up.

They had a resolution. And the resolution was about Pride Month, but they added into the resolution all of these multiple things about boys and girls sports, and we have to have children who can have their breasts removed as minors, and all of that. They added it in. So, God bless this dude, Republican Carl DeMaio. He gets up and he explains why he was perfectly happy to have a Pride Month resolution celebrating gay people, which, yes, I think that's a problem. But then they put in these resolutions.

Because he is gay. Carl is. He is. He is himself. But he gets up, and he's like, guys, we have gone a bridge too far, and here's what happened. Roll the tape. Do I have to? Because... You do. I haven't heard... Because it's my Twilight Zone. You have to play this. But I've really blissfully not heard anything about Pride Month for the entire month of June, and we're almost at the end. Sorry, Poco. Okay. It's my time. My soapbox. The worst I can say about the resolution is that it's inflammatory.

It is dishonest. It is divisive. It is a shame. Mr. DeMaio, just a moment, please. Just a moment. Mr. Riedenkler, can you hold Mr. DeMaio's time? Music is added in. Sorry, I have a very important announcement today. Mr. Juan Carrillo, I understand it's your birthday today.

Members, will you join me in wishing Mr. Carrillo a very happy birthday today? So, where we left off about the extremist views that are endorsed in this resolution, which includes ending girls' sports, the integrity of girls' sports, that is included in this resolution. I offered the author a minute's time. Mr. DeMaio, just one moment, please. Just a moment.

Mr. DeMaio, just a moment. Mr. Reading Clerk, can you hold Mr. DeMaio's time? Members, you'll have to forgive me, but on Thursday last week, I forgot it was Damon Connolly's birthday. Are you kidding me with this? So, we're going to get that this entire time? That goes on. There are two more interruptions of Mr. DeMaio's speech, and they are all about birthdays that passed, birthdays that are coming. There's another birthday they announce this next Thursday, and everyone stops and claps, and the entire chamber is laughing at Mr.

DeMaio. They're mocking him. They're clapping for the birthdays. They're handing out gifts, probably drinking. I don't know. Like, what else can they do? But it was, this was such a mockery of the democratic process. I just watched this. I can't believe Republicans would mock the democratic process again. Once again, Republicans.

Wait, no, no. No, I have something I'd like to add. Wait, what is that, Erika? What? It was the Democrat. Can I, can I submit a resolution? All right, we got a resolution to the loop cast. We could get back to caning, because at least it's a more honest and direct form of argument. I mean, this is... And it's actually what they wanted to do to Mr. DeMaio. They actually wanted to cane him. This is the most feminine girl boss way to submit a disagreement.

This was mean girls. This was okay. This was like... Ninth grade. Totally. Grow up, get a cane, have it out on the floor. That's what we used to do. We used to be a proper country. I know. Can you imagine if Carl just went up to the speaker and just gave him a good old slap across the face? Backhand, yeah. Yeah, so next time you hear someone from California's legislative body saying something like, well, we're just passing the laws, blah, blah, blah.

No, this is what's actually going on on the floor there. We had another example, and I didn't get the video in time, but a similar thing happened in New Hampshire where We had another example where They had a person get up on the floor, and they painted themselves gray and white and put little rainbow sparkly ears on their head because they were protesting the fact that somehow trans children are going to die because we have this bill. It's just so... We're infantile and theater kids.

We have so many options. Caning, duels. We used to do duels. Duels? I'm telling you, we used to actually hash out our disagreements like honorable people before, instead of just like the gayest protest possible. Like, seriously, this is like the... It's crazy. Sissiest. Gross.

Erika, you did skip the toxic masculinity quiz. I need a few more minutes. I noticed that maybe my time was limited today. I do have a scientific tool by which we can assess... How toxically masculine you are is very exciting. This, of course, was someone's PhD project, and we've quantified, but I am going to wait until we have more time on our hands, because I want to understand. I want to understand exactly which toxic masculinity traits are most prevalent on LOOPcast.

