Pope Leo Drops Magnifica Humanitas: AI, Dignity, And War, Paxton wins in TX, And "Spur Nuns"

And we're live. Welcome back to the LOOPcast. It's Tom, Erika, and Josh. It's another Wednesday, another LOOPcast. We've got a packed show, as always. Today will be a classic edition of... Erika actually read all of the new encyclicals, so you don't have to. I read it. The people, what cracked me up was immediately on Twitter, we get these experts out of the woodwork that have somehow read 40,000 words in the span of an hour and a half, and are tweeting out the greatest takeaways, which the grand irony, they definitely probably used AI.

Like, they used an AI summary, and it was like, I've seen some good memes. Not necessarily. Or some people got it a little early. Okay, Josh, you've got to be nice to them. But listen, Erika did go through the entire thing, and she's going to give us a broad picture view. What was the tone? What were the main topics? What stuck out to her as an encyclical enjoyer? Some takeaways for Catholics that maybe have little kids or don't have the time for 40,000 words.

So, we're going to get the important takeaways there. We had a route is the only way to put it. Ken Paxton defeats John Cornyn in Texas. That's good news for Josh. We are looking at some takeaways there. On to James Tallarico, which will be a very interesting race, and then we have some redistricting fights kind of popping up once again. The lack of will or courts throwing them out. A little bit technical, but that is Josh's. That really gets Josh going in the morning.

That is his little espresso in the morning, some nice redistricting. But we got good news. We got Twilight Zone. What else do we have today? Oh, we've got some Iran updates for what they're worth, and we have SSPX update as well. Kind of a tragedy going on, so we're going to talk about what's going on with SSPX toward the end. Lots to talk about, but welcome everyone in the chat. Good to see you guys. As always, before we get into the show today, got to talk about Charity Mobile, of course, because now more than ever, it's important to do business with companies that stand with you and your beliefs.

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Switch to Charity Mobile and buy the way you believe. To get started, visit CharityMobile.com and use promo code LOOPcast. LOOPcast. That is CharityMobile.com. Promo code LOOPcast. Switch to CharityMobile and buy the way you believe. To get started, visit CharityMobile.com and use promo code LOOPcast. It is CharityMobile.com. Promo code LOOPcast. Thank you, CharityMobile. Okay, let us get on to the exciting stuff. Erika Barnburner, Encyclical. We have 40,000 words. The name, oh, you have this marked on the Vatican website? The Vatican website is freaking out right now.

I sure do. Magnifica. Humanitas. Getting my Latin bag there. Do you want to try a translation for us on the spot, Tom? Any guesses? Magnifico Humanitas. Humanity, one of them, and then Magnificat would be... Magnificent. Yeah, magnificent. All right, he got it. He got it. Latin scholar. All right, Regina Chaley Academy. Latin scholar, shout out.

That's awesome. Yeah, so this is exciting. This is Pope Leo XIV's first encyclical, and it's been talked about. It's been played for about six months now. It's going to be the AI encyclical. So, first, I'm going to give you the five main takeaways. Josh did a lovely little short video for us. You can check it out on YouTube or any of the CatholicVote. Here is my takeaway. Yeah, here is your takeaway. What did you have there? POV, you just asked ChatGPT to write an email, and it is Pope Leo with a baseball bat.

Or if you put any AI slop, you know, they will come at you. He is coming at you with the bat. That is awesome. Okay, so it is long, as Tom alluded to. It is 42,000 words long, and I read all of it. I did, I have to just say, in all honesty, I did skim the second half of the first. Because it was a very long history of Catholic social teaching, and I felt like I was kind of in my comfort zone there.

But another key takeaway is that it's being touted in the media as the AI encyclical. It is not an encyclical about AI primarily, right? I would say it is more about the title, Humanitas. It is about humanity in the sense of how do we remain human in an age of such a tech- ...technological revolution, such as the one we're facing with the advent of AI, and what is specifically the role of Catholic social teaching?

In this new technocratic era. So, he talks a lot about the principles, establishing a theory of how the church teaches in the world, talks about technology, yes, but also work and education, war, truth, communication, politics, it's all in there. And yes, AI is part of that digital technology revolution that we're facing, but he also talks about Data privacy, sexual exploitation, and human trafficking online. He talks about this new slavery of how humans are being treated as objects in new ways because of these developments.

The thing that I really loved that was refreshing after the last papacy's sort of confusing take on Vatican II was that he really emphasized what John Paul II would have called a hermeneutic of continuity. That means... That Catholic social teaching, and indeed all church teaching, is not... A constant reimagining or living in a rupture from its past. It is not a rejection of the past because of new circumstances in the present, but he really, through that first third of the encyclical, that history he gives, he is saying this is all in continuity with the great tradition of our faith, with scripture, with the teachings of the fathers, with the Middle Ages, and then, of course, beginning with Pope Leo XIII, with Reum Novarum, which he mentions throughout the encyclical.

This continuity of teaching, and Vatican II continuing what Pope Leo XIII began with Rerum Novarum. So, I really did appreciate that. It was a very clear, this is the Catholic Church's position, and that Catholic social teaching ...rests on these universal principles that all humans can recognize through natural law. So, human rights, the dignity of the person understood as an interplay of rights and duties, as well, solidarity, subsidiarity, the common good, the universal destination of goods, which is a really interesting one, social justice, and yes, I had an allergic reaction.

He does discuss synodality as another principle, but I'm trying to keep an open mind. I love my Holy Father so much. And it ends on a note of hope, hope and challenge. So, that is sort of like your broad 60,000-foot overview. One thing that Kelsey and I were talking about with the encyclical is that she made the point that it had some insights, specifically what you are talking about on the social teaching of the church.

And he writes that the church walks alongside humanity while, quote, recognizing the autonomy of earthly realities and the distinction between ecclesiastical and political communities, unquote. And so, that is an important distinction. In other words, The church has an important role to shepherd the flock and to call out the important moral principles, for example. The whole title of this encyclical is fantastic. It invokes this idea like, hey, you were created in the image of God. Humanity is a magnificent thing.

And so, but on the social teachings, it is a reminder. It is like, you know, there are people who spend every day in the public sector, in public service, whether it is in the courts or in elective office or, you know, working in bureaucracy or outside groups or trying to advocate stuff like we do, and they bring their expertise.

You know, to the public square, that, you know, politics, of course, has its limitations. It also has its opportunities, and the church should, you know, work alongside with those people, and don't just dictate it. Sometimes, you can get clericalism, actually, and in fact, Just because the church demands that all Catholics should be against moral evils, like pornography or abortion, doesn't mean that we should apply that same rubric on all prudential issues. In fact, that would be inappropriate. And so, it is perfectly understandable for church leaders to have a difference of opinion than, let us say, lay leaders in the church who are in a public office.

Immigration is one of those things that comes to mind, clearly. There should never be any disagreement about, do these individuals have human rights? Are they created in the image of God? Of course! And that is not really actually in dispute. The question is, what should we do about these policies? What should we do about tax policy? What should we do about education? And so, there is a lot of things, I think, in this encyclical, actually, very helpful. That he understands properly that the church should, yes, put forward more principles, but then also recognize the autonomy of earthly realities.

Yeah, I guess, and I want to dig a little bit deeper into this, Erika. Like, what sticks out to me was kind of this signature Pope Leo calm style, not bombastic, not over the top. He did use some strong language, but even when he did use a strong language, he was like, I'm doing this on purpose. I think, I can't remember the exact word he used, but like AI needs to be.

Restrained or I'd have to look up the exact word. Disarmed. Disarmed. Disarmed is the exact word. And even he kind of not apologized, but conditioned it a little bit. I think a couple things stick out to me. Especially when we look at the reaction of graduates to these people coming and basically like, you know, F you. This is going to take your job. Get used to it. Better start using it. I see Sam Altman, you have a quote in here. We see a future where intelligence is a utility like electricity or water, and people buy it from us on a meter is one of the craziest things I've ever heard.

I really got to give a lot of credit to Pope Leo's foresight here for writing an encyclical on something that's really relevant. I almost hate to say this, but I can't remember the last time I've been like, oh yeah, this encyclical really dropped at a moment where this is the hot topic and the thing being discussed. And part of that could be because, you know, it just takes a lot of time and preparation, and you want to be intentional, but it almost comes as a calm, and I think people now continue to see Pope Leo.

Where you see a lot of people that are bombastic, politicians, especially these AI titans, the way that they speak about people, like about humanity, is so unsettling, bizarre, and, in my opinion, disrespectful to the dignity of humanity. To see Pope Leo emerges this figure of calm, reasserting truths that have always been present, offering a path forward. I think it is a great look for Catholicism, period, because we offer that. Anthropology, that actually is like a calming force. Like, you think back on yourself of being, oh, we're human.

We're made in the image of God. That's a good thing. That should be something celebrated and worked with, with technology instead of dominated. People bring up Rerum Novarum. Immediately. That, to me, is also a time where the Industrial Revolution is happening. People on both sides of the ideological spectrum are really upset. I mean, major revolutions, people losing their livelihoods, new technology destroying and creating new industries. I think people thought that Pope Leo was going to come out, previous Pope Leo was going to come out, and say, okay, it is time for socialism.

We need a radical change. Whatever this is, the robber barons or whoever else, this is not working. We need socialism, and then he reaffirms the right to private property, but also speaks to the fears of capitalists, but also the other side ideologically, and brings it back to what is humanity? What is the principle? I would just say with encyclicals, obviously, sometimes you have an encyclical like Pope John Paul II did one on the rosary, so most of the world is like, oh, okay, cool, whatever.

It only really affects Catholics. So, when those do touch on social... The social doctrine of the church, whether they're, you know, social issues or economic issues, both of those do attract the world's attention. So, I would say Pope Francis' encyclical on the environment, Laudate Si, I did not care for it, but it did have an impact, and it did, you know, get a lot of attention. And the one I really like, one of my favorite ones, It was by Pope John Paul II, Santissimus Annus, which was released in 1981, right after the, you know, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the communist empire in 91.

You know, the whole 18-month stretch is what I'm trying to get at. And so. And that actually was called the 100th year. It was harkening back to Rerum Novarum, actually. I mean, that is how important Rerum Novarum really was. It really did set out, it is a landmark.

You know, an encyclical that really, you know, has paid a lot of dividends. We all read it recently, you know, it was the last year or so, and it's just been, there's so much that can be learned from it. Right. And John Paul really did take it to the next level and said, yeah, again, I affirm that there's private property, there's a market economy, but also.

You know, we should not just be slaves to consumers, you know, either. It is unjust to abuse your workers. Yeah, I mean, yeah, exactly. Yeah, and I think that is, sorry, go ahead, Josh, you finish. Well, Erika. I was just going to, yeah.

I was just going to jump in there, and I think that that's where a lot of more traditionally-minded Catholics tend to have a hesitation, if not an outright allergic reaction, to whenever a Catholic social teaching encyclical drops, because the very nature of the Church's social teaching is that it's an application. It's meant to be applied to changing circumstances in history, right? And so, you know, when John Paul II... Leo's responding to his time. John Paul II takes Rearman of Arms principles and is responding to the post-fall of the Soviet Union economic realities there, and there's always that sort of like, are we pushing the envelope?

Are we departing from tradition, et cetera? And I think that a lot of people are picking up on. Possible areas where there's questions in this encyclical, but overall, it's Magnifica Humanitas, I think, is a wonderful reminder that Catholic social teaching isn't just going with the wind and being a weather vane with the world, but it is these universal principles that are the purview of Catholicism because of the Incarnation. Okay, go ahead. Talk to me about that, Erika. Yeah. This, I guess, you have in your notes, like, this isn't just the AI encyclical, but, I mean, it sure feels like it, at least if you look at how it's being covered, although I think Axios was like, he apologized for slavery.

