Shutdown Sparks Massive EBT/SNAP Debate, AI Job Apocalypse, And Pints w/ Aquinas Move

And we're live. Welcome back to the LOOPcast. This is Tom, Erika, and Josh. So happy to be with you guys today. The LOOPcast is brought to you by The Loop, every American Catholic's favorite morning newsletter. Packed show today. Impossible to be on X.com yesterday without encountering Pints with Aquinas move or Tucker having Nick Fuentes on. So, we're going to get into that in a little bit of the fun kind of like end, but there's a couple of major news stories we got to address up top.

First being the government shutdown still continues, and I believe there was a CR that did not pass again. We're at a sticking point to the point where it's affecting things like SNAP, things like EBT. And so, basically, I just said, Erika, I see you talked about a lot. Let's go into it. Let's get into the details here. What is this program? Why is it not being funded, and what are the political implications? I'm actually really curious, Josh, as this shutdown kind of moves on here.

What's the table stakes? Second, we had a lot of movement in the AI job sector. Amazon and UPS announced major layoffs, but I have some positive news on the AI front as well, so I just prepared an AI section for today. Of course, we're going to hit the kind of fun stuff with Pines with Aquinas and all that, but we have good news. We have Twilight Zone. We're going to have a great show. So, happy Wednesday to everyone here in the chat.

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Also, I mean, we've got to say it, Josh, you look fantastic. Yeah, good looking, Josh. Thank you very much. As usual. All right. So, Erika, we're heading into one month of the shutdown. I had questions about Snap EBT. That seems to be the new kind of thing on the table that people are fighting over. We've moved on from the subsidies with Obamacare. So, take me into that situation right now. Where are we, and why is this debate happening? Yep. So, yesterday, we had another vote on the Clean Continuing Resolution.

It was once again blocked by the Senate Democrats. Of course, we need that 60-vote count in order to pass the CR. So, the government remains shut down. And at this point, we're looking, yes, at week four weeks today. It'll be one month on the 1st of November this weekend. And here's where all of that, you know, obscure budget, what's a clean resolution, all of that suddenly starts hitting more Americans where it hurts, and it's a tangible crisis. For it turns out, 42 million people, perhaps, because, yes, indeed, the focus this week has been on the SNAP benefits, the EBT cards.

Running out of funding. They won't be refilled on the 1st of November. If things continue as they are. Before I get into that, the other major industry, or the major industry that's being affected at this point, the controllers at the FAA missed their first paycheck yesterday, Tuesday. And as of this morning, more than 3,000 flights have been delayed, either within or into or out of the United States. This is according to FlightAware.com. The number of flights canceled is 132, which doesn't sound like a lot.

But the number is going to continue to amp up, according to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. Unless we get those guys paid, United Airlines is offering meals. And would they get furloughs, or no? Is it just they're not getting paid? No, there's no plan to furlough these air traffic controllers. In fact, we need as many of them as we can get. Sorry, I meant back pay.

They will get back pay. Okay. Absolutely. They will get back pay. The thing is, I got to give credit to a libertarian, Scott Lynn Saccone from Cato Institute. He is no friend of Republicans, but he made the observation that we should switch to a system that other countries do, where you do user fees.

You know, and ticket user fees to finance air traffic controllers, so that if your government shuts down, you are not going to affect it, and FAA workers still get paid. I think that would be a brilliant system. Once we get through the CR, that would be a great thing to...

To make that change. This is why, for example, the United States Postal Service is a semi-quasi-private agency, and so it's open. It's not affected by the shutdown. So, that's what we should have for the FAA as well. It shouldn't be susceptible to political showdowns like that. Yeah, and it seems like that would be, these are some creative solutions for the future that we really need to start looking at, because I don't see any movement. On either side right now, in terms of reopening the government.

A question we did get was... I do, a little bit. A little bit? Oh, oh, oh. Well, I mean, first of all, the movement that we saw was earlier in the week on Monday when the government union, you know, the agency representing the government employees signified to Democrats, okay, you kind of made your point, but maybe we should stop the shutdown. So, to me, that was the beginning, like, okay, so the ice is starting to thaw a little bit. And then, with this deadline approaching of November 1st, as you mentioned, with food stamps, which are automatic, it's not like they send stamps in the mail, they just put the money on your debit card there.

Debit card, right, they refill it. But yes, that is looming large, and obviously, Democratic voters, Democrats have two big constituencies. People on welfare and white liberal women that love their wine. I think you're overestimating how many people in rural communities that vote white. There are a lot. There are a lot. Okay, but let's take, if you represent a district in, let's say, Brooklyn, the percentage of people who are on food stamps is going to be higher than West Virginia Second, even if it's a rural area and it is poor.

Sure, based on population density, sure. Not population density, but I am just saying, I do think this is what is looming large, and so then Senate Democrats today came forward and said, with a unanimous consent, let us just all agree that we are going to finance. You know, food stamps for two weeks, and Republicans are like, no, we're not going to pick winners and losers on this. We've got to fund the full government. Let me, because I had Erika dig into this.

Like, how big is this? How many people take advantage of it? I know a lot of people complain about the structures, but just in terms of scope, what are we talking about? Right, and just to back up a little bit, what Josh is referring to there is Democrats are calling for the USDA to use what is called the contingency funding, and that's a $5 billion contingency fund. ...that could fund SNAP for two to three weeks max, fully. So, then the Republicans are saying, no, we're not going to dip into that.

It's not legally possible. To actually fund another month of SNAP, though, would require about $9 billion. So, there's all kinds of things going in there. If you go to the USDA website today, actually, if you want to pull that up, Pogo, the USDA is not messing around. They have a note right on the top of the page for SNAP. They're like, Senate... Democrats have now voted 12, it's actually 13 times, to not fund the food stamp program, also known as SNAP.

Bottom line, the well has run dry. At this time, there will be no benefits issued November 1st. We are approaching an inflection point for Senate Democrats. They can continue to hold out for health care for illegal aliens and gender mutilation procedures, or reopen the government. Some mothers, babies, and the most vulnerable among us can receive critical nutrition assistance. Gosh, I love this administration. Whoever is in this administration's IT department is working overtime. Yeah. I mean, every website has something like this if it is government-related, which is crazy.

Well, in fact, they had the same message that was done by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and airports actually, many of them refused to actually air it because it attacked a political party, and they didn't particularly like it. That will probably run afoul. Of a Hatch Act violation, so that could go through the courts. We'll see. Sorry, what did you say? Trump ran an ad?

No, I mean, the Department of Homeland Security ran an ad. Like an announcement. It is not really an ad. It is an announcement that, you know, a lot of times you are in the airport, you will see on the video monitors, and here is a message from Homeland Security Secretary. You should watch Alejandro Mayorkas up there. And those often get played all the time. It is just that this one that she had attacked Senate Democrats for refusing to, you know, for blocking funding to the government.

Therefore, that is why you are going to see delays in the flights. So, she attacked the Democrats in this message. And so, some of the... Some of the airports are like, we don't control the content, you know, don't blame us for anything she says here, and others are just like, some airports are just not refusing to hear it at all. Sidebar, based on odd advertisements, I'm not sure if you saw at the World Series, there was, I think, the province of Ontario snuck an ad into a World Series game that was...

I think it was anti-Trump in some way. I can't remember the exact thing. Anti-Tariff. Anti-Tariff, yeah. He was both right, right? Yeah, so they snuck into a World Series game, and then Trump got super mad about it. I think even Mark Carney was kind of mad about it, too, because he's like... Because he didn't make the calls, whoever's in charge of Ontario, and so Trump got super mad and then slapped 10% of Ontario. Well, the Reagan Foundation sued the government of Ontario for using Reagan's voice.

Yes, they used Reagan's voice. Nobody was happy with Ontario. Right, Ontario did that. Even though, I guess, Toronto is up right now. I mean, there is no question that Reagan was open to using some tariffs, but that he generally was against the use of tariffs for the most part. He was more free trade than Trump is, but then again, maybe that is not what the time is called for right now. So, I mean, libertarians are weird.

They remember the Smoot-Hawley tax tariffs so much that they forget, like, look, we have There's tons and tons of taxes, and this is the one that you're just amping up on it? Is it maybe because, you know? Yeah. All right, back to our snaps. Back to our snaps. I would just like to ask a very surface-level observation. A lot of Americans, we can debate about the fraud involved with EBT, which there's plenty of it, the requirements that are involved, which funds a lot of junk food, whatever, but at its baseline, a lot of Americans do utilize SNAP or EBT, a significant portion, I think like 42 million.