So, for example, they're going to quantify your masculine superiority, domination and desire. Your gender rigidity, your emotional restriction, that maybe you actually have some subconscious emotional restrictions and repressed sufferings. This test, guys, it's going to make it all clear to you. Exactly. And the best part about it is, we don't even have to ask whether there is such a thing as toxic masculinity. The test presupposes that you already are toxically masculine, just because of the fact that you present as. They're correct, by the way.

Yeah, so we don't have to worry about questions like that. All that is left to us is how toxically masculine, to what extent toxically masculine. Can we go through some samples here? I see men who wear women's clothing. Okay, I see that you want to take the extra time today, Tom, so I will indulge you. And as I identify as female on the podcast, I will administer the test. So, if we're worried about your gender rigidity, for example, on a scale of one to five, one being you don't agree at all.

Five agree, like you totally agree with the statement. Ready? All right, Pogo. Men who wear women's clothing are not masculine. One to five. Five. Okay, Mercer, you want to give us a score there? Five is, yeah, I totally agree with that, yeah. Okay, so that's pretty rigid of you, but that's only like a 65% indicator of how rigid you are, so let's ask another one.

Let's make it more specific. Men who wear dresses and skirts are not masculine. One to five. Yeah, obviously, yeah. Okay, okay. Well, okay, we got to up the ante a little bit. Here's one that's even more indicative. Men should only use masculine pronouns, one to five.

Five. I disagree with the framing of the question, but five. Oh, okay. Five and five. Well, okay. So, you guys, on the gender rigidity element of your toxic masculinity, you are at about 100. You have massive rigidity. Dude, Josh, high five, man. Yeah, all right. I mean, we can also talk like domination. Domination? No, we don't want to do that, though. I think that might be R-rated. This is going to start getting weird. Yeah, this is going to start getting weird.

How about your repressed suffering? Because one of the elements of being a toxic man is that you actually have a lot of pain and repressed suffering. So, on a scale of one to five, Pogo, if I am in pain, I don't let people know.

Five or. Five strongest? Okay. I'd say. You're like Michelle Obama levels of. No, no, I'd say probably three. I'd say three. I'm actually, I'm in the. Yeah. I mean, we had angry populist Tom, and you have some. I'm in the middle. I let people know. Yeah, you let people know. Okay. Yeah. Agree. If I'm angry, I let people know, but not if I'm in pain. Okay. All right. So, maybe like a three for Tom, maybe a 4.5 for Josh. All right.

If I am sick, I refuse to go to the doctor. Oh, that's a five. Never catch me at a doctor. Especially after that emergency. After my insurance, yeah. I can't afford it. This might not be a masculine thing. This is just a function of healthcare costs, but okay, whatever. I haven't been to the doctor in three years. Never catch me at a doctor, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, that's pretty good, you guys, with those two questions. You're repressed suffering, you know, about 80% for POGO, maybe.

So, pretty high. I mean, you guys are pretty toxic at this point. Yeah, we could keep going, but... Yeah, I think, you know, we don't need to tell people something that they don't already know. Yeah, that's true. All right, I have a fun one. I'm gonna end it out on a sick one. Okay, so... Wait, I have one more. Okay. I just found this one. This is actually the highest indicator that you suffer from masculine superiority. Last one. The highest indicator...

Can I give you permission to ask this question? Yeah, right. All right, I'll let you... Here it is. One to five. A woman's ideas are not as important as a man's. One to five. This is a loaded question. That was a trap question. He's just knocking at the end.

The qualifier as being like, whether it's a man or a woman, that's a one. I'll do one. Yeah, that's a one. Yeah, see, you guys are not toxic at all. Thanks for bringing us back. If you asked about driving, it would be a different story.

I love driving. That was a trap question because I knew there was going to be a follow-up, and I was like, no. I got you when your defenses were down, too. Okay, I rest. Now that we know what our scores are, we can just continue full transparency on LOOPcast about how masculine we are.

