Trump Doubles Down on Pope Leo, FACE Act Bombshell Report, and Artemis II

And we're live. We made it, guys. Sorry about the delay. Had some Satan sticking his tail in our technology, I guess. Welcome, Tom, TMZ Tom, in place of Tom Pagasic, who's the actual tinfoil Tom. This is one of those shows where I'm really glad we were not live on Monday, because I think I might have said something I regret, but we have word wars, perhaps. We have religion, politics, presidents, and popes. We're going to talk about all of that.

Updates. Trump posted again last night addressing Pope Leo, so we're going to talk all things Pope Leo and President Trump. We also have new information that, in fact, the Biden administration was closer to the Stasi than even you ever imagined with their prosecutions of pro-lifers under the FACE Act. That's been a wild ride the last 24 hours. We have an Iran war update, and Congress is smaller today than it was last week, so we'll talk about... Why that is, and who's missing, and what it means for our assessment of the mainstream media, among other things, but thank you for being with us, Tom, straight from the hill, our guy on the inside, and yeah, it's going to be a wild ride.

Hope you had a good Easter. Did you have a good Easter? It's been a while. Nope, and he has no voice. All right. While we fix that, I'm going to talk to you about Charity Mobile, because we love Charity Mobile. They make this all possible. Now, more than ever, it is important to do business with companies that stand with you and your beliefs. Charity Mobile is a pro-life phone company that serves pro-life customers and supports pro-life family causes. They send 5% of your monthly plan price to your favorite charity, and they have sent millions of dollars.

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Bigger refunds this year for everybody. That was one of the top stories that the Trump administration was pushing out this week. I need it. I know. Oh, yes. How is the basement, Josh? I heard rumors. Yeah. Well, I mean, you know. The thing is, we got flooding going on in northern Michigan, where I'm at, and my basement is a total wet disaster, and sometimes you just want to scream, and other times you want to cry, and then I think about some of my neighbors who have had to flee their homes.

And, including a friend of mine, whose house is structurally unsafe, and it could slide down the hill. So, when I'm tempted to be like, oh gosh, it's so terrible for me, you know, I know there's a lot of other people out in the world, even in my own neighborhood.

Hurting more, and so I just offer the prayers, you know, everyone involved in this, you know, these kind of natural disasters, you know, that, I mean, we had 30 inches of snow earlier, you know, like three weeks ago, and it all decided to melt in like, you know, a few days with a lot of rain, and so it's been kind of crazy, but what can you say? Prayers for Northern Michigan.

Tom, we still can't hear you. All right. He's just here to be beautiful, folks. We just want his looks, not the tongue. All right, we'll keep trying to go on that, but I do want to get into the infamous now tweets, or posts, I suppose we call them now, from the president. And just to set the stage, I'm going to do a little bit of a timeline here, because it has been a few days. Like I said, I'm glad that we've had a couple of days to digest all this and get our thoughts in order, even as we got a new one last night from the president about Pope Leo.

But just to set it up, We kind of have this sort of amping up, escalation of back and forth between the President of the United States and Pope Leo. Over the Iran war. So, Easter Sunday, of course, we get that, the tweet from the president that is, you know, invoking Allah in a sort of, I think it was supposed to be humorous way, but open the effing straight among the words, yet probably can't show that word.

So, that was bizarre, followed by the next true social post, which was the entire civilization will die tonight. We don't want it to happen, but it very well could happen. And then we got Leo's response to that. So, he was asked by reporters what he thought of the president's rhetoric, to which he very calmly said, this is unacceptable. To do these things would be a violation of international law. But then he said, even more than that, just on a moral level, this is entirely unacceptable.

So, this was going back and forth. We talked last week about how Vatican language, coming from church leaders, tends in the last 10, 20, 30 years to edge toward the more pacifist side, and we talked about some of the nuance issues with that, Catholic just war theory, and that is certainly what we were seeing last week from the Pope.

