Trump: Cap Credit Card Interest at 10%, ICE Protests Spread, And Pope Leo on Baptism

Welcome back to the LOOPcast. It is Tom, Eric, and Josh. The LOOPcast brought to you by The Loop, every Catholic American's favorite morning newsletter. I hope you guys had a fantastic weekend. Happy Monday. We have a great show prepared for you. Yes, the Pope is a Bears fan. I guess that is the only explanation. So, we have a lot of happy listeners, probably from the Chicagoland area. Maybe the Pope smiled a little bit, too. I know Brian certainly is happy over in...

Over in Rome. So, today's show, Trump had more comments on a plane. These comments, I think, made both Josh Hawley and AOC happy, strange enough. So, he proposed a one-year cap on credit cards. My little populist heart was warmed by the suggestion. This is something I've been suggesting for a long time, and actually in line with Catholic social teaching. So, I'm really happy on the domestic front. I think we really need to make this happen. I'm going to get into all the details there.

Not only that, we have some interesting information on mortgage rates that we just saw as well, and then I'm going to do a pre-Twilight Zone, but it looks like Jerome Powell is under investigation. He had it coming. For various reasons, and I have my thoughts on that as well, but we're going to cover all that. The second is, literally right after the show, we had a new angle of what happened with Renee Good in Minnesota.

Again, pray for the repose of her soul, but the protester that lost her life. And so, we got a new angle there, and then also, we had these nationwide protests, and the structure of them strangely reminded me of other structures, and Erika did a little bit of digging there, so we have some information on the nationwide protests that have erupted there. We have good news. We have Twilight Zone. We had babies baptized in the Sistine Chapel. Unbelievable pictures there. Looking forward to getting there, and it is going to be a great show.

Any comments before we dig in, Josh? I mean, it was a fantastic weekend for watching NFL football. I'm not, you know, my bikes weren't in it, but the Packers lost, so that was good. But just in general, a great weekend. Lots of close games. It was fun. Yeah, good game. The game that was not close was my game, 16-3. Yeah, funny enough. Yeah. Drake May. It's like, you know, nature is healing. Like, we have a... Yeah. The Patriots are good again.

That is how we felt. We are getting back to normal a little bit. Good morning to everyone here live in the chat. Again, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 11 a.m. Eastern time is when we rock, and happy to have you guys here live in the chat. If you would like to join, head over to YouTube. We also had a great episode of The D. People love hearing Erika talk about systemic failure in the education system.

A lot of people can't do math. That is like hotcakes. I swear, we throw it up on YouTube, and it goes crazy every time. So, we might just completely change the deep to Erika dissecting everything wrong with modern education. Everything wrong with education this year. Yeah, we're going to do it.

But before we get into that, maybe we could use an economics education. So, here is Trump on a plane, you know, doing his thing as always. He loves sparring with reporters there. I'm going to share my screen, and I can't say it any better. Here we go.

I want a cap on credit card interest rates, because, you know, some of them are 28, almost 30%. And people don't know they're paying 30%. The people out there, you know, they're working, and they have no idea that they're paying 30%. No way. We're putting a one-year cap at 10%, and that's it. They know it. They've really abused the public. The credit card companies have totally abused it. I'm not going to let it happen. Abuse the public. Strong words. I have the true social posts.

Please be informed that we will no longer let the American public be ripped off by credit card companies that are charging interest rates of 20% to 30%, and even more, which festered unimpeded during the sleepy Joe Biden administration. Affordability! Exclamation point. Effective January 20th, 2026. I, as President of the United States, am calling for a one-year cap on credit card interest rates of 10%. Coincidentally, the January 20th date will coincide. With the one-year anniversary of the historic and very successful Trump administration.

Thank you for your attention to this matter. All caps, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, President Donald J. Trump. Always great to get it. Thank you for your attention to this matter. But he's addressing a real problem, and I guess Josh's cynical political take, I'm curious, the timing on this.

But this is a real issue. I mean, even just to get into some quick numbers on the scale. I mean, total credit card debt stands at approximately $1.23 trillion as of Q3 2025. That's per New York Fed's Household Debt and Credit Report. Some estimate that it's even higher than that.

This is the highest level on record since tracking began in 1999, up from about $1.21 trillion earlier in 2025. Roughly 46% of credit card holders carry a balance month-to-month. That is per the Federal Reserve Studies, meaning nearly half aren't even avoiding interest charges. And the average balance per person with debt is around $6,000 to $7,900.

Yeah. Yeah, and just one more bullet point to add there. I was looking this up on our good friend, Dave Ramsey. And he said, this is like, he'll be so happy today, too, but approximately only 45 to 50 percent of American credit card holders pay off their balances every month.

So, more than half, probably, of Americans who have credit cards are not paying it off in full, so they are accruing this kind of interest. So, this is a vast swath of cardholders. Yeah. Pretty crazy. What happens then is the balances continue to grow, grow, and grow, and then you become dependent. Now, the typical, normal, conservative economic response to this in years past has been along the lines of what Charles Cook said. He's a writer with National Review. Yeah, he's good.

He first of all said that Trump couldn't do this without Congress, which is probably true. We said separately, it's a terrible idea. Why does Charles Cook and most kind of libertarian economic conservatives think it's a terrible idea, and that was the dominant economic philosophy on the Republican side for the last 30, 40 years? Why does he think it's a terrible idea? He says it's a terrible idea that would make it much harder for poor people to get credit. And you know what?

That's a good point. Good. Because, you know what, this is not the kind of credit that they need. I mean, to me, it's like, hey, you want to pay your mortgage, or you want to pay your rent, maybe you should donate plasma. Like, at some point, you have to say, no, no, no, hold on a second. People are financing burritos now with buy now, pay later. Like, there's a problem here. And so, again, and some people made the point that this is really good for the upper middle class, the current situation where...

Like, look, everything I put on a credit card, I pay off this month, okay? And I've been that way for about four or five years. But there were years ago where I was trying to, I don't know, start an organization like this, and yeah, I had some debt. The fact of the matter is, it can kill you. And what right now is the upper middle class and the rich benefit supremely from this situation, because just about everybody takes credit card now.

I remember when I was young and grocery stores started carrying it. My mom was like, whoa, she thought canary in the coal mine. This is a dangerous precedent, and now it's everywhere. Now you can pay for your doctor's bills. You can pay for everything. And so, rich people, upper middle class people will use credit cards and everything because they get their bonus. And this is the kind of warning shot that they're giving. Now, wait a minute now. If you don't allow credit card companies to charge 33% on a credit card, then we can't give away these free points.

And I'm thinking to myself, do you realize what this amounts to? This is a welfare transfer payment. It is a wealth transfer payment from poor people who are stuck in a debt spiral. And you're giving it to rich people so they can get free airplane rides and free hotel rides. This is terrible. So, to me, The predatory credit card rate, well, I never paid interest, and now you get bonus points. Yeah, you are not the problem, rich guy. The problem is the poor people who feel like this is their only option.

And again, this is what a just society says, hold on a second, we are not going to let you sell your body online nakedly to earn money. A just society says, we are not going to let you get predatory 30% interest rates on credit cards. A just society says, no, a Catholic Just society would say no. Oh my gosh, Catholicism led the way in this, and it's almost a little bit embarrassing, I think, how we've kind of just rolled over on this type of teaching.

I mean, the teaching on usury actually was you can't even lend at interest. That was the initial. The initial, and of course, we updated, and I want to get into that in a second, but there's one point I want to make before. There was this interesting Vanderbilt study that was done specifically talking about the points, Josh, and Selene, maybe you could throw that in the chat. It is called Capping Credit Card Rates by Brian Shearer from the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator. Essentially, this paper was done where they tested what the effects would be with a new, I assume it is like an AI model of some kind, with usury caps at 10%, 15%, and 18% APR on credit card interest rates.

