Senate Reaches Deal To Open Government, 50-Year Mortgage? And Father Capodanno

And we're live. Welcome back to the show. It's Tom, Erika, and Josh. Hope you're enjoying snow somewhere. We got snow in Indiana yesterday and this morning, a little earlier this year. Lucky. Very fun. Very fun for the kids. We got it here, for sure. Oh, yeah. Michigan, no question. But the loop. Of course, the LOOPcast brought to you by The Loop, every American Catholic's favorite morning newsletter. I have some fun topics today. First, the government is on the path to opening up, hopefully, after lots of argument over the weekend.

It looks like the Senate has a path towards opening up the government. I'm going to get all the details from Erika on that one. The second is Trump threw out some economic proposals. Some might sound familiar to you if you waited until the end of Friday's episode.

That's all I'll say before we get to that section. Going to be very interesting, but of course, we have good news. We have Twilight Zone, and will you invest in a 50-year mortgage? Big question. Before we get to that, though, Erika, take me through the shutdown. What is going on? Yeah, so, massive vibe shift is how I'm going to talk about this from the Democrats this morning. Last Tuesday, we were ebullient. We were victorious. We were unified. The Democratic Party had never been stronger after the elections last week, and this morning, we get from Political Playbook.

I will just read to you from Politico. The Democratic base is seething. Liberal social media is on fire this morning with activist pressure groups and wannabe Democratic senators and presidents falling over one another to condemn the deal. To open the government in ever louder terms. Panelists on MSNBC are banging the drum about it last night. Some are calling for Schumer to face the heat. Instantly, it felt like a purity test. Nobody hoping to get anywhere in democratic circles right now is permitted to be anything other than outraged.

And why are they outraged? Because after 40 days, I believe it's day 41 today. During a record-breaking government shutdown, Senate Democrats fractured, and they passed a deal last night. Josh is just drinking to that. Passing a deal without securing their top demand, which is extending the Affordable Care Act health subsidies, moderate Democrats citing the shutdown's growing toll on the American people, accepted Republican leader Senator John Thune's vague promise. That sometime in the first two weeks of December, we'll vote on that issue.

And just to be clear, I don't think that's vague. I think it's there. Okay, okay. It's there. It's there. Not a promise to pass it, but yeah, we'll vote on that. Just a vote, and by the way, doesn't obligate the House to vote on it at all. No, not at all. Does not vote at all, or obligate them at all. So, what did we get from the deal? What did the Democrats get from all of this, from the RIFs and the not paying the Marines?

Happy birthday, Marines, by the way. I just wanted to say thank you to all of you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. More on that later. We got a continuing resolution, the same CR, yes, through January 30th, so we're pushing the next major spending deadline to beyond the usual end of the fiscal year, which is gone, long gone. We have a vote, supposedly. We do have a vote on the ACA bill in the Senate in December.

And again, as Josh pointed out, House Speaker Mike Johnson has not committed to holding a vote on a bill to extend those subsidies, so the odds of those subsidies actually getting reinstated, not particularly high. We get a minibus, so we get a package, three full-year fiscal year appropriations bills. So, for example, in there, SNAP is now funded through 2026. Because they did the whole ag department appropriations, yeah. Yes, so they got that, which is actually... Good for people who are on snap.

And a reversal of shutdown reduction in force with back pay. So, it appears, I couldn't quite get through the language. I need a lawyer. I need Tom McCluskey. It appears to include a prohibition on further firings or reductions in force through the continuing resolution period until January 30th. And that's it.

That's all, those are the big, huge concessions that eight Democratic senators needed to be moved to cross the aisle and break the filibuster at 60 votes to get this deal done. Who were those senators who crossed the aisle? They are all Democratic senators, or none of them are Democratic senators up for re-election. Two of them are retiring.

This cycle. This cycle. So, two of them are retiring. They're leaving. The rest are all, they don't have to run again until 2028. So, we got Dick Durbin in Illinois, who's retiring. Gene Shaheen from New Hampshire, who's retiring. John Fetterman, who was already there, so he doesn't even really count as a win in this. Catherine Cortez Masto, Maggie Hassan, Tim Kaine, our friend from Virginia, Josh's buddy. Angus King. From me. Yeah, he's an independent. He's basically a Democrat. Well, no, but he was in favor before, but I mean, like the...

You know, as someone pointed out, this was a rare case where the two senators, who are both liberal from Virginia, voted differently. Tim Kaine voted, go ahead and end the debate, break the filibuster, to move on so that we can eventually get the bill passed.

Whether he votes for the final bill or not, he's at least allowing it to continue. He's breaking the filibuster. So, Kaine said yes, but the other senator from Virginia, Warner, said no, and precisely because he's up for election. Soon, so he can't, you know, he doesn't want to risk upsetting his base, so that's how you see the differences between those two. For sure. Well, here's how one of them, if we could pull this clip up here, Tom, here's how Senator King from Maine framed what happened.

At the beginning of the shutdown, there were two goals, both of which I support. One was standing up to Donald Trump. The other was getting some resolution on the ACA premium tax credit issue. The problem was the shutdown wasn't accomplishing either goals, and there was practically, well, there was zero likelihood that it was going to. In terms of standing up to Donald Trump, the shutdown actually gave him more power, Exhibit A being what he's done with SNAP. ...and SNAP benefits across the country.

Oh, by the way, Joe, you're going to love this. Guess who's getting paid during the shutdown? Not the park rangers or air traffic controllers, the ICE agents. And Congress is getting paid during the show. Yeah, I don't know if I want to give Josh an opportunity to do a victory lap here. It just feels like they voted basically on the same bill that was presented before, and now there's just going to be a bunch of both-sides-ism of, it's their fault, it's their fault, who does this actually hang on?

It just seems like a big waste of everyone's time. Well, it was a big waste of time. Republicans didn't want to do this at all. I mean, the Democrats initiated this temper tantrum, and they got some minor concession, which is, you know, because they shut the government down, Trump released the dogs, told Russ Vogt to go ahead and do these reduction of forces, just terminate these jobs, so that when the government turns back on, they won't have their jobs back, the jobs will be eliminated.

So, Democrats, in agreeing to finally break the filibuster, said, okay. You've got to get rid of those reduction of forces, and we want all those jobs protected. And Republicans in the Senate were like, okay, fine, because the bigger thing, the bigger concession piece, what all the left wanted, and if you go over to the social media site, Blue Sky, if you hate yourself, go over there. It is absolutely apoplectic. They've got guillotines and GIFs with Chuck Schumer. No, they're going crazy.