42 million is less. Okay. And if the government gets shut down and this stops, and they see their elected official still taking a paycheck. Um, I imagine that's pretty not good politically. So, do you think that it's going to land more on Trump or it's going to land more on Democrats? It's a big question, right? So, you're seeing Senator Rick Scott even saying, let's suspend our paychecks. I mean, it's one of those things where people, it's so very good on the populism charts, but it's one of those things where it's like, there's a history to this.

You know, it used to be like the king. When we were part of the colonies, the king wouldn't even open up parliament for years and years and years, and it's like, this is a way that you would use to exercise power, and then they would arrest you trying to go to parliament, and so we have these laws where it's like, no, a lawmaker on his way to Congress, you can't arrest him even for a DOI if he's on his way to go to Congress.

There are certain principles that we had fought hard for, and one of them is the idea that you would cut off the pay of lawmakers, then that's another way to exert force on lawmakers. Now, if lawmakers themselves decide they're going to go without pay, that's one thing, but it's just such a, I think it's, I get it. It's like a cheap thing, but like, you have to understand, like, this is a way that tyrannies would sometimes work. Like, you refuse to pay the people's representatives, you know, as a way of putting your thumb down on them, and so, I know, I'm very 1776 on this one, but there's a reason why we do it like this.

But I think just, like, politically, for the average guy who's, you know, thinking about it, if he hears, oh, my representative, like, gave up his pay to stand in solidarity with the poor people in my parish, like, they're going to respond to that. So, it's really smart on the part of the lawmakers. Some are just donating their salary. In terms of the political fallout at this point, and you ask who's taking the blame right now. Traditionally, of course, in the past, there's always been Republicans who take the blame and take the hit for a shutdown.

That doesn't seem to be necessarily happening this time. And there were even some clips from CNN suggesting that the Democrats have lost Jake Tapper. So, I just want to go ahead. What? This is an interview with Melanie Stansby. Should the Democratic senators from New Mexico? Sorry. Yeah, so this is, he's talking to the representative from New Mexico.

He's asking her what they're going to do about SNAP. Listen to what she says. Home state, vote to open the government so that these SNAP funds are not at risk. Let me be clear. The administration is choosing to starve American children with money that they already have appropriated. I'm not applauding their tactics. This is a choice by the White House. This is a choice by the White House. They are choosing to cut off food assistance. Congresswoman, this is also a choice by Senate Democrats to not vote to open the government.

Yes, it is. I understand why they're doing it. They're doing it because they want Medicaid funds restored. They're doing it because they want Obamacare premiums to be extended past the end of the year. I understand the reasoning. Sir, let me just be clear.

I can't wait until the great feminization video drops this week because the hand motion. Oh, it's going to be great. Oh, gosh. It's like, yeah, making the argument for hell in there. So, anyway, we see this with Jake Tapper, and then we also see that Trump's approval ratings, compared to the 2018-19 shutdown, Trump's approval ratings. Have actually stayed steady in some sectors and even risen in others, and we get this from CNN as well.

Oh. Oh, I'm going to laugh. You know, we speak about Donald Trump shutdowns, net approval rating, and we're talking 20 days into it. In 2018 slash 2019, Donald Trump's net approval rating was already falling. The shutdown was eating into his popular support. It was down three points already at this particular point, and would fall considerably more. It was very much on the decline. You come over to this side of the screen, this shutdown hasn't eaten into Donald Trump's support at all.

His net approval rating is actually up a point. In terms of his popular support. So, the bottom line is this. The first shutdown during Trump's first term, 2018-2019, was hurting Donald Trump. This one is not hurting him at all. There's no real reason Donald Trump might say, at least when it comes to popular support, I want to get out of this shutdown. And Trump's standing in 2025 was better than it was in 2018 anyway. So, there's more opportunity for him to have fallen this year, and it's actually gone.

What's the difference? Why is, what explains this? Well, you know, I do think in this case, the American people are blaming Senate Republicans because, I mean, Senate Democrats for not opening up the government because this is such a, it's a clean CR. It's like, let's just keep funding the government at the same rate we are, and we can negotiate these other appropriations bills. And the Senate Republicans have given the, what, 13 times the Democrats an opportunity, and they blocked it 13 times.

And then you have senators like John Fetterman out there. He's a Democrat. He's like, this is stupid. We should not do this. We need to open the government back up. And so, I do feel like this time around, Republicans have the advantage, and I do feel with the SNAP benefits. And the airline stuff, which are, you know, those are real problems. Those are real concerns. I get it. But I think the Republicans are like, well, then why don't they just open up, vote to open up the government?

We've tried to 13 times. I think it's a very winning argument. And, you know, this argument that the Democrats are coming up to say, well, let's just do SNAP for, you know, do SNAP, but nothing else. Well, you're not going to pay law enforcement. Right. You're not going to pay.

You know, the air traffic controllers, you're just going to do SNAP? Like, why don't you just vote for everything? Even if it was just two weeks. Fund the government for two weeks. Right, exactly. They could do a really short term, and I know that has been proposed as well, while they work out some of these bigger questions. I think that the Democrats, though, they love the narrative of, oh, starving children. Like, now Trump does not care, and he wants children to starve, and they are hoping to chug at the heartstrings there.

But like you said, Josh, it is so obvious at this point that they are the ones who are being unreasonable, given that the CR is funding levels that they came up with and approved under the Biden administration. And even the Democrats... themselves are publicly saying they're attempting to extort the government. I mean, we have this clip from Senator Welch from Vermont. Oh, Vermont, the gift that keeps on giving, where he just says it. He just says the quiet part out loud.

So, play that. Are you ready to vote with the Republicans to reopen the government at this point as a reasonable Democrat? Maybe others would follow you. You know. I'm not there yet, because we have had literally, Joe, no discussion whatsoever about how we're going to deal with these spikes and premiums. This is the right way to do it, Senator? By people not getting paychecks at the TSA? This is extortion. You think this is the right way to do it? In your conscience, you think it's the right way to do it?

I never thought I'd say that, Andrew. As a human being, you think this is the right thing to do? That's your line. Well, that's why Senator Hollyanne have our bill to make sure that folks get the nutrition that they absolutely need. It's why the president is paying the troops.

Yeah, he like nods. Crazy. Extortion? Nods. I'm really having a hard time coming up with a scenario where this looks good for Democrats in any way, shape, or form. I mean, I think what they did is, last week, they were floating this idea, like, well, we're going to have the... You know, the… Healthcare tax credits, but they're subsidies. They're going to run out, and so people are going to have to spend a lot more for healthcare, and all it did is reminded people, like, yeah, Obamacare has made healthcare premiums super expensive.

The Washington Post editorial literally said the Affordable Care Act was never affordable, and coming from Democracy Dies in Darkness Post, that was pretty striking. So, yeah, those talking points did not seem to work. Well, they did polling on this, and they found that, like, Republicans were... Understood the law, and they're like, yeah, these are just subsidies, and like, this is terrible. This just shows the bills unaffordable. And then independents were like, wait a minute, what? This is only able to succeed because we're giving massive taxpayer subsidies?

So, independents turned against it. So, Democrats are like, whoa, that talking point didn't work so well. And now we're on to SNAP-EBT. Now we're on to sparing children. They're flailing. They're not working. They're not succeeding. Maybe I did not give enough credit. Well, I guess the Republicans all voted to open the government. They were just going to vote on the CR and keep it clean. So, I do not even know if in their wildest dreams, they would have been like, hmm, we can discredit the other side so much and reveal how bad Obamacare actually is to the point where it reaches independence that that program owned, championed, et cetera, by all these Democrats is going to fall apart and is terrible and everyone hates it now, as opposed to just the subsidy act.

It almost is better than they could have imagined. What has he done this year that has made his opposition look really stupid and foolish? On this one, I got to feel like they stumbled into success. Republicans stumbled into the success. Because Democrats have this feeling that, you know, they came this close to Kamala Harris winning last time, you know, like just another...

She floated another run, by the way. I know, I know, I know. But Democrats just can't believe their luck on this one. They feel like they're impotent, they're super angry, they're super frustrated, and they don't know what to do. And they're like, well, fine, just unplug it. We'll unplug the government.

It's a fit of rage. Again, I actually like the Tea Party protests. I like what people were talking about back then. But just like, oh, let's just shut down the government. It's not an answer. I like Ted Cruz, but you're not going to get Barack Obama to overturn his signature piece of legislation because he shut down the government. It's just not going to work. I mean, no. And so, I just don't feel like the Democrats are holding a good hand here.