And essentially, it concludes that credit card industry's high profit margins driven by interchange fees, other revenues, and returns on assets across all FICO. Do you know what that is? Yes, isn't it? They charge the store to be able to use the credit card. So, like, if you swipe the card, then they give them 2% to 3% off every purchase. So, that is, yeah, interchange fee. So, if these were done, if it was capped at 10%, I think this is at 10%, Americans would save $100 billion in interest costs per year.

Banks would still be able to make money on most credit card users if they cut back on rewards. So, there still could be rewards. They would still make money, and then banks would be less likely. To lend to people with credit scores below 600, which is two thumbs up. It is just hilarious to hear the comeback from the banks, which, of course, their stock already went down after this announcement, even if it is just floating. I mean, this is not even like a real thing happened yet.

It is pretty easy to think why every other commercial you see is, you know, CityCard or whatever, you know. It is like whatever credit card company is spending a ton of money to get you to get the card, and then even like these cards that you can get at the stores, like a Gap card or whatever, you are looking at over 30%. Get 10% off today for a Gap card, and people do it to save the money, and then they forget they have it, and it is just… Or you get Home Depot, where you, you know, you are like, oh, I need a Renault something.

Put $2,000 on it, but if you don't pay the entire amount off, you leave like $100 left on that, that 0% interest you got for six months gets calculated on the entire amount. You always have to be careful about that, because they will get you. These guys are nasty. Yeah, it's an entire system built on basically taking advantage of consumers, and you can blame the consumer. Like you said, the orthodoxy, the conservative orthodoxy is everyone has personal agency, right? Like they...

Can decide not to get the card or they can decide to get the card. And maybe I guess that's where I break with the conservative orthodoxy is, like, I see a problem. We all see the problem. It's outrageous how big this problem has gotten. And the economy is kind of being built upon this type of predatory lending. And at that point, that is unjust. It's unjust in Catholic social teaching. Catholic teaching in general has been against usury, surely at this rate.

You know, you can have a debate at the 2% rate, but go ahead. Yeah. And in terms of, like, being conservative or not, this was actually, like. I believe pretty new. The conservative stance would be to go back to when we had laws against usury. We had a more robust, more Catholic social teaching understanding in America of how to govern the economy in a just way, and it is actually an innovation. I think you had this in here, Tom, but it is an innovation in just the last 50, 60 years to even start to relax the usury laws.

My lifetime. So, the true conservative position. Is to say, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. What did Roger Scruton say? Like, conservatism is acknowledging that good things are really hard to build and really easy to destroy, and that's what the relaxing... Here's the thing, too, like, about that, you know, just, I'm glad that, you know, Tom included it in the notes here that we're sharing, because our, you know, again, this is one of those cases where... You thought we had a federalist system, but we don't really, because I remember growing up in Minnesota, and Minnesota had a law saying you could not charge more than 18% interest rate, okay?

But then the Supreme Court case in 1978 said, well, wait a minute now. If it is a national bank, they should be able to charge whatever that rate is in that state that the bank is based in. I'm like, wait, what? So, if a bank, you know, so if Target has its bank in...

um south dakota and they're allowing 22 then they can charge 22 interest rate in minnesota it's like well wait a minute now we said in this state we don't want anyone charging more than 18 oh it doesn't matter so the supreme court actually uh you know did an end run around federalism and i i think that was just crazy yeah that i've i've always had a problem with that i thought that was unjust it's like you know which actually that so that had a couple effects josh not only did that allow it to usurp the state level But it consolidated a lot of small local banks into large national banks now, because if you can set your rate in California or wherever else, in Florida if you want to, then you're going to have an advantage over, say, a small local bank in Indiana.

And there's a really interesting theory, and I can't get too crazy on the economics. That's why Delaware has all these credit card companies. Joe Biden was the credit card king. Oh, yeah. Well, it's kind of the same thing with tax havens. If you had a state that's lower than the other state. Or you had a country that's lower than the other country, people will move, and people always talk about trying to legislate that. But there's a theory, an economic theory called the credit creation theory, that basically the best case scenario would be to have as many local banks as possible that are not consolidated, and we've essentially done the opposite over the last 20 years.

Like, we've consolidated into massive national banks, and then we have these credit cards that charge 20 to 30 percent interest because they usurp the state level. And again, you brought this up, Erika. These things were done for a reason, because we wanted to protect consumers from usury, and it isn't good to run rampant upon people and have a predatory economic system that's not for the common good or human flourishing. I think clearly what we have now, if you're doing buy now, pay later for a burrito.

And then the other thing that I wanted to bring up, too, is this isn't new. Even within 2025, 2026, there's a 10% credit card interest rate cap act brought forward by Bernie Sanders. Senator Hawley, AOC, and Ana Paula Luna. So, Paulina Luna. Talk about bipartisan.

Right. Bipartisan, and may I say, too, like, the people that actually, and I wonder if they co-sponsored because they feel like they have enough standing in Congress to take a step out like this, but to me, this is actually addressing something at the heart of Americans. So, regardless of, you know, all your other crazy orthodoxy, Bernie Sanders or AOC, stuff I don't agree with. I do agree that this is actually something that the American people are interested in and would benefit the American people, benefit the consumer, both sides of the aisle.

And it's much more appealing to me to even have the President of the United States at this point talk at it. These are the conversations that need to be had. I mean, sure, there's a hundred problems, but when you do something like this directly to the benefit of an American consumer to create a more just economy.

That is what I'm looking for from Congress. That is what I'm looking for from the president, so I think this is a huge step in the right direction. So, my question is for Josh. It's more like technical. One, why would Trump say for one year? And two, does he in fact, as they're saying on CNN Talking Heads this morning, does he in fact need Congress to act and push these bills through that were already proposed for this to actually happen in real life?

So, he has no authority to change it forever, but the idea is that he might be able to find some sort of executive reason to. Pause it for 12 months. I think it is a non-starter immediately if he tries to just completely change it. What law would you? But if he just says, no, we are going to just pause it for this 12 months, you can only charge this amount. So, I think that is kind of what it is. It is at least an inventive solution, and it at least has a chance to try to advance.

And it is, again, even if it gets thrown out, like it shows, like think about, like if you think about. The situation that we mentioned here with the LOOPcast, like within the last couple of months, about a couple of months ago, we're like, why isn't Donald Trump waking up to this whole thing, MomDommy, this affordability thing, what's going on? And Trump's initial response to it is, I'm fixing so many things, and shut up, don't you realize how much harder it is?

He literally called it a hoax. Yeah, that was horrible. The economy's great. And yet, since then, what has he done? He said, we want to eliminate companies like BlackRock from being able to purchase homes, and I'm going to have a one-year pause on any interest rates higher than 10%. Um, sounds like we got our, you know, economic populace back.

This is what I voted for. Well, yeah, there's more to that, but I do want to, um, I actually, I think, if I could encourage people to actually go, like, this is one of those instances where I'm so grateful for the Catholic Church.

Because the evolution of usury in the Catholic Church, sure, there's been a small evolution, but in principle, been the same. And if you go back to the Catechism, links directly to violations of the Seventh Commandment, theft, exploitation. CCC 2409 condemns unjustly taking and keeping property, including through fraud and hardship, exploitation.

St. John Paul II called usury a scourge, strangling lives. Benedict and Francis condemned it as deadly, corrupting, and harming the common good. Francis, 2018, usury is a serious sin. It kills life, tramples on the dignity of people, is a vehicle for corruption, and hampers the common good. Yeah, like, we have a responsibility.