That was the biggest thing in here. Oh, I know. They were like, he was the first pope to ever do so. I'm like, actually, no. I was like, you're missing the forest of the trees. Like, okay. So, because of the AI encyclical, yeah, can we just discard those stupid? It's very, yeah. What is the new guidance that Pope William offers in this? In terms of navigating AI, what stuck out to you? Yeah, so someone pointed this out in First Things yesterday, that part of the challenge Leo XIV is facing here is that while Leo XIII is writing Rayman of Varum as, like, 70 years after the Industrial Revolution began, so he, like, sees how it rolled out and what it did.

He has the data set. Pope Leo, we really still don't know. What AI is, and that was why it was interesting to hear the anthropic dude at the rollout event, we'll get to that in a few minutes, giving his take on like, yeah, we don't know what we're making, still not sure what's happening there with the agentic AI. So, he was faced with this challenge of he's going to apply Catholic social teaching, like subsidiarity and principles of human dignity, to a technology that we don't fully understand what the fallout is going to be yet.

We think it's going to be... bad, but it could also be good. But he did a really good job, I think, of articulating human exceptionalism and explaining what AI is not and can never be and why. So, it is worth quoting this at length and totally worth reading. This is paragraph 99. Everyone should go read this for themselves. He wrote, it is not possible to provide a single comprehensive definition of AI, which is great. Set it out. What can be stated, however, is that we must avoid the misconception of equating this type of intelligence with that of human beings.

These systems merely imitate certain functions of human intelligence. In so doing, they often surpass human intelligence in speed and computational capacity. Offering tangible benefits across many fields, yet this power remains entirely tied to data processing. So-called artificial intelligences do not undergo experiences, do not possess a body, do not feel joy or pain, do not mature through relationships, and do not know from within what love, work, friendship, or responsibility mean, nor do they have a moral conscience since they do not judge good and evil.

Grasp the ultimate meaning of situations or bear responsibility for consequences. And he goes on about how it's imitating us. Oh my gosh, yes. It's so, it's a good negative definition, and it's so important to be reminded of that, and that alone, I think, calms people down, right? Because it's like, oh, right, we didn't create a new God. We didn't create, like, a new sentient being that is... Sam, I just have to talk about the consequences. You told me absolutely that we did.

That doesn't bear the consequences. It's too perfect, because I saw this cartoon. It just made me laugh so hard. Someone goes... Hey, AI, is this mushroom edible? And it says, yes. And the person eats it, and then you see their gray stone. Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, it's edible, but it's poisonous. Can I give you more information about this mushroom? I mean, you're joking about that, Josh, but people have actually taken their own lives because of advice they've gotten from an AI chat bot.

Like a suicide, which is terrible, but it's another thing to say, you know, can I eat this? And it says, yes, you can. I mean, of course, you can adjust it. You can eat it. Right, but I mean, that's what happens with people. It's some of the stories I've read so far on, like, people just getting caught up with a chatbot. They're convinced that, like, they're in love with it, and they have to go meet it in a digital realm. Like, how could anything possibly produce that?

And then I think we're seeing, like, actual now. There's legal blowback on, say, the metas and the snaps of the world for being too addictive. Like, they just, massive suits lately saying, okay, we owe this young woman money because she's addicted based on our technology and our intentional decisions in design, and so now, you know, we're compensating on that, and that opens up a whole other door. So, like, we're on the front end of AI with that. We're now, like you said, we don't have any experience.

I think we do with social media. Not 70 years of experience. Right, exactly. Not 70 years, but we're at the point where everything is more addictive than nicotine. I think the other thing to talk about, too, is change is so rapid now. It's probably faster than ever.

Especially with the digital world, you can change things overnight. I mean, just think about what the introduction of the internet happened to us, the introduction of cell phones did to us, and then social media. It just feels like every new technology is just like, all right, the entire world is going to change. Mobile phones, and then smartphones, and then social media. Right, and then now, yeah. Like, we're hitting this. Singularity now, and it's going so, and I think that was another big takeaway from this, is that every paragraph, every section, the Pope is saying, slow down.

We have to talk about this. We need to consider first principles. We need to have something in place, and in a way, I mean, obviously, I completely agree with him. We have to slow down, but I don't know how much that's actually going to slow anything down. Where I think it can is that Like, certain communities, certain niches, and certainly all faithful Catholics and their friends of goodwill, to whom he addresses the encyclical, should, in their personal lives, and if they're running businesses, and if they're involved in these developments, they should be like, okay, that's my call to be the voice of, we need to slow down and see what this is actually doing to us.

I think one... You should have just, you know, you should have sort of like... In the slowdown stuff, have you considered, like, maybe reading The Power of Silence by Colonel Rizzo? Look into it. We can probably use that, too.

Can we get everyone at OpenAI to read The Power of Silence today? Corporate retreat, you know, that would be awesome. Right. Yeah, like, anyway. Yeah, I think that something else that people are pointing out is that there seems to be a little bit of, and I think this comes from the uncertainty about what AI is, that there's a little inconsistency going on within the encyclical in the discussion of AI that people are picking up on. And that's that he talks about how AI is...

Could have all these positive benefits for us, and in that, he includes, he writes, That it could be helpful to engage with simulations of human connection. So, these are his words, the artificial imitation of positive human communication, words of advice, empathy, friendship, and even love can be engaging, and at times genuinely helpful. And people are kind of raising their hands and saying, I need to hear more. I'm not so sure that love would be ever helpful. And, and, you know, I think that it could be helpful to engage with simulations of human communication, words of advice, and even love can be engaging, and at times genuinely helpful.

One of the, I think the most charitable reading there is that And it's more of a naivete about just how these companies, including Anthropic, who was up on stage with him to roll this out, have deliberately engineered this aspect of AI in order to keep people on for longer, in order to addict people to the platform. So, like the anthropomorphizing of your experience with ChatGPT, that was very deliberate, and Claude, very deliberate. And we have these... And I think, too, this, when humans interact with AI right now, this sentience, we almost have to, we're compelled to assign sentience and consciousness to it because of how deliberately it's been engineered to trick our minds into thinking that.

So, yeah, I think we need more there. Like, I need more. Why, you know. Like, if you've ever listened to, I don't know if you can get through it, if you just listen to interviews with the CEOs of these places, I mean, they're like, they're like lizards. Like, it's like, they're like aliens. They're like people that have not had real human experiences. I think the closest to humanity I heard was Anthropic's CEO. Yeah, he's like the least. However, you know, the guy that they had there, Atheist and whatever else.

So, like, what's the rationale of having Anthropic on stage to roll out? This encyclical, did you see any? I would think that the Pope would want people that have knowledge of the subject, rather than necessarily making sure you find a Catholic CEO who knows about AI. You want someone who understands the subject cold, and then you can start to have this conversation, and it is an opportunity to actually try to evangelize to him and to others who may listen. To me, that is not.

A deal breaker. Oh, why is he bringing in somebody who's an atheist? Well, I mean, presumably, we believe that the church has something to say at this conversation, and why not bring in the biggest types? And this, again, for all the talk about the Catholic church is not what the times, and we're seeing decline. I mean, of course, the number of converts this year was great, but overall, the church is smaller than it was 20 years ago, and influence is waning, at least nationally, it feels like.

And here is the Pope. Again, it just shows that the Catholic Church, billion members strong, has in the teaching office of the papacy, there is a history there, and to use that to talk about issues that are of deep concern and have utter relevance to the way we are and interact as humans, I think is a great blessing for Pope Leo to get on to this issue. Yeah, 100%. I think, too, the anthropic versus, well, why wasn't it open AI? That is kind of obvious, but I think of all the big tech companies developing AI, anthropic has, and people might say this is just a marketing gimmick, they are just trying to get clicks, right?

They have publicly demonstrated the greatest amount of self-questioning and awareness that maybe we are making the Antichrist, in a way that Peter Thiel never could. But I think of all the big companies, Anthropic makes the most sense to have there, but I understand people who are like, eh, it gives me the willies, but at the same time, like Josh said, and the Pope himself said at the rollout that The church is not, and nor does it aspire to be, an expert in all human technologies.

So, we speak to the experts in human technologies. We observe their effects on human society and the family. Okay, here is one, Erika. The co-founder at this event warned that AI will displace human labor on a catastrophic global scale, confirms tech elites have absolutely no mechanism to share the wealth, leaving the global poor completely abandoned to suffer.

That has some effects. Yeah. It's a bold warning shot. It's a warning shot, and I think that we're starting to feel that a little bit, where we see things like meta cutting its workforce by 10% last week, and ascribing it to AI. We see this in governments like New Zealand. The government cut its workforce by 14%, which is awesome, because AI can do it now. And I think that We're anthropic. Yeah, he has very dire predictions, which may or may not be, the reality that comes about may or may not be as dire as he's describing, but I do think it's worth listening to him as sort of the expert in the room as to what could happen, right?

Like, I remember when we were covering Project 2027 two years ago. Remember that? Project 2027, we're going to hit the singularity, AI agents are going to take over. Oh, yeah, right, singularity, AGI, all that. Well, now it's become Project 2029. Now it's Project 2035. Right. Now it's, everything's kind of like, okay, maybe it's not going to be as bad as fast as we'd predicted two years ago. So, I think that what, and this is how the Pope ends the encyclical, right, that these things are not inevitable, right?

Human agency and human freedom is still at play here. We're not locked into this AI tunnel that's going to spit us out the other end where there's mass starvation and famine and underutilization of things for the poor, but we still have agency here, and it's time to take action. So, I think that that's where there's a great sign of hope, because there is a nihilism that comes out of the AI community, and Silicon Valley is rife with this nihilism. And this inevitability of the singularity, transhumanism is here to stay, and the Pope's like, no, no, it's not, and that's why I think he's so calm.

Yeah, but he also doesn't have any, so I think with all these AI, like the giants, like they're all the same people that own the social media companies, as I said, are not building all the data centers, and they really make a lot of money and benefit a lot from a lot of these long shot, you know, fear-mongering predictions, like you're all going to be replaced, it's going to be so awesome. The least convincing effort as of recent was with the China trip, when they're like, oh, my God, we're going to be replaced.

Oh, we got to beat China. We got to beat China. We got to beat China. We got to beat China. I was like, beat China at doing a terrible thing to your country? Like, that's not a real argument to me. Like, if you want to be mature and give me a real argument as to why we should invest in these areas. Oh, the Natcons are going to go after you, Tom. Oh, Natcon. What is it, in Tel Aviv? Is there a convention this year?

No, not exactly. Anyway, so, it's true, actually. The National Conservatism Conference is in Tel Aviv this year. So, take that, 421. China, they're like, well, China's, basically, China has less data centers and are, quote, more advanced than we are, and then we're like, oh, so we need more data centers. We already have, like, three times the amount of data centers they have. Give me an argument. I think making decisions out of fear is not, typically don't result in the best long-term efficient.

Decision-making. So, I'm just not convinced by that. So, Pope Leo, kind of not bound to those advantages, I guess, that, say, like a Sam Altman would get, or an Elon Musk would get, can just come out and say, like, no, we actually have agency. Like, you can make the decisions, and we should be mature, and we should be reasonable. Yeah, and we shouldn't- And it seems like the general mood for everyone. Like, everyone wants that outside of a small, select few people.

