The AI Bubble Is About To Pop, Obamacare Subsidies Explained, And H1-B Halt

And we're live. Welcome back to the LOOPcast. It's Tom, Erika, and Josh. The LOOPcast brought to you by The Loop, every American Catholic's favorite newsletter. Good morning, everyone. I have a fantastic show prepared for you. Start up up top. Happy birthday, Pope John Paul II. No, feast day. Feast day, brother.

I got so excited because I was thinking of the video of him saying that, America, I love you, and that better come up in this episode. If we don't, someone put it in the sheet right now. It might be in the slots, yeah. Happy feast day. I saw a lot of people already talking about it in the chat. You know why? Okay, so he was born, and his birthday is like May 18 or May 20. I can't remember which one. I think it was May 18, 1920.

And his birth into eternal life was actually April 2nd, but because that day, which is also my son's birthday. So frequently falls during either Holy Week or the first week of Easter, the church, in her wisdom, gave a different day for us to celebrate John Paul's Feast that we could celebrate it almost every year. Because if it was April 2, you'd get bumped so many, so many times. You wouldn't be able to celebrate it. So, October 22nd is the day in 1978 where he was either elected or enthroned, I forget, to start his papacy.

Thank you for those technicals. All I have to say, maybe the Pope with the most aura. Oh, totally. But he also benefited from, you know, media at the time. There was probably some popes before photography that had a ton of aura, but in our lifetime, probably the pope was with the most aura, most cachet amongst the youths. I mean, he was... He'll never be another.

He knew what to do. Yeah, so awesome. But anyway, we have a fantastic show. I get to trap Josh in a room and talk to him about AI. I've been waiting to do this. I haven't had the good opportunity. Today is the day. Three things happen. The Amazon Web Services crash we all experienced and somehow streamed through, which was awesome. Yeah.

Sora 2, and then AI porn from Sam Altman. I am not going to get explicit on that, but that is essentially where they are going. And that just made me think, what are we doing? Who asked for any of these things? How is this a business? What is going on? And unfortunately, I feel like Charlie Day from It is Always Sunny in Philadelphia with the red lines at this point. I am going to do my best. It is always right in the end.

I basically am Charlie Day from It's Always Sunny. That would be my character, but anyway, I'm going to do that. I just saw that show, actually, for the first time two weeks ago, and I thought this actually might have some promise. Is it any good? It is. What I would say about It's Always Sunny... I mean, it's probably crap. No, but it's actually funny. The comedies may not be too safe, but it actually is funny. It's hit or miss, and I kind of get annoyed sometimes with how much yelling there is.

It's all at the same tone all the time. Oh, that wouldn't bother me. Yeah, right, exactly. You'd be totally fine. It's Always Sunny for you. So, that being said, we also get the Church of England split. I got Erika on that, and then a lot of talk about Obamacare subsidies and the cost increases of premiums coming up. I have had people email me about that. We just got a great article explaining that, and we just want to add a little bit more and cover a little bit more color for our audience.

So, looking forward to it. Thank you guys for joining. If you want to help us out just up top, go ahead and leave a review over at Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and subscribe on YouTube. Growing by the day, it is really awesome, that Shroud interview. I have another one coming this Friday with Seamus from Freedom Tunes. He has a great new project. We talked about South Park, we talked about The Simpsons, and we talked about Twisted Fates, his new series coming up that he is in the process of creating, so it's super fun.

Just get ready for that one. So, before we get into it, the reason we do today's show, Ave Maria Mutual Funds. LOOPcast sponsor for today. Now, more than ever, Catholics want to align their investments with their moral beliefs, and a great way to do that is by investing in the pro-life, pro-family mutual funds from Ave Maria. The professionals at Ave Maria have a morally responsible investment philosophy that's aligned with Catholic teaching. In their search for attractive investments, they apply moral screens to eliminate companies that engage in support for abortion, pornography, embryonic stem cell research, or that make corporate contributions to Planned Parenthood.

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Down again. Dun, dun, dun. We're going to the countdown. Psych. Sorry about that. Okay. Three events, right? AI is coming for you. Sam Altman heard that he's featured heavily in this episode. So, I'm going to try my best here to not sound crazy. Sora 2 got released. I think I talked about it briefly on the podcast before. I'll show you the most popular video on Sora 2 right now. Here we go.

I mean, what? It's like an 800-pound house cat breaking everything in the house. Yeah, thanks for the description for the audio listeners. The most advanced technology in human history, and this is what we come up with. This video alone probably cost the energy equivalent to heat a home for a day or something like that.

First question, who asked for this? I just. I did not ask for this. What is the business purpose for this? I do not know. That is number one. Let me understand this correctly. You are telling me that there is a new video technology, and people are watching cat videos. Isn't that like kind of what YouTube started? What was like the fourth video posted to YouTube was a cat video? Yeah, actually, true. You know what? The more things change, the more things stay the same, Josh.

Great observation. So, it is just testimony to the universality of human nature. That is because men, women, and children like to watch videos of cats. What is the other kind of video that is often online? Uh-oh. Yeah. Monkey videos? I think we know the answer. Yeah. I think that is coming up in point three. Yeah. That is all foreshadowing, people. Yeah, foreshadowing. This is the other one. I took a look over at Amazon. So, the AWS, the Amazon Web Services, had a massive outage two days ago, actually, when we were trying to do this episode, and I was thinking to myself, You know, nothing worked for like 12 hours.

Half the internet was down. Most of the internet is reliant upon AWS and maybe Oracle. Like, there's like one or two, maybe three companies that provide cloud computing for maybe like the whole country, maybe the world. Amazon is definitely the biggest player. They're humongous. For sure. And so, I was like, well, you know, this happens. This is bad. Shouldn't this mean the stock would go down for AWS or Amazon? No, actually, the stock went up. So, something is fishy here. Well, I think it is because people realize, wait a minute, these guys have like 40%, 50% of the market.

It might be worth investing in that. Correct. And then also, it reminds me a little bit of like a too-big-to-fail type model. Yeah. People are so reliant upon it, and the government has such a stated interest in one thing. We are reaching kind of a… Oh, AOS has got major contracts with our federal agencies. 100%. So, that is another kind of ding, ding, ding. And then the third one. So, in my head, I am like, what if the promises of AI have been?

We were hyped up to be on path in 2027 to get AGI, this artificial general intelligence that would be able to replace the intelligence of a human. And we are going to AGI, we are going to AGI, we are going to AGI. And what did I get instead? So, it was like, we're going to do this, and we're going to do this, we're going to do this, and then all of a sudden, the most profitable private company in the world, OpenAI, announces that ads and erotica are coming to ChatGPT.

So, for those curious of what this would mean, it's previously restricted to avoid explicit content due to mental health concerns. They will now permit erotic text generation for users verified as 18 plus via age-gating tools like ID uploads and AI-based predictions.

Altman framed it as treating adult users like adults, comparing it to R-rated movies. And we're going to get this in December 2025 alongside more, quote, human-like responses. And why do they say they're comfortable doing this? Well, OpenAI claim they've mitigated serious mental health issues with better safeguards. However, no expansions to voice, image, or video erotica were mentioned. It's text only for now. What's that thing about a slippery slope? I mean, this just reminds me of like the widespread, I mean, it used to be 40, 50 years ago, gambling was considered unseemly.

And you would only go to, like, Atlantic City or Vegas, and you do it a little bit, and then you come back home, and you're done with it. What happens at Vegas, do you think? But now, gambling is now ubiquitous. I mean, like, in certain states, like, I'm in Michigan, and ads for sports gambling all the time. Yeah. It's like, oh, but we have the 1-800 gambling number, so, you know, we're doing our part. Mm-hmm. Like, no, sorry, it's not enough.

Josh, but you're not even getting at the most insidious part. The gambling companies know that most of their profit comes from, like, The people that bet the house, that bet their mortgage, like the top high rollers, and they remove safeguards and actually give them concierges, and they knew about it. I think they were exposed for it and sued over it, because they were taking advantage of people with legit addictions that were betting way more money than they actually had. That is why, properly understood...

Our governments would recognize vices, you know, smoking marijuana, gambling, pornography, or whatever, and understand that it hits different, okay? So, like, pornography lights up a certain part of your brain, and these guys know what they're doing to keep people enthralled for that dopamine hit, just like Instagram and Facebook knows how to use the algorithms to keep you addicted to this. And it is increasingly hard, but we need to be able to push away from it. We need to be able to say, no phones in schools, and get your kids off the tablets, and stuff like that.