As Catholics, as people of common good, to push for systems that protects the vulnerable, and that includes, in this case, usury, but, you know, not to say, and people are like, oh, well, they'll just go to payday loans. We shouldn't have payday loans. You know what I mean? Like, why stop just at one exploit if they're all bad? Actually.

There was a professor who was researching these payday loans, and he was reading up and researching it and figuring out how they worked or whatever, and he was like, after he realized it, he was like, what? He quit his job and opened up a bunch of predatory payday loan places, so he realized how much money he was making. I was like, dang, dude. That just confirmed in my mind, shut them down. Now, I do want to point, there's a really good article, actually.

Over in Commonplace by Henry Olson. I can throw it here in the chat. Basically, it all feeds kind of towards this other thing where Donald Trump... Okay, so what happened in the early 1980s, Ronald Reagan got inaugurated, and he wanted to shift the economy. Because we had suffered so much in the 1970s with energy price shock, cost of energy tripled, inflation was like 12% or whatever, and it had never been below 4% in the previous 10 years. And so, everything was bad.

The money supply was way too much. And so, he came in there, and he's like, we got to just wring out the inflation in the economy, and it's going to stink for a while, and it did. There was like a really bad recession in 82. I mean, everyone, all Republicans sort of remember 1984, like the economy was so awesome and roasting. Reagan wins 49 states, but like the midterm elections for Reagan's first term, it was terrible, and it was because the economy was doing this correction.

What's going on, and what Henry Olsen is trying to do, say here, is Donald Trump should spend a little bit more time trying to explain to the American people exactly what he's doing, because he's doing something very similar to what Reagan did, in a different way, though, and that he's transitioning our economy from a consumption-based economy towards one that is a production-based economy. So, getting rid of credit card debt is just another part of this parcel of his plan, and tariffs and stuff like that, where you prioritize.

Stuff that is built in this country, as opposed to just consumer credit, buying cheap, financing your burrito. So, there is this kind of economic, like, you know. Yeah. And I think just to address some, I see this in the chat and I hear it a lot too. And I also, you know, I think it's a necessary step because Americans have been way too consumerist, consumption-based for the last few decades. Yeah. And I think just to address some, I see this in the chat and I hear it a lot too.

And I also, you know, I have an element of this. I'm from New England, where, okay, well, people just need to take responsibility. Like, if you just pay it off every month, just do it. And for those of you, like most people listening to LOOPcast, you're probably in that boat of you've been trained responsibly, you've tried to live a life of virtue, you're trying to do the right thing, and you're aware of what the penalties can be for engaging, for going into debt even a little bit on your cart.

And that's great. And if men were angels, if we were all like that, you're right. We wouldn't need to put a cap on credit card interest. We wouldn't need to worry about this, but the reality is, and call me an elitist, I kind of am, that the vast majority of people don't think that way. They're not paying attention. They see, I need or I want, it's hard to tell sometimes, purchase this item, going to go a little bit into debt, but if I just pay this much.

So, understanding the reality of the human condition, the psychology of the vast majority. The Church's teaching is that usury is wrong. Exploitative usury and excessive interest are wrong, because they take advantage of the fact that human beings act out of necessity, we act out of ignorance, we act out of poverty and a sense of desperation, and just plain stupidity. That's not in the Catechism. I added that. There's a lot of reasons. Yeah, and so it is absolutely...

In the interest of the common good and its ability to look at these things and say, how can we readjust behavior, and how can we help people to make the right decisions when they can't? Now, that can obviously cross the line really easily. Got it. But it's not just a matter, for the majority of people, it's not just a matter of, well, you should be more responsible.

You're right. The Catholic approach should be what is in the common good, not communist. Collectivist good, but just in general, what is good for the common community that we live in, political organizations? And here is the thing. So, beware of ideological views on this, and that is what I was trying to get at with what Charles Cook said at the beginning. Like, well, this would be against, you know, poor people should have a right to have these predatory credit card rates.

I am obviously putting words in his mouth, but the whole point is this consumerist right to buy on credit. Like, listen. It is. I mean, it used to be you have to, like, go to the bank and fill out a bunch of forms. It was really hard to get a credit card, and now, like, we've loosened it so much, like, you go to college, and like, hey, want a free t-shirt? Here's a credit card. Oh, like, hold on a second. That's true.

We need a little bit more respect. You've got a free t-shirt. Wow, that costed that bank $3 to give you that t-shirt, and you're on the hook, and they give them hundreds of dollars over the next few years because you want to finance your pizzas.

No, I mean, again, this kind of GDP, shove your face, eat to your bloat, you know, kind of consumerist, Uber Ali's view of the world makes a lot of people rich, but it's not good for the common good.

Yeah, certainly. Like, why would we put crack in front of a drug addict? It just seems like a lot of the more... The conservative orthodoxy approach to this is so obtuse intentionally about human nature, or just like, we know that human nature will lead people to do this, but it's their fault anyway. Instead of like, why do we engage in politics to begin with? I don't engage in politics to just get the maximum for my little group of people. It should actually be for the common good of the citizenry of the country, and acknowledging human nature as it is.

And it also takes into effect, so I have some information on the mortgage rate here, but it reminds me a little bit of the college conversation, too. Like anything else, economics is all about trade-offs. And yes, there's going to be people that are spending money that they shouldn't be spending going to the flagship state school for $40,000 a year and not knowing what they have. But also, can we acknowledge the reality of the situation right now? My grandmother was able to go to college, get a full college degree, working at the corner store and paying for the entire thing.

Something is really broken, and it's not actually for the common good, because in order to get a good job in the economy right now, you basically need a college degree. It's been devalued so far, and the amount of money required to actually get a college degree in general is so high, and it's putting people in predatory positions, like positions that they have no way to pay out. Very vulnerable, right. That's wrong, and we should be working to change that, not just for my own little interest group, but for the good of the citizenry of America, and that's why I'm even, I go as far to say, like, if colleges are just diploma factories for international students that can afford to pay full tuition, blow it up.

Right? Like, what are we doing here? That's not for the common good for the citizens of America. That's good for colleges and administrators and people who make their money that way, but it's not good for the citizens. I just don't share that view. And just maybe, just maybe, Americans are purchasing more goods than they need. I mean, when I drive by one of these storage units, you know, I just can't help but shake my head.

You are paying somebody $70 a month to basically rent a garage on someone's lot because you have too much stuff and you can't fit it in your own house, and it's just such a moneymaker, but I just would feel so unseemly investing in something like that. I'm sorry if there's someone out there listening.

You know, if you need to store a boat, that would be a legitimate thing, I suppose, you know, but I mean, like, otherwise, it's just like... You big Storage Wars guy? Are you familiar with the story of Storage Wars?

I think I'd vomit if I were you. It's basically people doing exactly what you say, but then missing payments on it, so eventually then they just turn over whatever's in there to the storage place, and then they auction it off, so people will go, they'll open the door, they can't look around, and they'll just be like, I will auction whatever, and then sometimes they'll hit gold in there, sometimes they won't. Oh my gosh. Yeah, so somebody else's wild overspending is now our entertainment.

Yeah, that's basically where we are. So, but my point is- We have created this credit card-based consumerist society where people are... Most everybody in the economy, okay, so maybe the person listening to me, it is not you, okay, fine. But most people in the economy are over-consuming, instead of being thrifty, instead of, you know, like, let me see if I can get a little bit more. I mean, there are a lot of good people listening to this podcast who have got lots of kids, and they are saving their nickels.