They're going to reap all the rewards from reaching the next, you know, steam engine, or whatever. Yeah, very much so. I think a couple of, I had two more, where people, and I think in our chat, you all are very clued into this, but where people are talking about, oh my gosh, he's endorsing socialism, and Pope Leo is like a crazy lib, and all of that. I think that where that's coming from is throughout the encyclical, you're hearing this language of structures of sin, right?

People hear that, and they think, oh my gosh, that's like Marxism, right? But if you actually read into it, and this was going on, Raymond Arroyo at the Prayerful Posse, they were ragging on this, like, oh my gosh, it's also, but I think they kind of missed the nuance that Poplio put into it, which was that there is a personal and a communal responsibility, that there's a personal and a communal conversion that's needed, and he never let go of that personal responsibility in a way that a Marxist would, right?

So, I think it's... There is some oppressor-oppressed language that's shot through that's, you know, flirting a little bit with that leftist language. He does talk about the book of Nehemiah as expressing a synodal moment, which may be a little anachronistic. I'm not sure Nehemiah and Ezra were, like, big on synodality, but I think those might be areas where people's hair starts to stand up, and I would just urge you to read it yourself. No, and as someone who's read it yourself, I guess my question would be, like, To me, if there's a country that allows prostitution legally, that's a structure of sin.

Like, people can go use the prostitution, and then the country allows prostitution. Like, I guess saying I'm against that, or I don't, that doesn't make me a Marxist, right? I mean, there's plenty of things like that, where it's like, well, we're not individuals. Everyone can't just bootstrap themselves up and be personally virtuous. Actually, the way you organize the polis matters. Like, the decisions you make to govern matter. That is the whole point. We are engaged in this. Like, if I was just a one-man army, then why am I even doing this podcast?

Like, I could just live a great life by myself. Why are you doing this podcast? Yeah, I don't know. Sometimes I wonder. Why are we here? Sometimes I really wonder. I don't know, but I am like, I am not, maybe I don't have the same aversion to like, oh, structure of sin, and like, yeah, I am not a Marxist, I am not a communist, but I am like, oh, we got some things in here we can clean up. We got some things to clean up.

Love the last section, and this one is for Tanner. Tanner, who works with us and is a total token Lord of the Rings head. Tanner, I'm thinking of you. For the first time in church history, a pope has quoted J.R.R. Tolkien in the context of a papal encyclical, and I will just read the quote from The Return of the King.

I'm so excited to read this. It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the sucker of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till.

That's for you, Tanner. Little J.R.R. Tolkien, the Inklings, popping up Vatican documents. Eric, I don't even need to ask you because I think you're a Tolkien head. Josh, are you like a Lord of the Rings guy? I guess I've never dug into that with you. You don't strike me as a... Never read the books, and I watched the first movie, and I got bored.

Yeah, but you're like, you love Star Trek, so what's the disconnect? Didn't you, like, start a test which is an academy? This feels like it should be a slam dunk. Okay, so, it is a different genre, though. Fantasy is different than sci-fi. So, they just, I don't know. Please tell me the nuances of that. I really want to get into this.

Well, like, Star Trek, it's presumably, it's science fiction, obviously, but it's meant to be like, okay, here's what's going on in the future, a couple hundred years from now. And that's interesting to me. Like, the idea of like, here's these little hobbits, and these little trolls, and these little gnomes, and I'm like, I don't, what is this? Yeah, but how is a hobbit different than Spock? What? Oh my gosh. You think Spock could exist in the real world?

Okay. Star Trek is about, you know, humanity going out into the stars. I find it interesting. I don't know. It's just so fun. Maybe I'll try it. I don't know. This is my ace up my sleeve whenever I'm talking to a Catholic homeschooler, is I drop casually that I've never read or watched The Lord of the Rings, and then it's the ultimate rage bait. They get so mad. The chat's going wild. Yeah, they get so mad. It's the best. And then I was just like, oh, is that the one where the big freaks are fighting the little freaks?

And then they get even more mad, like, no, this is actually really Catholic. And Jared's like, oh, yeah, maybe I'll get around to it. I don't know. And then they lose it every time. And I think my safe play now is I'm going to read it with my son as he comes of age, because I know that there's gold in there. I'm going to read it with the son, and then we can watch the movies. And I'm like, okay, that would be the time where I really dive in.

That's actually a good idea. That's your good way. I would never, of course, rage bait anybody, but that's a fascinating concept. Yeah. Is this about self-awareness? New to Josh's ears. Never done the radio before. No, you do it on the Tolkien stuff. I mean, I don't, you know, I always find, like, for example, talking about the Latin mass, I always express, I go, I don't go to Latin mass, but I find it very fascinating. Can you tell me more? And then, oh, man, you are their best friend.

They tell you all about it, and it's so exciting. That's really beautiful. You're doing reverse rage baiting. You're, like, you're joining me. Yeah, I'm always questioning. I'm always interested. I'm like, oh, that's fascinating. Tell me more. I would say it is possible to become a great saint without ever reading J.R.R. Tolkien, as witnessed by the first 1,900 years of church history. However, it is much more difficult, so highly recommend it. True, true. It might be helpful. Why shoot yourself in the foot?

Oh, my goodness. He was very anti-industrial revolution. Man, was Tolkien. He was very... Him and Ted Kaczynski. I mean, that's... Could be true. The Venn diagram does not overlap very much. I still can't believe that he got the New York Times to publish his manifesto.

Oh, you can't believe that? Do you see what the New York Times publishes? Oh, my gosh. Oh, that's true. I just mean the way he went about it. They have a problem publishing, you know, Arkansas Republican Senator Tom Cotton, but not Ted Kudzinski.

He was threatening to bomb them. I don't know. Yeah, I've just been on bomb mode since reading the Weather Underground book. Go check out the latest episode of The Deep. It was fantastic. Oh, and okay, and check out the latest episode of Tom Across America. We watched it with the kids last night. The kids were cheering. The kids were laughing. It was awesome. Everyone agreed that Simon was the actual protagonist. Obviously.

Yeah, check out Tom Across America. Tom entered a 100-mile dirt bike race in the desert with, what did you have, like six hours of practice, like a week before or something? Yep. That's about right. Yep, and one bad bachelor party experience, and I'll leave it at that. I loved the cast of characters. Tom's whole bachelor party showed up and interviewed for this film, so it's very cool. There was a part of me where I was just like, and I cut that down too, but I'm like, I need to have all of my closest friends.

I need that immortalized in media to show to our posterity one day, because we've told that story so many times, and now we have it in media form, but yeah, you'll laugh, you'll cry. Watch it with the boys tonight, Josh. There's no stunt doubles in Time Across America. That was actually me. That is still the craziest thing I've ever done. This series has just become like, how close can we get time to breaking a bone?

And it's been wildly entertaining so far, so I'll throw it in the chat. Shout out to Simon. I think he might be the villain because he convinced me to do it. He kind of coerced me, but if you get to know me, it's not. I guess, yeah, before we move on.

The one thing I just loved about Tom Across America is it's such a change of pace, obviously. Like, there's people that listen to this show that don't care about it at all, which is totally fine. But my discovery along the way is there's just these, with the bike people, I just got them so wrong. I was like, these are going to be the, like, tatted up, you know, cut-off sleeve, want nothing to do with me. And I get out there, and these people are just sucking.

Life off the vine. Like, they are just vivacious. Wow, what an image. They're just doing it. They're just doing it. To the max. And I don't know if it's just something because of the noise, the activity is so intense, but it just brings the best out of people. People were so excited to talk about their bikes, excited to talk, spend time with their families. I got to talk to a guy who's like, we grew up on dirt bikes. It's the best decision we ever made for our family.

My boys and I, we go camp all the time. It's grown a relationship. It's grown us in virtue. How articulate they were. I was like, this is the... How did I not know about these people? They all descend upon the desert. The Eagles and Fleetwood Mac never made sense until I drove through the Mojave Desert. Now, it does. That was awesome. Go check it out. Just super fun. Total change of pace. Shout out, Simon. Shout out to Zeal. So, before we do that, if you want to come hang out with us, we have the America 250 Rally.

Josh, can you explain this briefly while I plug in my computer? Well, I mean... The President of the United States has called on everyone to celebrate America's 250th anniversary, and we at CatholicVote are taking up the call. We're gathered together to celebrate our country and our faith by coming to La Crosse, Wisconsin, June 13. You've got to check it out. Zeal for America 250.

Go to CatholicVote.org, and you can find out more information about this. We've got some great speakers coming in. I'm going to have the chance to talk with Coach Lombardi. We have our own CatholicVote. Steve Cortez will be there. Kelsey Reiner will be speaking, and a lot of people are very excited to find out that we have Michael Knowles and Isabel Brown are coming, so some really big speakers to come in and give talks. It's going to be an exciting time.

Bam. It's going to be a great, great event. Bam. There it is. Excited to be in La Crosse. It's going to be sick. Yeah. La Crosse in June, on the Feast of the Sacred Heart, too. Cardinal Burke is going to pray for America. We can pray with him. Just really excited.

And I'm excited to be in person with you guys, too. Like, speaking of, like, the digital age and all this, this is cool. I've actually been AI this whole time. Intelligence? Artificial. I don't know about intelligence. Yeah, it'll be a good time. It'll be a great measure. Okay, on to B Block, Texas runoff. I mean, no other way to put it, Josh. I think this was the widest primary defeat for a sitting senator in nearly 50 years.

64% to 36% goes to Paxson. So, how long has Cornyn been in office? At least 20 years, right? He was first elected to the Senate in 2002, right after the 9-11. Yeah, so this has been a while. Yeah, 24 years. Yeah, over 20 years. So, yeah, major takeaways, Republicans spent $100 million on Cornyn just to have him losing a runoff was one of the craziest things to me. Again, we mentioned it before, but this absolute masterstroke of political genius.

When, you know, and Texas has this runoff, and so there's like three candidates running, obviously, Cornyn, Paxton, and this other guy, Wesley Hunt, and Cornyn was unable to convince Republican voters in Texas to give him another six years. If he just got 50% plus one vote, you know, back in the first primary, just a few weeks ago, he coasts to another six years, right? Yeah.

But a majority of Republican voters are like, no, we want somebody else, and this then, last night, was the runoff. They take the top two candidates, in this case, Cornyn, and also Attorney General Ken Paxson, and Ken Paxson, masterstroke, he made this a referendum on the SAVE Act, because the SAVE Act in itself is good legislation, and it should be passed, but it became something even bigger than it was, in a sense.

Because this is something that has 80% approval rating amongst Americans, that we should verify that we have citizenship before someone casts a ballot. Not just ID, but that they are actual citizens. And Americans, 80% of Americans support this. A majority of Democrats support it, voters that is. Blacks, Hispanics, whites, every category, every demographic. And Republican, conservative voters are like...

This. This is a test to see if the Republicans in the Senate can actually advance this legislation and get it passed by the Senate. Now, I know there's filibusters, but the thing is, move it. Try to get it done. Put the public pressure on these Democrats. If 80% of the American people support it, then you should be able to get Democrats in states like Arizona to buckle.

To maybe support this legislation, and to get it done. And Ken Paxton says, hey, listen, you passed that SAVE Act, you put it on President Trump's desk for a signature, and I'll quit, and Cornyn can stay here. And of course, it was a brilliant move, because if it actually passed, what's the point of running? You're fine. You won. And if it doesn't get done, and it did not.

Paxton stays in the race, and it was such a great moxie move. It was such an art of a deal that President Trump was on the brink of endorsing John Cornyn for re-election. He actually had the post in his Truth Social queued up and ready to go. He just had to hit enter, and it would have been boof, and out there for everyone. But no, Trump liked that move. It had such moxie. Moxie. Do you think if Trump endorses Cornyn, he wins?