Eventually, they're just going to have to buckle because their own voters are going to go, why are you doing this? I need my food stamps, or my flight is being delayed. Just open the government up. Clean CR. Let's go.

Democrats are not winning the battle on this one. Well, I think they're just choosing to play to the, you know, resist Trump, the resistance at all costs, without any kind of actual desire to govern or work together or compromise, despite the fact that Chuck Schumer keeps saying, I want to compromise. He's like, no, you don't. You don't want to compromise at all. And it's Pete Trump, no kings. I think a few more Senate Democrats will buckle, and you'll get 60 votes.

For a clean CR, it might be after Halloween. It might actually be the first. Yeah. I think it's going to happen. I just don't think they're going to get to another full weekend. I don't think we get to Monday on this. It is pretty remarkable, even in our discussion of this, how, like, I think we were even doing the podcast at this time. There was a time when Trump was kicked off of all social media platforms, was looking at hundreds of years of jail.

Right. And. I remember that one person. We have an old thumbnail of him in a jumpsuit. Yeah, literally. And now, funny, we'll get into this later in the episode. He's the center. He's a centrist at this point. Everything revolves around him. I think there's opposition on the right to him at this point, which is crazy, and then obviously opposition on the left, but he's the center. He's the one saying, look, he's in Japan. He's like, I just want to...

I just want to, like, he's still busy as ever. It's like, I just think the government should keep going. That is a centrist opinion. Well, I know. Again, when your opposition is destroying themselves, don't interrupt them. I'm like, hey, we can fund the government if you'd like to. Just vote yes. It's very simple. Crazy. Don't block it. All right, before we get into the AI job apocalypse, Erika. We have another sponsor. Thank you. Home Title Lock. Did you know that American homeowners have over $32 trillion in equity, and criminals are targeting it with a growing scam the FBI calls house stealing?

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And make sure you check out the million triple dollar, the million dollar triple lock protection details when you get there. Sorry about that, guys. Click the link below and promo code LOOP60. Excellent. Thank you, Erika. I'm just going to put up, this was everywhere recently, and here's the headline I'm talking about. More big companies bet they can still grow without hiring. Uh, it is the corporate gamble of the moment. Can you run a company increasing sales and juicing profits without adding people?

American employers are increasingly making the calculation that they can keep the size of their teams flat or shrink them through layoffs without harming their business. Part of that thinking is the belief that artificial intelligence will be used to pick up some of the slack and automate more processes. Companies are also hesitant to make any moves in an economy. That many still describe as uncertain. JPMorgan Chase's chief financial officer told investors recently that the bank now has a very strong bias against having the reflective response to hire more people for any given need.

Aerospace and defense company RTX boasted last week that its sales rose even without adding employees. This comes amid Amazon cutting 14,000 corporate jobs as spending on its artificial intelligence accelerates. For perspective on that, Amazon has about 350,000 corporate employees and a total workforce of approximately 1.56 million. The cuts announced Tuesday announced to about a 4% reduction in its corporate workforce.

That's one thing. I'd say another thing, as we talked about UPS earlier, they cut 48,000 roles eliminated right before Christmas. So, I think, I mean, two things going on here. 48,000 rolls was above their projection for what they wanted to cut, so they cut above what they said they were going to, and second, this is the time people start staffing up. This isn't time for UPS to go lean. This is when we have more packages. We have more deliveries. I know plenty of people that do temporary works every UPS around this time.

But UPS, I just want to ask a question here. Is it that they're getting rid of drivers, or are they getting rid of corporate office, you know? I don't think they specified specifically what those jobs are. I'm wondering if it's, like, I wonder if it is inside the white. It said, so the company also trimmed 14,000 jobs from its management workforce, but its operational workforce, they dropped by 34,000 jobs this year. So, operational, I assume, are drivers and people in the warehouse and stuff like that.

Well, I don't think operations would be drivers. I think it's still, like, processing and stuff. Yeah, we have a good friend here who works for UPS in the management. And he's described to me how they are using AI to tighten up so much, because AI can do things like plan 5 million transactions. You think of what the managers were doing. It's like, how do I get a package from point A to point B in the most efficient way possible with the fewest number of planes and trains and all these books?

That can all be mapped into a computer and AI and done much more quickly and efficiently than a human can do it. So, those cuts are almost certainly... I don't think it hits the drivers, but it's still a job loss. I haven't seen any drones delivering taxes around my neighborhood yet. So, there's two interesting things going on to me, and these are just major companies on talking about their projections and what they're actually hard-cutting right now. But the S&P is, I think, highest of all time.

It's still going up amidst all these job cuts. And then the second is that private sector jobs are still up as of last month. So, in September, private sector, according to ADP, because the government shut down. added an average of 14,250 jobs last week. So, I think, and I'd be curious what you guys think about this, because you hear these, and the instant reaction is, obviously terrible to have these job cuts right before Christmas. AI is automating what other people would do, so you don't have these jobs anymore.

I think it's especially hard for new college graduates who had to take on significant debt burden to then be promised to say, do a white-collar job like this, or... Get a good-paying job after college, and these jobs largely are being trimmed. Like, management is still kind of holding, and then, say, like, low-service-type industry, like, not low as in dignity, but just, like, lower-paying, less-career-type jobs, more gig-type jobs still available, but that middle is getting kind of shredded. So, it's hard, I think, for a lot of people who are entering the workforce right now because that kind of grunt work where maybe you're in a meeting and you're taking notes, but you're there to absorb some of the institutional knowledge.

Those opportunities are kind of going away. But then on the flip side, and I'm sympathetic to this argument, we don't have secretaries that type everything that people say. We don't have physical file folders anymore. We have Gemini. We don't have the internet. You know what I mean? So, I'm not, I guess, totally bleak on it. I just think in the interim, it's really challenging, I think, for the average white-collar working college-educated American right now. Yeah, 100%. I mean, I was thinking back on just the history of the Industrial Revolution in general.

There has been the history of a series of massive adjustments in how the workforce, the types of jobs that are available, new development comes technologically, there is a shift in that, and tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people suffer from that. And this is sort of another shift in the industrial revolution that is going to result in. A massive turnover, churn, whatever the corporate speak is for all of that. Another sector that it's affecting, and this is anecdotal evidence that I have from, again, friends who are lawyers, but one of my friends who works for a firm, he was saying that he- Big time.

Yeah, big time. So, he was saying they've moved to AI-generated briefs that then the senior lawyers and partners go through and check and make sure that they're applying. And he said he can generate now three briefs that would have taken a first year. Law student or lawyer hired that they hired right out of law school would have taken them two or three weeks to generate these briefs. And he's like, I can generate those in a day. I can spend three days checking them and verifying.

And he says it still needs a lot of that. It still needs the human touch because they misread a case or a precedent or something. But he's saying they don't need to hire people out of law school at this point. The problem is going to be, how do you get people from law school to senior partner when they don't have to go through this sort of grind of being at the bottom of the totem pole, because AI is at the bottom of the totem pole.

So, another really interesting shift going on there. And in some ways, really positive. Like, I think it's great that people don't have to pay more money to someone to spend days to generate something to spend a dollar. Like, legal work is obviously super expensive. The other examples I think of are, like, the insurance industries, which I despise with most of my soul. Like, they have just smashed a lot of that middle tier, like, I need to do research of, say, what something in this area code, like, costs.

You know what I mean? Like, that, and in the same way that the internet. Did that as well. Like, the internet really destroyed what came before it. So, I think it can make a lot of industries much more efficient, but the big question and challenge, and I actually think is kind of a hopeful one in some ways, like, it's just about training at this point. Like, I remember being in elementary school, taking a typing class, and I think I was, like, the last.

They don't have typing classes anymore. Everyone just knows how to type. So, training. Well, they know how to do this. Yeah, exactly. They're phones with their thumbs. I think here's, like, a long play crazy thought. Hear me out on this.

I think this could be an opportunity to rediscover the early foundations of the university and the liberal arts education, because now we could just do a clean break from this, like, in all ways damaging to everyone involved, like, kind of lie that universities are going to give you somewhat of a technical education, but then at the same time give you a liberal arts education in which they basically give you neither, if that's the promise. And in many ways, it's like, well, people are just using AI to go through all that crap anyway.

So, actually make training. For industries that is affordable and will prepare you for the new jobs of the future, and separate, you can now also just say, hey. Go do great books. Ban technology from there. Have Socratic style discussions. Like, we could have a new, actually, it's not new. I mean, like a rediscovery of the early foundations of what education at that level is. So, sorry. I'm so excited you brought that up. I am so excited you brought it up. This was my good news.