Sweet. Toxically. Okay, we got to put the link in the chat. All right, here it comes. People want to take the test. Oh, man. All right. Fun Friday activity, take toxic masculinity tests. Yep, there you go. Mine is sick. I found this awesome 17th century pulpit in Poland.

It's a whale. I love this. It's a whale. That's awesome. What are we doing here? What is that? I love Poland. Return to tradition. What has been stolen from us? Whale pulpits. And you know what? It's more like a dragon. I bet this church is breathtaking. Like, you can already see on the walls, like, the murals and the art and stuff. Yeah. They had whale pulpits. That is so cool. Why didn't, why did this catch on more? I think it's somewhat specific to this Polish artist at the time, and because they have a, like, like you said, Josh, kind of like dragon.

I, there's conflicting stuff out there. It's like the dragon lore, but then they, some people are also saying this is like the whale and Jonah, and like being a prophet. So, like, the priest when he preaches, like he's a pulpit, he's coming out of the whale's mouth.

So, do you think little boys would pay attention to the priest giving the talk, you know, in that pulpit? Yeah, I'm sure they'd, yeah, much more attention than they were previously. I was about to say, this is like the ultimate kid-friendly parish right there. Like, the kids are just going to love it. It's awesome. If we're just like, so, we know it's possible because I've seen felt banners, and I've seen, you know, screen roll downs, and I've seen just about everything.

Resurrected Jesus on the wall. Exactly. Skateboard Jesus. Skateboard Jesus. This is on the table now, by the way, and there's no defense against it. You can actually do this now. So, people did it in 1700. Baroque. I love it. Beautiful. Very chill. Shout out to the Pollock. So, shout out to the Pollocks, for real. Oh, Pollock's awesome. They're the best. Yeah, apparently, when I was at... Sweetest Heart of Mary shout-out, again, maybe my favorite church ever.

LOOPcast listener, they saw me there, but we kind of got outed because we had to leave the Corpus Christi procession early because I had to get back for something at my family's, and they're like, oh, we're hoping to see you after, and so it's not that. I'm sorry. I wish that we could have saved the whole thing.

We're not able to, but shout out to the Pollocks, for real. Go to the Progy Festival. If you're in the Detroit area, it's unbelievable. Okay, great show, guys. Go watch Erika's deep dive video. Super fun. The Deep. Go check it out. Subscribe on YouTube. Very fun. I'm actually going to be gone all week, so for those of you that don't like my stances, you're going to get a week free. of Tom's pacifism on the show. I know, I'm looking forward to it.

Mercer's like, oh, it's going to be fun. We're going to have a sweet week of bomb talk. It's going to become a Warhawk Neocon podcast. It's going to be a Gen X millennial week, that's for sure. We are hardcore. Living in the 80s and 90s. I'm going to recharge. I'm going to come back with more energy than ever.

So, it's going to be a great show. We've got Tom coming in on Monday. We've got another deep dive. Actually. We had a debate. We sent our champion out into the wilderness. Erika debated someone on God, on Catholicism, on LGBTQ. Awesome. I am super excited for that to come out. So, that is going to be on YouTube as well if you want to subscribe over there. Join the Champions Club. That is the best way to support us. CatholicVote.org slash champions. Absolutely the lifeblood of everything we do.

So, thank you to everyone who is champion listening today. It supports our work. Oh, yeah. On the prayer, I got tons of feedback. Thank you. I still have more rolling in, so I don't want to make any hard and fast decisions so far, but I actually had someone here. We have a prayer for our country done by CatholicVote. I think this is actually up on our website. So, in the interim. I will be praying this until we make a group decision on what the prayer of the LOOPcast will be.

So, if you guys want, we can end with this today. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. We pray, O Lord, for the United States of America. We pray for our leaders and that they will be inspired to lead according to your will. Most especially, we pray that every Catholic in America will be inspired to live out the truths of the faith in public life, and that it will lead to the renewal of our church and our country.

St. Thomas More, pray for us. St. Fidelis, pray for us. Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us. Amen. All right, guys. Have a great weekend. We'll see you ready to rock on Monday. Peace.