I am not trying to admonish them. I am saying, in general, in the rest of the economy, because you have this credit card-based economy. We have a debt-based economy. Debt-based economy. And you can borrow off your house to buy purchases or rent out your house and all this kind of stuff, right? And so, what ends up happening is people are consuming more than they're making, you know, for a certain number of years. And then you have reverse mortgages for people who are now in their 70s who are like, wait a minute now, why should I give 100% of my house as an inheritance to my children?

I can start burning that off with a few cruises. So, we have consumers so much. That, again, it drives up the cost of everything else. It's like, it reminds me of, like, the two-family trap. Like, you know, a bunch of businessmen in the 1970s convinced women that they can't be free if they're a slave in their house. They need to work for me in their cubicle in a business. And so, women entered the workforce in the 70s and 80s. And what ends up happening?

Like, it lowers the wages of everybody. So, then it's like, again, it helps the billionaires, you know, but... Whatever. Yeah, and it reminds me a little bit of the Pope Leo speech that we were just talking about the other week. It's like the inordinate, seemingly inordinate focus on the nuclear family was the topic of that speech. Abortion, surrogacy, euthanasia, it was all on the nuclear family, the mother, father, children. And once you frame everything... In that being the most important thing, you look at something like the two-parent trap, and you're like, this actually is...

Or consumers. Right, exactly. Or whatever else. Anything outside of that. Right. It's a direct attack on that. And that's why people get riled up about it, rightfully so, because it's making that reality much harder, and the quality of living a good life within the nuclear family, in which you can all do your roles, is harder. This is why I am family first, not individualist first. Because, you know, we've come up with this sort of quasi-bipartisan agreement here that individuals will be able to rack up as much as they want of credit cards, they can get as much pornography as they want, they can get IVF if they want.

All of it is like, because how dare you say no to me? And it's like, okay, but is that in the common good? Is that really the kind of society we want where porn, you know, pot... Credit, debt, all this is just ubiquitous. Like, these are choices that we're making, you know, but because we have this ideological thing, like, oh, how dare you say no? Let me shove my face on fat. I'm bloated.

Okay. I got to throw this at you briefly. I'll call it my early twilight zone, okay, because we do have to get to the ICE protest, but I was taking a look, and I know we've talked about mortgage rates on the show, and it seems like, based on data from the National Mortgage Database, more Americans have mortgage rates above 6% than below 3% for the first time since 2021. That's right. And to just give a basic summary of this. Which, I'm going to get to the Fed, but interest rates were so low.

Artificially low. Artificially low, 2021, and you could make whatever argument for it at the time. I think it's messed up a lot of things. One of the things that messed up was, was everyone refinanced their home to get down to like 2%, something crazy. And so, no one wanted to move because their mortgage rate was so low, 2%. And therefore, you get a freeze. Like, people aren't moving when they normally otherwise would. They're hanging on to it longer so that more people can't.

You know, get entrance to the housing market, like people like me, 27-year-olds, and so they're kind of debating why this is, why this, so it's good news. It means that people are moving. It's that interest rates are now higher. People are choosing to move, either for family, children, jobs, something like that, and so now you're getting a little bit more access. Plenty of homeowners are still locked in, but not as locked in, like below that 4% rate, but it's causing a huge problem, and then, Eric, you had the interesting thing on where Americans are moving right now, domestic migration.

And just a brief glance at that, you know, places like Idaho, Montana, lots of places of Florida, picking up a ton of migration. The big loser, of course, California. A lot of people have moved away from California. But the reason I bring up this twilight zone is you look all over the place, every headline is about the Department of Justice opening a probe into Powell. He's the president of the Federal Reserve, chairman of the Federal Reserve. And so... What's interesting about this was he came out with this video immediately in which he framed not just himself as a political victim, but the independence of the Federal Reserve in general.

And the idea is that the Federal Reserve has kind of got this interesting quasi-accountability structure where they're technically accountable to Congress. They have a three-part mandate that they often reference, maximum employment, stable prices. And moderate long-term interest rates are their three stated goals, and so they're accountable to Congress, they're not accountable to the President, although the President and the Senate actually appoint Chairman to the Federal Reserve. Wow, the President nominates, and the Senate confirms or doesn't confirm, right? Thank you, yes, they hold power, and so they have 14-year terms, and the idea would be they have...

Independence from the executive branch so that they can make decisions that are in the long-term interest of the country instead of just someone coming in and being like, all right, drop interest rates. It is kind of funny to, I'll just say, the reason they're looking into them now, the stated reason, is that there's this project to renovate the Federal Reserve, and it's gone way over budget. I think right now we're at like $3.1 billion. That's $700 million over initial costs. And this is renovate the buildings that they inhabit.

The literal building, yeah. The literal buildings, not like reform the Federal Reserve, not find better employees. This is just... Rebuild the buildings. Yes, and so here's from Russ Vo. He's the head of OMB. Chairman Jerome Powell has grossly mismanaged the Fed. While continuing to run a deficit since fiscal year 23, the first time in Fed's history, the Fed is way over budget on the renovation of its headquarters, now up to $2.5 billion, roughly $700 million over initial costs. These renovations include terrace rooftop gardens, water features, VIP elevators, and premium marble.

The cost per square foot is $1,923. Double this cost for renovating an ordinary historic federal building. The Palace of Versailles would have cost $3 billion in today's dollars. And so, what they're centering on is his testimony to Congress, in which he said, hey, it's going to be this much, and it's now so far off. So, they're using that as their in to go after Jerome Powell. For those who have been paying attention for a little while, there's the hilarious moment where they're walking around the renovations, and Trump is clearly upset at Jerome Powell for going over, quote unquote, basically, it's because he wouldn't cut interest rates when Trump wanted to cut interest rates during a lot of the tariff conversation.

And again, it kind of brings in this like, Are they independent? Are they not independent? And so, I've gone now and taken a look at, I guess, I just, I kind of find, maybe I'll just throw this out here and see what everyone thinks. Look, I'm not an expert, but independent, like them claiming that this is somehow this quest for independence is kind of hilarious to me, like when the entire economy shut down.

And Jerome Powell didn't, quote, stand firm in March 2020, when the entire economy shut down based on a lab leak that we contributed to, that everyone lied about and said not, and just dropped interest rates to, like, zero. I mean, they were basically zero for a long time, and then held that way so artificially low for two years, causing this mortgage problem that I talked about. About half of M2 right now, money supply 2, is new printed dollars as of 2019, and when I say printed dollars, it's new money in circulation.

So, it's new money in circulation. 2019, about half is due, and one of their mandates is to keep stable prices. If you want to take a look at the price stability chart, and we all feel this, right? You go to the grocery store. It is unbelievable. Here is a graph for you. The dotted line here is M2, and then the consumer price index is the blue line, and so you see here. Our purchasing power of the consumer dollar and U.S. city average has been destroyed over the last...

Five years. Not a great track record. For him to claim now, like, I'm standing firm, I'm not cutting rates for some, you know, long-term interest, like, all the available data suggests that you folded, because someone came to you in 2020 and said, hey, this is going to be a disaster unless you sacrifice one of the three parts of your mandate, and so cut the rates and keep them low, and in my opinion, at least, like, at least.

My ability should be able to criticize him. I don't know if the way Trump's going after him is right or not or whatever. I'm not even here to say that. I think it's very reasonable to be frustrated with Jerome Powell, and I think it's reasonable to call it hypocrisy of him being somewhat, quote, independent, especially now after what we experienced in 2020 and the economic effects that we're all feeling right now. So, you know, I don't know. That's kind of where I'm at.

I'm curious what you guys think about it. It seems like independence has become code for unaccountable and not responsible for what You've been charged with, especially in a case like this. And like you said, how Trump's choosing to go about it, to go after the building cost.

I'm not an expert on other options that he has to try and get this guy moving along, which it seems like that would be best for the American people, given his record of how well he's helped manage the economy.