Oh, my God. It's on brand. Because the Pope just issued this letter, an apostolic letter, that was featured in the Loop This Morning first feature because we got the translation in English before. Anybody else did? So, go check it out. But he addressed the 60th anniversary of Gravisimum Educacionis, which is the weight of education. Beautiful, beautiful title there. And he talks about the man, the myth, the legend, St. John Henry Newman, who will be declared a doctor of the church this Saturday.

And I can think of no better spokesman for a rediscovery of the meaning of the university. And the answer to all of our AI woes, and I love, too, because the Pope addresses AI in the letter and talks about we can't have technophobia as Catholics, but we need to hold together the living tradition and the Catholic anthropology of what it means to be human and to flourish, and therefore what education means as we move forward through history. And great letter, great synopsis in the loop.

And you just made my day by bringing that up so organically, Poco. Thank you. So, just to go back to the whole jobs thing, obviously, I mean, like, AI, to the extent that people use it to, like, Remove themselves from reality and come up with virtual boyfriends and girlfriends. That kind of stuff kind of freaks me out. It's kind of weird. Yeah, OpenAI came up with some stats on it. It is not good, by the way. Creepy. But to the extent that we can use it as pattern recognition and quickly summarize stuff like, give me a legal brief on defense of this and stuff like that, not that you would treat it as gospel.

Like you say, you have to go through it again. It does sort of, you know, it can be then a force multiplier, and it will lead to some jobs being lost. But eventually, I think it is going to be overall better for the economy. I just think about with banks. They used to require, I mean, they had to. They had to have physical records of everything.

And so, now, with digital, you can, it's all digital, so you don't, you know, like, the bank in right my downtown street, like, they're able to rent out half of their building to another company, because, like, we don't need to, we used to have that just for records, they would say, you know, it was kind of ridiculous. Now, it's, it's in the cloud, it's easy, you know, I'm like, yeah, so there are, generally, I'm positive. Yeah, these, you know, economic changes and stuff like that, it does require You know, a little bit of a transition and stuff like that, but I think, you know, again, what I would like our government to do is to try to spend more money.

Yeah. And even to think about trades right now, so like the plumbing trade, like there would be no plumbing trade if there wasn't the innovation of pipes or like in-home toilets. You know what I mean? I'm a big fan. I'm a huge fan. AC, et cetera. I like the in-home toilet. But those trade jobs came from this, so I'm like, I don't even buy the thing that AI is going to eventually even take blue-collar jobs, because someone was talking about the example of, to inspect a roof before, you would have to get four guys on a huge, you'd have to bring something out to get them high enough to look down on a roof and then go inspect it.

Now, we throw up drones, and a drone will take a look at your roof to be like, it even happened in farming. A lot of farmers now use drones to help with the planting so that they can be more efficient. I'm like, That is actually great, you know? That is a great application. Do you know what they are using AI for in farming right now? Yeah, dude, they are using AI in farming. No, no.

They are scanning. He has a tidbit. They scan, and they can tell what is weeds, and they use a laser, and they zap it. It is crazy. I love that. It is really cool. Very cool videos of that. So, now it is like there is a lot of opportunity that comes from that. There is obviously a lot of destabilization, but I think we need... If we meet that with the right technical training, and even someone's funny talking about universities are too expensive.

Now, I completely agree. I've never agreed more. Here's the thing. AI, like even they're even using AI for educational purposes for K through 12, which like. Crazy experiment. I probably wouldn't do it, but it is leading to better outcomes in smarter children because they have more personalized education, and they cut out all the administrative crap. So, here's the thing. There are going to be some universities that probably go bankrupt because what they were offering wasn't good to begin with. But say a place like Hillsdale College or whatever, where maybe they can lower administrative bloat or whatever so that they can bring down the cost, if they want to, smartly, to actually get people in the classroom with these professors.

Like, that's actually great. You know what I mean? Like, I don't think anyone thinks that this administrative bloat at the university level is good for anyone. I don't think it's best for education. So, anyway, yeah, we got a lot to talk about today, so I can't get into all of it. The one final thing I'll say, and I'm super happy about this, is there's now Grockopedia. It's Elon Musk's attempt to take on Wikipedia.

Another fantastic use of AI, in my opinion, because even the co-founder himself talked about how many conservative sources were just completely blacklisted from Wikipedia, and how many of the revisions, strangely, come from Langley, Virginia, if anyone is familiar with what goes on in Langley, Virginia. Wait, what? Oh, yeah. You've got to watch the interview. Tucker did an interview with one of the co-founders of Wikipedia, and it's basically...

So, it's basically a CIA op. Because now, a lot of people use that as their foundation for knowledge, but it's able to be manipulated on the back end. So, even if you go look up something on Grokopedia versus that, they give a different... I think the example of January 6th was used. Depending on where you look that up, you're going to get a very different version. But if you know that if Wikipedia blacklists all the conservative sources and voices, you're not going to get a pretty balanced thing.

So, Grokopedia, again, is going to be in a testing phase, see if it is good, but I think that is a great use, and Wikipedia even admitted that their traffic is down 6%, largely due to a lot of these AI models. So, I am not even completely out on AI in terms of research and information. Obviously, you have got to check the sources that it goes through, but it pulls from way more than whoever is manipulating Wikipedia on the back end, which I think is good if you want balanced information and get to the truth.

Anyway, Erika, you already did your good news. Josh, you're up. Well, I think this is good news. I saw this article. It was earlier in the month, but I think it's just helpful to conservatives and pro-family people to think about a new way of looking at trying to fight pornography, and this article is written by Liz. I don't know how to say her last name. Haggie? Over at Public Discourse. And she says the problem with the current attempts to try to fight back against pornography is that we've just sort of accepted what the Supreme Court said in Miller v.

California in 1973. It's the Miller test. So, pornography isn't speech, according to the court. If it appeals to, you know, it has to meet all three of these. If one, it appeals to the prurient interest, two, it's patently offensive, and three, it lacks serious artistic, political, literary, or scientific value. So, if all three of those are met, then it's not speech, it's just obscenity, and you can regulate it or ban it, okay? But the point that she's making is...

It's not, it shouldn't be considered speech anyway. She said, like, first of all, you know, a lot of the Miller test is kind of subjective anyway. You know, they say that community standards, well, community standards change over time. You know, what we consider to be. Massively. Exactly.

So, she says it shouldn't be considered speech at all, and until we try to change this understanding of what we're talking about here, we're never really going to do it. She says pornography is a private form of sexual gratification. That's what it is, and if the purpose is private sexual arousal, then it should be evaluated under the right to privacy, like we do at Griswold v. Connecticut.

And other cases like that, Lawrence v. Texas, okay? That doesn't mean, you know, yes or no on it. She's like, this is the prism upon which we should consider this question. I think this is a good thing. I think she's given us the roadmap here, because the sexual gratification is done in the privacy of one's own home. Griswold was saying, oh, I should be able to have contraception. It's the privacy of my own home.

So, this framing of it as a public health and consumer protection issue, rather than a First Amendment one, would do much more to help return rationality and sensibility to this debate. Interesting. I love that. If it is a privacy concern, then it is like, well, get this crap out of libraries. Right. Children and people who do not want to experience this should be able to have, you know, not to have to encounter this stuff all the time.

So, I really would recommend people to give this a look. I think it was a very good article. I think it was very well done. We live in a country that values our freedoms, values our speech, but it is like this is not speech. This is more akin to like.

We don't need to say, oh, but who will think about the poor corporations that are making millions of dollars manipulating men and women to watch this stuff? But who will think of MindGeek? You know what I mean? Right, exactly. We're OnlyFans. Oh, Erika. So, I really encourage people to read this article. We'll put it in the show notes. I think it's very helpful, and we need to really reframe this debate. It's not a speech issue. This is not speech. Toss it.

Private sexual arousal. Yep. Toss it in there, Celine. I love it. All right. That's great. I'm actually going to do good news. I mean, that is good news, but it's gross, and I've been accused of not making my good news actually good news, so this one is just pure good news. Love this story. We get the example. We get to talk about Notre Dame, Dave Perry.

So, they hosted the first wedding there since 1995. The Archbishop of Paris, Monsignor Laurent Ulrich, granted an exception to Martin Lorenz, a carpenter who worked for three years on the restoration of the cathedral so that he could celebrate his union with his fiancée, Jade, there. So cute. Look at this guy. Sweet stash on him.

It's cool, too, in the video, there's just tourists walking by behind them. Because there's never... You know, weddings here, and great example, just a great opportunity to talk about how sick this place is. You mean that in a good way? Sick in the best possible way. I mean, look at this. It really is like one of the architectural wonders of the world, if you ask me. It took 182 years to build, and basically burned down in one night in 2019. So, shout out to the carpenter who worked on getting it back, because if you look at the restoration, it is insane.