Oh, jeez. They are. There's actually a really key component here over the weekend, and I'll let you get to that in just a second, but Bernie Marino is the new Republican elected to the Senate out of Ohio, and I think he's a good enough guy, but I was not really... Candidates are running. I got elected in the last time. I'm like, oh, okay. I'm glad he won. Whatever. I didn't think much of him, okay? My expectations on Bernie Marino were kind of low, okay, admittedly, even though he calls himself an America first populist.

He's a Republican. He beat Sherrod Brown, which is why I love him anyway. Sherrod Brown was a communist. So, Chuck Schumer is out on the Senate floor over the weekend railing about this, and all I want to do is just give me a one-year extension of the subsidies for the Affordable Care Act. It is like, well, if it is so affordable, why do you need subsidies? But Bernie Marino decides to go ahead and ask him a question, and I got a bit.

Like, I was not expecting much, okay? And Bernie is like, hey, do you have your bill written up? I mean, we would love to see a proposal. And Schumer is like, we do not need to show it. We just want to extend it for a year.

And Bernie Reno follows up. I mean, I was so impressed. He goes, Yeah, so, I mean, the reason why we want to know is because we want to know whether or not you're going to put any caps on who can receive these generous subsidies from the federal government, because right now there's no caps, and we just want to make sure we reestablish the caps so that if you get poverty level, you're eligible for it. If you are at 200% of poverty level, you're eligible for it.

300%, yes, even that. 400%, sure. But if your income is higher than 400%, the level of poverty, yeah, you don't need this subsidy. You're not poor, you know? But Schumer, what does he do? How does he respond? He walks off the Senate floor. He couldn't even handle the questions. From Bernie Moreno, from the top rope. So, Bernie Moreno, thumbs up today. I did not. That was awesome.

Okay, so, this is also stupid. By the way, I called it. No, you called it, but the riffs, the Republicans wouldn't have even done the riffs if the government wasn't shut down. So, to me, it's almost not even a big deal they gave it back. We wouldn't have done this if you just voted on the clean CR to keep things up and moving. So, I'm not really sure exactly what Democrats are hoping to stop. Can I explain what I think was the timeline for these guys?

Sure. They wanted to hold the government shut down in order to win on Election Day for the elections. Especially in Virginia. And boy, it worked well for them because not only did they win, which I expected that they would anyway, but they got a super majority in the House of Delegates in Virginia. And they did very well in New Jersey.

So, once that was done, it's like, okay, we made our point. We got our elections. Now, what should we do? Let's see if we can force the Republicans into extending. ACA for a year, these subsidies for healthcare, and Republicans are like, why would we give this to you just to get the government back open? And the question, and everyone was saying right after the election, like, Democrats are on a high, all this is going well for them, and this is where people like me are like, okay, a Republican's going to cave, but they have the cards, just don't fold.

Because the fact of the matter is, As much as the media is carrying water for you, you've got SNAP benefits, and you've got all these airline problems, and it's only going to get worse. I mean, the biggest day for travel is Thanksgiving. I mean, it's the day before or whatever, or the day after, I forget whatever it is. But that weekend is the busiest, because people, they want to go home. They want to get their turkey. And man, I tell you, Democrats realize this is a problem for us.

Yeah. So, they came. Shanee is like, let us just go back to the deal we had before. Now, by the way, I actually agree with what Tim Kaine said. He said, you know, he was one of the eight Democrats who came forward and said, let us just, okay, let us end this stuff. To one of the reporters, he said, you know what, honestly?

There was a whole lot more than eight Democrats were happy that this thing is over, because they knew they had to appease their voters, you know, the blue sky idiots, you know, to keep this thing, you know, to end this, but they couldn't vote the right way. Can I also just clarify, so this doesn't mean, okay, right now the government's back open. It's not currently open. What did this open the path to doing, the senators coming over and reaching closure? Right, so what it does, it breaks the filibuster, which means now we can move forward with the debate.

It's a limited amount of time, and so what's going to happen is the Senate's going to come open. I think it just came open out of recess about 15 minutes ago. The actual debate on what the legislation is. And they'll vote for a bill that will finance a CR until January 30, which I'm happy that it's not until Christmas. McCluskey's big ask, at least, was there. We're not going to shut the government down right before Christmas because then ugly stuff happens.

Right. So, get on the other side of holiday. Get on the other side of Christmas. And then what will have to happen then is the House will have to reconvene. They're going to wait. Well, I mean, they basically, you know, usually they give them 24 hours of notice. I think they're going to give them a little bit more time than that, because it's going to take longer. Yeah, what's a reasonable timeline from now until the government actually officially... I mean, it might actually, I mean, like, you know...

It might be Thursday or something like this. Yeah, Thursday or Friday was what I was seeing online, so. Okay. Three more days. Good to know. We can actually pay our people. That would be great. Speaking on to the next thing, so, I mean, Trump had some extra time on his hands. He was at the Commander's Alliance game, which is hilarious. I have some stuff on that later. But he floated out some very interesting economic proposals.

Some. Some pushed out by members of his cabinet. And by floated, we mean Truth Social. Okay, so he shoots it on Truth Social, but then his cabinet are being asked questions about the Truth Social post over the weekend, and then they're either signaling one way or the other. It was interesting to see Besant kind of walking back or whatever. But anyway, interesting proposals, and let's just say as someone that's open to some out-of-the-box proposals, it was interesting for me to even see and then think about in the debates really raging online right now.

So, the five that... We're announced. I'm going to cover three of them, I think. Number one, Trump announced his approval towards a 50-year mortgage. So, that, of course, made me go back into what is the history of the 30-year mortgage, which takes you all the way back to FDR. Very interesting. So, that was the first one ever, and that immediately, like the Dave Ramsey heads online were freaking out about this. Like, it's a terrible idea, and then the other people were like, well, this could be good for these reasons.

So, that's what he threw out. Second one, Trump announces $2,000 stimulus checks based on tariff revenue, which, if you're a real loop caster, you heard Josh say this at the end of last episode, that it should be paid in the same fashion in a stimulus check. So, this is from Josh's lips to Trump's ears? That's right, the oracle lips to Trump's ears.

So, another interesting proposal I want to touch on. Trump says insurance money should not go to insurance companies, so ACA money shouldn't go to insurance companies. It should go right to the people. By the way, just to hit on my tariff stimmy checks, the reason why this is such a brilliant idea, by the way, is if he cranks it up and gets rid of it done, like, fast, before the Supreme Court rules on it, the Supreme Court was like, well, what are they going to do?

Like, have all the Americans send their checks back? Pay back two grand. That ain't happening. Yeah, that's not a good idea. Get it gone, bro. This is politics. Checks and balances. So, we have, yeah, Trump says tariffs will begin paying down the U.S. debt, which is somewhat at odds with the stimmy check, but yeah. So, anyway, I'm not sure how much that is just positioning against the Supreme Court or out to the people or to get people riled up, but the one that really took off was this 50-year mortgage.