So, that is the big debate today. Paxton, you mean? Cornyn. No. So, he endorsed Paxton. I agree with what Tom is saying. Oh, if he had endorsed him. So, is this just another Trump throwing his weight around? He wins. So, everyone is saying that this is just, you know, in the media, it is just saying, oh, for the proof, this is Donald Trump's party. He has got more power than ever, and there is a lot of truth to that. But then some people are saying, no, no, hold on a second.

It wouldn't have mattered, you know, like, because he just endorsed Paxton, like, about a week ago. And some people are saying, if he didn't endorse Paxton, you know, Paxton would have still won. I mean, yes, that's true in a sense, but the fact is, he almost endorsed Cornyn two months ago, and that could have been. You know, but the fact that Ken Paxton made this election a referendum on whether or not the Republican Senate can get anything done and pass the SAVE Act was a stroke of genius, and it rallied conservative voters who are very frustrated with the pace of change, because it always seems to happen that when Democrats get elected to office, they pass tons of legislation, and they advance their agenda in rapid fashion, and it really is only President Donald Trump who gets anything done for Republicans through executive order.

We do not really see much in the way, with the exception of a Supreme Court nomination, like what is it that the Senate has done? I am glad that they got the big, beautiful bill passed last year. There was some good stuff in that bill. With the exception of that, it just feels like, because Republicans in the Senate, like Cornyn, are like, well, we do not have 60 votes to break this filibuster, so what is the point? It is like, So, you're just going to phone it in?

You're just going to collapse before you even have the fight? Fight! Fight the damn fight! Actually try to, you know, make it, increase the temperature, make it very, you know, unforgiving for people to be against something that 80% of Americans support, for the love of all that is holy. And John Cornyn, who worked with Barack Obama to get gun control measures passed when he was president. ...and supported amnesty at every turn. It was good. Good riddance, John Cornyn. See you later.

Yeah. Tom's excited, too. Republicans in Texas deserved a better senator than John Cornyn. Why am I excited, Erika? Oh, well, I just thought you would be thrilled, because this is also proof that the Republican Party is not controlled by AIPAC, since AIPAC endorsed Cornyn. Yes, that's great news. Yeah, I mean, so John Cornyn, people frustrated with him for so many different issues as someone that actually is like... America First and conservative. I mean, he's like a Bush-era conservative, and you guys all have heard my disdain.

Absolutely. You've heard my disdain many times for Bush-era conservatives, for people that are war hawks, that support all these foreign entanglements. The thing is, someone made the point, Tom, sorry, but someone made the point that when senators, no matter how long they've been in office, they always seem to be stuck in the mode of their first election to the Senate.

And this is no... More obvious than Cornyn. Cornyn comes in in 2002, very much a neocon, Bush, right after 9-11, tax cuts, pro-military, pro-wars in foreign countries or whatever, and pro-amnesty, which is exactly what George W. Bush was. There was never that adaptation. There was never that, gosh. Circumstances on the ground have changed dramatically. The people in my state feel like I'm not representative of them anymore. I need to change and be more representative of them because things have changed, but these senators don't, and if they don't change, You're going to get booted.

For sure. That was my question coming into today's conversation, is with the primary season now largely behind us, and we are locked and loaded for the midterms, is this actually going to drive other, maybe more rhino-leaning Republicans who are still in the Senate to change their behavior? Will it actually give them a warning shot across the bow, like Lindsey Graham, for example? Will we see any changes to actual behavior in the Senate over the next six months? Lindsey Graham won't change his pro-war ways until he is six feet under, but I do think this will have an effect.

I mean, the thing is, we're seeing a change in the Senate over time. A lot of these rhinos, like Tom Tillis from North Carolina, he decided not to run for re-election. He's not running. Had he done so, he might have been ousted in the primary, and we're seeing, you know.

Cassidy out of Louisiana, he lost his primary. Cornyn lost his primary. So, we are seeing changes in the Senate makeup. We're going to actually have, I think, bolder leaders in there who are going to be impatient with the slow change at which the Senate kind of operates. Like, look, Democrats are going to come into power someday, and they're not going to be playing patty cake, patty cake. They're going to be loaded for bear. So, we've got to use this time and advance legislation and get things done.

We can't just sit around and debate. Yeah, it kind of reminds me of, like, I certainly have plenty of frustrations with Trump right now, but it reminds me of the Indiana redistricting thing, and now Kevin Hicks and John Cornyn, where it was like, I have a lot that I'm frustrated with. The Iran stuff, the Israel stuff, no question, foreign aid. Betrayal and promises, Epstein. However, I don't have tolerance for people that are not going to go to fight. I'm really done with the institutional Republicans that are controlled opposition and don't actually want to go do anything.

We're not going to redistrict. We're not going to give ourselves advantages, like act as a team and actually chase down wins. And I think if the SAVE Act actually was passed, Trump would get a ton more grace from people that are frustrated right now. If he actually had pulled it off, he actually put up the fight, he actually put the attention on that. It's an 80-20 issue. Well, that is on Thune and Cornyn, rather than Trump. Exactly, and that is on Thune and Cornyn.

That is why I am like, I want these guys gone. But even if you go through Cornyn's, I was going back through his laundry list. So, the gun compromise after Yuval Day, I think, was frustrating to a lot of people.

Ukraine-Israel aid support, corporate subsidies, bipartisan immigration, negotiations, quote-unquote, which just meant amnesty, which he got hit perfectly over. And then, yeah, old guard ties. I mean, we think back to Mitch McConnell. He has been around forever. People want something new. And then I go back to Paxton, and like, yeah, Paxton's got his baggage, no question.

So did Trump. So did all these people. I almost see, like, it's, I guess it's a little bit sad. You see this on both sides, where it's like, we have crooks and liars that end up in Congress. I think back to, what's the guy? Santos was insane. He just lied about his entire life. And the attention isn't actually put on, like, people can't even look at it now, because there's so much distrust in the justice system, where, okay, let's actually have a fair adjudication of whether or not fraud was committed or something was committed.

And now it's just seen because of Trump, because of how unfairly he was treated in many different ways, as like, oh, this is kind of a witch hunt. Like, people are going after you because you're actually trying to get things done. And I think Ken Paxton actually really benefited from the Trump mold, because he had the fraud allegations in 2023. However, he's really hardline on abortion would be a great example. I think he sued a New York doctor accused of sending abortion-inducing drugs to Texas residents.

He's been awesome. He's been a great attorney general. And he used former AG. But he's actually attacking. Same thing with going after big tech. That's awesome. I look at that. I look at the border lawsuits under Biden. The Biden administration was coming in to try to get rid of the barbed wire, parole in place in Texas. He's like, we're not doing this. We're actually not doing this. And I was like, oh, I look at that. It's like, okay, this is someone who's attacking.

This is someone who's actually working, and so I think that's appealing. People want to fight her. I think what this gets down to, though, is the split in the Republican Party, and this is... Really emblematic between Cornyn and Paxton, and I think Cornyn represents those Republicans in the Beltway. Who's, their central belief is that their voters are wrong, and that they need to be managed, and curtailed, and told what to do. Manipulated, right. And I just think back to like, okay, so was it a little bit awkward and embarrassing that at the town hall that McCain had back in the day where the woman's like, Obama's a Muslim, and he's like, oh no, he's patriotic.

And McCain was just thinking to himself, I'm so embarrassed by my own voters that they would say this. And it's like, yeah, the answer is, he's not Muslim, he's an atheist. That's the real problem. He's a secular humanist. But he's not calling for a jihad, he's calling for a rainbow jihad. That's the problem. But it does get to this thing for decades now. We've had Republicans from George W. Bush, John McCain, Mitt Romney. And John Cornyn, who just thinks so lowly of their own voters.

You know, they're just like, they roll their eyes, and they just can't, oh my gosh, they have to embarrass. It's like, you know what? Stop treating us like we're petulant children. We expect you to be our representatives. You actually work for us, right? You're not the boss. We're the boss. Like, oh my gosh, we're not to be managed. We are free people. Stop acting like we're ... That was the one thing that always got me so frustrated about the 1992 campaign, at the town hall, the three candidates, and one guy's like, we're your children.

Take care of us. And, you know, of course, Bill Clinton loved that, and I'm like, George Bush is looking at his watch or whatever, and it's like, no, you are not children. You are a free man. Stop acting like a little petulant child, and I hate it when our leaders in Washington are like, oh gosh, these cranky conservatives. Like, no, stop it. And that's what's, why is it that Republican voters love Donald Trump so much? It's because they actually feel like he listens to them.

Well, until recently, Josh. No, hold on, hold on, hold on. I'm just saying, everything you just said applies to how Trump's treated people that voted for him in 2024. Okay. For the first eight years, we can talk about the last few months, okay? But this is... It is truly remarkable how starved Republican voters were for politicians that actually would represent their interests and care about what they care about. Like, the immigration issue is so symbolic, and it's so important, obviously, because you're talking about changing the very people that we are, right?

But you would have, you know, go back to 2006. George W. Bush and Cornyn and all these Republicans were willing to sell out. And have mass amnesty for 10 million people in this country. And Republican voters are like, what are you doing? Like, what on earth? Like, this is something we would expect Obama to do. And Obama had larger majorities, and he didn't even think to do it. He's like, let's do healthcare. We might not get immigration. He took up the mantle of Pat Buchanan, who was exercised from the party, and then you get the Bushes, you get the neocons, and all that.

He gave the warning. Trump ran the Buchanan playbook in 2016. Pretty demonstrably, and yes, I agree. So, now it's like we're in a new era of politics in which you have to listen to the voters, and you see that in Paxton, you see that in Indiana, you see this in the redistricting, and which makes it so confusing why Trump is just so off-base on the war issue. Like, it's just not popular, even within his own party, at least under a certain demographic, and then largely with independents, and then the country now.

Like a lot of other voters who voted for Trump, I'm going to give them a little bit more slack on this. I didn't like the war, okay? But I don't want to get into that, because I really think you have to understand the pent-up frustration for conservative and Republican voters for pretty much the entire 21st century.

Where they would have people in Washington, you know, they campaign like they're Thomas Jefferson, and then they go to Washington and vote like Nancy Pelosi, and it would drive us crazy. It's like, why is it that liberals could vote for liberals and get liberals in Washington, and the conservatives would vote for conservatives and they'd get liberals? It's like, it was so frustrating.

With the exception of this Iran war, I will say, with the exception of this Iran war, and it's not a small thing, I get that, but for the last seven, eight years for Donald Trump, What you, you know, he would throw out lots of different ideas, and some are clunkers, and his own voters are like, what are you doing? We hate that. No, stop. Stop bragging about how you were, you know, good on the vaccine, and eventually, he just shut up about it.

You know, like, he actually would listen to his own voters in a way that other Republican officeholders would refuse to do. They would turn their backs on their own voters, like, oh my gosh, I can't stand him. So, that is critical to understanding Donald Trump. And also, as you say, the Indiana redistricting election, and Ken Paxton, and also the voters in Louisiana, who gave Cassidy like 29%. That was a thumping. 70% of Republican voters voted for other people than him. That is even more of a trouncing than courting.

So, yes, everyone likes to say, oh, it is all about Trump. It is actually about Republican voters who are coming up and realizing, wait a minute now. Democrats get warriors when they elect them, and they fight for the most crazy things. We want to make sure that illegal immigrants get transgender surgeries, and we need to make sure poor books are in public libraries, but we can't get the SAVE Act? But it's crazy you're saying all this, and I don't know if this is a recent phenomenon with Democrats, but Democrats are super frustrated with their representatives as well.