But then, on Sunday night, we get the post from Donald J. Trump, 7.36 p.m. on April 13th. Oh my gosh, so long ago. And he said, I'm not going to read the whole thing, but just a few highlights. Pope Leo is weak on crime and terrible for foreign policy.

Fear doesn't mention the fear that the Catholic Church and all the other Christian organizations had during COVID, blah, blah, blah. It talks about priests being arrested. He likes his brother, Louis, more than him because Louis is all MAGA. And he goes kind of on and on. He's weak on crime, weak on nuclear weapons, does not sit well with me. He should get his act together as Pope.

It's hurting the Catholic Church. So, again, not going to read the whole thing. It was a pretty crazy tirade, and yet, I would argue, perhaps you disagree with me, gentlemen, but I would argue that it was not as crazy as the next post, which was this picture. Can we get this up on the screen?

This AI-generated painting of Trump as the second person of the Trinity, there's no way around it, not dressed as a doctor, wearing long flowing robes with orbs of light in his hand, with his hand on the forehead of a sick man, surrounded by what, maybe there are army guys up above, maybe angelic. demonic sort of thing. It was very strange. This is a crazy image, and he posts this on his Truth Social account, uniting, I should say, uniting evangelicals and Catholics together in their condemnation of what can really only be described as a blasphemous image.

He did take, yes, which? He did delete, but what's interesting is that Carolyn Leavitt, the White House press secretary, had said that the image was doctored. Which maybe the president, you know, got that and said, oh, yeah, I'm a doctor. Like, no, there's a difference between an image being doctored and you claiming you're a physician doctor. Yeah, so we could... So, I don't know. I mean, it's like...

All right, so we could... So, that wasn't an actual photograph? Is that what you're saying here? No, not an actual... Okay. Well, so exactly what she meant was there was an image that a memester had posted, I mean, over a year ago, I believe, that was sort of like the one that the president just posted this week, where the images in the sky were clearly army men. The one that the president then posted, one of the army men was given this sort of like...

Statue of Liberty type hat and wings, so it looked like a demon, and so it was changed from the original one of a year ago. But it's still highly, it's still him being Jesus. If we want to go ahead and play, Trump was asked- And it's totally inappropriate, but the thing is, like, what I love is that the, you know, the left, which never condemned all these Obama as a saint or Obama as Jesus candles out there, you know, or Hillary Clinton as the Virgin Mary, all that kind of stuff, which I think, you know, like, whether it's meant to be, like, tongue-in-cheek, how cool, just like this one's probably like, hey, look, isn't this awesome?

Still. No, do not do this, please, anyone, left or right. Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb. Yeah, terrible. And it seems that it was uncharacteristic of him. He did take it down, but not before suggesting that it wasn't him as Jesus, it was him as a doctor, as you mentioned. So, the image being... I'm the only one who thought it was... Oh, sorry. But I thought the text... Truth post was more offensive, honestly, because we've seen offensive memes like this all the time.

Maybe I'm just inure to it, but I guess I'm more impacted by the post. What he said about the Pope. Yeah. And what he said about the Pope, and it's not a matter of if part of it is true or part of it is not. People don't understand that sometimes attacks on the Pope are seen as attacks on the Catholic itself. People aren't within the faith. Yeah, exactly. I think that, yeah, the image aside, so we got that one-two punch, and the image was taken down, but the conversation that has continued online, among Catholics even, just in ordinary life, is that post, exactly, Tom, which was, in a way, far more problematic.

Although, to be fair, the image was blasphemy, which is sort of like violence. I'm not defending the... It's pretty bad. I mean, even as much as I support the Red Cross. Which was another suggestion Trump made. It's just me as a Red Cross doctor. However, also from my world, and I've talked to a friend of the show and friend of CatholicVote, Peter Wolfgang, both of us work a lot with evangelicals.