These things are very powerful, and we are not really equipped to it. What is going to happen is, whether it is AI, whether it is pornography, or gambling, or marijuana, I just have a feeling it is going to get a whole lot worse. For 10, 15 years before people start snapping out of this, but hopefully it won't be too late. Josh, revealing that he's not a libertarian in two minutes or less. Yeah.

So, I was like, okay, no one asked these things. These are kind of bizarre responses. It probed me to dig a little bit deeper, and I have seen a lot of different experts talk about this idea that we are in a bubble. A bubble potentially, I saw estimates as to like 17 times bigger than the financial crisis or the dot-com bubble. I was not really alive for the dot-com bubble. I think I was two, if that. And then for the financial crisis, like really all I took away from that was like half my friends' parents got divorced.

We were just playing video games in the other room type thing. That is like a common joke, but it actually was real. I did know people whose parents really went through it, and so that is why I am glad to have you two here as a little bit more of a, you know, you lived through it, you had that experience. I was like, okay, what are the key characteristics to kind of sort my research of a bubble? And so, we have overvaluation, prices detached from earnings, speculative frenzy, investors buy based on future potential or FOMO.

And there is also a new wrinkle to this one, in that we have a lot of private investors now. So, because the private investors are dumping money in, they do not have to report it in the same way that a large-scale public investment would have. So, it is potentially even bigger than we think, because with the rise of private credit, we do not know actually how much money is involved here. All we do know is the public stuff, which is really large.

Overinvestment, hype and media amplification, and eventual pop, a trigger, failed projects, regulatory shifts. Cause a sharp decline. I mean, it is not inherently, to me, scary, that part, and I will tell you why. So, with a lot of things on the internet, you kind of need a monopoly to sort of make it work. So, Facebook is probably the easiest example.

I'm sorry? Like network effects? Network effects, yeah. I mean, in other words… You know, Facebook comes along, and it is a unique way of being able to link up with a lot of people who are, you know, co-workers, classmates, you know, people you knew from high school, you know, people in your same hometown, and it is sort of like your gathering, your network or whatever. And there had been many different attempts to try to create, oh, this is another Facebook. It is better than Facebook.

It is like a conservative Facebook or a Catholic Facebook. And none of them ever really under... Doing anything, because they didn't have the critical mass number of people needed to be able to make it work. Whereas, you know, Twitter was distinctly different. It wasn't intended to be like a yearbook, Facebook kind of thing, where, hey, here's my memories. Yeah, it didn't even try, right? It didn't try. It wasn't trying to focus on, it's doing more media now than it did before.

But, so, with artificial intelligence, all of these investment companies, all these different people are coming up with ideas, like, here's how we're going to, we're going to crack the code on this. We're going to be the ones that are going to devise. AI in a way that is replicable and affordable and will do the four or five things everyone needs it to do, and if you get to that part where you corner the market and you become the first one to market with the real perfect AI kind of thing, perfect in a sense, then you are just going to get a ton of money, a ton of contracts, so that is what they are all kind of going for.

So, in other words, all these people, and so when people are doing the private investments, private versus public, and I know you understand this thing. Distinction, but so other people understand. What we're getting at, we're not talking about government necessarily when we say public. What we're saying is, a lot of companies that have stocks, they have to disclose a lot of stuff to the SEC for trading, and this is what we're dealing with. You have to show your books. Well, that's if you're a publicly traded company.

Right. If you are not a publicly traded company, you can do whatever you want. You do not have to show your books, really. You just have to pay taxes. So, there is a lot of this investment. In other words, there is a lot of money right now coming off the sidelines. They are getting out of real estate, let us say, or out of trust funds or whatever, and they are like, I want to see if I can reach this digital gold mine.

So, that is kind of what is going on. Let me pause you right there, because I have the actual figures, the money. It is really shocking. So, companies will spend $375 billion globally in 2025. 2025 alone on AI infrastructure. This is an estimate from UBS. That is projected to rise to $500 billion next year. This is investment in software and computer equipment, not counting the data center buildings. This is worldwide, you're saying? Worldwide, $500 billion worldwide. This accounted for a quarter of all economic growth this past quarter.

That is from the Commerce Department, so that is for the United States. Meta alone plans on spending $600 billion by 2028 solely on building out data centers, and I am going to get to a lot of people who are talking about how much energy this will require, and they are correct to have concerns.

But according to, and this is according to Derek Thompson made this comparison. Tech companies are projected to spend about $400 billion this year on infrastructure to train and operate AI models. By nominal dollar sums, that is more than any group of firms has ever spent to do anything. The Apollo program allocated about $300 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars to get America to the moon between the early 1960s and early 1970s. The AI build-out requires companies to collectively fund a new Apollo program, not every 10 years, but every 10 months.

Okay, but I just want to understand. This year, it is projected to be $575 billion. Is that what you said? Tech companies are projected to spend about $400 billion this year on infrastructure to train and operate AI models. I think the $500 billion came from UBS estimates for… Next year. Next year. Okay, so just… And what do you think the size of the global economy in U.S. dollars is? I mean, it's $111 trillion. So, what we're talking about here is still… Less, it's about half of 1%.

It's 0.00449. But it's over half of GDP growth this year. We would be in a recession right now if AI was not a thing. I agree with that. So, it is not that this is insignificant for Americans. It certainly isn't. America is basically, and that is the difference when you talk globally. What is China doing? What is Russia doing? What are these other places doing? They are not investing the amount of money we are doing here, and the way that their economies work, they have a lot more in terms of real production.

So, say, manufacturing, things like that. This is all a speculative bet right now in America. It is very speculative, and people who have a lot more money and ability to, quote, gamble, are able to do that, are taking their money. And again, The idea is, at the end, it hopes that it is a payout. Now, if all AI ends up being is able to make fun cat videos that are 800-pound cats running through the thing, or erotica, or something like that, if that is all it ever really can amount to, and there is no real help to commerce, making things more efficient, making things more, you know.

Josh, it is almost like I prepared this just for you. Here is the MIT report. You guys are like thinking in tandem here. I am just watching the notes. I have always performed, buddy. This is amazing. MIT report. Maybe I know what I am doing.

I'm not artificial intelligence. Breaking news. I'm real intelligence, baby. So, we have an MIT report, 95% of generative AI pilots at companies are failing currently, as in they do not, they don't correspond to revenue returns. Studies showing reduced worker competence in some cases. So, that's, I think, the concern here. And then a lot of these- They're not producing what they promised. The other thing too, and this is part of this gold rush that you keep talking about, Josh.

Almost all startups now slap AI in their title. Say they are working on AI in order to get investment. Oh, yeah. So, many of these companies… This is like 1999. That is exactly slapadap.com. Put the dot com in there. Slapadap.com on the back. It is like it is going to work out, and then people realize no one needs pets.com.

I will write the bad example. That one actually works. Pets. I mean, not that one in general, but pets.com. Chewy.com, dude. I got it. Sure. No, okay. That is part of the thing. He is like… I've seen a take on this that I think I kind of agree with. They actually went all the way back to railroads in America, so the late 1800s. We actually had a major depression after we built the railroads, and many of the railroads that were built actually led to nowhere.

But we did have railroads, and it did transform how we... went across the country and we don't you know use railroads the same way today but we do have railroads and so we might be in the situation what happened in utah with the railroads i mean they're supposed to meet it but we're at a point or whatever you call it but each of these railroads were getting a lot of government subsidies and they would get more money for the miles so they actually went past each other for several miles and and like finally the you know the government steps in and goes no no that's not how this works like you know you're meeting here you need to finish the job Which is what I think AI has not yet done.

So, here is another point of concern that I think a lot of people are pointing to. Here is this graph. So, just to take this graphic here and kind of explain in a simple way. For the audio people, explain it, or people like me who are idiots, tell me what you want to do. So, what I am showing you is an image of these closed-loop deals.

So, a good way of explaining this would be there is three tiers of this AI economy going on. NVIDIA, right now, their valuation is like... Insane. Unprecedentedly large because everyone needs these chips that they create in order to do any of the AI computations. And so, their valuation is sky high. They have so much money because everyone wants the chips. And so, they interact, they interface with places like Amazon Web Services, with Oracle, and places like OpenAI. So, if you think about it, the chip is the hardware required, the data center is hardware required.