Like, what's congressional approval right now? Like 9%? They view that everything you just said, I've heard said about Democrat politicians that represent them right now, and that's why they're so unpopular. That's why they're primarying. That's why they're getting more extreme. I understand that, but the disparity between the liberal voters and their liberal politicians is actually not that big of a delta. It is a much greater delta on the Republican side, where we get people like, oh, you listen to a stump speech by Governor Mike Pence.

You are like, oh, this guy, he will be a great Vice President. You are like, what? You realize, no, in fact, these guys all talk like they are Thomas Jefferson or Rush Limbaugh, and then they get to Washington, and they are like, oh, like John James here in Michigan votes for the kill switch on cars. What are you doing here from Michigan? That is the worst of all of these. The redistricting is a little bit confusing. Is there a, oh, actually, no, before we get to that.

So, he's going to go up against James Tallarico. Now, listen, for all my many frustrations with the Republicans and the Trump administration, here are some real quotes from James Tallarico. God is non-binary. Jesus Christ himself is a radical feminist. There are six biological sexes. Our trans community needs abortion care, too. White skin gives me and every white American immunity from the virus. Giant welcome mat at the border. That is what Texas Democrats are putting up against Paxton. I think they're excited.

I think this is the matchup they wanted. Paxton has more scandals. He's more bombastic, gives them more of a target, more of a fundraising arm, probably then say like Amelia Mouth, John Cornyn, who's just been around forever and has name appeal. Any chance for James Rodrigo?

You know, of course, there is a chance, because if the economy melts down further, and, you know, incumbents tend to have a better chance at it, and this is the thing I am, like, The establishment in Washington loves no risk, like a nice warm blanket, and they're like, why would we ever get rid of John Cornyn? Because we'll be guaranteed six more years. It's like, well, I mean, he's a liberal Republican, so why don't we get a conservative Republican in there?

Like, hello. Well, they're like, well, John Cornyn's a Boy Scout. Yeah, and he'll stab us in the back and give citizenship to 20 million people if he's given the chance, you know, where you're illegally. Like, he's terrible. Like, I don't get this. And so, it's like. Here is an opportunity, and the voters in Texas, Republican voters in Texas, thank you, God bless you, for saying, no, let us actually try to, you know, improve what we got here. Now, Tallarico, no, I do not think he has got a chance.

First of all, everyone always, you know, the Beltway has been panning on Ken Paxton. Ken Paxton, he is the Attorney General of Texas. Remember who ran against him a few years ago? Backed by the establishment. George P. Bush, that's right, Jeb Bush's son, ran against Paxton, and what did Paxton do? I forgot that. Squashed him like a bug. It's not like Ken Paxton is a neophyte. He's been running for office for a long time. The guy knows his stuff. Is he a flawed candidate?

Sure, but so is John Cornyn. Tallarico, he talks about the American flag as being a conflicted symbol. Causing people problems? Like, what? In Texas. Hello? Texas? That would fly in Connecticut or Rhode Island. Probably not. So, I just don't, I mean, you know, will it be a closer race than it would have been for Cornyn? Sure, but we're going to get a much better Senator, and Tallarico is not going to win. Will Tallarico do better than Beto O'Rourke? No, actually, I think Beto O'Rourke was a much, I mean, of course, I think Beto was also crazy, but more telegenic, you know.

I think I'm a stronger candidate, for sure. Yeah, Kelshi puts Paxton at 55%, so for those of us who live by the betting markets. Well, just last week, they said he was 49%. Yeah, that's almost like, it's hard to even rely on that now, because people just dump a ton of money after big news comes in, and be like, oh, they're at this, and then it'll chill out a little bit. But, okay, let's run good news now. Erika, what do you have?

Oh, what do I have? Here I go. Oh, this is great. Okay, first, we need to show this clip of Marco Rubio. He did a state visit to India. Very important. Obviously, lots going on over in Asia, but as part of his visit, he asked if he could visit the tomb of St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta, and I cannot get enough footage of the Secretary of State of the United States of America has the ear of the president and walking around with these little tiny missionary of charities nuns.

Signing their guest book. We're going to have a very nun-centric news today. We are. Awesome. We love the nuns, and yeah, I just, I love these images so much, and knowing how these women live compared to how most Americans, and certainly Marco Rubio lives, just in poverty. And for context, this is the grave of Mother Teresa? Yeah, that's the tomb of Mother Teresa there, and look at that. It's not even in this big, fancy cathedral or shrine. It's just... In a room in the mother house, and yet, he laid a wreath on behalf of the United States.

Dang. So, this is who we should visit when we go to India. It makes that go hard. We got all the sisters of charity on that. That reminds me of when a former Secretary of State visited the Tilma at Our Lady Guadalupe Shrine in Mexico City, and she said, who painted that? Yeah.

Way to go, Hillary. Jesus. Oh, my gosh. Hillary Clinton. That's my favorite meme of all time, maybe, is her walking into the working class apartment in Brooklyn and, like, freaked out, like, this is how people live? She also had a run-in with Mother Teresa, St. Mother Teresa, at the National Prayer Breakfast, and that was in 94, 96? Something around there, 93, 94, something like that. And Mother Teresa sitting, I will never, I was like 12 or 13 years old, and I remember watching the footage, and the Clintons are in the front row, and Mother Teresa is just standing there saying, the greatest scourge in the West is abortion, and the Clintons are just, they just have to sit there.

You'd think the media would love it, because they love it when we speak truth to power, right? No, I don't think they actually do. I don't think they actually do. They didn't like that. That's just a nice line, democracy. Okay, my second good news, though, is the Midwest, beloved homeland of Pogo and Josh. It seems to have stopped shrinking. So, this was a really beautiful story in the Wall Street Journal. I would recommend you read it. I think I have a gift link here, so you can pop that in the chat.

Yeah. After a half century of decline, basically from 1960 to 2022, the Midwest was just, you can see the graph there. Slow fade. Slow fade and sometimes a fast fade. It is not just managing loss anymore, and you can see we've started to creep up. A few causes of this is just that the Sunbelt and the Coastlines are now so expensive. They're full, right? They're all filled up, and now they're going in the Midwest. So, the median sales price for an existing single-family home, the cities they were profiling were Akron, Ohio, and Cleveland, was $230,000 versus 420 nationwide.

They talked about economic redevelopment. So, of course, one of the causes of the shrinkage in the Midwest was the deindustrialization and the emptying out of the factories. We all have seen images of Detroit and just blocks and blocks of empty, big buildings.

But those have been, like the BF Goodrich Tire Factory in Akron, Ohio, now is being transformed into a big innovation hub. They have an incubator housing, 60 companies, advanced manufacturing, AI, intelligence companies, virtual reality, agricultural tech, and it's just a really amazing story that decline doesn't have to be forever, and that maybe the Midwest is worth looking at.

Which, as someone from New England, is kind of hard to say. For, like, classical architecture, absolutely. That's the thing. Like, you have these buildings that you can restore. Seriously, yeah. Yeah. That have just been empty for so long. I mean, we did the... That Forgotten USA episode about Steubenville. Yeah, Ohio. They're revitalizing the downtown, and the downtown, even before they started revitalizing, was amazing. The buildings were just so beautiful. There's just nothing in them, and it just takes people to commit to the community and do fun, community-organized events.

Well, in 1970, Steubenville, Ohio, had the highest... Superville, Ohio had the highest wages in the country. Right. The height of the industrial age. Yep. Love seeing that. Shout out to the Midwest. Very cool. Midwest is up. So, Midwest.

Also, yeah, quick chat reminder, like, okay, keep it civil. Like, I'm going to be putting people in timeout. We're going to be attacking each other. I know you got ideas, but I'm really going to try to monitor that because we don't want it to be nasty. So, let's go into Josh's Twilight Zone now. So, I mean, social media has been largely a negative influence on society, but I just wanted to share some really good news. Okay. So, this woman, Ann Sherrill, she posted something on X, which was formerly Twitter, and she said, this is probably a long shot, but if anybody happens to be in D.C.

this weekend, it's Memorial Day, right, and plans on visiting Arlington, I would love to see a fresh photo. My husband's grave in Section 60, and she puts, you know, the information about his life there. There's just something about knowing people still stop by, still say his name, still remember.

And so not only did it happen, Tulsi Gabbard, a member of the president's cabinet and head of the She, DNI, I'm trying to remember. Former, she just stepped down. Yeah, she just stepped down because we're ahead of the intelligence agency. She said, she posted on Twitter a photo of her placing flowers at this man's grave. It was an honor.

To visit your husband's grave today on your behalf, and to pay my respects. It was wonderful to see the beautiful flowers representing many others who did the same. Our nation owes a debt of gratitude to those who paid the ultimate sacrifice and to those left behind. Thank you for your service and sacrifice, she said to the widow. That. That's so classy and beautiful. Wonderful, and of course, Tulsi did serve our country in uniform as well, so she understands quite clearly the sacrifices that are made by our men and women.

I did not serve our country in the military, but my brother, my sister, my father, and somebody out there in my family, so I have a considerable respect, and thank you so much, Tulsi. For stepping up to the plate like that, and the others who put the flowers there. It's just nice to see something really kind of cool on social media like that. Like, man, it almost redeems all of it. Redeeming the times, yeah. I have another redemption, but before we were talking about this off-air, did you say, was it, I can't remember where it came from, but someone posted, like, Memorial Day post.

For the people that lost their lives in the Iran war, I think it was the 13 in Kuwait, as kind of like a political gotcha, and what was behind, was that the Democrats' account? Yeah, so the Democrats actually posted that, like it said, here's the 13 people who died for Trump's war in Iran or whatever. It was just very crass political attack. In fact, A wounded veteran and Senator Tammy Duckworth. I don't think I agree with her on justifying. Maybe this is it.

Maybe this is it. Might be the only thing. This was the moment. She actually, kudos to her, because it's very easy to attack the other political party, but when it's your own party, it's harder, but she did. She retweeted that and attacked her own party, like said, this was a shameless attack. I do not support this. I don't think this was responsible, and to their credit, the Democrats actually had enough decency. I guess, to pull it and delete the text. I mean, as they should.

It was completely tacky and disrespectful, unacceptable on a day where we... Perfectly okay to oppose this war in Iran, but not to try to score political points and dunk on the other team in that way. You got, on Memorial Day, to do it like that was just tacky. No. So pray, if you remember, on Monday, pray for the repose of the soul of all the soldiers that sacrificed their life for the country. Amen. Do it again today. Do it all the time.

Think about that often. Okay, yep, my good news, it's going to be very nun-centric today. I love the Spurs nuns. I just discovered them. I'm going to need... What is this? The Spurs nuns. The Spurs nuns, they're the Salesian Sisters of St. John Bosco, St. Don Bosco, or Don Bosco as he's known. Can you find me a cuter... I mean, they're here, taking videos, living it up. I have a... They have Spurs jerseys over their habits. Yeah, Spurs jerseys over their habits, and here's Luke Cornett.

He's the center on the Spurs, getting blasted by the nuns. Whoa, is she like four feet tall? Why are my hands so short? I think it's just he's really tall. It's probably a combo of both, but... That's crazy. He's a good man, though. He was the guy I was telling you about that called out the Atlanta Hawks for having that strip club promotion. Right. Yeah, kind of well-known, like, Catholic. There's a couple other Catholic players. He literally comes up to his elbow.