So, I'm going to share, this is from, I think it's Bill Pulte, the U.S. Director of Federal Housing, threw this out over the weekend. Thanks to President Trump, we are indeed working on the 50-year mortgage, a complete game changer.

And so, there is the picture of President Roosevelt and President Trump, the 50-year mortgage, and that did actually make me go into the history of the 30-year mortgage, which might be too long for this episode, but I was surprised. Before the 1930s, most U.S. mortgages were actually 5- to 10-year balloon loans, so you actually would have to pay all of your interest first, and then at the very end, you pay the principal.

And so, I think it's amortization is basically when your monthly payments don't cover both your interest and your principal at the same time. And so, you get the Great Depression when there was a lot of people defaulting. Amortization, it's just, it's a different term. It's just the... How much over the course of the loan? But yes, I know what you're saying, though.

Well, before you had to pay interest, and then you paid the principal. Now, you can pay both at the same time with that term, armamentization. But then the Great Depression hits, and then a lot of people, banking system basically collapses, and tons of people foreclose on their homes because they couldn't make that big balloon payment at the end. And so then you get the FHA, you get the birth of Fannie Mae, GI Bill, explosion, widespread adoption. You get that 30-year... Mortgage.

That actually came all the way back in that… The Roosevelt era, and it's kind of managed to stay alive until today. Even amidst all of the different, like the financial crisis of 2008, that was horrible. We still have a 30-year loan, and then it's based on fixed percentages determined by Fannie Mae, correct? So, right now, I think that is like 6.8. I mean, like, you can get a loan through Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, but you can also get a loan through a private.

Banks, but even the private banks, there is a backstop from the Fed. The federal government is going to make sure that it is going to be underwritten or whatever, so there is always that backstop there. I do think overall, obviously, the 30-year loan for mortgages makes a lot of sense because then you do not get a situation where a bad fiscal… Time frame, like if you get a recession or a depression real quick, you're not going to have compounding problems with a bunch of people that all of a sudden their notes do.

So, yeah, it makes a lot more sense to do this over time. The question then with this, to stretch it out to 50 years, then, you know, the problem with this, you know, there's some good and there's some bad. Obviously, the quote good is that it makes people that are, you know, like they might take them an extra three or four or five years before they even get into the house. They can get into it sooner. But if you're increasing the amount of.

Demand in the market without increasing the supply, then you are going to just drive prices up as more money is coming in. It is the same problem we have had with college loans and everything else. So, I think what needs to happen here.

Because I think we need to do more to have increase in supply, like deregulation, make it a little bit more sensible, affordable for businesses to build more homes, because there is a demand for it, and the housing inventory isn't increasing fast enough to meet demand. Now, maybe some of that will change as people start, you know, illegal aliens or leaving the country or whatever, but...

Look, and some people are like, 50-year mortgage? I mean, the problem with this is that you feel like you're a debt slave forever. Well, I would not recommend a 50-year mortgage in perpetuity. Like, if you're, let's say... In your 20s or whatever, and you can't afford to get a house, you've saved up a bunch of money, you can't afford to get a house, but you look at the 50-year, maybe you can get to it. It's not the worst idea in the world.

You use that 50-year mortgage, and then after a few years, you can refi when the rates are low, and you can switch to a 30 or a 15 or whatever. You have options available to you. And that's why there is such a big debate about this, because I'm not against it in principle.

The average lifespan of a 30-year mortgage is between 7 and 12 years. People refinance. It's not that big a deal. And if you were to save a couple hundred bucks, I think the average house in America right now, new house, is about $412,000. It's getting into the mid-fours. It's the mid-fours.

Understanding that, if you were able to save, say, like $300, $400 a month on a mortgage payment, and you take that and you invest it in the stock market, which would outpace the gains there, or you take that money and you just start paying off your mortgage with the money that you would save, there is a case. I understand the entry, but I guess the way that I would frame the conversation... Right, there's nothing forbidding you from making additional payments on your mortgage, right?

Right, so I guess the way that I would phrase that, and I'd phrase it similar, because I'm seeing people complain, well, why not just ban... Why not just ban BlackRock, or why not just ban these large institutional investors from buying homes? But the reality is, they only actually own less than 1% of the homes in the country. That's kind of a myth that's been busted. The biggest problem is the regulation and the fact that we're not building enough homes, and actually, that the wage-to-home ratio is the highest it's ever been.

So, it's out of reach right now, and there's not enough homes for people because of the zoning problems and things like that. So, I think the thing to start with here is, you know, we're not going to be able to build enough homes. We're not going to be able This is more of a Band-Aid solution, or it's like, okay, it's good, maybe step in the right direction, more flexibility, you allow more people to get in, but we need to solve the core problem.

It has to be part of a much bigger strategy than, right, it's not a one-fix. Well, that's actually, I mean, Bill Pulte got back on Twitter, because this was, as you said, a firestorm. You know, a lot of people were upset. Some people thought it was a really good idea. Like, I tend to be a little bit sympathetic to it, but he said, look, I hear you. You know, I hear you. This is not the only thing we're going to do.

This is one tool. And a bunch of other policies that we are going to be announcing soon. So, that is very good to hear. I mean, I do want more of that stuff. Some of that stuff, it is like, you know, just what we have.

One of the greatest things about our country, you know, obviously our freedoms, that kind of stuff, but also that we have a common language, a common market, you know, 3,000 miles from shore to shore, and what we could try to do is some sort of standardizations. Like, yes, there will be some regulations that local communities will still have. I get that. You know, you want to make sure you don't want to... Cheshire, Connecticut.

Well, I mean, as long as it's reasonable, but if there's certain things that we could do to try to make it... More affordable. What we're doing in terms of affordability and regulations, it's a little out of whack. We got to make it a little bit better. We see if we can make it so that these businesses could build a lot more homes. We want homes that are affordable. We want them safe, and maybe we just see what we can't do. It'd be nice to have the Department of Housing and Urban Development come forward with a proposal to say, here's how we could streamline a lot of this stuff.

Yeah. And I will say, for all the people complaining, or me, one of them, like, hey, there is not enough focus on affordability on the home front. This is a really welcome change of conversation to me. Like, yeah, let us talk about how we can get creative and get people into houses and part of the American dream. Well, part of it has got to be not just complaining on Twitter, you know, about how LA isn't doing enough to rebuild the homes that were burnt.