The cloud computing is the kind of intermediary necessary, so AWS, and then OpenAI, say, Grok or ChatGPT is where it ends up. And with the closed-loop deals, for example, NVIDIA just did a deal with OpenAI where they are like, hey, we will give you $100 billion to buy our chips.

So, to do an analogy to this, it would be like if I had a donut shop and I made donuts, and the neighborhood next to me, I gave them. $2,000 to come buy my donuts, and I create a demand for myself by giving money to my neighbor to come buy my donuts, because the investors on the sidelines say other neighborhoods are seeing, wow, or investors from neighborhoods, wow, they have this new artificial demand that they've created, and this looks like it's going great.

Let's invest in the donut shop, because they've created a new source of demand. Obviously, this, which just leads, I guess, to my whole point on all of this, is like, this has to break at some point. Like, whatever these chips are being valued at can't go on forever. They can't just have this skyrocketing valuation where they just hand money to people. We'll see.

Oh, Josh is a little bullish on this. Well, it's like, it's an, I mean, I just think that human ingenuity is hard to encapsulate, because, you know, you had, one of my favorite shows, actually, is Holt, let me see if I get it right, the AMC Holt and Catch Fire. You ever heard that one? Mm-hmm.

Did you ever watch that show? I have not seen that one. Oh, I love it. It came out like 10 years ago or whatever, and it was about like this, the personal computer race, right? You have Apple, you have IBM, and these guys were some, you know, tech company or whatever, and they're based, I think, in Texas or whatever. And you've just got this creativity, all these great minds, a lot of money trying to erase and solve the problem. That show actually was of a company that didn't make it, you know, and tragedies can be kind of interesting.

But again, it just, You know, if personal computers would have been just a hobby and would have done nothing, it would have been like, oh, that is a lot of investment that was hoping to get a major return, and it was kind of... That could happen with AI. There are still going to be advances applied to it. You have got billions and billions and billions of dollars. You have got some of the smartest minds. They are going to create efficiencies somewhere.

Whether or not they get the next new thing where you blow the door open remains to be seen. This does remind me of the late 70s, early 80s with the whole personal computer thing. I remember my dad, he spent way too much money to buy a personal computer. It was like $2,200, which in 1986 is an insane amount of money. But there was that hope that, gosh, these computers will do so much more, and it did.

Increase productivity in a major way. And so, that investment turned out to work out. This investment, the jury is still out whether or not it will work out, but the promise is there, which is why it is attracting a lot of people on the sidelines. And to the extent it is private investors.

Rather than, you know, I mean, there are governments investing in it because they need to for national security reasons. That is why, you know, President Trump and the Defense, the War Department cares about this. But for the most part, it is different than the railroads because the railroads was. That was a big-time government investment, because it had helped railroads. You don't think the government's investing in AI right now? Not as much as what, your example of the railroads is, I think we had a lot more subsidies for that, I would actually say, and that was because railroads had proven so successful for the North during the Civil War, that it's like, well, let's just keep investing in this, and keep investing in this.

What President Trump is doing is trying to, you know, strike that deal with Australia for rare earth metals. So, we can counter China, so we are not relying on them, so we can advance for AI. He is invested in AI, of course, with the War Department, and we need to be on this stuff. With NASA as well, I mean, there is a lot of intrigue, a lot of information on here. I find it interesting. I think we should still be cautious, but it is a fascinating time.

The energy thing, though, what you mentioned about the energy thing, I find fascinating, because here's the thing. It does take a lot of energy. And by the way, these AI investments, what they could just do is put aside 5% of their AI investments and tell the environmental wackos to shut up and get us some nuclear energy that's cheaper. That would be a gift to the world. Yeah, I mean, they'll have to. I mean, that's part of your point about, okay, the ingenuity.

It's honestly, to me, less about the AGI and more about, can you solve this energy problem? Because right now, what's frustrating to people, and I've seen a few videos on it at this point, like, so for example, a single large facility, and they call it like Data Center Row in Virginia. Virginia is big on the data centers right now. New Jersey. We actually just had one built in Indiana, I think.

Memphis, I think it's actually polluting the river. Exactly. So, a single large facility can consume as much electricity as 2,000 homes. Up to 2 megawatt hours, and Virginia's planned 70 new centers alone demand 40 gigawatts, nearly triple the state's current peak production. The surge is exacerbating blackouts in places like South Africa and driving up national security use, national electricity use in Ireland to over 20% from data centers. So, the thing is, is the utilities pass on the burden to consumers. So, leading electricity bill spiking as much as 267% in high-activity areas like parts of Virginia and New Jersey.

In 2024, residents in seven U.S. states faced $4.3 billion in extra transmission costs. And, of course, they rely upon gas-powered plants. Again, we need legislative answers for this kind of stuff. I mean, one of the things that you could do is, like, we have a two-tier system when it comes to property, right? So, when you own a home, you get a homestead exemption, and you get, effectively, a lower tax rate on your property taxes. And then, if someone else moves into the neighborhood and they buy a second home, And they have their other home somewhere else.

That second home gets taxed at the, quote, normal rate, but basically, it is an elevated rate. You know, the people who own their homes get the lower rate, and the second homes are taxed higher. That is what we should do for energy.

Like, you should have it so that artificial intelligence, all this other stuff. Pays a premium for their electricity rates. It shouldn't be equal. So, if you have a home and you need electricity for it, it should be at that lower rate, just like it is for property taxes. And what it will do then is AI is like, wait a minute, we're going to be facing higher rates. We need cheaper energy. It forces them to innovate. We need cheaper energy. Yes, we do.

Yes, we do. Nuclear is the answer for that, by the way. Nuclear energy is clean, and super affordable, and safe, and why we don't do it is absolutely foolish. Yeah. Yeah. You could push them to that. Exactly. Erika, I wanted to give you a chance. Sorry, Josh and I have been going back and forth. Do you have any thoughts on all of this? Oh, yeah, so many thoughts. I mean, I'm with Josh on this. I'm not as alarmed by the possibility of a pop, maybe because I lived through the dot-com bubble popping, and we've made it through the recession.

There's always going to be collateral damage from those, and that is terrible. But I think if you look back at human history, any sort of technological advance that's so It goes through this, and like Josh says, I think the jury is out. But what AI has to do, they have to start delivering for the users. They have to start making concrete material gains on behalf, or the users have to see concrete material gains from using this technology. And like you said, cat videos and better erotica is not going to fit the bill there.

With Sam Altman, whenever you watch his videos, he always starts off being like, this is going to solve medical records issues. It's going to solve healthcare. It's going to make diagnostics more easy and more individualized. And he lists off three dozen different things that AI is going to do for us because it's reasoning. He says it's reasoning. I have quibbles with that. Better than humans can reason with all this data. He says, it's thinking globally, and then he starts to get a little distracted because he starts going into this global morality thing and how we've harnessed the wisdom of the world, and now we are going to answer.

Not only is it going to be more efficient for you to go to the doctor with your particular CAT scan to get a reading before you're there so you can see. It's not just that. Now, we're like, oh, and we're going to suddenly find the key to all mythology. And you're like, Sam, Sam, come back down. I just want to be able to solve the energy crisis. I just want more nuclear energy. I don't need a new God. I don't need a new God.

And that's what's like most. That's what scares me about this particular innovation. I mean, it's happened before. People who are on the cusp of these technological innovations often find themselves in a position of having to compromise their morality or create a whole new morality to justify all kinds of things, and they justify it by, but we're elevating humanity to this new level of functionality that's going to save so many lives and better our world. Well, it could do that. But at what cost, and is it actually going to do that?

The jury is still out on that, and I feel like the cost that we are being asked to pay right now, we need to see some return soon. Like, this can't be... My great-grandchildren are going to reap all the benefits. This has to be, we need some benefits in like three to five years, guys. I mean, the private investors are going to start demanding, you know, your solves pretty soon. So, I mean, we'll see. Follow the money.