They didn't remake it in some odd way or whatever. It seemed like they were really faithful to what was going on. Thank God, because there was some question about that at first. Oh, there was a fight for sure. I have to get back there, because I got to visit there in 2001.

Actually, right after 9-11, I was there. And when I walked through it, all of that white you see, how it's so light and brightly lit, it was completely dark and like shaded from centuries and centuries of candle smoke and very, very dark, totally different experience there. So, I can't wait. Hope I get to get back someday and see it restored.

But it is breathtaking to see it as you're walking along the river, and you go around the bend, and you see this. It looks like it's floating on the river, the way that it's on the island there. Napoleon crowned himself emperor in 1804 there. He did. Some not-so-great things happened there. No, but it's history. Yeah, it is. It is so much history. Well, he knew enough to know where was the place to go. That's right. He's not an idiot. Come on now.

Yeah, the stained glass is so cool. So beautiful. The rose window. Yeah, are you guys familiar with rose windows, the symbolism and everything? I mean, Mary is the golden rose. So cool. Beautiful. Well, it's also, too, like, I went to go to the cathedral in, you know, Spain, Burgos and stuff like that, and they added, you know, new stained glass and stuff like that, but there's a lost art. Like, the medieval people knew how to make the sun go through.

The stained glass, and it would just look nice and beautiful. Now, in the modern days, we don't know how to do it without having the colors bleed through. Those guys were, I mean, they had to step up on us, I'm telling you. Well, yeah, they never passed it down.

Well, they were willing to pass it down, but we weren't willing to listen. Yeah, we burned both of them during the Reformation. Yeah, but have you thought about how cool felt banners are? Like, did you ever sit down and consider how sick they are, felt banners, green carpet, spaceships? Maybe I need to sit with that longer. Yeah, a little bit longer. You don't get it yet, obviously. Maybe you should go through a synod.

Okay, on to the next section. Listen, we've got to talk about it. All right. Everyone's talking about it's impossible to miss. Matt Fradd, Plants with Aquinas, of Plants with Aquinas fame. Funny, I remember, I think he visited Ave Maria back in 2016 when I was there as a freshman, and he just started the podcast, because he was saying that he'd done it for a decade. And at first, it was like, it was just talking about Aquinas, I think, if I remember correctly.

And then it's kind of evolved, as he's kind of evolved, where he does all these guests. I mean, by far, one of the largest Catholic podcasts. Um, out there right now, I mean, 0.01%, um, no question. He's just really dominated the Catholic space. Um, and he has announced that he is moving to a daily wire where some of his Catholic friends are. Um, I think the reasons he cited were a burnout. He's done it for 10 years. Um, I know the subtext too, like his wife is going through a lot of health stuff and I think he's just really exhausted.

So that's the reason he stated for going over to the daily wire said content will not change. Um, And he was basically given editorial freedom to do so, but we'll hop out with his reach, I guess. So, Josh, I know we don't do a lot of the celebrity talk, you know, talk about people type stuff, so that's why I love getting to ask you about this. Why do you think people are mad about this, and what do you think about it personally?

Well, I think a lot of people are mad about it because there's a lot of growing anti-Semitism going on, even on the right now, as well as on the left. I'm not saying everyone is objecting to this or whatever. So, there's some of that, but just in general, there's a pushback on the right.

It isn't necessarily anti-Semitic, of course, that just don't like what's going on with the last 40 or 50 years where we're just like, accept everything that the Israeli government does and wants, right? Why am I saying all this stuff? Well, Ben Shapiro, obviously, is Jewish, and he's one of the big guys behind the Daily Wire, and he's absolutely a fan of just about everything the state of Israel does. And so people are like, well, why is this Catholic going to the Daily Wire, which is all run by the Jews and stuff like that?

It's like, well, okay. They do have a definitely pro-Israeli government perspective. There is no question about it, but Daily Wire does. But, I mean, I like listening to Michael Knowles, and I like Matt Walsh, and so I am not going to not listen to him just because I think Ben Shapiro is off on Israeli stuff. So, I mean, whatever. I am going to still listen to Matt Farah just because he went over there. I do not get – there is two – there is – Again, we had a situation where in our government, we had so many conspiracies that turned out to be true and validated from COVID and all this other kind of stuff.

McCarthyism. Now, people are looking for conspiracies everywhere. Honestly, I think Matt Fradd, you know, like, his extensive reason, I'm burned out, my wife's a little sick, and I just want to be able to focus on the content and not have to worry about everything else, because it is a big enterprise. You have to sell ads, you've got to do all this other stuff, book people, whatever. So, for him just to be able to, like, not have to worry about a lot of that stuff, administration stuff, I totally understand.

You know, so, I mean, one of the things about, that makes it good that we're doing this. We three co-hosts, we have a lot of people to help behind the scenes. We have people who work on production. We have people who work on marketing of it. It is not all just done by one person who has to hire a few people. We have a greater team. It is a lot easier when you have a larger team to be able to do these kind of things.

I would not have tried to launch a podcast on my own. I can tell you that much. Yeah, especially now. There's a lot of competition in the market. Any thoughts, Erika? Yeah, I mean, my sympathies are with Matt here, and I was struck listening to him make the announcement, how he just sounded really tired, and yeah, maybe I'm like the feminization of the workforce factor in this podcast, but I just felt for the guy. I mean, I did. Although, didn't he say he had the chance to live in Croatia, and he turned that down?

I was like, come on. I know. I was like, Croatia. What are you thinking, dude? You should have been in Croatia. Come on, Anna, as the kids. Yeah, and I know that they've moved around a lot the last few years. There was the big announcement, they moved from Atlanta to Steubenville, and then they left Steubenville for Florida. I hope that they find a home and that he can, like they're saying, maintain full editorial control, kind of like Jordan Peterson. They just kind of let him do his thing and go off the deep end a little bit.

I wouldn't use him as a success story. No, I wouldn't either, but they did just kind of let him. Yeah, but what was he saying what he wanted to say before? So, what I'll say on this, I think it makes a ton of sense if you believe Matt's word, which I do. He is tired. He's done it forever. I have no reason not to trust him. I don't know him personally. I don't really listen to the show, but I do know how much work it takes to what Josh said.

There was a lot of times where I was early days with the podcast, pulling real late nights and doing all the editing and the promotion. It's just like, It's a lot more work than I think people think, especially in his show where he was flying people out, and he actually had to do all the research. Like, if someone writes a book, you have to read the book. Like, it is a lot more than just showing up. Long-form interviews are exhausting. Yeah, and, oh, yeah, they're exhausting.

So, it is tough. That being said, I am a little bit confused. I'm not surprised at the backlash. I think that it's becoming very unpopular. Zionism, I think, when it comes to Catholicism and when it comes to American government, is real. Influence on American government, the dispensationalist heresy, I think, has bothered a lot of people, rightfully so, a lot of Catholics and a lot of Americans that feel like they were sold in America First message, and by a lot of these people on the right, like the Ben Shapiros and a lot of those people, but then it turns out, well, America First contingent on this kind of unwavering support for Israel, especially after we watched what happened in Gaza for the past couple of years.

Regardless of what you want to say about it, we all watched a live stream of a brutal, brutal, brutal war, both ways. October 7th and the other way. It is like America not first, America 1A. Exactly, right, and I think that is frustrating, and we are going to get to the Nick Fuentes situation, but I do not think you can deny that I think many, especially younger Americans looking at a very uncertain future, as we talked about with AI, and then politically as well, are frustrated, really frustrated right now, and so I think in some cases, you can make Israel the boogeyman on that, but I think in other cases, there is a lot of very legitimate.

So, I think there's legitimate questions. The second thing, Matt, I'm just confused on a reach, and I'm not confused because it wasn't based on a reach or a brand decision solely. It was based on being exhausted and their family situation, but to me, As a purely Catholic show, it's not that I ever thought he would delve into, say, the Israel thing, but it's now like he was bigger, and he now gets hitched to the wagon of whatever Daily Wire's editorial stances are.

Um, which I think kind of damage his, and I think any independent creators, uh, authenticity, you know what I mean? At least because he might not even actually have, he might have total editorial control. It doesn't matter. Like this is what people are going to perceive. Now you're hitched to a larger organization. And to me, he did the hard thing of going and for 10 years, painstakingly building this massive influential Catholic apostolate. It's so hard to do that. The reason why people do go to places like daily wire.