Like, get out there and, like, hammer on these things. I mean, let us go. We need to build houses. Yeah. So, the other one was, as Josh predicted, let us just Pay out the tariff revenue and stimulus checks. Maybe this is a little gamification, a little gamesmanship with the Supreme Court over their potential decision regarding this. Maybe this is a serious thing. I think we were accused of being a communist podcast for suggesting this. What? Really? In the comments, Josh. Yeah, someone was not thrilled with this.

Am I listening to a liberal podcast because they just want to pay out the stimmy checks? I will say there is a lot of inflationary concern with this measure, because people get that two grand and just start spending it immediately, ramping up inflation. I think that is probably correct, but Josh, would you like to elaborate? Erika, would you like to elaborate on why people, this would be a good thing, as opposed to the concerns about inflation? Yeah. So, actually, I'll go to the first thing.

I understand the negative reaction, because we're all still coming off of the COVID stimulus checks and looking at the inflation, and that was a terrible time. And we also, for my generation, I think, probably Josh as well, we're not that far apart, guys in age. I just want to put that out there. People are like, it's so diverse age-wise. I'm like, I'm only five years younger than Josh. But I remember bailout checks. So, I think government writing checks just... So, handing out checks seems like a bad thing, but where it could actually be a good thing is putting money back in people's pockets.

I don't want to be all political about this, but people need to feel good about... The Trump administration and domestic economics right now, and to me, getting a $2,000 check is just going to really help that, especially going into the midterms. Josh, you can speak more to the, what is the difference between this stimulus check and what we have seen in the past? Well, the previous COVID checks were necessary because people were out of a job, and you prevented them from working.

You prevented them from going out into the workforce. And so, with COVID, you had a situation where... Like, the economy was operating with, I don't know, like 30% efficiency because so many people were not working, so the amount of production in the economy was a lot lower. I don't know for 30%. Don't hold me to that. I don't know what the percentage is, but a lot of workers were not able to carry on with their jobs for months and months and months and some places years, and so the amount of stuff that the economy was able to do, the amount of productivity was much lower, and then so printing money It was just like, you know, the federal government printing money without the backing of the economy, without the production still there.

So, if this, a $2,000, this is just a transfer of the tax money. One of the things that the critics of Trump say he's wrong about is that tariffs are taxes. I agree with that. They are taxes. Tariffs are taxes.

So, my only point is like, well, what should we do with that tax revenue? Should we? Pay down the federal debt. Someone said that in the chat here. Pay down the national debt. Sure. Sure. Pay down the national debt, right, so that what that means is no one notices that difference, and then you walk into the midterms and you get your butt kicked, as opposed to a $2,000 one-time check where people go, oh, Trump's economic policies, thank you, I like this.

So, you're just taking this tax revenue over here and handing it right to the people. The government isn't spending it. I think that's a good thing. I don't know why that's a bad thing. I'm not, why is that communist? I don't understand. Now, I wouldn't put an income cap on it like Trump does. I'd just give it to everybody, whatever. Yeah, it would increase inflation significantly, especially with the Fed. Why does it increase? I mean, this idea, like, it just increases.

More money in circulation. That's another thing with it. Yeah, go ahead. Well, I mean, it's like, okay, first of all, does anyone have any confidence that Congress wouldn't spend this revenue? The question is, the person who wants us, you know, there's a lot of good people, like, have sort of a German or Scandinavian mindset, like, we should pay down this debt. Like, I love it. I love it. Unless you're from North Dakota, it's just not happening, okay? So, the question, in my mind, is based on the real politics of it all, it's either Congress spends this money, or we give it to the people, and I'd rather...

Oh, much rather. Okay, when you put it like that, yeah, for sure. And... The access left after the 2K payments would go towards the national debt, Trump said, too, so it would be like, okay, you kind of satisfy a little bit of both there. The reality is, we're never going to address the national debt seriously until we actually start going after entitlements, and it's for the similar reason. You're talking about the politics behind this. That's why no one will ever go after.

I think we spend like 1% of all federal revenue on dialysis right now, so until we actually ... We're going to have this problem forever. It's sad to think about, but you could get some short-term relief. Part of the problem is the amount of economic and political literacy that people have in this country is low. We try to do our best to help people understand this, but what was it? One senator posted on Twitter saying that Republicans are trying to take away Social Security and all this stuff, and she got community noted for it.

It's like, actually, the money you pay into Social Security is not in your account. It's not like a... If we were a serious country, we would have a sovereign wealth fund like all the other successful countries, but because we have a democracy that flips all the time, we would never be actually able to commit towards a strategy that would actually work towards long-term returns. So, if you go look at Saudi Arabia, you go look at many countries. Well, you can do what Chile did.

They brought in a bunch of economists, you know, Pinochet, which the left hates him, but he brought in a bunch of free market economists from the University of Chicago and just said, you don't have to have government have pensions. You can just force people to save their own money. Like, we force just about everyone who drives a car to buy... We don't say you have to get car insurance, but we don't say you have to get the government's car insurance. We say you have to get it, but find it from someone in the private sector.

We could do the same thing for retirement. You are required to save, let's say, 7% of your income, no matter what. We don't care who you invest it with, but you've got to save it with somebody and have some regulations so the money isn't like, you know, crazy. But that would be a whole lot better than the government gets out of that. It would be a lot better. 100%.

Interesting. Democrats would lay an egg. You can tell the milieu that I travel in when Josh says, Chili says, and the first thing I think of is Bluey's mother. I was like, what did Chili say? I don't even know what that is. Yeah, Josh is out of that. He doesn't have Bluey Kids. He doesn't watch Bluey. Yeah, his... No, no Bluey Kids.

I wish, yeah, I could do a whole episode on sovereign wealth funds, Mark, in the chat, but yeah, quick Google on that. It's basically like countries pool together their money, and instead of having it be like Social Security, where you get it, and then you just hand it out right away, they take it, they invest, and then they get the returns on that. So, say it's like 7% comes back to the country from their investments. And then that goes back into the fund.

So, it basically compounds and compounds and compounds, and then you have a ton of money. We decided instead to do a system where we say, we'll just always have more workers, and they'll fund the system. It's a little bit of what we call maybe a Ponzi scheme. Yeah. That works so long as each generation has lots of children. Has babies. I've done my part. I got six, you know.

Seven. Yeah, so. We're good. Tom's replaced himself. He's got two. Yeah, I'm working on it. I'm working on it. Next one, finally, again, too. Trump urges Senate Republicans to redirect funds from Obamacare-backed insurers and pay Americans directly. Very interesting. Again, I'm not sure how all this would have the secondary and tertiary effects, but as an idea, interesting. I looked back from 2014 when ACA Marketplace launches through 2024. The federal government has spent approximately $650 billion on ACA exchange subsidies. That's premium tax credits and cost-sharing reductions.