Sorry, I'm really struck by this. No, all good. And I think someone was doing a sideline interview. So, I find out about these sisters, and apparently they watch all the games. Yeah, they say we're especially rooting for some of our favorites. Luke Cornett, who's the Catholic. Dylan Harper, he was a grad from Don Bosco Prep in New Jersey. And then Wemby, all-star on and off the court. Very cool. But, I mean, is there a cuter group of nuns? I'm not sure.

But it was their feast day, and so they're at the game for their feast day, and they did like a sideline interview with one of the nuns. It was just adorable. And then, so I was looking into the sisters.

A female religious institute formed by St. Don Bosco, along with St. Maria Dominica, Mazzarello, in 1872. Don Bosco, I was familiar with Don Bosco from the camps. I don't know if you guys have heard of Don Bosco camps. They're camps for boys. He's a patron saint of youth, students, apprentices, editors, and Catholic publishers. Felt very appropriate.

So, the spur nuns, we're talking about how they've been fans since... So, a lot of times, they teach, and they work with the youth, so they want to find things to relate on and talk to, so they often talk to their students about the Spurs, and they get all excited. It's just like a cool way to connect, and apparently, Greg Popovich came by, and one of the nuns that passed away in 2018, my God, rest his soul, was talking. The coach came with the team, and he spoke to everyone.

He took pictures with each sister, even if they were in their wheelchair. He would kneel down and talk with his sister. He was very affectionate with us. What she typically does during Spurs games, when the other team is making the basket, I say, St. Joseph, sit in the basket so they don't win.

That's awesome. So, I love seeing him on the broadcast. And then someone did an artwork concept of Victor Wembinata, who legit is an alien. You want to talk about the disparity. But I think this is just like, I don't know if he used AI or if he actually designed it or whatever he did, but I thought this was a really cool concept, like the black and white. You got the nuns and the... In the stadium, and here's one of you sitting next to the nuns, running up the steps, and then, yeah, him with the black away in the nuns.

It's cool. Is he selling Nike shoes? Is that what's going on? It was a concept, so it was just like an artist basically was like, hey, here's a potential, you know, if you were to do a shoot, like you could do something like this. So, I saw it all over social media, but I love the nuns. Anytime I see a nun in public, it's the best. You're just like happy.

They exist on behalf of others. Key to success, good habits. Amen. That's funny, Josh. I got that. Okay, Erika, talk me through Iran's state of play, speaking of nuns and prayers. Okay, so... For those of you who have been keeping track, we are on week 12 of the Iran war, and just a quick review. So, we had phase one, U.S.-Israel total barrage, took out the Ayatollah, took out the top brass, bombed, bombed, bombed, took out their whole air force, most of the navy.

Phase two, we got the closing of the strait. And we have Iran retaliatory strikes on really the Gulf neighbors around them. And now we're in phase three, which seems to be the prolonged war of blockades, the endless negotiation, the swings. We have Trump flooding the zone.

Of social media with constant, we are going to end the civilization, and we are so close to a deal. I am very good friends with the IRGC. We had, this was just a couple of them. So, on April 20th, we threatened lots of bombs would start going off, and then on May 5th, we had announcing great progress toward a complete and final agreement with representatives of Iran. Of course, we had the Pakistan meeting, then we had the canceled Pakistan. So, again.

We are in major whiplash negotiation. Not really sure what's going on. Are we still blocking the blockade? We are, and we did have some strikes on Monday this week, and they were couched as self-defense strikes into southern Iran that we made because the ROGC had sent out some boats to lay more mines, which was in violation. So, we retaliated, et cetera. But the ceasefire is still on, I think they said. Yes. Yeah, okay.

Israel's bombing Lebanon still. Yeah, we had seven strikes into Lebanon from Israel on Monday as well. Yep. So. Still going on. The big news that everyone was like, oh my gosh, maybe it is almost over, yesterday, was that Trump was going to convene his entire cabinet at Camp David today.

And Camp David, for those of you who do not know, it is very rural. It is very secluded. It is like where the presidents go to be top security and have these very private conversations with their advisors. And so, everyone was very excited because Trump does not go to Camp David. It is too rustic, not enough gold on the epaulettes or whatever. And I think he likes the leaks. I genuinely do. I think that's a part of it. It might be another theory.

But anyway, they didn't go to Camp David. That's a hot take, and it's actually pretty good, actually. Yeah, that's actually kind of cool. So, they're in the White House today. The whole cabinet is coming together, and Axios, of course, has an exclusive with anonymous sources in the White House, as usual, but they're usually, like, they're 80-20, so I'm going to go with Axios. Barack Ravid. Is this Barack? Yeah, yep. What they are telling us, well, maybe 40-60. What they're telling us is that they're going to be in the White House.

That there's a 60-day ceasefire extension on the table, that Iran has agreed to open the Strait of Hormuz and levying no tolls and clearing their mines, which they were supposed to have been doing this whole time. Also, during that period, the U.S. would have sanctions waivers that would enable Iran to sell its oil that is then going to be shipped out of the Strait. The faster they clear the mines, the faster the U.S. lifts the blockade. So, it's sort of a, like, you know, rewards, punishment kind of thing, relief for performance basis.

At the same time, negotiations would continue curbing their nuclear program. The draft included commitments from Iran to never pursue nuclear weapons and to negotiate over suspension of uranium enrichment program, and if the negotiations progress successfully, Iranian funds would be unfrozen and sanctions permanently lifted, and then also included, supposedly, might be an end to the Israeli war on Hezbollah in Lebanon. So... Yes. All of this has been mentioned before in the last four weeks of negotiation. It has been dropped. It has been mentioned.

It has been back and forth. Wait, can I ask another question before we get down to the conditions? Because didn't he throw out a truth saying now that everyone has to join the Camp David Accords? Abraham. Abraham Accords. Well, so it was a proposal on Truth Social. He dropped it on Truth Social. He also said he was going to turn him into glass on Truth Social. He also said that he was best friends with the Ayatollah's son. Who knows? But yes, he mentioned the possibility.

So, that wasn't a part. Was that a part of this, or no? That's part of this, because it dropped yesterday. Axios did not report it, but Trump said we would expand the Abraham Accords to include all these other countries in the Gulf, maybe Iran itself.

Who knows what's going to happen? It seems like, I was trying to tease this apart, we have two factions going on in Iran right now, as we have had. We have the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, which is doing things like downing American drones still, opening fire on our F-35 fighter jet over the weekend, and some generals still trying to lay mines in the strait, so that's what we were seeing. We also have this Interesting development where the government of Iran, so the new president, Masoud Pazeshkian, they actually let the Iranian people have access to the internet for like four hours, which has not happened since the start of the war.

So, it seems like the Tehran residents saying the internet is not fully open. It is just no longer completely shut down, and we are up from eight vessels a day going through the strait to 25 vessels a day going through the strait, which is still nowhere near the 120 that we need for full operation. Yeah, and I am curious about this, Erika, because we got the big China meeting, and we were like, oh, China by proxy supporting Iran in some way, or I think they were allowing Chinese tankers to go through.

And the thought was maybe Trump could go with all of our business executives and cut some kind of a deal and count on China basically to, you know, either curtail or I think that was just in the back of people's heads of like, okay, maybe we'll stop. And it largely seems like a lot of the changes or step backs from a lot of the United States red lines more towards Iran's conditions happened right after that. That's just my read of like China basically saying like, good luck, buddy.

Like, we're not gonna. We're not going to do anything. You have no leverage over me. We're not going to stop it. This helps us in a lot of ways. It hurts us in some, but helps us in others. So, I wonder if that's kind of... The impetus now for the United States, it seems like it moves closer to the Iranian red line because there's just not much we can do if the Strait of Hormuz is closed and we haven't, you know, quote, decimated the entire government and there's been a popular uprising, none of which has happened.

So, it seems like now that the clock's ticking towards how do we get the global economy not to explode in the next couple of months by not getting energy or fertilizer or anything like that. Right, and I think that what, yeah, what we've discovered, we're 12 weeks into a war that Trump was very certain would be four or five weeks, and I think what he's discovered is that, as with all American entanglements in the Middle East and Asia, it's much easier to start it than to get out of it in any sort of way with, you know, what did Nixon say, like, defeat or victory with honor or retreat with honor or something like that.

And I loved, Niall Ferguson had a piece on this. Yes, over Hoover Institute, and he said that Trump, like many American presidents before him, seems to be pursuing the foreign policy of fire, aim, ready, instead of ready, aim, fire. And what he's discovered is it's hard to get to the ready stage. And yeah, Rubio, of course, talking a big game going into this meeting. He's like, look, we're not going to take a deal unless it's a good deal.

But at some point, you have to take a deal, because magic mushrooms wear off, people. So, the Abraham Accords thing is like, well, you know, this war started, the Strait of Hormuz was open, and... Now it's closed, and we're now protracted. The IRGC is stronger, potentially more unified than before, and so what do we have? In order for Trump to leave with some type of face-saving measure, the Abraham Accords feels to me kind of like that Hail Mary, because a lot of the Arab states do not like Israel for various reasons, and for this to happen, it would normalize relations, and then they would also have to.

I think the current treatment of Palestine would have to be affirmed, basically. They would not recognize them as a state, which is a huge problem for a lot of the Arab populations. I don't think necessarily the governments, but the people. So, I'm curious if that actually goes through, or they allow that as the kind of thing, because I think the Iranians changed on the downblending, right? They said, okay, we'll downblend, but we're not going to give it to you. We'll give it to Russia, or we'll keep it in the country downblended, and I think they've kind of moved on that, because the one thing Trump keeps coming back to is they can't have a nuclear weapon, they can't have a nuclear weapon, they can't have a nuclear weapon, no material.

It seems like we're kind of moving towards closer to a JCPOA, where it's like we unfreeze the funds, and then maybe have some monitoring. Which, yeah, that's why it's such a quagmire, and like, you keep getting news on it, it's the same thing. Like, we're in a problem that was completely predictable, preventable, we decided to do it.

We're in a quagmire, and the only way out is to leave or strike some kind of deal. That puts us in a worse position than before. It's like, the different sides will try to spin it. We're just status quo with a lot of things smashed up. Some people make the argument that if we even delayed Iran another five to ten years, that that's not nothing.

If they were two weeks away from a nuclear weapon, but the whole thing is like... I never trust any politicians. Yeah, it's two weeks away from a nuclear weapon, my favorite phrase I've heard before. Right, forever and ever.

Yeah. So, we'll see. Unfortunately, there's not a lot of like, oh, here's the end of the war coming, even though some people are very happy to be making wild predictions right now, Benny Johnson on X. Someone did a compilation of Dave Rubin's predictions, and they've literally all been wrong. Every single one has been wrong. Unlike the Oracle of Petoskey, Dave Rubin is like the opposite. Well, yeah, I mean, people get rewarded. I'm sure they're in some type of group chat where they're like, ah, we've got to put out the talking points.

Oh, Ben Johnson's like the ultimate talking points guy. Which is just frustrating because you can tell it's... It's a living. Yeah, you make a living doing it, for sure. You get access that way. I understand why people do it, but it's kind of icky. Let's put it that way.

Yeah, so we just got... Just feels like a total on goal. I almost got to move on before I keep talking about it, because we'll just beat a dead horse, but that's where we're at. Okay. What was the, oh yeah, let's do SSPX now, because that's meaty, and then we can get into Twilight Zone. Someone mentioned the story in the loop today about Trevor, is it Trevor Bauer, or was his name again, the pitcher? Trevor Williams, yeah. Two very different pictures.