...or other incubators are they don't have that audience, and they need exposure to a larger audience, more opportunities, more opportunities for collaboration. He already had that, and he already had all of the advantages of being able to collaborate. Clearly, he's friends with the DailyWare guys, but none of the baggage. So, it seems kind of odd to me that... He would make, it's not odd if you, because I think it is because he's probably exhausted, and of course, this happens on top of this much larger bubbling up frustration of how America conducts itself with foreign policy, and then how people are covering that, and there's just such a stark red line in how people view that, typically by age.

So, like, if you were to look at his comment section on that video, to me, I think there's people that are probably never going to come back, or maybe they do in a while, and that's just the reality of Yeah, and I did dig into the numbers pretty quickly right before the show, and it looks like he was doing like 350,000. Views across all platforms. I couldn't tell if that was monthly or if that was per episode. Whereas Daily Wire, they can garner over a million for a live stream with Ben or something like that.

So theoretically, he could hit a million maybe by going to the Daily Wire. So he could be broadening his reach. I somewhat disagree, especially on the long term. And then I look at what happened to... I don't know. You mentioned Jordan Peterson, and I feel like Jordan Peterson was appealing to people because he just was at a webcam in his room and was super sincere, and at his best, he was giving lectures to young men. And then when he kind of came on, he became really commercialized, and he dove headfirst into a lot of the...

He lost me with the series of blazers with the Theotokos on them, and then this blazer that had all these crucifixes all over. I'm like, this is getting pretentious. Yeah, he just lost what... The original appeal, I think, for a lot of people, and maybe he garnered a different audience, and that was a strategic decision. He had stuff going on in his personal life, too, with his wife and everything. It is just hard to resist the buyout, but the other thing that I think not many people are aware of, or maybe they are, everything on YouTube is starting to feel the same, and there is a reason for that.

A lot of YouTube channels are actually bought and funded by private equity at this point, and I think another point maybe to make the different people in the audience is like, To us, like to my generation, having have come online of like thinking of politics or broader things, like to my Fox News is like a YouTube channel at this point. You know what I mean? Whereas like older generations, they think of legacy news as like, this is legitimacy. I look at a large YouTube channel, and most people like me are like, legitimacy.

So, I think a lot of younger people, when looking at this type of move of, like, quote, selling out or, like, going, taking the private equity money or whatever, it obviously does impact your content over time. It might be a good business play for you, but, like, the new kind of edgy up-and-coming, they're not YouTube channels anymore. They're Twitch streamers. They're Nick Fuentes. They're people with independent audiences that are not, haven't sold out. Like, even if you didn't sell out in your message or whatever.

The appearance of selling out is so important in terms of independence, I guess, or independent thought to maybe people even younger than I am, so something to consider, too. I did want to address, too, because people want to talk about it. Tucker Carlson had Nick Fuentes on.

Wow, what a can of worms that is. I've had people in the office ask me, who is Nick Fuentes? What is going on? Who is this guy? Why is he bursting in the mainstream? Why have I seen the most insane clips of him? All of a sudden, I never knew who this was. Tucker had him on.

I listened to the interview. It was pretty standard. Nothing super crazy was thrown out. Nick does have pretty serious allegations leveled against him. Nasty stuff. The Griper Army, really nasty stuff. So, I think there's a lot of thoughts going on, like the platforming argument, there's...

Also, he's consumed in clips. So, people are like, is he just being clipped out of context? Is any of this real? Is he being discredited? So, there's a lot going on, I guess, in general. Josh, do you have thoughts on the Nick Fuentes effect or the Tucker Carlson effect or any of that?

Well, I just don't understand why. Tucker Carlson, we'll bring him on. I mean, you can interview hundreds of different people, and you're going to pick this guy who there's pretty nasty sexual scandals involving him. So, I just, I don't get it. I don't understand it. He seems full of hate. He lies all the time. I'm not a fan. So, I don't know. I don't know what, I mean, I missed the Tucker Carlson from about four or five years ago.

So, bringing Nick Fuentes on, again, it seems a real lapse in judgment, and it is just Tucker like, well, I believe in crazy amount of free speech. Just interview everybody. It is like, really? I mean, why? I mean, like, I do not get it.

I disagree. I think that I am happy with new Tucker. Sure, he can be painted out to be crazy. If you actually listen to his stuff, he doesn't sound crazy, and I think the issue with Nick Fuentes is not him himself. It's more that he, obviously, a lot of the stuff that he's done says problematic. He's been consistent on the Israel issue for a long time, and also, he's one year younger than me. There are, there's clearly, he has a massive audience and massive influence.

And a God complex. Exactly, right. Like, but I say, like, Trump has a lot to do with this. So, all of the same, he's like kind of a younger Trump in some ways, in my opinion, because they all tried to, like, remove Trump from polite society. There was a time where wearing a Trump hat would get you, like, mugged, basically, or at least look that funny. And he has all the sexual scandals. And he was trying to be discredited. He's almost like I feel like an older generation like version of Nick Fuentes in some ways, maybe not exactly the same.

I don't want to completely make a 1A, 1B. But we've kind of learned that like, well, a lot of the stuff levied against Trump, it doesn't matter because of what he represents or the ideas he brings forward or this cachet he brings to the movement. I mean, we clearly support Trump. He's got a lot of baggage.

And so I think a similar phenomenon is going on with younger people where Nick Fuentes is clearly very talented. He also exists in a period of time now where the normal shutdown lines against him don't work anymore. You know what I mean? It doesn't work for that younger generation of like, well, he says he likes Hitler. And it's like, well, all the same stuff was used against Trump. So, it's like we're in a time where there's no- Yeah, we brought this up yesterday, and I'm like, who is Nick Fuentes?

Why do we care about him? Why is this making a splash, and is it even making a splash, or are we just living in niche podcaster world here, even talking about him? So, I don't know, Tom, if you could give the little clip about, okay, talk to me like I'm your mom. Hi, Jason. I've had this conversation. I'm really trying to help people understand, I think.

What Nick represents or who he is, like this new era of communication, I guess. I hate to sound all pretentious like this, but I don't think we've seen something quite like him. So, he's 26. He grew up in a Chicago suburb. Neither of his parents went to college. He was an early Trump supporter.

I was actually listening to a lot of Mark Levin back in the day. He's like very PragerU. I think he door-knocked for Ted Cruz. Very milquetoast, like conservative values. So, he goes to Boston University, wears a MAGA hat. He starts debating people that didn't like Trump. I mean, Ted Cruz is milquetoast today, but, I mean, 2010, 2012. What? Oh, I just thought he was kind of standard. I mean.

The right has moved, made progress. Okay, well, again, this is just my lens. So, he goes there, and then he starts asking questions about Israel's influence on American politics, American society. So, Ben Shapiro, he mentions this in the interview, tried to snuff him out in the crib, and he tweeted something about dual citizenship, and then Ben Shapiro, he only had 100 followers at the time.

Ben Shapiro tweeted, like, this is pure anti-Semitism, and of course, that led him down the path of, like, why just continue to ask the Israel question, and people were just being really unserious. Like, they weren't giving me good reasons, and so he's basically built a brand off of answering these questions. He's been completely, for a long time, blacklisted from polite society, like, couldn't get jobs, couldn't have social media accounts. He's still banned on YouTube, I'm pretty sure, although he's kind of everywhere now, and he has said some, like, he's consumed in clips.

He's said some really wild, edgy stuff. I will caution, though. That is standard fare for group chats, behind-the-scenes jokes. That's how people my age talk, behind-the-scenes. It wasn't yet public or whatever, but a lot of his interactions happen, again, in this blacklisted space, in group chats, in some ways kind of reminiscent of the Tyler Robinson. We're talking about this online radicalization, and I will say we're kind of Discord-type, yeah, super hyper-online. Extreme online living. He has this influence over these people called the Groypers, is what they call it.

It's a disgusting name to name your homies, I guess, but the Groypers, and they basically are like an online hit squad where they'll go around, and whatever Nick says, they'll go and attack and whatever. They have this hyper-loyalty to Nick. So, I think there's a lot going on here. He... He already had, if people are like, why are we platforming this guy? His platform is bigger than Tucker's, or at least at the same level. If you go look at his interview right now, it has more views on it than interviews he does with other people.

Maybe not bigger than Tucker's. No, he's not bigger than Tucker's. I'm saying that he has a legitimate... Almost at a million on Rumble, I think. Right, so the question, he has a legitimate audience. The reason he has a legitimate audience, in my opinion, what we watched happen with Israel, and we have a lot of reasonable questions about their influence over American politics. Has not been answered properly, and the way that they've attacked someone like Nick Fuentes, or people that also have reasonable questions, is like, get rid of them, they're out of plate society, take away their social accounts, malign them, character insults, whatever.