Nearly all of this money goes directly to insurers on behalf of enrollees. So, annual figures have grown significantly. It started at $18 billion in 2014, and it is projected at $138 billion for 2025 alone. So, this is a very significant amount of money. We are all having these arguments right now over whether or not you increase the subsidies, or you keep the subsidies, or what do we do because it is all becoming so unaffordable.

Trump floated out, hey, we just give that money directly to people so that they can go and buy it. On a marketplace, I guess, what they could have with it. He clarified it could potentially be in something like an expanded health savings account for the people, which is a very interesting idea. I mean, some of these ideas are just, I need to just sit and actually.

Think about and do research on how this would be successful. I guess my issue now is how is this, I guess if it goes directly to people, wouldn't you just have to go right back to the marketplace? I guess it would help with competition. Yeah, you're just giving them, the money comes to you, and then you give it to the insurance company anyway. And so, some people are saying, well, that doesn't seem like that big of a deal. I was happy to hear him say this, though, because when he said this, that signaled to me he did not want to cave on a one-year extension.

I'm like, oh, thank goodness. Yes. Yeah. He's not doing that. Right. And what it also did is it educated people. Like, should we have the federal government give gobs and gobs and millions of dollars in cash to insurance companies directly? Or should we give it to you, and then you decide if you should give it to the insurance companies? And maybe we'll go... Who's making out on this? Insurance companies. Yeah. So, what it did is it reset the framework, so I give credit to Trump on it.

Like, it helped people understand, like, what we're talking about is having lots of taxpayer money from the federal government go directly to insurance companies. Why is that good for me? Why does it help me? Why does it make my healthcare affordable? Oh, it doesn't. Exactly, and this was sort of like the irony of the Democratic, we're going to stand and fight. They own the shutdown, but they're like, we're fighting Trump. So, Bernie Sanders got on the floor last night, and he lost it in front of the whole Senate, because he's like, we're giving up, we're giving in to Trump.

And what they had done was they had put in the headlines, they had made the headlines for the last 40 days. 30 days, because the first 10 days was about other issues, but healthcare, right? Because they're like, okay, healthcare is the one issue that Democrats went on, that and abortion, but Democrats, healthcare, this is our thing. This is how we're going to get through this election. And what it actually did was it ended up drawing attention to the fact, and I remember the first week of the shutdown, the Washington Post actually had in its editorial, it was like, the Affordable Care Act was never affordable.

So, they actually brought to the fore of the American people's attention. For those who do pay attention, which is very few people, but for those who do pay attention, they actually start talking about it, and it gave Trump this opportunity, like you said, Josh, to reframe the conversation and say, well, then we get Bernie last night being like, the system is broken. I don't like the Affordable Care Act. We don't like it, but we have to keep putting money into it.

We have to keep pouring money into it, or your premiums are going to go blah, blah, blah. Because they want to agitate the problem so that they're fixed, which all Bernie bro candidates are. Is Medicare for all? That is what they want to do. He wants to push it for that. As Tom said on the last episode, they want to be able to blame the bureaucratic-inspired regulation-saddled system and say it is broke, it is bloated, it does not work, we need to replace it with more socialism, because they are assigning the current system as if it is capitalism.

It is not free market. We do not have a market economy. Oh, my gosh. We do not have market forces in healthcare, hardly at all. We need to open this up and break it up. Right, which is what Trump's proposal could do, and it's really interesting. It must just drive Trump crazy, because he's a businessman, right? He's like, let's solve business problems. And meanwhile, it has to be Congress to do this, though. They hold the purse. It has to be Congress that actually changes how we're going to pay these things out and how we're going to do the healthcare marketplace.

And Trump must just watch it like, guys, I have this idea. Checks and balances. Yeah, you missed out on my corporatism Steve Bannon rant last week. Oh, did I? I love a good Steve Bannon rant. ESOPs, publics. Yeah, no, I'm frustrated. It was good. Yeah, basically frustrated with the defense of the current system as pure capitalism or true capitalism, because it really isn't. It's crony capitalism and corporatism, largely. And you're seeing this a lot with the AI companies wanting to socialize the risks of their major investments.

The privatized rewards. Yeah, exactly. The privatized rewards. So, yeah, you can go back and check that one out. I had a lot of fun. I guess I'm pretty radical in that regard. Okay, Erika, your good news, what do you got? Okay, well, Josh put this, or someone put this link in here. Let's just play a little Name That Tune before we get into my game. Ooh, am I going to get copyrighted? No, you're fine. No, it's public domain. All right, all right, all right, all right.

Sweet. You know, I'm always like, look, I'm just trying to take care of the program. I know, I got you, brother. We appreciate that. I got your back. We appreciate that. No, Lollaback Girl. Okay. Name that tune, Chad. Oh, Chad can see the name of it right there. That's the Marines. Happy birthday, United States Marines. November 10th, 1775, the Marine Corps was founded. I have Marines in my family, and Semper Fi. Love you guys. Thank you for your service. So, I thought today, for my good news, I would profile one of the greatest Marines of all time.

In fact, he might be a canonized saint of the Catholic Church one day, hopefully in our lifetime. Father Vincent Capodano, the Grunt Padre, and you may know him as he was a soldier, he was a chaplain, but he was actually a Marine, so it is a good day to remember his story. He was born in Staten Island, New York, 1929.

The year of the crash, he was ordained a marinal missionary priest, and he served in Taiwan and Hong Kong before volunteering for the military chaplaincy in 1965. For those of you who know your history, you know this is the heat and up days of the Vietnam War. So, he was sent over to South Vietnam and known to the troops as, I said, the grunt padre. He was recognized for accompanying Marines on patrols, administering sacraments in the field, on the battlefield.

There's accounts of him just running into sniper fire to give last rites to the dying soldiers, sharing front lines conditions with enlisted men. On September 4th, 1967, Operation Swift, his battalion was engaged by a large North Vietnamese army force. Ignoring his own safety, he moved among the wounded, providing medical aid and last rites. And he was struck by shrapnel and gunfire to his arms and his legs. He refused evacuation and continued to assist others. While attempting to reach and assist a wounded corpsman, sorry, near an enemy machine gun position, Freudian slip, Father Capodano was killed by automatic weapon, and he was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.

So, a Catholic priest, he is now a servant of God in the Catholic Church, and he was given the Medal of Honor. And one of the greatest Marines of all time, among many. There are so many stories of heroism from the Marines. I have a Luke Caster story from the Marines. Yeah? I hung out with him recently.