You know, yeah, I mean, and again, part of it is that you get these kind of goofy transhumanists, you know, who believe like, you know, technology will do everything and solve everything, and it's like, I mean, it is pretty cool. There are amazing things that can be done through technology. The fact that you're in Connecticut, Tom's in Indiana, I'm in Michigan, we do this program together through computer technology and the internet. It is amazing. It is cool. There are cool things that we've done.

I get it. But then you get the hubris of some of these people who just think that, oh, everything will be solved. You know, look, I can buy my airline tickets online. That's cool, but let's stop pretending like it's going to transform everything.

I don't know about that. We'll see. Someone clip that. Maybe in two years, we'll need that quote again. When I get replaced by a robot. Exactly. I have been accused of being AI on this show, actually. Wow. Which... Intelligence?

The artificial part or the intelligence part? Fair question. All right, Erika, before we get into the next section, you've got something for us. We sure do. 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 that million-dollar triple lock protection. Details are there when you get there. Click the link below. Promo code LOOP60. Thank you, Home Title Lock. Excellent. Okay, so on to the next section, Obamacare subsidies. So, I've had a few people email in about this. It was an early, I think I talked to Riley Moore, Congressman for West Virginia, about this. The boogeyman, the political boogeyman that these subsidies, COVID-era subsidies are going to go, meaning premiums are going to increase a ton.

And Riley Moore quickly brushed that aside for good reason. There's a deeper story here that has to do with Obamacare itself. So, Josh, you shared this Forbes article from Sally Pipes that we could literally just read off of this. It was so good. It is amazing. I mean, and just to set up before we get into this, let us remember, Obamacare was passed without a single Republican vote, all Democrats, right? And then they put in COVID-era extension of subsidies for those on the exchange who are buying healthcare, and now it is running out.

They could have made it permanent. They could have made the subsidies to Obamacare permanent. They had the votes. They didn't do it because it was too expensive. So, just keep that all in mind. Now, it is going to run out, and they are begging Republicans to keep it going, but you never asked for our votes ever before.

So, it's interesting. Okay. Well, the Schumer shutdown, it's the Schumer shutdown of our government, and it's, what is it, 20-some days? 21. And my life has not changed one bit, by the way. Well, I do feel for, you know, thankfully the military got paid on the 15th. The question is, you know, the border patrol is still not being paid, air traffic controllers are not being paid, and by the way, what Democrats really care about is welfare benefits, and those are going to They are not going to be there at the first of the month if we do not get this government open.

Yeah, I have seen the stuff about EBT. But the Democrats shut down the government for two reasons. Schumer is afraid of AOC running against him in the primary for Senate, and also because of these Obamacare subsidies. Democrats are absolutely freaking out. This is Sally Pipes. She said, over a looming 75% average increase in the out-of-pocket cost of insurance premiums next year. For the roughly 6% of Americans, including this guy right here, who have to shop for health care insurance on the Obamacare exchange, because there's no other alternative.

This is why they're panicking. This is why they're freaking out. This is why they shut down the government, because the Republicans are like, let's just keep a continuing resolution, keep the government funding at the same rates. But Democrats are like, no, no, no, no, no, that's not enough. We want extensions of these health care, they call them tax credits, but they're actually not. Don't give me that. They're subsidies. They're direct subsidies from the taxpayer.

They're all expected to expire at the end of the year, but what's noteworthy is pretty soon, people are going to be going on to healthcare.gov, looking on the exchange and looking at the prices, because there's no premiums starting next year. People are getting massive sticker shock, and it's even funny. Senator Amy Klobuchar posted this poor couple. Oh, so sad. They retired early, and now they're not going to get this massive subsidy anymore. I'm like, dude, you're able to retire in your 50s, and you're complaining about that?

Right, that was a dumb political move, but this is a serious issue, though. It is a serious issue. Healthcare is becoming unaffordable for people that shop in the marketplace because it's the only option. Me and you, Josh. I remember talking to somebody about this, and he goes, because we were talking about a gentleman who was about 15 years older than me, but he wasn't old enough to get Medicare.

And my friend is speculating, oh, he is probably paying a lot for health insurance. I am like, no, dude, he is not paying a lot. What are you talking about? Health care made it illegal to charge older Americans more. So, you, Tom, are having to pay just as much. You are in your 20s. You are having to pay just as much as someone in their late 50s. This is insane. What happened with Obamacare, as soon as it went into effect, health care insurance companies to offer premiums First of all, they made it illegal.

They made it illegal to offer a catastrophic healthcare plan. If you want a plan, it's like, hey, look, I want a bare-bones plan. I don't want to cover everything. I'll pay what I need to for the doctor, but if something happens and my appendix explodes and I'm out like a ton, I need healthcare to make sure I'm not suddenly getting $100,000. Which for young, healthy Americans makes so much sense. I mean, that's what Todd and I had in grad school. This makes a lot of sense for a lot of people.

Barack Obama and the Democrats made that illegal. They made it so that every single health insurance premium had to cover lots of different things. Well, you know why. We had our big religious objection to the Obama health care.

The contraception mandate, which means you got to pay for sterilizations, you got to pay for abortion pills, you got to pay for... We had a moral problem with that, but there's an additional economic problem. Every time you saddle all of these plans, you say, if you want to sell health insurance, it's got to cover all of this stuff.

Then, what you do is you make it more expensive. Right. Which is also a moral problem. There are moral problems, too. But if you go to a healthcare insurance company and say, you know what? I don't really need... I mean, I'm not even Catholic. I just don't need a contraception mandate. I just want a simple plan. You don't understand, sir. We have to cover all of this stuff. Obamacare forced insurance companies to offer all of this stuff. And so, what happened?

Over the past decade, between 2013 and 2014, Sally Pipes writes, Obamacare's many regulations took effect. We saw the premiums rose between 2013 and 2014 alone. Those premiums shot up 47% because of all these regulations that insurance companies had to provide in all their plans. And since then, since 2014, the last 10 years, They've also risen. Premiums have risen an additional 75%. This is insane. So, the cost of insurance has been so much. My family is paying $2,600 a month in healthcare premiums.

It is crushing me. I am more in debt now than I was three years ago. And like, oh, I'm sorry, you make a little bit more money, you're going to get less subsidies. It's insane. Middle-class families are getting squeezed, and the big reason they're getting squeezed, this is one of the massive drivers of it.

What's also crazy, too, is I saw this report come out that insurers are expecting healthier enrollees to just drop coverage altogether, which you're mentioning the reason why I, as a healthy young man that doesn't need a lot of coverage, am still forced to pay so much money because I'm subsidizing the older Americans that do need this kind of coverage. Shifting the cost to me as a young man with that much money raising kids. Instead of to, you know, older Americans that have a lot of savings, have a lot of money, that have benefited from a lot of the wealth transfer that has happened in this country.

They're already expecting, with what happens here, at least 20% of Americans just drop coverage all together, which I would. That's exactly what I've tried. I've had this discussion with my wife all the time, like, honey, let's quit. We're paying $31,000 just in premiums every year. That's insane. Let's just put that money in a mutual fund and pay our health care out of that. It would be smarter. No, we're getting to the point where you are going to do that. I think people are like, make it work, make it work, make it work.

What's going to be the backbreaker? Is it like, I can't pay for rent. Like, I can't pay my mortgage because of how much I have to pay on premiums. We're not even talking about, that's the other thing about my coverage. It's not even the cost of the health care. Dude, that's what I'm saying. You're still going to pay if you get sick. You're still going to pay if you have to go to the ER. Pay a lot, because the insurance is bad.

The insurance is bad. The co-insurance is terrible. So, I'm like, I still have to pay every time I go see a specialist, every time I go see a general care, anytime that you get blood work done. It's all on me anyway. So, I'm like, this essentially functions as... Disaster insurance, like the most expensive disaster insurance of all time, because I'm like, I have babies. The only major cost that we have is my wife giving birth. Outside of that, it's like, it's not that bad.

And then for me, I mean, I'm a man. That's a little controversial these days. I don't give birth. So, like, I never, I never use anything. Like, I don't use, I don't, never. I haven't even been to the doctor in three years. That's what I'm saying. Josh has given away HIPAA information on himself, so. But go to the dentist. I skipped the dentist for three years, and it was not. Not good. The irony here, of course, is that the whole line from the Obama campaigning for the ACA was, every American covered.