And like, in the case of Nick, it's probably true, but then for other people that are also like, hey, I kind of have these questions too, they treat those people the same as Nick Fuentes. So, it basically has the radicalization effect of like, well, these people are gatekeeping me for some reason, so now this sounds more appealing. And so now, he's kind of like the underground, like, he's the edgy new thing on the wave, and what happened is Tucker brings him on his podcast, but this is only after, like, he was on two, three other major podcasts that he was blacklisted off for many, many times, and I will say, on the Tucker interview, he came across as much more, say, like, moderate or less extreme than he has been in other appearances.

He sounds reasonable, but he's still full of hate. Yeah, I mean, like, I watched, yeah, so I watched 20 minutes, I watched 20 minutes of it, I watched the section on, where Tucker's like, okay, you live in the world of clips, you're known for clips, because this is just the way people consume Nick Fuentes. Then he's like, I'm just going to let you talk, like, just tell me, what do you believe about Jews? And so I listened to the segment, and he's like, you can't divorce, he is not of the mind that you can be like, I'm against the state of Israel, but I'm pro-Jewish.

So, he is just like, you have to be anti-Jewish all the way down, right? Like, because Israel... That's not exactly what he said, but he does blow the line with Jew and Israel all the time on purpose, in the same way that people that attract him do the same thing, in my opinion, but yeah. Because he's against collective punishment, he doesn't believe, and he actually has Jewish producers, but he's way too casual with the word Jew. Yeah. No, it reminds me at a sort of more even insidious level than the way that people 100 years ago, 120 years ago, were treating Catholics in the United States.

It's like, well, Catholics are really this group all over the world with primary loyalty to Rome, so you can't be a good American and be Catholic at the same time. And he's like, basically, if you're Jewish in America, your primary loyalty is to your homeland in the state of Israel. And so, of course, now we have to be watching for all this. So, I found that disturbing. I found the whole, like, I'm a fan of Stalin. Stalin was great, and he didn't actually slaughter a bunch of Ukrainians during the Haldimir.

That is so overblown. How could you possibly say anything good about Stalin? Well, he was an industrialist. Yeah, he was an industrialist. He made them into a nuclear power. Yeah, he made them into a nuclear power. But I'm just saying, it feels like I'm watching- He defeated Hitler, but I love Hitler. I want people to understand. I want people to understand. No, you've said a lot. No, I would really like to say why the moms need to be concerned about this.

Yeah. I'm just going to let you take a sit. Go ahead. Go ahead. We talked on Monday about Mamdani and the rise of Mamdani in New York City, and how we have this younger generation that sees the world as against them. They see that I'm never going to be able to buy a home. I can't get a job because AI. Some of them are like, climate change. Oh, my gosh, the world's going to end.

And that is a primed population. ...to attach themselves to these extreme views, regardless of whether or not these ideas have already been tried in the past, regardless of what the consequences of those experiments were. The one that we focused on Monday was when the young people go to socialism, and they're like, Democratic Socialists of America, we are going to tear it down, we're going to have free groceries, free buses, and this. The other option there, on the other extreme, is this sort of Groyper's anti-Semitic...

There's a group on the right where, regardless of whether or not they're asking good questions, whatever you want to call those, like, yeah, ask hard questions, but he attracts... Their answers are horrible. Their answers are horrible, but he's addressing a pain point the way that Mamdani is addressing a pain point. And the terrifying thing, I mean...

I hate to bring up the Nazis. I do not want to bring up the Nazis again, but you look at the conditions in 1929 to 1933 Germany, and where were the young people in Germany going? They were going either to the brown shirts or to the Bolsheviks, and this was the stew that they were moving in. And that's why Fuentes should, we should not discount him or ignore him or brush him off as, oh, this is just a blip. Is Mamdani a blip in New York?

Is New York going to? Survive Mamdani? I mean, they probably will. They'll survive, because it is America. We're not quite Nazi Germany yet. But at the same time, we can't be ignorant of where these sort of stews of discontent with younger generations have led to in the past, and think that somehow America is immune from this. So, we should pay attention to Fuentes and what he's saying, and we should be able to critically tease apart where he's coming from. But at the same time, the guy is...

These are some evil ideas. This is some very evil stuff going on here, especially what he said about women, what he said about the Jews as an ethnicity. It should just be denounced, but not discounted as a blip or, oh, that's just something online. Yeah, I completely agree. I completely agree, and someone brought up in the chat more cons than pros with Fuentes. I completely agree on that.

It feels like, though, and maybe this is inevitable, people are kind of falling for the bait with him, and I think especially this like terminally online people coming up, they love the fact that they say outrageous things, and they get people to retweet them, or they get people to interact with them. I mean, Charlie Kirk even had a policy on him. I think he like kicked him out of TPUSA events. Nick harassed him for years and years and years, and he's mad at people for like, do not, like you're falling for the bait on him.

Stop interacting with them. You're amplifying them by arguing. I will say, though, you can't, as you said, you can't discount them. You can't dismiss. I think largely the reason it's possible is because the contract that was given to younger Americans, well, two things. Young white men have been demonized for about a decade in this country, maybe more, and I think that's really produced profoundly toxic fruits, which sets the stage for exactly what you're saying here, Erika, and you've gone two directions with it.

As you already brought up. The second thing is that the contract that was given to younger Americans that you will be able to be socially mobile, like you'll be able to go upward, you can get a good job, you can get a good career, you can buy a house, you can be able to take care of yourself through healthcare, that will be affordable. None of that contract has been fulfilled to these people. So, you're looking at an angry, you know what I mean?

So, all the conditions are right for someone like Fuentes to take this energy. But at this point, he has this momentum, and there's going to be people here. There's going to be people that go in the cult and come out of the cult. There's going to be people that are kind of adjacent, and they see the type of school marmy camp platform, and they're going to go further into his camp. So, what I would recommend to people is, if you have someone my age who is sending you stuff, like he had this good commentary on the financial backing of J.D.

Vance, I would listen to that. And I would engage them where they're at. It's like, oh, you really think this? And then, like, you go into that a little bit more. Instead of just the blanket dismissal of, like, you shouldn't be listening to that crap. It's just, it's not going to work. Like, you're not going to... I don't disagree with you on that. I would just say, you know, what the conservative movement had done in the late 60s and 70s is they took a lot of people in the South...

Who grew up as white Democrats, and they believed in segregation, and they had a little bit too much of racial bigotry. Not all of them, not completely soaked in it, but there was a little bit of that, right? And conservatives would say, look, let us talk about the things upon which we agree. We agree in family. We believe in faith. We believe in traditions. We believe in customs. Let us unite on the things like that.

And then let us slowly move away from, like, the bigotry and try to baptize them into a movement that, you know, the conservative movement believes in, you know, honor, believes in family, believes in God, but we are going to move away from, like, this racial animus against Blacks.

So, in other words, what I think what it comes to is then with these... Whatever, Groypers or whatever, people who find Nick Fuentes to be interesting and fascinating say, let's find common agreement on this. Like, it is true that we should have a government by the people, for the people, not for other countries. There are, I mean, it is.

It is true that we have, you know, AIPAC has too much power, the American-Israeli Political Action Committee. Too much of our foreign policy has been done that, and part of it has been our own fault. I blame America much more than I blame other countries. Yeah, I mean, look, if I could convince other countries to do the best for the United States and it would hurt them, I'm not saying I'd go for it, but like, it's...

Part of the big problem with that is, as was discussed in the program, Tucker, is that you have a lot of this track in Protestantism of, you know, dispensationalist theory, which thinks that we're going to get the second coming because we've got to do all this stuff, and that's why we have to be pro whatever the state of Israel is. So, we have some theological battles we need to do on some of that stuff. So, we should try to find the ways to say, yeah, you know what?

It is kind of stupid that we just unfailingly do whatever Netanyahu wants. That is dumb. We should not do that. I agree. But hold the phone on some of this other stuff. Come back here. Wait a minute. You are going a little too far. So, yeah, I do not agree in just lecturing them for the sake of lecturing them. How dare you? I do not think that works. No, we got to win people over. 100%. And I will say the fruit of...

Much of the, like, the identitarian, like, Jew hatred or just boogeymanning of any race is, like, the most spiritually toxic thing you could possibly ingest, and I do think, funny, like, he's not married, and, like, jokes about not being married or whatever, I'm like, like, I went through, like, we're around the same age, like, really, the most grounding force in my life are, one, my Catholic faith, no question, the marriage to my wife, my children, like, my faith community, my church, like, Those are, like...