And the thing that worries me is on the blasphemous image, you did have a combination of Catholics and evangelicals speaking out against it. I have not really heard any evangelicals speaking out against the words he said, and actually, I have found friends, like even Megan Besham, coming out in defense of what the president said. Yeah, Ellie Beth Stuckey, too. Yeah, so let us go ahead with Leo's response here, when a reporter asked him about the post from Trump.

Our tech is struggling today. Here we go. Thank you. I had no idea. Sound up. All right. So, the audio is not working. I will just read what the Pope said. He said, I have no fear of the Trump administration or speaking out loudly about the message of the gospel. That is what I believe I am called to do, what the church is called to do. We are not politicians. And he went on to say, one of the things that struck me the most was that...

The president speaking about war and me speaking about war are not on the same plane, and we're not talking like an airplane, but we're not on the same... Plain, level, right? And that was, to me, the most telling. Josh, do you have thoughts on the Pope's response here to Donald Trump? Well, first of all, I commend Pope Leo for handling this with class and dignity and also not responding in kind because, you know, I voted for Donald Trump. I support his agenda.

But, you know, I agree with Bishop Barron. I think his comments against Pope Leo were inappropriate and, you know, disrespectful, and also not constructive, not helpful. If you want to, I think it's perfectly legitimate if President Trump wanted to critique or push back against Pope Leo on policy, specifically, because obviously Donald Trump thinks what he's done in terms of the military engagement with Iran is just. He thinks that. I think there's a case to be made for it. I haven't really heard it, necessarily.

And I think the Pope would be perfectly reasonable to say, okay, I don't really think that that qualifies. And that can be a discussion. That is a welcome discussion. There are some people who say the Pope shouldn't talk about politics. Well, I mean, the Pope should not be a partisan actor, and I'm not suggesting that he is here. But the Pope absolutely should talk about morality, should talk about abortion, pornography, he should talk about war. War obviously involves, I mean, is the war moral?

Is it justified? That is absolutely the kind of thing that we would want the Pope and bishops to weigh in on and say, you know, this one looks like it's okay, or this one doesn't, this war does not look like it's justified, you know, based on what we say. And even then, The hope here would be that the language would be couched in such a way as to say, in case there's information that didn't come to light that they didn't know about, but that doesn't mean you can't say anything about it.

No, I absolutely want the Pope and bishops to speak out about moral issues, including war. I mean, this idea that war is just political and not moral, of course it's a morality question. Like, give me a break. So, we do want the Pope to weigh in on it, and I just wish President Trump had avoided making it personal with his attacks. Focus on the policy, what policy differences you have, and argue that. Now, actually, His Truth Social post last night avoided the personal, which is nice.

I'm thankful for that. He actually talked about the policy of it. Now, here's what he said. Now, you can agree or you can disagree, Trump, on this. I'm not even saying that. Yeah, we're going to throw it up on the screen here. This is really interesting. But Trump says, will someone please tell Pope Leo that Iran has killed at least 42,000 innocent, completely unarmed protesters in the last two months? And that for Iran to have a nuclear bomb is absolutely unacceptable.

Thank you for your attention to this matter. America's back. President Donald J. Trump. Now, again, I don't know if that's true. I mean, I've heard reports that they've killed that many protesters innocently. I mean, is that true? I don't know. Is it that many? 42,000? I don't know. I don't know.

And I'm not willfully ignorant. I mean, you've got to question the sources and stuff like that. It ranges from 15,000 to 50,000. Yeah, I mean, that does sound really bad. That doesn't necessarily mean I want to send my sons or someone else's sons to war against Iran, per se.

Also, how close were they to actually getting a new government? I mean, I don't know. I mean, again. This is where, you know, Pogacic, you know, he was like, just automatic no. I'm not an automatic no on this war. I'm very, very, very skeptical against military engagement in this. I don't think the case has been made clearly enough, but I much prefer this kind of response that Donald Trump is giving. Far better.