And today, we hear from Bernie Sanders, like, we're the richest country on earth. There is no reason why every American cannot have free healthcare, free everything, free, free, free. And Jon Stewart, actually, of all people, challenged him this week on this, and he was like, I agree with you. We are the wealthiest. Why can't we have healthcare that isn't going to crush our families with their monthly payments? And Bernie Sanders is like, we need the Affordable Care Act subsidies. And Jon Stewart's like, no, it didn't work.

It made it worse. When are Democrats going to admit that? And they're never going to admit that. This is why I want Republicans not to just fold over and just sign off on it. If you're going to allow some sort of Band-Aid, okay.

We'll allow, let's say, some of these subsidies to continue. Extract something from it. Legalize. The catastrophic plans, get that in there so people can offer that. And honestly, you know what? The whole shtick with Obamacare was like, how dare they? The people could turn away anyone. It's like, everyone should be able to get healthcare, even if they're chronically sick. And the insurance company said, well, okay, but here's the problem with that. If I add you, you're just a ton of cost, and everyone's going to have to start paying for you.

At this point now, we've been doing it for 10 years. So, I feel like at this point, we could pass a law to change Obamacare and say, if you want to stick with your plan and you had a pre-existing condition, they'll have to keep you. But from now on, if you don't have healthcare and you're sick, You're on your own, buddy. There's smart common sense. Like, an element to this that I don't think it's talked about enough is, even with these subsidies, what was it essentially?

It was like the student loans that people receive for college. It was like colleges got this influx of federal money, and they knew exactly how to price, because they can now price $20,000 above however much they knew the government would pay people, then go to college. Great. So, we're realizing in this situation that, in many ways, the Affordable Care Act just subsidized insurance companies. Like, if you ever go, I was telling my wife this, like, you want to know why State Farm and all these other insurance companies do all these commercials in primetime spots, like why they have this money?

Like, you have no idea how much insurance companies make. It's a shocking amount of money. They walk around with tons in their pocket because they have really smart actuaries work for them, number one. And then, number two, the way that the, at least medical insurance, I can't speak to everything else, medical insurance, how it works, these insurance middlemen. Are just insane administrative bureaucrats that just get money from the government and can just layer that on top of everything else. They make up charges.

Like, they don't have to, they don't have to, they can say that this little utensil is worth as much money as we want. It doesn't even correspond. It's the same stuff. $5,000 hammer. Yes, exactly. $5,000 hammer. It's the same situation, but it's in the private sector, and the reason why this is never going to go away is because I can go without a college education.

There are certain procedures that I would not be able to live without. You can't not have a hospital to give a baby. So, we're in such a quagmire right now that could be solved with smart changes. We need more and more families to be able to do the kind of cost-saving analysis on this stuff, and part of the problem is, I hate to say this, ladies get so nervous, and they need the security blanket of insurance, and that's why I'm driving myself crazy.

We're spending $31,000 a year on insurance premiums. But it is like, but we are safe, we are covered with insurance. Are you alluding to the great feminization, by any chance? Yeah, exactly. But we need to try to create a little bit more, in other words, Tom is very much on the money here with this analysis.

Health care is sort of like college education. It is so obviously considered a universal good that all we think about is more, more, more, more. And we never think about, let us make sure it is affordable. That is, oh, how dare you? You want kids to not get an education. You want people to go sick and die. No, I want things to be affordable. I mean, this is insane. And so, one of the things that Obamacare made by making it unaffordable, the Unaffordable Care Act, It's saying that every insurance program in the country had to offer every bell and whistle, practically.

So, therefore, it's like saying, well, you can buy a car, but it has to be able to go from zero to 60 in three seconds, and it has to be ultra safe, and it has to be able to have all these things. It has to have a premium. The more regulations you tack onto it, the more you're going to drive the cost up. And so, someone comes along and goes, I just want a really affordable car.

Right. But insurance also enjoys basically being a cartel right now, because they can decide how much they want to charge. They can decide what gets covered and what doesn't get covered. And they're even doing things like health shares are popping up now, so like solidarity health share, like there's options for you. The problem is, a lot of times, hospitals and insurers are getting kind of hip to this. Hospitals are like, well, You have to pay all that up front. So, like, if you want to get a surgery, I need all the cash up front instead of what house shares do is they give it to you behind the scenes.

They actively get to discriminate against other forms of trying to pay for health care because they enjoy this cartel status. So, really, until someone actually gets the... The cojones to go after insurance companies and the cartels, nothing's going to change. Well, what's going to start to change is you start offering the cheaper plans. I'll make them legal. Correct, but that, Josh, but you understand that is directly against the business model of many insurance companies right now. If you offer that, they crumble in their current capacity.

We have a cottage industry of insurance and healthcare right now. Healthcare is like 9% of our current GDP right now, and growing. It's becoming a major part of the economy. I'm just saying that until they were made illegal, tons of insurance companies offered affordable, cheap, catastrophic coverage. I would love to see that again, but they can't. They won't do it. It's against the law. They can't do it. I think there needs to be a law made to make them do it, because it's against their interests right now.

They make more money off of the status quo. And not to pile on the villains here, but I also don't want to let the hospital systems and the giant healthcare systems off the hook here who interact with the insurance companies to drive up costs. It's all related. Exactly. For example, you go to urgent care, and a couple of years ago, this happened to my husband. He goes to urgent care for a cut on a finger to just get a couple of stitches or something.

He actually asked for an itemized list of what went to the – because he got the bill back, and you're like, wait, I got two stitches, and it's like $600? Right. And I have the – Gold card member insurance plan from the Knights of Columbus? Like, what happened? So, we asked for an itemized list of what went down. So, they give it to him, shockingly, and it is the urgent care clinic charged the insurance company for like 500 gazillion things, which had nothing to do with it.

They charged him. I know. They charged them for like a five centimeter gash on your index finger. It was like two. I have a Connecticut story for you. Oh, I love Connecticut stories. I live there. I was 22 years old. I had just started my first job, and the insurance didn't kick in for 30 days or whatever. I'm moving furniture in my apartment, my lazy boy chair, and I was moving it the wrong way like an idiot. And this old school one opened up on me, and it sliced my leg.

It looked like you're cutting a flan of fish. It was this long of a mark on my... So, anyway, I am bleeding like crazy. I did not even notice at first. My friends said, dude, you are bleeding. I am like, oh, well, whatever. Okay. So, I go to the urgent care there in New Haven.

And as I'm going there, I'm drinking from the water fountain, and I stand up, and of course, I hit my head on the TV that was hanging above, and so I didn't even notice that. I'm blood dripping down my head. I'm like, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, and everyone was like in there. You could tell like 70% of the people there just had sniffles. They weren't real deal, and so like when the doctor came out, everyone was like, you go first, you go next.

So, I get in there. Get this guy out of here. I'm talking to the doctor. She's like, okay, all right, well, let's do stitches or whatever. I'm like, well, how much is that going to cost me? And she just looked at me like I was from another planet. Like, what? I'm like, yeah, I mean, how much would it cost? She's like, I don't know, 500 bucks. I'm like, how much would it, do I really need it? I mean, could I just put like a massive band-aid and be, would be just fine?

She's like, I mean, I think so. And how much would that cost me? I guess 70 bucks. I'm like, do that. She just was like, couldn't believe it. Yeah, well, you know what? It's my money we're talking about here. I don't have insurance just yet. We don't have that kind of mentality, like, do I really need this? And it was like, oh, someone else is paying for it. So stupid. Third-party cost people. Here's what I'll say. We talk all the time about pro-family policies, and we have a natalist problem in this country.

Yes, part of that is culture. But if a political problem solves this problem, because right now, like me having kids, that is my main source of debt. The hospital owns my second child right now, and will for a long time. Seriously, if we solve this problem, that is how you start having more kids. Like, this is a part of it. And until someone actually...

Tackles this instead of, oh, we need more IVF available to people. This is the key. Everyone I know, left, right, center, et cetera, hates the status quo with what's going on with insurance. It's completely unsustainable, and whatever party actually solves this problem will reap the lion's share of rewards. If Trump comes through on this and he solves that, and I get $10,000 more back in my pocket, and I can actually own my children again.

Undying loyalty, dictator status for life. And I think people on the left would do the same thing. They're like, dude, I don't care. I got all this money again. Yes, kings. Yes, crowns. Of course, I think the left did that intentionally. I think Obamacare was designed to fail so that they could replace it with. Socialized medicine. Yeah, within an NHS. Bernie Sanders said as much on Jon Stewart. Sure, solve the problem. I don't care who does it. Okay, good news now, Erika.