But, yeah, if independent is just code word for unaccountable, I'm... Well, they're not right now, but I have one final thing, and I think this guy put it great, is James E. Thorne on X. He wrote this about the kind of inbreeding between the Fed and the Treasury and et cetera. So, here's the line. Under Powell, the Fed's leadership has delivered an incoherent mix of academic orthodoxy and policy overreach. He unleashed punitive rate hikes that crushed the interest rate, sensitive backbone of the economy, housing, construction, and durable goods, even though those sectors were never the source of inflation.

Powell's Fed conveniently ignored a more uncomfortable reality, the fiscal excess engineered by two former senior Fed officials, Janet Yellen and Lael Brainard, whose pivot to the Treasury and White House directly fueled the inflationary surge. Their policies poured fiscal gasoline on an already overheated economy, yet Powell chose to deflect blame toward the private sector rather than confront the political establishment responsible for the crisis. By choosing escalation over transparency, Powell has made the strategic blunder of historic proportions. In reaching for the nuclear defense of Fed independence, he may have ensured that this episode becomes his defining legacy, a reckoning that challenges not just the chair himself, but the very premise of unchecked Federal Reserve authority in a constitutional republic.

I mean, what's interesting about this, of course, is that... You got Republicans on the Hill now, like Tillis, who's on his way out the door, and some of these others there, like, we're not going to appoint anyone until Trump kind of stops it with this, like, you know, basic, because the assumption here is that this investigation of Powell for overspending, which is a legitimate grievance that he was way overspending, is really just to kind of browbeat him into lowering rates. Like, you're trying to get him to lower rates just to kind of like...

You know, warning you, ha ha, we're coming after you. And so, but then at the end of the day, his term ends in May. So, I really think Trump is just trying to sully him and make him look like a bad figure. And then when May rolls around, like, here's someone who's going to finally get the job done. And so, I think part of it is just Trump is just sort of, you know, working the field a little bit and setting the table with some of the stuff.

Okay. Interesting. There's a lot out there about it. I don't even know if I'm right, but the more that I was digging into it, I think there's lots of totally fair criticism of the, quote, independence of the Fed, especially when you consider that Janet Yellen and that other guy just hopped right from the Fed to the White House. And the Treasury Department's like, okay, how independent are we really? And there's no accountability, essentially.

For them. So, anyway, that's just my two cents, but we got to get on now. Erika. Uh, ICE protests. Yeah, if you need to protest, you have options, people. We had a lot of protests over the weekend. Of course, we covered the shooting in Minneapolis of Renee Good after her altercation with the ICE agents, and this just sort of amped up the intensity of these protests, which had already been ongoing, to be fair. I did see someone in the chat ask about if we're going to cover Iran.

I will briefly, at the end of this segment, talk about Iran in the context of reactions in the U.S., but for now, talking about the anti-ICE protests, so more information came out on her and her, quote-unquote, partner's activities with the ICE Watch group. According to reporting from the New York Post and Fox News, she was part of these neighborhood network groups and signal chats. One of them was called the FTP2 Federal Threat, which covered her neighborhood.

In Minneapolis, they had eight-page documents asking people to join, describing themselves as hyper-local rapid response information groups, and the members commit. These exist all over the country as well. The members are committed to face rising authoritarianism together by sharing quick information and going in person to respond to in-progress federal enforcement events. She also belongs to a group called the Plate Vehicle. data collection, where citizens are dedicated to reporting suspicious license plates spotted throughout the Minneapolis area. People visiting from out of town found themselves on this sort of doxing list, along with federal vehicles as well.

But yeah, one girl was driving through from Wisconsin, and her car was flagged by this group and put on this list to be followed in case she was iced. So, these are very active citizens, to say. These groups reported a massive surge in interest over the weekend. They held emergency training sessions, which were reportedly at capacity.

And there's some really interesting footage. But what did the protests look like? So, we had, this was a network called Ice Out for Good, called for a weekend of action across the United States. Those of you who were following the No Kings protests might feel like a little deja vu was going on, because it sure looked like the same people. Was that really? Yeah, undoubtedly. The response was a thousand protests and rallies were reported. The largest ones were Minneapolis, New York, Chicago, Denver, and even Tampa Bay had some.

In Minneapolis itself, we had tens of thousands of people in the streets marching and rallying. The police did declare it an unlawful assembly, interestingly enough. At first, the police seemed to be just like letting them do their thing and standing back. But we got footage toward the end of the day on Saturday of the police actually starting to ask people to go home, to leave the area. But, of course, yeah, Mayor Jacob Frey, he continued to publicly condemn the ICE shooting and urging peace and demonstrations, and yeah.

Well, you saw it, like, right after the show, the ICE agent that had to shoot had a video, had like an iPhone video going of the thing. So, you saw. It was interesting to me because you saw that the partner was involved of Renee, rest in peace, and then Renee herself was looking directly at the guy as she drove forward. The partner yelled, drive, baby, drive. And so, if anything, to me, kind of confirmed, you know, she's a part of these groups.

It's crazy she was in this situation, kind of LARPing. She was going to be in a fight or something, and then looked around. But it wasn't just some kid, just some random mom dropping her kids off. No, that just got smashed to me. That's at least what the video told me. Well, that combined with the discovery that she was a member of these groups that have been meeting for months and training to confront ICE officers, dox cars, keep lists of vehicles, get names.

I mean, she was a very intentional. The agitator, I guess you would say. I mean, I watch the video. Watch the video if you want to. It's pretty disturbing because you know you're watching a woman in her last moments of her life and making these decisions, and you're like, just stop, stop, stop, because you know what happens. It's absolutely heartbreaking. But like you said, Tom, you hear her partner yelling to her, like, drive, baby, drive, and she just guns the engine with the guy in front of it.

Staring at him through the thing. I mentioned this last time. These videos become an inkblot. Because that same footage was being used by these professional agitator groups to get people to get upset, to walk down. There were videos of women from her neighborhood weeping and being like, she was such a good friend. One neighbor was interviewed by Olivia Rheingold and had told her that Renee was such a wonderful neighbor because she would tell them all if ICE was in the area.

And I'm like, wait, are you all illegals? I mean, why does she need to tell you that? But, again, they saw it as a sign of her goodness and her martyrdom, that this was her cause. But you're right, it's like a Rorschach test, where both sides will see, look at the same thing, and they'll see two different things.

One of my favorite people to follow. On Twitter is the Fisher King, and he says, you will never be able to convince many on the left that the ICE agent in Minneapolis didn't just murder a young mother in her car. Yeah. He says, remember Michael Brown? I knew a nice liberal woman who kept posting about his murder. When the Justice Department report came out from Obama. and hold her demonstrating that brown attacked the cop tried to take his gun and was killed in the scuffle i showed it to this woman this is the fisher king i explained to her what happened the next year on the anniversary of michael brown's death she was again posting about his murder and putting up supposed quotes this is the hands up don't shoot thing and and it's just like you know with some people he said you They're lying to keep up the narrative.

Some people, it's just too psychologically different to walk back in position they made before and before, but I'd like to offer another suggestion, and this actually was intended to be my Twilight Zone, but if you want to scroll to it, I really think this is an interesting video they did of this, the ASH experiment, A-S-C-H experiment. You should watch this. Let's roll this tape. Everyone should watch this. This is amazing. We got a nugget?

Let me see here. One of psychology's... The Ash Experiment is one of psychology's oldest and most popular pieces of research. A volunteer is told that he's taking part in a visual perception test. What he doesn't know is that the other participants are actors and he's the only person taking part in the real test, which is actually about group conformity. Please begin.