Sorry, you want to go first, Josh? Well, my father-in-law was one of the very last people to ever see Father Vincent Capodano. He saw him literally 48 hours before he died. He said they know that the snipers targeted him, which, you know, he had the helmet on with the cross. You're not supposed to go after a chaplain. They did strike him down. They called him the sky captain, and as soon as that happened, let me just tell you.

The Marines responded. They unleashed a sleeping giant, and they went after the Vietnamese for taking out their chaplain. To a man, he said, the reverence that they had for Father Vincent was so high, because normally chaplains are at the base, but he was right out there in the field, and they loved him so much.

But, yeah, so my father-in-law had the chance to, and he's been very inspired by him, and he carries his prayer cards and gives them out to people and lets them know about his sacrifice. So, I got to share lunch with the Lubecaster, and he is a Marine, so I was asking him his thoughts on the Pete Hegseth speech, when he basically called all the generals fat and stuff, and I was like, what do you guys think about that, whatever, and he's like, honestly...

Like, listen, I'm going to wade into some intra-military department drama. I don't want any part of it. All right, I'm not, that's not what I'm here to do. But he's like, the Marines' fitness standards, like, never changed. So, all of the other... Because branches, they all lowered their standards, but the Marines all stayed high, so they were honestly even kind of confused, like, wait, other ones got fat? You know what I mean? Other ones are not, like, keeping up with things.

Look at that Navy guy, so big, yeah. Hilarious, and maybe it's just a Marine, you know, talked a little trash, possible. And then he's also laughing about the Marines ads. Like, if you ever watch the ads, they never change. Like, the Army one was like, oh, it's a little, like, anime, two moms. Whoa, whoa. And the Marines are just like, we're killing people. You're going to be in the most dangerous of circumstances. Maybe you can't make it, and then he said for his recruitment, it was funny.

He would go to the branch-to-branch-to-branch, and they said, Army's like, oh, well, you'll get these benefits, and you'll get this nice thing, and you'll get this nice thing. Navy, you know, you get to go travel the world. Like, that's so exciting, and then he goes to the Marine booth. They're like, yeah, we're actually not sure if you can do it. Like, you probably can't. You're probably not good enough, and he's like, okay, Marines is, you know? Yeah, that's the one. So, shout out to the Marines, man.

First in, tip of the spear. Happy birthday, Marines. I definitely know some Marines myself, so thank you for your service. Happy birthday to Marines. Josh, you are up first. So, another anniversary. Today is actually the 50th anniversary of the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. You're like, why is this good news? Well, it actually— Oh, sorry. You have a very musical episode. I love the song. Thank you. I listened to it already three times today.

But the good story, the good news from this is that these men did not die in vain. Like, you know, what had happened was they'd always kind of risk it. They had lowered standards for a while, and they would put more, way more cargo on the ships. Josh, not all of us are from the Midwest, though. You've got to give us the context. Yeah, you're going to have to set the stage, man. What is the Edmund Fitzgerald? Set the stage. Edmund Fitzgerald is this massive cargo ship that would take, you know, Taconite or other ore from Duluth, Minnesota, across Lake Superior, on its way either to Detroit or Cleveland, you know, where they would manufacture this stuff.

The different steel mills or whatever. Just think about, people don't understand how important we're talking about. If you talk about the Great Lakes and the cities that are on it, from Duluth to Chicago to Detroit to Toronto, if that all were one economy, it would be the third largest in the world. I mean, it's an enormous amount of commerce, and because of the Great Lakes, you're able to ship this stuff from the ores, like in the Iron Range of... Northern Minnesota all the way to, like I said, Cleveland or Detroit, instead of having to put them on, you know, like one of these cargo ships, you're talking like 3,000 semi-trucks equivalent.

Can you imagine if all those trucks were on the road? No, it's so much more economical to throw it in a boat and ship it. It's absolutely better. And climate-friendly. Indeed, but, you know, again... November comes around, and Lake Superior is massive, and people don't understand it. You could take all the other four Great Lakes and pour it into, and you wouldn't even feel what Lake Superior has got.

It's surrounded by natural beauty, but it can be very turbulent in November, and they'd stuff the oar on these ships to the point where it used to be. The ship had to be 14 feet above water or whatever it was, and they're like, no, we'll lower it to 11, you know. They would just stretch these things. They wouldn't get repairs enough, and then these men, they all perished. And, you know, Lake Superior, I mean, like, it's a death sentence. Like, it's so cold, there's no way anyone would survive.

And so, they've done so many things since then. They've got weather buoys. They've got, you know, when the ship goes down now, it'll send out a signal, you know, immediately, you know, instead of... Because they're like, well, they never signaled that they needed help. So, all these things that they've done. But I do have to just say, in addition to all the safety stuff, which is really kind of cool, as you were, you know, started there, Tom, with the lyrics of the song, Gordon Lightfoot.

It produced one of the longest bangers of all time. I mean, it's a haunting song. Every dad knows it. And he was reading, you know, Gordon Lightfoot was reading this account Newsweek, and it was Newsweek that had mentioned that it was the, you know, the Cherokee had mentioned that, you know, the winds of, you know. of November, and Sapir never gives up her dead, and this kind of stuff, and he looked at that, and he goes, this is so amazing. This is a banger.

He inspired the lyrics to his song, and he just felt like it wasn't getting enough attention, that these 29 men, who are away from their families for eight, nine months at a time, sacrificing so much, and they just died, and it was just like a blip in the national news, and he said, no, I want to pay tribute to them. And any money he made from the song he gave to the families of the 29 men, and he always, and he actually asked their permission to, if he could do the song beforehand, and then.

By the way, when he finally passed away, because every year they would ring the bell on the anniversary 29 times. Well, after he died, they rang it a 30th time for Gordon Lightfoot. They loved the guy so much for everything he had done to publicize. That gets me right there. And so, it is November, and we honor the dead, and I love, it is always good to honor the dead, and Gordon Lightfoot had done a great job with it. We thank you for it.

50 years, and all the safety protocols, there hasn't been a major cargo ship wreck since, so. It is good that we're doing those things, like the Coast Guard doing pre-November checks, all that kind of stuff, so these men did not die in vain, and it's just kind of cool to, you know, like, what an honor, you know, Gordon Lightfoot, like, you know, he felt it, too. These families just couldn't thank him enough, how much, I mean, the one lady said it was too haunting for her to even listen to the song at first, and eventually she would listen to it, and he goes, every line, he just didn't miss.

It was amazing. Also, are we getting fact-checked? Was Father Capodanno actually with the Navy? Well, he was with the Navy, but he was serving with the Marines on Operation Swift. Oh, no. Okay. All right. We'll say it still counts, but yeah, we're getting checked in the comments right now. Yikes.