Good news. John Paul II. God uses our shepherds, and I think there are a lot of people probably in the chat as well who can say that they owe so much in their lives to John Paul II, to what God did through him and that man. So, I just want to take my little soapbox moment here. Yes, America, you are beautiful indeed, and blessed in so many ways.

Greatest beauty and your richest blessing is found in the human person. The ultimate test of your greatness is the way... You treat every human being, but especially the weakest and most defenseless ones. The best traditions of your land presume respect for those who cannot defend themselves.

If you want equal justice for all, and true freedom and lasting peace, He won my heart. Where did he give that speech, do you know? It was his second visit. Was it Reagan? He gave that speech at the Detroit airport in 1987.

Vice President Bush, I believe, was there as well. I was six. I was a little six. I wasn't alive. Josh? Well, there is a whole generation of priests who I would think we could call them John Paul II priests, and a new survey done by the Catholic Project, my good friend Stephen White there, revealed that Priests are overwhelmingly, young priests are overwhelmingly conservative, like upwards of 70% of these guys, and some places even higher. And the ones that aren't conservative, they're like moderate, like they're not liberals.

This is a big change from like 1970, when two-thirds of the priests in the country identified to themselves as progressive or liberal. So, this is a sea change. Now, does that mean every bishop in the United States is going to be super conservative? No, but this is the farm team. Hopefully one day. The farm team, I like that. It is good. Josh, can you please read the first paragraph? This just paints such a familiar picture. Well, my good friend Tim Carney wrote about this, and he called it the twilight of the boomer priests, and he said, Catholics of a certain age have an image of a young priest, maybe a Jesuit.

Who identified himself, not as Father O'Reilly, but as Kevin. Not Father Kevin, literally, just Kevin, please. And the one who introduced him to the guitar mass when he got his own parish. That young priest is now old. And the traits of the boomer priest. Okay, we are going to talk about the boomer priest. I got some boomers to chat. I love boomers, okay? Because the boomers that love me, they are conservative boomers. They are the good boomers, okay? But the liberal boomer priest, some of them have good hearts, but I am more than fine that they are punching their AARP card and getting out of there.

These Boomer priests were politically active, politically liberal, and unconstrained by strict ideas, or any ideas, really, about liturgy and tradition. They are disappearing from the priesthood, and they are being replaced by younger, more solidly faithful Catholic priests, which is a nice thing. And what is also nice is Susan from the parish council is also leaving.

You know, we're just, you know, the diocesan staff and parish staff across the country are just becoming, like, normal, instead of, like, these boomer ladies who are just... It's so funny you say all this, Josh, because, like... I was so young. I do have some memories of that stereotype when I was really young, and I just juxtapose that. I was at St. Joseph's Shrine in Detroit last weekend, and I was shooting a wedding, and someone who attended the wedding was an Abbe, so he was like a brother with the Institute of Christ the King, and he didn't look much older than me, maybe a few years older than me.

And, you know, traditional robes, super orthodox, you go there and you're just like, this is my picture of young priests now. I actually don't have the same, you know, conception of like young priests back in the day. I'm around them, right? Like, these guys are my age. I know them. I see them like new priests around me.

Yeah, I can anecdotally say the assessment is correct. I just don't see the, hey, call me by my first name anymore. It's like, I'm wearing a collar. I'm a priest. You know, you can call me. I mean, the first thing you started noticing was that...

Some of these more conservative priests would wear the full cassock, you could say that. Yeah, just like around the house, they're wearing the black cassock. It's just like, okay, this is cool. I like this. Oh, this is Michael Himnell. All right, very good. Very subtle, very subtle. Future is bright. All right, I'll remind you. Gosh, I want to talk about this the whole show. I get to talk about my favorite things today, or maybe my least favorite. The reason is my good news.

So, a news headline comes out, Walmart pauses job offers to candidates needing H-1B visas. Now, the reason this is good news is because the H-1B visa program is the most corrupt, loophole-laden, pillaging of America's economic structures. Of all time, in my opinion. It's disgusting. The problem is not Americans. It's not that we inherently are less intelligent or don't have the capability to learn. It's that we are being taken advantage of by foreign countries and businesses that want cheap, controllable labor and would prefer not to actually train Americans properly.

That's what's going on. There's no job. The reason the H-1B visa program started was by Bush, of course, who sold us out in many different ways, one of the chief among them being economically. Where he needed people that were smarter in technology, because we didn't have it here in America, fine. You can make that argument at the time.

Is this a good news section? What's going on? This is great news, because Walmart paused it. The reason he paused it is because Trump is delivering on one of his Pillars of America First, in which he's requiring H-1B visas, companies that want to do it, to pay a $100,000 fee in order to have one. That's $100,000 per H-1B visa that they acquire. Of course, what would that mean based on what Walmart was doing before? That is in the billions of dollars.

You are going to have to train American Buddy. That is all I have to say. That is an executive order you signed. Thank you, President Trump. Now, I can't believe this wasn't – I didn't even see this. This wasn't national news, but Walmart got in trouble very recently. Because a Walmart vice president was getting $30K kickbacks in order to preferentially hire H-1B employees around the world. They actually got fired for it.

So, there was CapEx source contractors were fired following this global tech vice president. He had orchestrated an elaborate kickback operation. $30K flowed from contracting agencies seeking preferential treatment in Walmart's fast technology ecosystem. The Walmart incident arrives amid a broader reckoning within the tech staffing industry.

Tata Consultancy Services terminated 16 employees and blacklisted six staffing vendors following a comprehensive bribery investigation in 2023. So, India dominates the current H-1B program, taking up more than 70% of recipients. In recent years, China is the second largest, comprising about 12% of recipients. And I'm not even a guy that's like... I'm not going to get into the race of any of this. I actually don't fault India or China or anyone else for what they're doing. I fault my own country. I fault my own representatives.

I fault the businesses that operate here because they're selling out Americans. I would try to take advantage of this, too, if I was from another place. Oh, yeah. And it shouldn't have to be just President Trump. Why isn't Congress moving forward legislation on this? Like, come on. No, and to get to the depths of the betrayal here. So, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce last week filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, saying the fee will make it, quote, cost prohibitive for U.S.

employers to use the H-1B program. Yeah, ding, ding, ding. Oh, my gosh. It is almost like this is exactly what I want. The group argued and complained that if implemented, the fee would harm American businesses, forcing them to either increase their labor costs or hire fewer highly skilled employees.

It is almost like this is exactly what I wanted and what is best for Americans. Yeah, and I love how they frame it. They're like, they're going to increase their labor costs. That means because they're hiring Americans, and they're actually paying a just wage to people because American workers demand it instead of getting slave or discounted labor from India. Like, this is all good. These are all good things. Libertarian, we are not. No, this is like the way that it should be working.

And you're right, Josh, this should be legislated by the elected representatives of the American people, but because Congress has just The president has to come in and use his power in executive orders and the fourth branch of government, which is, yes, come on, Congress, like, right, right through the ship here. And this is something that I actually feel like everyone, this is a bipartisan problem that everyone should agree on. Yes. And it frustrates when people, so I think quite obviously in the case of Walmart and major companies like this, like, this is abuse.

But then people will leverage the same arguments for illegal immigration of all stripes. And what's frustrating to me was there was two illegal immigrants that went on a really famous YouTube auditing show and went on there to basically brag about being illegal, racking up over $100,000 in non-home-related debt, and not paying taxes.

Lovely. Which is like, I wonder why it's so hard for Americans that follow the rules to get ahead. Calling Tom Homan, right? But that's the first thing. The second thing, there are a lot of people that work really hard in construction industries. This guy on the YouTube show worked in construction industry, etc. That's great. I don't want there to be a situation where either side is taken advantage of, where you're not paying taxes, which is total nonsense. Like, 40% of my paycheck is gone before I could see any of it.

Why should it be any different? And then two, you should be afforded the same worker protections. That a gold-plated American citizen should have. So, if you're here, you should be protected, and you should have a well-paying job, and it's on the businesses that operate here to do that, and to claim somehow that, like, oh, this is going to make things more expensive.