The experiment you will be taking part in today involves the perception of line length. Your task will be simply to look at the line here on the left and indicate which of the three lines on the right is equal to it in length. So, for example... The actors have been told to match the wrong lines.

The volunteer will be monitored to see if he gives the correct answer or if he goes along with the opinion of the group and gives the wrong answer. In the first test, the correct answer is two. One. One.

One. Two. One. Once again, the correct answer is two. Three. Three. Three. Three. Oh, I changed. The ash experiment has been repeated many times, and the results have been supported again and again. We will conform to the group. Again, we're very social creatures. We're very much aware of what the people around us think.

We want to be liked. We don't want to be seen to rock the boat, so we will go along with the group, even if we don't believe what people are saying. We'll still go long. Okay. That's why you need some people in your life that are saying, no, it's two. No. If you use your car to ram a federal law enforcement agent official, he can use force to stop you, even if it involves your death, even though that is unfortunate.

You need to have people in your life who are willing to call a spade a spade, and when everyone else is going crazy, he is the one that will say, The emperor is wearing no clothes. Yeah, can I just say, personally, I'm kind of tired of having the Ash experiment being constantly ran on me. COVID was the ultimate Ash experiment. You know what's the difference now, Tom? What? We're done trying to persuade.

Those on the left. Does that make sense? In other words, you know, for the first few decades of my life, I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, don't you understand? And like, just hoping that natural reason and explaining the situation is going to work. Not that I'm, you know, you should be lazy on persuasion skills now, but what you come to realize is that... There are some people who don't want the truth because their paycheck depends on the opposite of that.

There are some people who are just, you know, groupthink. They go along with the crowd. And if you understand this experiment, and you think to yourself, what implications could that have if people know about this? People in mass media, people in the entertainment industry.

You know, important people and political power, all of these people could know about this stuff and make decisions and talk about things in a way, and that is why I would just, again, echo the call. That is why conservatives should be in favor of diffusing power to the lowest level as much as possible. And don't trust these hyper-international global corporations like ABC Disney or all the United States Senate. Go to hell, pardon my French. I don't want to go with your groupthink.

Josh, someone makes a good point. I actually think, even in some cases, more importantly, the Ash Experiment does apply to both the left and the right. No, certainly, but I mean, like, what would happen if... I understand the broad points you're making, but even if it's like, this doesn't pass the smell test, like, here's the latest thing, you know, brought forward by congressional Republicans, brought forward by Trump or whatever, and even you're just like, okay, well, this isn't, this isn't, this isn't right.

I'm not going to go with it to be just pressured into, this happens all the time, both sides of the aisle. I think there are more people on the right who are contrarian, who are going to buck against the trend, like a trout against the water, than there are on the left. The left tends to be more lemming-natured. I was talking with friends this weekend, shout out Nick and Sharon, talking with friends this weekend about, well, what did you think of AmFest?

And I was like, I'd much rather be on the side that has phenomena like what happened at AmFest with Tucker Carlson. Ben Shapiro, and like all these guys up on the stage, and this sort of, this. It's almost this sort of vibe that, oh my gosh, the right is fracturing. Well, no, I think it's actually that we have a healthy mix of contrarians, along with a lot of lemmings. I don't know, I thought empaths was embarrassing. It's just human nature, but I'd rather be on the side where at least they're having arguments than where it's like the third round of the Ash Test.

I think that's where the left is right now. There's another interesting psychological study done based on... Political leaning and their tendency to admit that they're authoritarian. Oh, yes. The left, actually. So, if you're left-leaning, they did a test on people that are left-leaning progressive. They actually tend to be more authoritarian, but they will never say that they're more authoritarian.

Or sacred democracy, right? Right. People on the right are more... Authoritarians often are comfortable saying that they're authoritarian, even though they are not as authoritarian. So, the things that they propose, they're comfortable standing behind. People on the left propose super authoritarian ideas, but will never actually say that it's authoritarian. They literally ask them questions like, do you think it would be okay to have the federal government? Step in and make sure that people don't share posts on social media that are against what the federal officials on health say, or whatever.

They ask all these questions where liberals are basically agreeing to suspend the First Amendment, the free speech constitution. They're in favor of jailing political opponents. All this stuff, they're just like reprehensibly horrible stuff, and you're like, okay, dude, you are totally an authoritarian. By the way, do you think you're an authoritarian? Like, no, of course not! But I would respect you more if you're honest about it. In TNM and Square, it's like, dude, no, you are the tank. No, I respect you more, but that's the thing.

Like, even if you propose a crazy idea, but then you own up to it, you're like, oh, yeah, no, I understand what this is, and I believe it. And I'm like, okay, at least you're being honest, you know what I mean? How many times have I had conversations with, like, bass, trad, right wing, whatever, you know what I mean? Like, there's tons of people floating around in the circles that are just like, oh, yeah, like, we should repeal this, this, this, and this, like, life would be great.

I'm like. At least you're honest with me. Like, at least you're like, yeah, no, I would stand behind that. Whereas, like, the other side, it's like, you got to, like, walk in eggshells. I feel like it's, like, a little bit more inherently feminine, like, to propose something, but not stand on it, and then take the heat from whatever it is. Like, I propose something crazy, but I'm not going to be complete, you know, I'm not going to totally stand in it or whatever.

I don't know. I hate to throw out that grenade before we have to move on. Yeah. Oh, you're, like, moving on? What? Okay, good news, Erika. Yeah, yeah, bring me some good news, Erika. All right, we'll take a rain check on the great feminization theory, I guess. That's what I hear in my directive. Got it. So, we had babies. Speaking of feminization. Sweet. No, boys should love babies, too. The Pope loves babies.

So, on January 11th, that was yesterday, the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord. Yes, it was still Christmas to the guy in the chat. I forget who it was. Pope Leo XIV baptized 20 infants, and the pictures are adorable. I don't know if you want to pull up that. Video there. So, these are the children of Vatican employees who were born, obviously, in the last year or so, during Mass in the Sistine Chapel on the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord Jesus Christ.

This tradition was begun by our beloved Pope John Paul II. Awesome footage of a toddler in the Sistine Chapel trying to eat their shoe. Like, this is my child. This is crazy. This is just a kid trying to eat a shoe.

In the Sistine Chapel, though. I was going to be in Italian so you could talk, but here is the footage. It was so beautiful, and yeah, he had this incredible quote from his homily that we all picked up on, but this was Father Joseph Nola, Jesuit, who is actually a really good follow.

So, this was from the homily. After baptizing some children, the Pope urged their parents to raise the children in the faith And he said, the children you now hold in your arms are transformed into new creatures, just as they received life from you, their parents. So now they receive the meaning to live it, faith. When we know that a good is essential, we immediately secret for those that we love, who among us, in fact, would leave newborns without clothing or food, waiting for them to choose how to dress.

And that's what we're going to do. What to eat as adults. So, dearest ones, if food and clothing are necessary for life, faith is more than necessary, because with God, life finds salvation. So, you feed your kids, you clothe your kids, and you raise them in the faith. That is awesome. I love it.

I don't think you can harp that enough. We actually got a homily over the weekend from the bishop, said, you know, on my gravestone, I want to have the day I was baptized and my name. And I do feel like we're getting back to it, which is cool. At least maybe I'm hearing it more. Like, baptism used to just kind of be a little bit, oh, like the godfather or whatever. Not to say they didn't believe, but, you know, just kind of anyone can be the godparents, or it's just like, oh, it's just kind of something you do, and then maybe you get around to it or whatever.

I love the re-emphasis on getting baptized as soon as you can. Choose godparents that are actually serious Catholics by their faith, and then have them be the resource in which, resource and example of your child to grow up and to embrace and love their faith. I mean, you are literally getting the gift of entrance into eternal life, the gift of salvation through baptism. It is like, it is not just a throw-off, we are just going to have a little bit of a party.