Than what he did Sunday night, where he personally attacked the Pope. That's not helpful, and I don't like it. And to get back to what McCluskey said, it is kind of interesting. That if the evangelicals complain about something, Donald Trump listens right away, but if the Catholics do, he takes his time and kind of doesn't respond quite as clearly.

It's strange because he's vice president. Well, the thing is, Donald Trump, the one thing, this is not a defense. This is just an explanation. But it is true that for decades... Conservative and Republican leaders in Washington were a lot like the French army. You know, they talked a big game, and then they crumbled at every time there was a sign of a fight.

And Donald Trump was one that was like, fight, fight, fight. I mean, he got shot at, and he gets up and yells, fight, fight, fight, and he just never backs down, and he never apologizes. In his mind, to apologize is a sign of weakness. I disagree with that. I don't think apologizing for when you make a mistake is a sign of weakness. I think it's a sign of strength. However, just knowing that, I think that's the key difference here. He just, in his mind, he can't He very, very, very rarely, almost never apologizes, and I think that is ultimately what is driving it.

I am glad he is focusing on more policy-based differences now. Let us make sure. But, hey, guys, you know, stick to that. Yeah, just offer evidence. Tom? This is not to toot our own horn, except if he is listening to prominent Catholics. You are underwater, Tom.

That's so sad. Just like Republicans in the polls right now. You're underwater. Okay, okay. We'll get to that in the next block. Tom, try one more time. Saying how providential it is. You can't hear me? Yeah, we got to troubleshoot that one.

Okay, but I did want to, speaking of J.D. Vance, I do want to get to, he spoke at, he's appeared a couple of times since the Pope Leo post, and spoken, again, sort of difficult messaging to understand and unpack here, but this is a huge question among Catholics, at least, you know, around our friend circles that are like, okay, wait, I thought J.D. Vance is, he must be in such a tight spot. Any Catholic in the administration right now must be really struggling with it, and Vance has to speak in public, and he has.

So, this was at a Turning Point USA event yesterday, last night, actually, and we have two clips that I want to play, and then, Josh, I want to get your take on these. So, the first one, can we get that audio?

Number one, when the Pope says that God is never on the side of those who wield the sword, there is a thousand-year, more than a thousand-year tradition of just war theory, okay? Now, we can, of course, have disagreements about whether this or that conflict is just, but I think that it's important. In the same way that it's important for the Vice President of the United States to be careful when I talk about matters of public policy, I think it's very, very important for the Pope To be careful when he talks about matters of theology.

And I think that one of these issues here is that there has been, is, again, hey, random dude screaming, I told you I'd respond to your point. I just want to respond to this question first. One of the issues here is that if you are going to opine on matters of theology, you have got to be careful. You have got to make sure it is anchored in the truth, and that is one of the things that I try to do, and it is certainly something I would expect from the clergy, whether they are Catholic or Protestant.

Okay, so that is the first. Yeah, go ahead. You can go. I agree with that. I mean, again, some of the language that was used by Pope Leo made it seem like he was, again, attacking all wars, and if that was not his intention, I don't think obviously it was. A little bit more precision in his words would have been helpful.

Yeah, one of the laws of the internet is the internet never dies, and it's highly unforgiving. McCluskey, are you with us? Can you hear me now, Tom? Am I? Can you hear me? Yeah, much better. Much better. All right. What's going through J.D.'s mind right now?

Well, hopefully, because my last point, I think, applies here as well, is the man in the middle right now, I really think, is our good friend, Brian Birch. And if there's one person, I think, who I hope both the people around the Pope, as well as the President himself, are listening to, is Brian.

Because I think when he led CatholicVote, now in his new position, nobody better articulates, I think, the MAGA perspective, except also with a Catholic identity. Well, he's fluent in Catholic, MAGA, conservative, all things. Right. Yes. As the U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See, our good friend Brian is in a great position. I agree with that 100%.