Fine. I would love to have good-paying family jobs that you can start a family on, they can get a house on, and if you can't do that operating under the current system, then the current system needs to change. This is worker-first, population-first. I don't understand the people on the conservative side that kind of bow at the altar of big business and laissez-faire economics that allow this untapped migration to happen and poor business practices happen all because it makes things a few bucks cheaper.

Change the system. Like, it's terrible, or just enforce the law as the system currently has. This is a left-wing, right-wing issue. The first thing to go is the H-1B visa program. It is the most loophole. I hate it. Everyone should want it gone so bad, and do not blame them. It gets mad. They're like, well, we need to go abroad because Americans are lazy.

There is no inherent DNA issue, and I know plenty of people who do not have jobs right now that could be easily trained to do said jobs to make that money to provide for their family here in America. There's nowhere else to go. Like, Americans can't move to India and then go get a job over there, but for some reason, we need to compete with the global economy, including every corner of the world, that would be happy to work for slavery.

This is the important thing to remember. Businesses want socialism for themselves and capitalism for everyone else. Yes. Totally. I'm tired of it. So, good news. Thank you to President Trump and to Howard Lutnick, and please abolish the H-1B system. It is terrible. Okay, Twilight Zone. Erika, I made you look into the split. I do not have a ton of time for you, unfortunately. I know, I know. If you want to touch it, we can, or we could bump it to the next episode.

I will just change the title. I did all my work for Monday. This is great. Okay, perfect. All right, let us run Twilight Zone now. Josh. Well, hey, Wall Street Journal put out this thing, Democratic donors sit on sidelines as party schism persists. The Republican National Committee has $86 million of cash reserves to start October, compared to $12 million for its Democratic counterpart. The Wall Street Journal also noted that The Democratic National Committee reached out to big donors to host a fundraiser in the San Francisco area to be headlined by former Vice President Kamala Harris.

Most of the donors... rejected the request according to several people familiar with the conversations upon receiving the invitation one reply with the profanity laced rejection others said they didn't want to give the give to the party until it produced substantive plans to win elections those who declined told the national party they had commitments and couldn't make it work really so josh really makes you think about the usaid program you Well, I mean, you know, Harry Enten is the guy on CNN who does these videos explaining all these things, and he had done several videos saying the Democrats are actually running into a problem for next year.

They should be expected to win. The party out of power, out of the White House, usually picks up a lot of seats in the midterm elections. And honestly, in my adult lifetime, it has only been twice where it has not been the case, and that was after 9-11. And also, in 1998, when Republicans overplayed their hand and thought they didn't have to run out of any ideas, they could just say, look, Clinton, we impeached this guy because he had sex at the White House.

It's terrible. He should vote for us. And American people were like, yeah, I'm not really liking that, but you got to give me something more to vote on. I think the Democrats might get this third time. It might be the third time that this happens where they suffer a setback. They should. I am not saying that I want them to win, okay? But just by historical parallels, you look at all this stuff, they have a lot of power. They do not hold the House.

They do not hold the Senate. The Republicans have such a tight control over both those. Houses, and you would expect just kind of a revert to mean that Democrats would take the House back. Maybe not the Senate. Maybe it's a little bit further out of the reach.

But the problem is, if all this money is sitting on the sidelines, all these big Democratic donors are like, I don't know, look what's going on. You know, they see what Mamdani, you know, apparently going to be cruising to victory in New York City, a socialist who wants to have the government control over grocery stores. You know, and he's, you know, photobombing with guys who are involved in terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center.

Democrats are like, ah. And then, of course. Yeah. I like to say what Nick Freitas said in Virginia. I don't know if he's still in power. He's a delegate there. Or no, actually, Scott Jennings, I should say, said it so well.

How can I trust a party that will allow boys to be in girls' locker room? You get that, something so obvious and so fundamental wrong, why would I trust you on any other issue? And I think this is the problem that a lot of voters are starting to recognize. Even big donors who are socially very liberal, and they're like, something's going on here. Well, Josh, if I could hop. You, Erika, I think this kind of segues in the future of the Democrats here.

So, Josh, someone is gunning for your job as the headline writer, your dream job as headline writer. For the New York Post, really? For the New York Post. So, I actually do have a New York Post headline for you. It is the rising star of the Democrat Party right now.

Headline, Democratic Maine Senate candidate Graham Planter admits he got a Nazi-linked tattoo while, quote, very inebriated. Okay, wait, I want to make sure I understand this correctly. This is a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate race in Maine. Yep. He's the guy that's supported by Bernie Sanders, and he has a tattoo of what on his... It's a Nazi tattoo, skull and crossbones. A Nazi tattoo.

Wow. And the headline that Logan Dobson suggested, if the post cover tomorrow isn't Maine Conf, I'm going to be so sad. Oh, Logan, that is a good one. You know, I got to say, I was playing a little coy there. I did hear about the story beforehand, but what is funny is to see a lot of progressive left people who like this guy's politics, and he wants another Bernie-type person in the Senate. They are like, oh, come on. They are trying to make all these excuses.

I got some for you, Josh. I am like, wait a minute now. Weren't you guys freaking out? Wait, wait, Josh, Josh. Wait, wait, wait. This is my child. He has another one. Don't worry. Don't worry. All right, conservative commentators. Not to overstate it, but this is a crucial moment for the Democratic Party. If they decide that normal people with some small skeletons in their closet or inked on their chest are not welcome, they are finished because they've tried the other way and it didn't work.

So, here is maybe my favorite response on a tweet in a long time ever. You wanted Republicans to burn some kids at the stake for dumb group chat like three minutes ago. Right. Well, and let's not forget Mary Catherine Hamm, on top of that, the hammer. I love her.

An SS tattoo on your chest that you allegedly got while drunk and didn't know what it was, but also told people you knew what it was, and chose not to get covered up for 20 years, doesn't seem like that small of a skeleton. It's a Home Depot 22-foot Halloween special skeleton.

A skelly, if you will. I love Hammer Time. He also had some Reddit posts back in 2013, 2014, about the use of political violence being acceptable, which seems to be another problem. Keep popping up with Democrats. I don't know what really they've been on lately. So, yeah, I don't know if this guy is it in Maine. I think you're missing the one part, though. Tell me about it, Josh.

Don't you remember during the debate over, you know, the cabinet, Trump's cabinet, and all the different people who are up for secretary of, you know, all the different cabinet posts? Yeah, they just yanked them, right? What was the big freak out? Pete Hegseth had a Christian tattoo on his body.

I mean. I don't know. I come from the kind of place where a Christian tattoo on your body is okay, and a Nazi one is not. I don't know. If you want to defend one and attack the other, that's kind of interesting. So, for Bernie bros, Nazi tattoo is okay, but not a Christian tattoo. Got it. Yep. All right, so that's my update to yours, Josh. Erika, I had an update to your Twilight Zone as well. I've been busy. Oh, nice.

So, as you mentioned, there was a historic heist of... Jewels of inestimable worth, I believe like the French crown jewels at the Louvre, and we didn't even really mention this, but the Louvre security chief, Dominique Buffin, and the museum's first, she was the museum's first female security head, was hired last September by the museum's first female director, have been accused of being a diversity hire.

You can't make it up. You can't make it up, and then, unfortunately, I found the story. There's a little bit more that's come out. It looks like the guards did confront the people, but then they were threatened with power tools, so the thieves took the nine pieces from the two glass display cases anyway and got out of there.

I mean, unless it's a staple gun, it's not really going to be a deterrent. Maybe it was. I don't know. So, the great feminization theory continues to prove… Yeah. I'm working on it, guys. I'm working on a deep episode, deep script on the great feminization theory, which is that wokeism is identical. The rise of wokeism is identical, correlated, caused by the gender parity in the workplace that we had more than 50% of women and now more than 50% of women in many of our industries and institutions.

And I'm like, guys, I have issues with this. I have X, Y, Z. But then… A story like this drops. Yeah. And it just does not help my thesis. If you remember, not to continue to pile on to this. No, you're going to. It brought me back to the Secret Service failure that basically almost resulted in Trump's assassination after appointing its first female director in history, that is the Secret Service, and then lowered the standards to recruit more women. I think I have technically—secret service agents are supposed to shield the person with their bodies.