Okay. Thanks, guys. All right, mine. So, Pope Leo. In the namesake, said he was going to address AI, he is, so he's talking about, he sent out this message, the message of the Holy Father to the participants in the Builders of AI forum, and I guess the theme of me finding stuff for the LOOPcast is stuff that just lights up debate on Twitter, because I saw stuff that was, like, he's not saying it's the spawn of Satan, so that's not good enough, and then other people, like, this is the greatest thing ever.

I'll just read you what he said, and then I guess we can get into it a little bit. So he said, I send cordial greetings to all participating in the Builders AI Forum 2025 taking place at the Pontifical Gregorian University. Express gratitude to the organizers.

This forum's aim of fostering a new interdisciplinary community of practice dedicated to supporting the development of AI products that serve the church's mission reflects an important issue of our time, not merely what AI can do. But who we are becoming through the technologies we build. In this regard, I wish to note that artificial intelligence, like all human invention, springs from the creative capacity that God has entrusted to us. This means that technological innovation can be a form of participation in the divine act of creation.

As such, it carries an ethical and spiritual weight, for every design choice expresses a vision of humanity. The church, therefore, calls all builders of AI to cultivate a moral discernment. As a fundamental part of their work to develop systems that reflect justice, solidarity, and genuine reverence for life. I'm not sure where, like, the Sora AI cat running through the house fits into this conversation, but I'm sure that it's under there somewhere. Joie de vivre?

Yeah. No. So, interesting so far. This is just a signal he's going to take part in this, I believe, in more capacity. Listen, I don't know if this is, like, a hot take. I think this is good. I think this is really good. I don't see any way it's negative to have the Pope, you know, global leader of a billion Catholics worldwide, very intellectual guy. He chose his namesake because of what's coming with AI, and I think everyone, you know, there's different caps on how you see AI going.

It is going to transform society in some way. It already has. I think that the engagement on the behalf of ethical and moral thinkers are what we all kind of opine about the lack of, say, like Silicon Valley's ethical foundations for social media or things that we complain about now.

I guess I'm curious what's going to come from it, for sure, but I just see this as a really good news that he is very engaged on this, because this is the technology that probably would change people's lives, just like the internet did, just like the phone did. This is next. Yeah, what really struck me, actually, is in the second paragraph there. So, if you keep going, he says, Your deliberations over these two days illustrate that this work cannot be confined to research labs or investment portfolios.

It must be a profoundly ecclesial... endeavor based in the church, and I think that this is right. I know a lot of people, we see AI, and we talk about the machine, and we talk about the, what is that called, the disenchantment of the world, and we're like, we just, as Catholics, like we can't be part of this like AI thing because demons and all that, but that's actually not true. The way Leo was looking at it, I think is exactly right and good that this is another human technology.

And whenever human beings are developing new tools, and we saw this with the Industrial Revolution, we saw it with the invention of the printing press, we saw it going further back into the development of architecture and the building of the cathedrals, infrastructure, roads, with any human technology development, There's the tool, but then there's also the reason why the builders of the tool and those who wield the tool are involved in it. And with any human endeavor, there's going to be someone sitting on the throne, right?

There's going to be something that's being worshipped and that the tool's being used to move us towards. And with the Industrial Revolution, we saw a lot of great advances. In human technology, to relieve the estate, to relieve people's suffering, but because the almighty dollar, or whatever currency was in your country, because almighty dollar was sitting on the throne, a lot of the advances of the Industrial Revolution end up hurting human dignity.

Being tools of injustice and fragmentation instead of solidarity. So, what the Pope is saying is, as we develop this new tool, as when we have developed any new tool, it is the Church's job to make sure that God remains on that throne, and that we are wielding those tools with a proper understanding of the human person, our place in the universe, in creation, and in the sight of God. And that is why this has to be an ecclesial. Meaning a church endeavor.

So, he's right. We have to be at the forefront of this, because otherwise, investment portfolios, the almighty dollar is going to be on the throne, or scientism is going to be on the throne with those research labs that he talks to. So, I really liked that second paragraph, and I cannot wait for his encyclical. Come on, give me something to chew on.

We're going to have to rock a deep episode on that one, probably. I'm pumped. Okay. I just gave one. I just gave a deep episode. Yeah, well, yeah, basically. But the church, the priest report was fascinating. Oh, you missed out on, shout out Mark from Wichita. We got the lowdown on what's going on in Wichita. Yeah, Mark, I read that. I wasn't on the episode, but Wichita looking great. There's signs of hope, man. It was awesome. So, go check out that deep episode if you haven't already.

One of my favorites in recent memory. Send it to your young priest. I sent that episode to our... To, like, parochial vicar guys, they're in their late 20s. They loved it. The boys? Yes. So, make sure all the young priests get that video. We could do a follow-up. We could go do our own after and talk to some of the young guns coming up here, see what they have to say. I'd like it. Okay, Josh, to Wild Zone, what do you got?

Well, I mean, if you've got, you know, kids listening, maybe turn this off for a second for them. Uh-oh. Unfortunately, it's always who you suspected. In New Hampshire's first transgender lawmaker pleads guilty to federal sex abuse charges. It's a dude who's pretending he's a woman, and he got his... ...ex-girlfriend or whatever who worked at a daycare center take photos of children underage as they were getting undressed. This is just a reminder. There's a lot of very sick people out here in this world.

Now, I don't know. I guess it's, you know, someone who basically announced from the get-go that he's got... You know, sexual confusion between his ears that he has other perversions is not totally shocking, but I don't know. I would like to increase the penalties on people who engage in any of this kind of stuff. Now, possession of stuff probably doesn't get you death penalty in my mind, but caught in the act of doing something would. But I would like to increase the penalties all across the board on all this stuff.

I want people to think twice before going down a road like this, where they traffic and this kind of stuff. I want them to think like you're in Singapore. Justice needs to come. That's terrible. Yeah, Stacey Marie Lawton, she was, or he represented Nashville's Ward 3 until 2022, when he resigned after being arrested after a stalking incident. So, it looks like things are kind of on the downhill.

Yeah, so disturbing. Yeah, Peggy in the chat, I love that. Oh, my light just went off. The thing that never happens happened again. Yeah, so, I mean, you know, just in general, like, pornography has fueled, you know, a lot of passions anyway, but there's a lot of people that do that nasty stuff that without doing truly reprehensible evil stuff like this, I'm not trying to say one isn't evil, I'm just saying... We need to increase the penalties for any of this stuff, big time.

Massive deterrence needed, that is for sure. All right, Erika, what do you got? All right, so this is Twilight Zone slash good news. I am always interested in efforts to end male order abortion, which is what the FDA under Joe Biden is subjecting women to. This case is coming out of Louisiana.