See that emphasized by the Pope, and the example of physically doing it in the Sistine Chapel, the pictures are unbelievable. It is like so awesome. I love everything about it. Okay, Josh, what do you got? No, but the fire alarm went off. It was in a gym.

I think I've told this on there. Good thing there was water handy. Yeah, the church was, I think, under renovation, and the priest that baptized me is no longer a priest, and the fire alarm went off. So, it's kind of surprising that I actually am where I am today. Alarm bells weren't going off, huh? Yeah, exactly.

Tom has entered the church. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow. Someone Paul revered me. My priest said that we should all try to know the exact day that we were baptized and celebrate that anniversary as well. That is cool. For me, it would be February 20th, 1977 at Immaculate Conception, just north of Minneapolis there. So, I have a cool baptism day. I was baptized at the Easter Vigil, 1994. Like right now. Every Easter Vigil is my baptism day. It is very fun.

Wait, let me do the math on that. You were not a baby when you got baptized. I was not a baby, no. I was almost 13 years old when I was baptized. My dad had been raised Catholic. Shout out, Dad. He was raised Catholic, but as many of his boomer confers did in the 1970s, he left the church. He met my mom. They both were born again, saved, like evangelical Protestant, and so we as babies were not baptized. But when my parents, my mother entered the church, my dad...

We reconciled with the church in the mid-90s then. We were all baptized. So, my brothers and I were all baptized on the same night. Isn't that cool? That is awesome. That is very cool. Very cool. I will write a book someday. It will be a good story. Josh, I cannot believe you put this in here. I know exactly what you... Okay, so here is the thing. Let me set up the scene here. All right, go for it. So, this 10-year-old was given as a Christmas present to go to the stadium in Philadelphia and watch their Eagles play against the 49ers, okay?

Now, I am not a fan of the Eagles, and they lost. It is heartbroken, okay? But I am just telling you, this 10-year-old kid... No media training. This kid, like a born star. Like, the cameras roll, and this kid is, this kid came to, the Eagles didn't come to play, this kid came to play. Yeah, there you go. I can't believe you chose this. Yes, this was a huge letdown. This was my Christmas present, and I got a loss.

You probably would have rather had Cole, huh? Yeah, probably. I'm feeling two of two things. A, I want A.J. Brown packing his bags, and I want him somewhere else that is not here. I love you, A.J., but, like, you can't make those drops in that game. And I also want Kevin Petullo flipping burgers at, like, the local McDonald's or something. I don't care. Why do you say that? Whenever he's an offensive coordinator, it's like he's flipping burgers. One side, he's cooking.

One half is cooking, and the other half is completely raw. Is this like your nephew or something, Mercer? He's got to be related to you. Dude, totally. This is totally Mercer's nephew. That's a lawless kid. I mean, I don't even know who these people are, and he's just nailing it. I want him flipping burgers. For context, Kevin Petullo is the offensive coordinator in the entire city of Philadelphia. You think it's just a random insult, like, I should be flipping burgers at McDonald's or whatever.

He's like, yeah, I don't know. The kid was like, no, no, wait, let me explain. Yeah, right. He's cooking on one side, and he's raw on the other. Like, whoa, with the right hook. But hey, kid, just remember, you know? Some people can work at McDonald's and get elected president, so, you know. Very true. Anything is possible.

That's true. Work at McDonald's, take out a dictator, yeah. All right, and then mine is actually going to be the foil to that, because, you know, Philadelphia sports media, notorious for being abusive to its athletes and sports, but Jacksonville, a nice foil here. This is like one of the nice, so you know what? Listen, these guys can pay millions of dollars for whatever. It's good. It's the American pastime. But, you know, like, they obviously care, and, like, when you have a big loss, you've got bad expectations.

It's tough. Like, that's just human nature. So, I just love this from a reporter. Jacksonville had a tough loss. Buffalo, here's that coach taking questions. How you doing today? Lynn Jones, Jacksonville Free Press News. I just want to tell you, congratulations on your success, young man. You hold your head up, all right? You guys have had a most magnificent season. You did a great job out there today. So, you just hold your head up, okay? And, ladies and gentlemen. Duval, you the one, all right?

Thank you, ma'am. Keep it going. We've got another season, okay? I appreciate it. Take care, and much continued success to you and the entire team. That's like ultimate work. Come on, man. This is awesome. That is outstanding. I need a reporter like this in my life when I have a tough day. Hey, you know what? You keep your head up. You got to get... What a queen. He changed. Yes. You can see his face. Wow. Yes, because typically people are like, oh, you're going to get fired.

They asked the quarterback of Green Bay... Everything in real time. Yeah, exactly. They asked the quarterback of Green Bay after this horrible loss. They blew a huge lead. So, do you think Matt LaFleur should be fired, your head coach? He's like, no.

What? It's just so brutal. I was not going to say that, yeah. But, yeah, confirmed, you know, it must be the Pope. Like, it has to be the Pope for the Bears. The city of Chicago is having the best run. The best run of their, of at least probably my lifetime. I don't know what is going on there. How about the football fans from Northwestern Indiana, who are both Bears fans and Hoosiers fans? Best year of their lives.

Seriously. It was a great sports weekend. Can we fair confirm, like, Brian was watching this game from Rome, on Rome time. Confirmed, yeah. There's no way. Someone's like, do you think Brian's staying up for this, the ambassador to the Vatican? Like, yes, Brian is staying up for this. 2 to 5 a.m. Yeah. It's the equivalent of, like, ambassadors coming to America and then staying up a weird time to watch their soccer team play. Like, this is... And then probably, you know, at 5 a.m., after his team comes back from an epic win like that, like, you think he was like...

Oh, now I'm just going to go to sleep? Yeah, I know. He's ripping espresso. He's ripping some espresso, and he's going on to town, man. I'm going to get some gelato. It's going to be a good day. Oh, man. Good times, good times. Josh and I kind of quietly crying.

Hey, look, it's entertaining. It's entertaining. We like it. It's fun. Oh, yeah. It is all in good fun. Okay, what do we got? So, Josh, you did a different one. That is all good. I already used my Twilight Zone for Jerome Powell.

Oh, nice. Do you have another one, Josh? Well, I do want to speak, you know, going back to the situation in Minneapolis. There is a... Okay, so I thought Archbishop, the Archbishop of St. Paul, Minneapolis is Bernard Hebdo. I know him. I think he gave a very, you know, reasoned, calm statement, calling on people just to, you know, don't let passions get too far, you know, just to take it easy. And I thought that was prudential. That is what a shepherd should do, you know, because people are seeing what they want to see.

The Archbishop Weisenberger of Detroit, however, which is not in Minnesota, by the way, I think was not helpful, and he issued a statement on the shooting in Minneapolis, and he said, This tragic loss of life stands as a sobering reminder of the grave consequences that arise when confrontations escalate and lethal force is used unnecessarily.

The taking of life in such circumstances crosses a moral line and can never be justified. Unquote. I think that is a very irresponsible take. First of all, you can make the case that it would have been preferable had he not fired the gun.

That's an argument anyone can have all day. The fact of the matter is, when a car is coming at you, and it did actually make contact with him, partially running him over, I think this statement by the Archbishop of Detroit was not helpful at all.

I don't think it was—I think it was bringing heat when we need light, and I think Catholics are called to a better standard, especially our shepherds. Did you see the Chicago chief of police? Speaking of different statements, this surprised me. I mean, I was unfamiliar with this game, but I guess I just got to show it. Maybe Twilight Zone here, this can be mine. Yeah, it's actually amazing. This is crazy. Let me make this clear. Federal agents, ICE, HSI, are officers.