The fruits of that are actually what can bring you sound mind, and I just, I really would like, the worst part about all this is that it could lead someone into this kind of like spiritual toxic wasteland of just being obsessed about racial identity in a way that's just not productive, not helpful at all. And it's not helpful for you to even like have that even a part of the debate about foreign relations and foreign influence. It's not helpful at all.

And that's why actually they accuse them of being like a fed, you know what I mean? Like. Tucker thought he was a fed, and he probably, he still could be. Both of them actually could be feds at this point. Who knows? Right? Crazier things. More on the FBI. Because of this January 6th stuff, which, like, is an interesting theory that I think about a lot. Because it's so discrediting, and it's so toxic, and it just makes you look terrible. And, like, yeah, we're not going to get anywhere with that.

So, I agree. Do you have anything else, Josh? Well, I just think that we have a lot of radicalism simply because, you know, the other side has been so... It's insane. And so, it's like, part of the problem is when you're combating tyranny, when you're combating insanity, you know, you can sort of say, well, anything is justified. And this rolls into my twilight zone. Yes. Go for it. There's a new up-and-coming liberal podcaster who's gaining a lot of traction. Her name is Jennifer Walsh.

And she is suggesting that the Democratic establishment needs to get on board with wanting conservatives dead. Or else, leftists like her will come after you in the same way we come after MAGA. I mean, if you wanted to manufacture a psycho-liberal in a lab, you would not believe this. Let's roll the tape on what she does. She's pretty crazy. I've seen some stuff. This thing is happening just in New York, and you think people are waking up only in New York City.

You're mistaken. Look at this clip of a wine mom at the No Kings March. Play the clip. His name was? Charlie Kirk, ma'am. Yeah, him is horrible. Horrible. Charlie Kirk is horrible? Yes, I'm glad he's not here. You're glad he's dead? Yes. Why would you say something like that, ma'am? Because he was horrible on the campuses, the college campuses. Horrible person. You know what? I do the exact same thing. Would you be glad if I would die? Maybe.

I'd have to think about it. You should be ashamed of yourself. You should be ashamed of yourself. Your friend just said she'd be happy if I died. She is so good at her job. So, listen up, Democratic establishment.

You can either jump on board with this shit, or we're coming after you in the same way that we come after MAGA. Period. Stop taking APAC money. Go on an I'm sorry I took APAC money atonement tour if you want to stay in power.

Stop missing out on these big rallies. Hakeem and Chuck should have been fun and center. She's like the new frontace of the left. Yeah, so this is what I'm saying. I mean, like some people are like, if you want to, Stephen Miller, not the Stephen Miller works in administration, he said, if you wanted to put a face on why men have abandoned the Democratic Party and aren't coming back anytime soon, there you go, Jennifer Welsh. I mean, the fact is. You can come up with all sorts of, you know, post-mortem on elections, or battle plans, or PowerPoints on how Democrats could retake the majority and win back, you know, Latino voters, Latino men and white men.

Like, dude, no. You're pumping stuff out like this? This is what your party sounds like? Yeah. No thanks. I'm not interested. The options, man. Is there somewhere in the middle you could be where you're just like, dude, it's not all about the Jews, and also I don't want people to die. That would be sick. You oftentimes will win in politics when the other team just loses their marbles, and all it requires is the right, and I think Trump is good about this, like making sure, you know, like, okay, here's where we stand.

Like, we're going to continue funding the government. We want to see our, like, Trump is. The middle of the road, and precisely because the left has gone insane. Yeah. All right, Erika. Crazy. Speaking of going insane, we have had more documents released from FBI field offices.

The one that caught my eye was this one from the Seattle office from, I believe this was four years ago, and we have this, well, shall I call him a spook? He wrote this memo. A lot of it is redacted, but you kind of get the feeling he is targeting Ed Corrigan, who is. Probably one of the kindest gentlemen you'll ever meet in the conservative movement. Josh, you've probably worked with Ed directly. Amazing guy. But here's what this FBI agent from Seattle said about Ed.

According to Blank, Ed Corrigan is pro-Putin and anti-Biden. He is doing treason. We believe that Corrigan and his boss, Mark Meadows, are engaging in willful criminal activity. According to Agent Blank, Corrigan has blank properties at which he wants to build up infrastructure to train people for civil war.

Ruby Ridge, anyone? Oh, my goodness. Then it keeps going. Corrigan has secretly, he secretly controls the Freedom Caucus. And his plans that are not good for the FBI. Corrigan hates the FBI, who he refers to as spooks. Well, it turns out Corrigan seems to have been correct, and so it goes on and on.

And it's just, this was going on at the FBI in Seattle at the same time that Antifa was burning down parts of the city. Just got to love it. Things were so much worse at the FBI than I think even we.

When we started suing them for information on their prosecution of the FACE Act, it just keeps getting worse for the FBI. So, can we, Josh, can we just abolish the FBI? Can we doge the FBI even harder? Yeah, I'm not even a huge fan of cash bail at this point. I could go with. I still want federal law enforcement officials to go after, you know, fraud, sex trafficking, and stuff like that. I want the FBI shrunk to the actual core. Things, yes.

And a lot of the stuff not done, yes. And it hasn't happened. I want actual oversight. Right. It hasn't happened. Like, nothing changed. There's this whole thing, like, oh, the podcaster bros are going to come in and change everything. No. It appears it's the same size. Remember when he said they'd turn it into, like, a museum of the deep state? Now he's taking, like, planes to fights in Nashville. We need some people to be prosecuted. That's what needs to happen.

Yeah, people need to be fired and prosecuted. Because otherwise, they're going to do this in the next Democratic administration. I mean, yeah. You have to actually put some people in handcuffs, like Comey, Brennan, some of these guys. Put some bracelets on these guys, you know, and get them to jail. I think they're going to get, what's his name, Bolton? I mean, that's crazy. Some of the stuff that Bolton had going on is nuts. And you have to make it so that the next time there's a Democratic administration, people go, I don't know if I want to go that far.

I could end up in jail. That's when you actually get changed. It'd be chill to enforce a law. Okay, so mine is, obviously, there's a lot of attention on this New York City mayoral race, and people are resorting to new tactics.

AI videos from Cuomo, AI ads that look really bizarre and were terrible, in my opinion. I'm trying to think of some other gimmicks, but my new favorite gimmick. What happens next is, strangely, Bill de Blasio has just out of nowhere did an interview with a British newspaper criticizing Mondami, and that's strange because Bill de Blasio has campaigned with Mondami and has said he supports just about everything he does. Well, it turns out it was a fake interview.

What part was fake? The interview. De Blasio was fake. De Blasio was not real. It wasn't Bill De Blasio. De Blasio impersonated Trick's British newspaper with fake criticism of Mondami. The Times of London briefly ran an article with quotes from someone who the paper said had falsely claimed to be the former New York mayor, Bill De Blasio. You guys, come on. That's where we're at. Not even falsely claimed. They probably mistakenly assumed he was. That's what it is. Exactly. No, I think someone said that they were.

At least that's what they're saying. Um, and then, of course, de Blasio was a little bit surprised to hear that he had been criticizing Modani to the time. I had nothing to do with this, and, um, yeah, I had to go all the way to London to get that in there. Oh, my gosh. So, yeah, wild times in New York City, huh? It's going to be crazy. We'll know on Monday.

We'll make it through, guys. We'll make it through. There's a lot going on. We didn't touch some controversial subjects today. And now you know about Nick Fuentes, ladies. For those who didn't know, tried my best. It's a bizarre phenomenon. Not a very good one, in my opinion. No, certainly not. Certainly not. So, we pray. We got our daily prayer.

Got some good stuff coming. Tomorrow, we'll have a good episode of The Deep coming from Erika. So, look forward to that, the great feminization. Did women ruin everything? You can find out on The Deep, 4 p.m., right here. I already know the answer. All right, no, no.

They have to watch the video and share it with all your women friends. Oh, okay. I feel like it is your fault, ladies. All right, gang. So, we end with a morning prayer. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.

Oh, Jesus, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I offer you my prayers, works, joys, and sufferings of this day for all the intentions of your sacred heart, in union with the holy sacrifice of the Mass throughout the world, for the salvation of souls, reparation for sins, the reunion of all Christians, and in particular, for the intentions of our Holy Father this month. Amen.

St. Thomas More, St. Fidelis, Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us. Guys, we made it through. We did it. We did the Wednesday. Have a great Wednesday, and we will see you guys in the next one. Peace.