Sorry for throwing that out there. We have more information on that over at zeal.co, so go check it out. As you mentioned, it was mentioned in the loop today, so we are just investigating what is going on, because it seems like a member of the Washington Nationals is sidelining.

They always promote their athletes, and apparently the one athlete they don't want to promote. Is Trevor Williams, because he's proud of his Catholic faith, so that's really peculiar. We've got to find out what's going on, so more on that. Yeah, definitely follow that. Yep. All right, SSPX, they are going to announce this. They're going to name four future bishops. This is weeks after the Vatican says bishop ordinations will constitute schism. This is another, we talk about this, and everyone gets mad.

Erika was trying to navigate it. What's going on here? That's what we do. We just like to step in things here. Yeah, so we've covered this story. We've been following the SSPX again. They announced they were going to consecrate four new bishops because, as time goes on, bishops die, and for the order to continue, they need new bishops, and they have not received papal approval to consecrate new bishops as they find that they need more. So, this has been ongoing. The head of the SSPX met with Cardinal Fernandez of the Dicastery for Doctrine of the Faith earlier this year.

And it seemed like things might be progressing. Then on May 15th, we got the SSPX released a Declaration of Catholic Faith addressed to Pope Leo directly. The Superior General stated that society remains fully Catholic and presented what he called the minimum necessary beliefs required for communion with the Church. Of course, the authority to determine those minimum necessary beliefs does not lie with the head of orders, but he...

The Declaration reaffirms traditional Catholic teaching on the papacy, the sacraments, the mass, and sacred tradition, while continuing to offer their criticisms of doctrine after the Second Vatican Council in particular. Then, this week, the SSPX released the names of the four men who they intend to consecrate bishops. We have two Frenchmen, one Swiss, and one American, and so they obviously, as of yesterday, intend to go forward with these, in spite of the fact that Cardinal Fernandez observed that to do so, to Consecrate bishops without papal approval is itself an act of schism and excommunication.

So, just to clarify something here, because the way the SSPX is characterizing it is they have threatened to excommunicate us. The way that the church looks at excommunication is it is something that you do to yourself, and then the church can have a formal declaration that, yes, in fact, you did this, which is how he's saying, if you do this act, it will be an act of schism.

But the SSPX seems very determined to go forward with the ordinations while professing their obedience to the Pope. So, that is where we are at. Again, the way that I tried to talk about this yesterday, I made a short video just announcing the news, was that this really is a tragedy for the church, and it is a challenge for Pope Leo, whose papal model, right, is in uno ilum unus, right? And so, in one, we are one. And unity has been, unity and peace within the church has been his primary drive for his papacy so far.

And any kind of schism is. A shot at the heart of the Church, and so to pray for these four men, to pray for the Superior General of the SSPX, and to pray for Pope Leo and Cardinal Fernandez as they continue to try and talk through this. Well, I think the releasing of the four names, again, is to increase the pressure and hope that the Vatican will respond at least somewhat to what they want in their terms or something like that.

So, let us begin. Again, we're serious. Here's the names of the four people. You know, PR battle. I get it. Like, you're fighting this out. You're upping the ante publicly, right? And one of the complaints has been that the Pope himself has not met directly with the Superior General to this point, so maybe this elicits that meeting.

This has happened before with the SSPX, for those of you who remember. In 1988, yes, I was seven. In 1988, John Paul II, he ended up excommunicating. Formalizing the excommunication of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre for consecrating bishops outside of the purview of the papacy, and so they have been through this before, and we are hoping that they will walk back from it, for sure. It is an utter tragedy. It makes me sick to my stomach. It would be nice to have you today.

It would be nice. Sure would. Yeah, I got a lot of love for SSBX. Preserving the traditional liturgy. I think it was a blessing at the time and has spurned since, you know, Institute of Christ the King and FSSB, and it's a beautiful treasure of the church. So, hopefully, we can resolve the bureaucracy, but, I mean, that's my baseline stance. I'm not super educated on all the intro.

But, okay, Josh, Twilight Zone now, what do you got? This is a rare moment for me. Not often I will give a tip of the hat to Jeff Bezos, anyone in Silicon Valley, but... Did you watch the full interview?

No, I didn't watch the full interview, but this clip is pretty outstanding. He also bought the Washington Post editorial page, and so he's trying to move the left away from like... You know, complete communism and towards more like the Al Gore technocratic kind of stuff. This was a wonderful little soundbite to hear from this interview he did with the business channel CNBC. I'll give you an example. The New York City school system. Right. They spend $44,000 per student.

44,000. That is 30% more per student than other big cities like Chicago, L.A., and Boston, and it is three times more than Miami and Houston. And by the way, New York City does not get better outcomes. So, listen, let me just say, if we ran Amazon the way New York City runs their school system, your packages would take six weeks to arrive, we'd have to charge you a $100 delivery fee, and then when the package did finally arrive, it'd have the wrong item in it anyway.

That's actually awesome. Thank you. Thank you for finally dunking on. The left. Now, will he learn his lesson? Will he actually try to support candidates who would give us a school choice? Josh, that was not the most viral clip from that interview. I am not sure if you saw this one. 16.2 million views. His thoughts on taxes.

We will talk about making the tax system more progressive. How about we start by having the nurse in Queens not pay taxes? At all? At all. Why is a nurse in Queens who makes $75,000 a year paying more than $1,000 a month in taxes? That is $1,000 a month that could help with rent or groceries or anything. And by the way, do you know what that all adds up to? The bottom half of income earners in this country pay only 3% of the taxes.

It's only 3%. We can find 3%. So, we don't have, it's a small amount of money for the government, you know, that. And really, it's, the more I thought about it, to me, it's kind of absurd that we're doing this. You know, we shouldn't be asking this nurse in Queens to send money to Washington. They should be sending her money. Or just let her keep her own money. That would be a really good start. So, real spicy take on why he said this.

I think he's concerned for his life. Because he basically just said, like, half of the country should not pay taxes. The lower half of earners in the country should not pay taxes. Either you pick that up by, like, billionaires and mega, mega wealthy paying that 3%, or you catch that in fraud or something like that, you know? Don't come at me like you did the healthcare CEO.

Right, that is my message. I'm like, there's only one reason he would be doing this highly. He's not like a big... Luigi Mangione. I haven't seen him do a ton of interviews like this. He gets up, he does a highly publicized CNBC, and he throws out the low half of the country should not pay taxes. You know, the nursing queen, 75%, whatever. I think he's good reason to be. I mean, yeah, Luigi Mangione, Brian Thompson, political violence, a lot of the demonization of the billionaires.

He's certainly one of the, I think he's like the third richest man in the world. There is something to be said, too, for that, because there is kind of a cliff. You can get, if you live in New York City especially, you can get a lot of public assistance, public assistance housing. You can get, you know, a WIC, right? You can get all this welfare systems, but then if you decide to leave that and go to a job and you start paying Taxes, state, city, federal income taxes, and wages, the payroll taxes.

Yeah, it adds up a lot. So, it almost is like, wait, I could get this much for free, and then if I decide to work, I get that much. It is a disincentive to work. Right, exactly. It is why a third of Gen Z men are not in the workforce and have no plans of looking for a job.

Pick up on employment. There's a lot of disincentives, and they're just depressing. What was that article that everyone debated? I think you did a deep on. It was like $125,000 is the new poverty line. $140,000 is the new poverty line. That was a great episode. And it was a great episode. People were annoying about the numbers, whatever. Yeah, it was great. The main principles undergirding it still remain true, that when you reach those new levels, income brackets, at our current level of inflation, and how expensive healthcare is, how expensive homes are now.

Daycare is another new expense. You reach new brackets, and you lose out on benefits. So, you get over a certain, okay, now you no longer get a subsidy for child care. Okay, now you no longer get Medicare. So, Medicare is like everything is paid for. I know this so well. Oh, man. Dude, we are speed running it. Josh, I know you certainly know that for sure. Most people hit those brackets right when their expenses are going up and up. You are having kids.

It is like your late 20s, early 30s. You are hitting the brackets, and you are like, wait a minute. The rug's being pulled out from under me as I'm supposedly supposed to be progressing. It makes saving difficult, taking advantage of the stock market difficult. So, like, yeah. Yeah, even like what you could buy in the stock market 40 years ago, how many stocks or how many shares you could get is substantially more due to inflation than you could get now. So, even there was a big debate over Kevin O'Leary.

Did you talk about this, Josh? He was like… Uh, stop buying $20 lunches. Like, you could put that into the stock market. I find this. Gosh. He's got a point, but he's so dumb on this. I mean, it drives me crazy. And I think when I was, like, of course, and everyone debated it forever on X. The reason is because it taps a nerve, like it's a visceral issue for people. Like, both are correct. Like, yeah, you could pack a sandwich, but at the same time, like, I can't buy a home, and I'm in $40,000 in debt, and whatever.

And I think the key to all of it is if we want to have a society that... continues in America, period. You have to incentivize and create good conditions for people that want to have children, and that will require, whether it's a billionaire, or whether it's people in certain tax brackets, or certain points of life, to make sacrifices for that to be done. It has to come through actual policy change. There's a lot of policy changes we did, made over the last decades, that got us to where we're at right now, and there's going to be, we're going to need a, wait, it's like something, something's broken.

Right now, and we need to get ourselves out of it. I agree. So, yeah, I think people get, I don't know if it's just the way that the internet exists or whatever, it's like they do a lot of whataboutism or strawman argumentation, but the problem persists. And it was that, I think, 16.2 million. One, because I think billionaires are probably getting a little bit concerned for their health, which I totally see. The conditions are here. But then also, it's like, well, if we want to talk about how much fraud's in the country, we can get creative there.

And then if we adjust the tax code to try to help young people or this new generation of people that did everything they were supposed to do and are not having $20 lunches, went to college, studied, can't get jobs, can't pay off their debt. Like, there needs to be a collect... Okay, watch out. People are going to buzz me for the Marxist buzzwords or whatever, but like, there needs to be a system change at that point. Obviously, paired with individual virtue, but the system changed.

You can't individual your way out of healthcare right now. You can't individual your way out of college. You were talking about your daughter's jobs, which I think are great. People are finding creative ways now. Either it is just getting associates or community college or trade school. That is great on the individual level, but we still have this giant, persistent, society-wide problem. No children, crazy debt. Not opportunities for homes. It's like the one guy said in a meme or whatever. It's like, you know, you're 18 years old, and, you know, hey, can I get, you know, $5,000 to help start a business, you know, cleaning offices?

And they look at you like, what? No, 18? We're not giving you five grand. But then you go, you know, before, in the old system, like, I want to borrow $100,000 to get a degree in women's studies at Swarthmore College. Go ahead! Yeah. Like, wait, what? 17% interest when you're out. And it carries you until you die. You can't claim bankruptcy. Right. Literally carries you to grave.

One idea I heard somebody throw out was like, College loans should only be allowed for STEM. That was a creative thing. Wow, something like that, or medicine or law, and everything else, sorry, you're on your own. There's nothing to be said for that kind of stuff. Erika's humanities heart is going to hurt. My humanities heart, yeah, I was listening to you. We need the humanities, but you know what? You just said no money for them. Not a national priority to finance that, is what I'm saying.

That's more of a civil conversion, I think, a cultural conversion than a political conversion at this point. Yeah, I was listening to a really interesting, somewhat frustrating interview that Ross Douthat did with Jennifer Frey, who started an honors college at the University of Tulsa, which was shuttered. In spite of being wildly successful and 26% of freshmen enrolling every year in this honors college, it was shuttered. With no explanation by a new administration. Just like Kansas in the 70s, right? Yeah, yeah, and she made a really good argument for...