The endless replays of the event show a large gap in the human shield around Trump, dangerously exposing his head and torso. The agent at that position in the protective ring was a woman, so much shorter than Trump and other agents. She was physically unable to protect him. Okay, you're piling on now. The agent's inappropriate stature drew attention to the goal declared by the female director of secret service, Kimberly Cheadle, to have 30% of its members be women. To attain this quota, the service had lowered fitness standards for women, but the lowering of standards guarantees that the best possible agents will not be selected.

Cheadle had subjected her agency's vital mission of protecting the president and others to what she saw as a higher priority of giving more jobs to women. I mean... Again, I just feel like... For the last 30, 40 years, certainly in K-12 education, but in popular culture, movies, TV shows, polite conversation in the suburbs, it's just this operating assumption that women are obviously better than men in every way, apparently. And I think we can push back at this point. Dude, I wouldn't say that.

Oh, that has been the dominant left-wing view that has been promulgated in our society. The Disney message, the Disney princess message. Yes, of course. Like, girl boss, she can do everything, you know? Like, men are dumb idiots. We see that in culture everywhere. And then, lo and behold, you know, you get a flat tire, and suddenly you are the biggest, you know, 50s housewife ever. Oh, can you help rescue me? Like, maybe men are not worthless. Maybe you should be a little bit more, you know.

Nothing makes... Feminists go right to the kitchen more than the threat of World War III, let me tell you. Is there a more apt event to describe the decline of the West more than lowering standards, putting women in a position where they probably are not going to succeed? I don't know why they're not offended.

Heirloom things that will never be replaced again, stolen in broad daylight with power tools. I'm going to explain all of this, guys. I know, but why? It's coming out. Why would you be like, if standards had to be lowered for me to be able to compete, I don't want to do it. I mean, you'd be like, oh, Josh, we're going to have Olympic races for the 1,000 meters. I'd pay to see Josh do that, by the way. Like, you know what, maybe I shouldn't be running if that's the standards that you're doing.

Bonus content for champions, I need footage of Josh running at a 1,000-yard dash. Maybe we could all race. We could do a... Okay. I think we need to move on before this gets too crazy. Erika, what do you have? Okay. I am going to go with the low-hanging fruit here. So, this week, construction has begun on the Grand Presidential Ballroom over the east wing of the White House, and of course, in order to build, to renovate and build on a historic building, you have to tear some stuff down, and so we got images of the construction crews outside the White House, and let us just say Twitter.

Like, blew its top. Well, leftist Twitter blew its top. And blue ski, though, I don't even know what's going on over there. I didn't even want to see it. And here's one of the lines. The destruction of America and everything that makes America great continues. Image of the East Wing being torn down.

This is truly a sad day for America. And then we get from Hillary Clinton. Can we pull up Hillary? Yep. Come on, Hills. Hillary Clinton. White House begins demolishing East Wing facade to build Trump's ballroom. It's not his house. It's your house, and he's destroying it. I mean, coming from a Clinton.

Erika, can I make a niche point here? Please. So, she turned off comments on this. Yes, she did, because I tried to comment. Except for people that she follows, and so we only have one person that was able to comment that she follows. It is Dr. DNR Vets for American with a trans flag. If you go to this, it is disabled USN vet, cisgender, bisexual, wife of USN Vietnam vet psychologist, patriot, she, her. Is the only person that she follows that was able to say, my heart is broken?

My heart is broken, but I love the response. I mean, this is just, they're trying to wage the image war on the master of the image war, who is Donald Trump. You think of him frying up the french fries, driving the garbage truck. I mean, the man is the master of the image.

And sure, we have to tear it down. It doesn't look great. You're like, oh, this is terrible. The White House is coming down. So, the White House promptly puts up on its webpage pictures, photographs from the last 120 years. Of presidents demolishing parts of the White House in order to improve it or to put in, say, oh, a swimming pool or, oh, a basketball court under Obama. Obama, a basketball hoop. And so, I just wanted to gift Josh with this opportunity to look at some historic photos from White House demolition projects since starting in 1902 with Teddy Roosevelt, who constructed the East Wing, and then going all the way through FDR in 1934.

This is, it looked like a bomb went off in there, and he's reconstructing, he's constructing a swimming pool in the basement, I believe, FDR, so he can swim because he's paralyzed. And they covered up the pool, and what did they put above the pool?

Was it the bowling alley from Nixon? No, it's the press room. So, all the reporters come in, and so that's how the expression comes, like a pool report. Oh, the pool report. You're in the pool room. I love that. Dude, fun nugget. I didn't know that. That's crazy. I love that. Who was the president that had a bowling lane put in the White House? I believe it was, was it Nixon? Oh, yes, it was. Yeah, your favorite. Your faves.

Well, and then the Fords, the Fords actually tried, they did an outdoor swimming pool, I believe. So, they actually dug up all these historic gardens to put in the pool, and that's been since restored. This was just... I mean, I honestly don't really get, you know... Up in arms about any, you know, changes here on this? No. Like, whatever. It is like, who cares? It just, it would not bother me that much, left or right, Democrat or Republican. Yeah. The extensive reason behind this one is that anytime you have large events, you have to have tents outside, and so it is like, let us just expand the size of this building so you can have large scale events and not have to have these tents outside.

Okay, sounds good to me. But I, as a taxpayer, am going to have to pay a lot for this, right? It is all private money. So, you get these activists who are saying, look what he is doing, and just as your healthcare premiums are going up. Yeah, you are like, totally different budget. Actually, the fact that Obamacare subsidies are not happening means I am saving money.

So, the fact that this is like a main hill to die on for Democrats maybe is connected to why they… Aren't they fundraising well? They are absolutely scrambling. Scrambling, yeah, that's it. Out the pasture, I don't. Yeah. Seriously, I don't. They can just keep freaking out about this kind of thing all the way to the midterms. Like, you guys just keep on keeping on with this.

Yeah, like, everyone's saying. Dude, someone booked this. Someone booked this. The only hope for Democrats right now is Stephen A. Smith. I'm not kidding. I think he has a better chance than a lot of. Legacy Democrats. Yeah, love watching. Book it. I would not underestimate him. No, book it. Stephen A. Smith is the greatest hope for the Democrats right now. Yeah, no, he was lounging around on a couch in a white sweatsuit this week, being asked if he would run for president.

He's like, you know, you never rule it out. My pastor told me God is a God of surprises. I'm like, whoa. Never rule it out. I'm here for it. I'm here for it. Nope, I'm telling you, watch out. Oh, man. If Stephen A. Smith and Trump ran against each other. A Trump campaign. I almost feel like robbed from that entertainment. Trump 2028, is that what you're saying?

Well, I guess it's... I want Vance versus Smith. That would be some great... No, for that not to be the case. Yeah, I don't think that would work out too well for Vance, but I guess we'll have to see. Okay, good show, guys. We got another deep coming for you tomorrow. Yeah. And then, as I mentioned, so Friday, we're going to be out, so we're going to be live premiering my interview with Seamus from Freedom Tunes, character. It is kind of another one of those fun, like, been enjoying doing some of the Friday episodes where it is not super, the news cycle is a little slow right now, and so I wanted to give you guys something entertaining, cool project coming up.

Seamus is the man, good Catholic guy, talented animator, very funny. So, we brought it out for over an hour, and that will be available on Friday. So, Thursday coming, deep episode. Friday, we will have the interview for you guys, and then we will be back all together live again next Monday. And so, if you want to help us out, join the Champions Club. Best way to support us, catholicboat.org slash champions. Leave a review, Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Before we get out of here, we have, of course, a prayer for the intercession of St.

John Paul II. Yes. We're going to hit that, and then I'll leave you guys for another, after a good show, on to a good Wednesday. In the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Amen. O blessed Trinity, we thank you. For having graced the church with St. John Paul II, and for allowing the tenderness of your fatherly care, the glory of the cross of Christ, and the splendor of the spirit of love to shine through him, trusting fully in your infinite mercy, and in the maternal intercession of Mary, he has given us a living image of Jesus the Good Shepherd.

He has shown us that holiness is a necessary measure of ordinary Christian life and is the way of achieving eternal communion with you. Grant us, by His intercession and according to your will, the graces we implore through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Pope John Paul II, St. Thomas More, St. Fidelis, or the Rev. Lupe, pray for us. We'll catch you guys in the next episode. See you then. Peace.