So, a Louisiana woman allegedly was coerced by her boyfriend into taking mail-order abortion drugs. She filed a lawsuit with the state of Louisiana and the Attorney General, Liz Murrell, against the FDA and HHS for removing these safeguards that would have prevented her boyfriend from being able to order chemical abortion drugs, mifepristone and misoprostol, over the internet. With no doctor oversight and handed them to her in a drink that he crushed into a drink, the lawsuit challenges the FDA's removal of in-person requirements for abortion drugs, a change made under the Biden administration after the Dobbs decision overturned Roe v.

Wade. Alliance defending freedom again. I cannot recommend these guys enough. They are amazing. They're arguing the case that the FDA policy endangers women, citing risks such as emergency room visits and follow-up. Now, I want these drugs completely banned from all of society. They should not be legal under any circumstances, but a good first step would be what seems to me a common-sense regulation with any kind of chemical you're going to put in your body, especially a drug that interrupts a healthy physical process like pregnancy.

To have a doctor at least have oversight of it, and it kills me that, not literally because I don't take them, but it kills me that it takes a woman undergoing this kind of awful experience of having a chemical abortion drug snuck into her drink to get this to a court when the FDA and HHS are supposed to be there, they're supposed to be these institutions that prevent things like this. this from ever happening, but the only silver lining to this would be if we can get this case all the way up through the courts to get these regulations reinstated as a good first step toward eventually eradicating abortion.

A little bit lighter note. Greg Gutfeld, I don't know if you can play this clip for me, Tom. Gutfeld was interviewed by a New York Times opinion columnist, not Ross Douthat. He had a really good, they're talking, no, wait, for context, they're talking about, the New York Times op-ed guy, he's asking Gutfield about why are religious people so nasty, and they write nasty letters, and, you know, religious people are so mean, and they're just mean-spirited, and Gutfield's like, I get letters from religious people all the time, and this is how Gutfield characterizes what he gets.

They write letters, but they're so polite. Though, the ones I get, I'm telling you, man, the ones I get, it's like, Greg, we always respect your opinions, but I must ask you, please refrain from using the Lord's name in vain. And then they will try to... Penn Jillette said to me, like, he's an atheist. Somebody who works at Planned Parenthood might have a different opinion about how polite the religious letter writers are. Well, I mean, they are killing children, so... That is part of the game.

Couldn't even respond to that one. He couldn't even respond, and Greg ends it with, like, space, or what did you say? They are killing children, so what do you expect? I mean, they are killing children. Game over. Good job, Greg. That was a good point.

All right. Listen, I read the tea leaves. We've got to finish on a positive one. I cannot stop laughing at Trump's appearance at the Lions game in Washington. He actually hopped in the broadcasting booth. Oh, they gave him the microphone, too. Thank you so much for joining us. Kenny Albert, Jonathan Vilma, Veterans Day weekend, the NFL salute to service.

How meaningful is it for you to be here today? You just took part in the halftime ceremony honoring the military. Just middle of the game, just handing him the mic, and I think at a certain point, like, they got the whole thing. They went through his...

He played tight end in high school or something, and then the one guy's like, yeah, and he's like, hey, Trump, like, you want to call some plays? I think this is a really important run. I think we can all agree this one's calling the plays. Yep, there you got it. Yep, yep, right, yeah. Oh, man, so funny. He did the Air Force One flyover. No, but you missed one part about it that was really kind of cool. Yeah. In the course of this, every once in a while, he breaks out.

The mini-character of Humble Trump, and you were talking about his time playing football as a tight end for the military academy. Didn't you have a bunch of touches? I was like, I don't know if I had any. He was downplaying his own efforts, which was just so cool to see. He doesn't do it a lot. Although, he must have really hated his high school quarterback, because I feel like the only thing I know about him is every time it comes, he's like, our quarterback didn't really have a good arm, could only throw the ball 10 yards.

Wasn't very good. Wasn't very good. And then everyone, so there's tons of speculation, because, so Air Force One flies over, and then he's there, and I think he swore in a lot of the military members at halftime, which is cool, and then at the beginning of the name, they're like, oh, President Trump's here, and then viciously booed, like, to the point where, you know, there's all the bot accounts online, they're like, it was good, or it was bad, it was like, pretty much everyone was like, viciously booed, and you gotta think.

Washington, D.C. is 95%. Yes, he fired, like, half of D.C. at this point, so they're probably not a huge fan. And then Amirase Brown scores a touchdown, tries to find Trump and, like, whatever one he's in, and then does the Trump dance. He's like, yeah. And again, this inflames the internet again because there's half of people who are like, he was doing it to make fun of him because he was beating DC's team. And then there's people like, oh, Amirase Brown, mega Trumper because he did the dance of, like.

You just, it's a 24-7 circus. Whenever Trump hits the scene, it's hysterical. And then one of my low-key favorite parts is he always brings Mike Johnson in tow. Like, he'll bring Mike Johnson, and Mike Johnson just looks like the homeschool kid on his day out. Like, he goes to the UFC event. When he's at the UFC event. Mike Johnson is never stepping foot in a UFC arena outside of having trouble with him, which is hysterical, and then he's like, he kind of posts like a Facebook tag, like, yeah, he's like, I'm here at the UFC event with my friend, President Trump, and he's in the booth with Trump, and of course, Trump chopping up, and there's Mike Johnson just kind of like soft smiling in the corner, and just cracks me up, and cherry on top, Lions put a beat down on America's team.

Lions are America's team now, but they put a beat down on them. Grudge match. I feel bad. That would be the Patriots. Patriots. Well, actually, yeah, the Patriots, man, are having quite a season. They're doing great. So, I thought we'd bring it up. I almost wore my Patriots jersey to the show today, but I thought it might be a little bit, a little too much. I'll wait for the Super Bowl. Yeah, wait for the Super Bowl. We'll see. Might be a while.

We'll see then. But, today, we end with a prayer, but before we do, thank you to all of our champions that support the show. Best way to support us, CatholicVote.org slash champions is the way to do that. Really appreciate it. It's the only way we can do this. And leave us a review. Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Head over to YouTube. We've got lots of great content coming there, and we'll end with a prayer for America, very appropriate. In the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

Amen. We pray, O Lord, for the United States of America. We pray for our leaders that they be inspired to lead according to your will. Most especially, we pray that every Catholic in America will be inspired to live out the truths of the faith and public life, and that it will lead to the renewal of our church and country. St. Thomas More, St. Fidelis, Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us. Amen. Great episode, guys. Have a great week. We will see you again on Wednesday for another live one. That will be great. Catch you then. Peace.