They are agents of law enforcement. If you box them in with vehicles, it is reasonable for them to believe that they are being ambushed, and that this could end in a deadly situation. And it's reasonable for them to use force based on those conditions. Do not box in. Any law enforcement officer, you are breaking the law when you do that, and you are putting yourself in danger following law enforcement agents around. The question is why? What do you plan on doing?

It's also reasonable for them to believe that you're eventually going to do harm to them. If you ram any vehicle, especially that one that contains law enforcement agents, and that's any law enforcement, local, state, federal, county. And you do this intentionally. This is considered deadly force. Deadly force is anything that can cause great bodily harm or death. When you plow into a vehicle that contains law enforcement agents, you're using deadly force, and they can use deadly force in response to stop you.

We need to be clear about these laws. We cannot become a society where we just decide to take everything in our own hands and start to commit crimes against law enforcement. It is a crime. You may not like what they're doing. I can understand that there's a lot of emotions out there, but that does not mean that you get to commit a crime.

Especially one that could lead to deadly force. We need to keep everyone safe. That's outstanding. Yep. Was this a recent thing, or was this like someone resurfaced this? This was just on Friday. Friday. Really? That is... Chicago Chief of Police. Yeah, and it's also, again, like...

I think a lot of Americans were just not up to speed or had not realized that there were, you know, this organized effort to track these law enforcement officials around and, you know, organize and track what they're doing and follow what they're doing, which is, I think, very reckless, you know. Like, we have a representative republic here. If you believe that these officers are acting in ways that are un... You know, untoward, go to your local officials, go to your federal, you know, congressmen, senators, or whatever, bring it up the chain, call for investigations of this kind of stuff.

But it is putting your own self in danger to be, you know, constantly tracking these guys and waiting for them to trip up. And the thing is, a lot of these people on the left, they thought the... The video cams, the body cams that the police officers are going to be like, oh, this will prove that police officers are fascist, evil, racist, bigots. And in fact, what is shown, and so many people see, is that more and more, almost all the time, in fact, it's law enforcement officers repeatedly, clearly stating what to do, please, and trying to de-escalate the situation as much as possible.

And, in fact, what we see is, irresponsibly, people neglecting those simple commands. Yeah. Yeah, isn't it really a shame that someone said every governor should make that speech? Like, why is Jacob Frey not making that speech? Like, what? I understand there's all the political games going on, but, like, shouldn't they be on the side of... Government employees, in this case, they're police? Like, they're officers? You mean the same people that tried to shut down the Minneapolis police force in the wake of George Floyd?

They tried to get rid of the police department. Right, or defend the police. But wouldn't, like, a statement like that would actually be in the best interest of both the law enforcement officers and the citizens, because it really shocks me. We're just getting kind of, like, tacit endorsement of vigilantism, as if somehow that's a good thing, when every lesson right up until two seconds ago was, I don't know, like, two seconds ago. Do not be a vigilante. To the point where it has actually hurt public safety, right?

Like, look at Daniel Penny. They are like, do not be a vigilante. Even if that meant saving someone's life, it is like, no, we are going to drag you through the mud and ruin your life. Even though you did something to save him. And we are going to take the side of the person, the other person, and then it is just like overnight flipped with ICE all of a sudden. Now, it is like, no, we actually love all of these vigilantes.

It is like having two nations beside the same border. Right. Yeah, true. It's like there's these little games going on, and it's frustrating because it's just, it almost feels like it's now, you know, it's probably both sides escalated. It's like on purpose. It's like a second Civil War, except it's a Cold War right now. Right. You know, Cold Wars are still dangerous.

Yeah. Ask Charlie Kirk. Oh, jeez. Who knows what happened there? Yeah. Erika? Oh, speaking of little games, I'm not bringing us up for Twilight Zone. So, we talked a lot about fraud last week. I have a feeling we're going to be talking a lot more about fraud. There are rumors swirling that Tim Walz will resign this week. We'll see. We'll let you know, probably on Wednesday, Friday. But fraud is not just about the bottom line. It also could affect who's...

Putting the anesthetic in your arm or helping you out at the emergency room. So, this is breaking news from the Justice Department. This was phase two of the investigation into what they're calling Operation Nightingale. Shout out to Florence. Large-scale scheme selling fraudulent nursing diplomas and transcripts that allowed unqualified individuals to become licensed nurses. Initially, they charged 30 defendants who were involved in this setup in Florida. They just charged 12 more, including nursing school owners, administrators, and employees. They were charged with wire fraud and other related conspiracies.

So, this scheme, this number blew my mind. This scheme produced approximately 7,300 fake nursing diplomas from now-closed for-profit Florida nursing schools. The buyers could use these diplomas To sit for the NCLEX exam, which, I don't know, but you probably can also cheat on that, they could obtain their RN or LPNVN licenses and then secure nursing jobs across multiple states. So, I was curious. I wonder if this affected Connecticut. Yes, in fact, it did.

So far, we have had 90 investigations into individual nurses here in Connecticut. We just had three more lose their licenses. I believe there are 44 that are still under investigation. So, yeah, this is a... A fraud, not just about stealing money from the taxpayer, but actually putting unqualified healthcare workers into your hospitals, your emergency rooms, your nursing homes. This is when you wonder, like, how much the economy is fake and gay. It's like, what is going on?

I wasn't going to say it that way, but... That's one way to say it. Okay, good show, gang. We have a great week of shows coming up for you. If you want to support us, go subscribe over on YouTube, so we've got all the good stuff, the LOOPcast on YouTube. Join the Champions Club. Thank you to all of our champions. CatholicVote.org slash champions is where you can join them. They're all our monthly supporters. Only reason we can do stuff like this.

Thank you so much to our champions. We're grateful for you. So, we end today with our daily prayer. It is... We're celebrating Saint Marguerite. Oh, boy. Bourgeois. You can just say bourgeois. Is it really bourgeois? I think it's bourgeois. Like bourgeois, but I assume a French saint, Catholic education pioneer and foundress of the Congregation of Notre Dame in Montreal?

Maybe French-Canadian? I don't know if it's the first time you've heard of her. We've got to get a real. Let me get a phonetic. Because I can't mispronounce it in the prayer. Come on, guys. That's right. That would not be so good. You might get the wrong Marguerite up there, I mean. Spelling.

She came from France, and she helped to found this school in Montreal. Okay, Bourgeois? Yeah. Bourgeois. Bourgeois. Bourgeois. Wait, no, it's not Boo? It's B, phonetic is, we're really getting into this, B-O-O-R-Z-H-W-A, bourgeois. Where am I? Is that not French enough? Bourgeois. By the way, that joke, while we're at it, the chief of police in Chicago, he said that in October. October. Oh, it was October? Shoot, sorry guys. Still good.

Thank you for the correction. Still good. Someone in the chat tipped me off on that. Thank you, thank you, thank you. We're going to end today with a prayer. Me too. In the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Amen.

Oh, Mother Bourgeois, you whose compassionate power is ever-increasing, show us your way of truth, faith, and holiness. Make us humble enough to abandon ourselves to the will of God, generous enough to find in the cross the joy of the loving giver. May your fidelity to Jesus and the Blessed Sacrament lead us ever nearer to this source of light and peace. May your spirit of openness help us to be concerned for our brothers and sisters throughout the world. Finally, may our Lady of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit bring us to this unity of eternal grace to which God has called you for all eternity.

Amen. St. Thomas More, St. Fidelis, Our Lady of Guadalupe. Pray for us. Catch you guys in the next live episode. Great show. Have a great Monday. Peace.