Why we need the humanities. But it was a fascinating discussion because, obviously, there's sort of the ideological attack on Western civ from the left, and sort of like the hatred and the wanting to tear it all down. But then you also get this from the right, well, we don't want to finance things like, you know, gender studies, basket weaving, and somehow all the humanities gets thrown into that kind of waste. And so, they were talking about how there's really just There's really no good home right now for humanities lovers.

Yeah, but if I could get the heart of it just purely from an experiential basis, all of my most interesting, profound, and that I think about the most classes were humanities. Like, my Western Civ I and II. I genuinely changed and formed the way that I look at the world. That's because you went to a school where they do it right, right? So, yes, Avi does a great job, and Dr. Michael Segura, rest in peace, he's like a total legend, but fascinating.

We could just draw a line in history off the top of his head. He truly was a savant. But all of the, like most of the classes that I guess would be considered like useful or more towards whatever, I don't use at all, and they're really boring. Like we just did, used Canva or whatever else. So, It's like, why do we need to over-credential? Exactly. Like, all the things that I learned on this job, I either did entrepreneurially outside of, say, my college classes, or with internships, or with whatever.

This is like the Kevin O'Leary debate again now. What do you mean? It's like, two things can be right at the same time. I mean, Kevin O'Leary is right that... You know, the Gen Z shouldn't be, you know, door-dashing an $18 or $27 lunch, and that it's also the case that he's wrong in not understanding that the standard of life is living is so much harder to buy a home, you know. So, like, two things can be true at the same time, and it's the same thing with the humanities.

Like, you know, the critique of conservatives who are frustrated with the finance, you know, the college system, and we're financing all these, you know. That silly degrees at stupid left-wing liberal colleges, whatever, is a true point, just because, but like Jennifer Frey and what you're saying, like, oh, but the properly understood the liberal arts is really important. Yes, that's also true. Yes, it should be true that we're, but that the college system needs to blow up because it's horrifying.

Yeah, but maybe the problem is that bachelor's degrees are four years. The education you got in high school is better than most people get in college. Yeah. It's true. And honestly, I could have done been a much better student and whatever else, but yeah, I agree. And I just think that, you know, again, we are in a system now where it is expected to have, you know, 80-90% of the kids are supposed to go to a four-year institution, and that just was not the case for much of human history, even in the most recent history.

College was really reserved for like the top like 7% or so that would go, and that's probably a better model. Yeah. It's in time to start family formation and have kids. Yeah, they don't have much life experience, but they also don't have much debt.

Yeah, the goal would be, I just think a lot of businesses are using colleges as a kind of like an HR proxy or whatever else. It's like, okay, you can do the four years, you get your stamp of approval, we benefit because you're doing training not on our dime, somewhat training or whatever, or at least it proves that they can be functional, and then we get people in the door. But now you're like, well, you got all the proxies, and they're putting out too many people, and we can only take a few people, and oh, guess what?

This H-1B immigrant is going to be way cheaper. Who cares if you're coding anymore? I guess the thing is, when my grandparents were going to college, they could pay for their college by working a summer job. Or they could just walk into somewhere and be like, hey, I want a sales job. And they'd be like, yeah, we need a salesman. There you go. No, I know. And I guess the frustration that Tom and I share on this is that when we talk about this stuff, and I get emails from people like, the boomers are not all bad.

Like, look, I'm not condemning an entire generation on this kind of stuff. It's just that... Every generation hears the younger people say, oh, you old folks don't get it. Oh, my gosh, things are different. And it's like, everyone says that, so we just think we kind of tune it out. But actually.

Things are different. It is a different situation these kids are finding themselves in. I'm sorry, and I'm an older folk saying it, okay? Yeah. No, that's a good observation, and I think that, like, for much of human history, you could go generations and centuries where things wouldn't be that much different.

The Tanner family, they would be Tanners, right, for hundreds of years in a little English village, and even like up until, well, up until the veterans came back from World War II, like you said, 7% of people were going to colleges in the United States. Most people were forming families 18 to 22 years old, and things are so drastically different right now. Like the average marriage age is like up in the high 20s. First child for women, it's over 30. Like this is, and that's only in the East.

I know it is lower nationwide, but I think that it is a major, major problem that has to be addressed, and I agree with you guys on the frustrations there. Just for the chat, because three people have asked, by humanities, I was using that as sort of like, yes, liberal arts education, some Western stuff, so swap out.

But, yeah, I agree. I said it was sick. Doctor's group is mad. Eighth grade is not. No, eighth grade doesn't work, though. Is that Nick from Detroit? Nick from Detroit. Eighth grade, too young. You need a little more than eighth grade. Like, you haven't even gotten into the dialect. Have you been around an eighth grader, dude? They're not ready for the world. Yeah. Okay, cool. Dragging on you, Nick.

Erika. Okay, guys, this is crazy. My Twilight Zone. And this came out in First Things. Shout out to First Things. Not known for like breaking news or whatever, but they picked it up. Next up on this, on surrogacy.

The surrogacy industry targeting military wives, and the reason why I got onto this was because of the moms.gov thing that the HHS rolled out, and it's like your one-stop shopping for IVF, which means one-stop shopping for surrogacy. And then I'm like, where else are our tax dollars embedded in this IVF reproductive industry? And it turns out in our military. This is crazy. Military wives, so soldiers. They make up less than 1% of the U.S. population, and yet they account for an estimated 15% to 20% of paid surrogates.

Some estimates go as high as 22%. So, the author of the piece argues that the reason is largely economic. Military spouses, they face disrupted careers, frequent moves, so wives can't really get in with a company and stay with them for a very long time because they're moving all over the place.

And I think the first year you're deployed, it's like $35,000 average salary for the husband, and so when a surrogacy contract shows up for between $25,000 and $75,000, they're like, well, I'm alone for a year. Like, I might as well just have a baby for someone else. It's hard to say no. Oh, my word. And so the agencies have been, the fertility agencies have been marketing specifically. Two, recruit military spouses. They have offered bonuses in some cases tied to their TRICARE health coverage, which is the military family health care coverage.

So, that turns the financial pressures facing them into actually a business opportunity for the fertility industry. So, the incentive is to recruit military women who are alone without their husbands to bear other people's children, and it's being bonuses tied to TRICARE.

So, my suggestion is, Department of Defense, stop subsidizing commercial surrogacy through vulnerable women through TRICARE. That would be my number one policy takeaway. I mean, it is just outrageous that you would target women whose husbands are serving their country.

In this way. And everyone's like, oh, well, they're being compensated, and they're agreeing to it. It's all, you know, voluntary and totally consensual. I'm like, you know, consent isn't everything. Consent is not everything. Well, the child certainly didn't consent to this. That's absolutely true. It's just crazy that this IVF is what enables this, and that we are still saying that this is, oh, well, we're making more babies, and we need more babies in the country, so this is how the military wives are serving their country, while their husbands are serving their country.

It's absolutely insidious, possibly diabolical, and we need to stop this. It is. It is. Hate everything about it. Hate it. All right, Josh, well, let's see what you think about this construction. So, everyone's talking construction at the White House. You know, when Trump got into office, everyone was like, you know what I really want more than the SAVE Act, more than anything else? We need a ballroom. We need an awesome ballroom. That was what I wanted this entire time. That's why I came out to vote.

So, okay, joke aside, but there's just been a lot of weird construction at the White House. The weirdest may be the UFC arena. Outside of the White House. Here it is. And there it is. Now, I think, wasn't Teddy Roosevelt infamous for wrestling people in the White House? I think he did. Not on the lawn. So, I did see a tweet that made me laugh. This is a construction that said, I've always wanted to experience the fall of Rome for myself.

Yeah, this is crazy. I don't know what... I... Where do we... The best of America, is that what... Some people love this sport, and I don't understand... I mean, I like sports too, but I'm not... I guess, wasn't Obama played basketball, like just basketball?

He did the pics with ESPN all the time. Yeah, and the generals were hooping with the president of Syria, who was formerly ISIS. So, maybe that is an area to do some diplomacy, but I cannot say I have ever seen...

A UFC cage on the White House. Well, if you can't make it to the UFC match at the White House, you can always join us in lacrosse on the same day. Same weekend, guys. Are we going to have a UFC cage there? Is that going to be a part of the activities? We're going to see Father Ambrose step into the ring? Oh. Gosh, I'd kill to see you in the UFC ring. You know what? Let's compromise. We should get one of those blow-up things where you have the staff.

You know what I'm talking about? Have you seen those? They're like little blow-up rings. You stand on a peg, and you get a big mallet, and you balance. You're trying to knock each other off. I say we do that. That's a good compromise. That feels less bloody, but still entertaining. Or we could pretend like we're sumo wrestlers with those pegs up. Those are pretty sweet, too. I'm not going to lie. I've done that.

I don't even know what to say. I'm not against it. I'm not really against it. I'm not against it in principle, but I'm like, it's just... I do want to celebrate America's 250. I mean, you know, I think we need a little bit more pomp and circumstance. Wait, is that what this is for? The UFC fight is for America's 250? Yeah, it's on Flag Day. It also happens to be Trump's birthday.

His 80th birthday. Trump's like, Trump's for my birthday, I'm going to have people fight to the death on the lawn of the White House. Happy birthday to me. Joe Rogan will announce it. It's going to be... Is he actually? I don't know anything about this.

I'm sure he'll be there. He does love a camera, does Joe. That is so crazy. He was there for the marijuana and psychedelic signing. Oh, yeah, of course. He'll be back for a UFC fight, for sure. Erika knows. What is going on at the White House? I don't even know what's going on these days.

Oh my gosh. Yeah, Joe. Yeah, Erika, next episode of the Joe Rogan Experience, Erika. I will say, I used to listen to Rogan more. I think he's just gotten boring. Like, I've just realized that I want... I don't like Joe when he's like, I'm now interviewing Tim Burchett from Tennessee. Like, I want him interviewing...

Like Alex Jones. You know what I mean? Experts on aliens or something. Yeah, like I want out there. I want weird people. I want the weirdos. Like, I want him just people he finds off the streets of Austin. Now, it's kind of like, I got like Jeff Bezos. Like, I think he had the guy from All In podcast, the Kamath Chamath. You want him to be less Rush and more Art Bell. Yeah, dude, I want something crazy. I want, yeah, that's why I went there.

I didn't go there for his takes on. Politics. You know, respect. He has done it a long time. He is an innovator, but I want crazy. Okay, daily prayer. We got America 250 by Cardinal Burke. He will be there with us in La Crosse. It will be awesome. So, I end in prayer today. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Oh, Sacred Heart of Jesus, King of Heaven and Earth, I place today my nation, the United States of America, into your heart, pierced for love of us. On the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, I acknowledge that true liberty is your gift, and that our lasting homeland is the eternal kingdom of God. Under the mantle of Our Lady of Guadalupe, patroness of the Americas, through the intercession of her Immaculate Heart, bless my homeland anew, purify her from sin, and guide her leaders in truth, justice, and peace.

So that she may safeguard all human life, respect the integrity of marriage and the family, and honor the practice of religion. Reign in my home and in my nation, draw every heart into community with you, that your love, truth, love, justice, mercy, and peace may triumph in America and throughout the world. Amen. St. Thomas More, St. Fidelis, Orly Guadalupe. Pray for us.

Good hanging out. Good show, guys. We'll catch you on Wednesday. Got an episode of The Deep coming for you tomorrow. Stay tuned for that. If you want totally different entertainment, I did put myself in a motorcycle in the desert. It was crazy. Go check it out. Catch you guys later. Peace.