So, if everything goes kablooey, we can blame Brian. That is very comforting, I am sure, if you are watching, Brian. I do not know about that. I am pulling for you. All right. I do want to get to the next clip. He does not sign my checks anymore, though, so I guess I could agree. There you go. I want to get to the second JD clip here, though, because this is really interesting. Something else that happened on Sunday, in fact, in the hour before Trump goes off on Pope Leo in that unhinged post, three cardinals of the Catholic Church.

An interview that they did with 60 Minutes dropped, and we had, and let's just list them. They're actually, this is nuts. Amy Wellborn pointed out, they are the only three non-retired cardinals in the United States right now, and it is our good friends, Cardinal Tobin, the not good one, Cardinal McElroy, and Cardinal Cupich. Ah, yes, the three amigos. The three amigos show up. The McCarrick mob, as I call them. Yeah, and one of the questions Nora O'Donnell put to them was, do people don't like it when their priests Talk politics.

And Cupich said, absolutely right. But here is what J.D. had to say. If we could do the first two minutes of this clip. You have seen that the Vatican and the Pope and the President have been in the news lately. So, as a Catholic.

What does it feel like to be, you know, in the middle of that? I thought it was going to be an easy question. This is kind of a tough question here. Nope, no easy ones there. So, here is the thing about this. So, first of all, you will sometimes hear people say, well, you know, the Vatican, the church, whether it is the Protestant church, the Catholic church, like, you know, they should preach the gospel, they should ignore public policy. I actually do not agree with that.

I actually think that it is a good thing when Christian leaders, whether they are Catholic or Protestant, part of preaching the gospel is talking about how the gospel applies to the issues of the day. So, I have never been one of these people who say that you should never have Christian leadership not talking about politics, or frankly, political leaders not talking about their Christian faith. But I do think that we have to remember that, you know, Each of us has our own role.

I am the Vice President of the United States. The fundamental way I understand my role is that I am trying to take the lessons, the moral truths that are rooted in Christianity, and I am trying to apply them to a whole host of complicated real-world scenarios. Thank you.

So, my job is to apply moral truth to try to do the best thing for the American people. That is my job, and that is the President of the United States' job, and of course, he is the person who leads our administration. The Pope's job is to preach the gospel, okay? And again, I think that sometimes in the context, like, it does not bother me, even when I disagree with him. And I have a lot of respect for the Pope. I like him.

I admire him. I have gotten to know him a little bit. It does not bother me when he speaks on issues of the day. Frankly, even when I disagree with how he is applying a particular principle. So, the most obvious example is, it has frustrated me that some of the Catholic clergy have attacked mercilessly the Trump administration on immigration. It is a constant idea that somehow everything that the Trump administration does when it comes to securing our borders is inhumane, and my constant response to that is, How is it humane to allow drug traffickers and sex traffickers to bring little kids across the southern border?

Okay, that's good. All right. Right, and again, it's so one-sided. Like, this is part of the problem, like, the bishops, particularly those three amigos, the McCarrick Three, that we're talking about here. They have been attacking Trump and the Trump administration on immigration, as J.D. Vance rightly notes, mercilessly, continuously, and by the way, many other bishops in this country, too. And you're thinking to myself, you guys are so much more angry about the Trump immigration enforcement than you were with regards to abortion.

In fact, obviously, we know that's true because Cardinal Cupich was going to give an award. To the senator, Dick Durbin, out of Illinois, who has supported abortion for decades, and he rose to the leadership in the Democratic Party. So, especially for those three cardinals, they are massive hypocrites. They actually get more incensed about, like...

Well, a little bit of bigotry, you know, or racism, then they do babies getting murdered, but on immigration, it's like everything is so frustrating about this, especially Pope Francis, of course. Pope Louis has not been as strident as Francis on critiquing it, but even him, too. It's like, what is, why is it so wrong for the United States to enforce its border, enforce its border? We were very clear on this show that we did not support the missteps that happened in Minnesota, and we were thankful that President Trump and Tom Holman and those guys changed their tactics and lessons learned.

Great. I'm all for that. But the bishops, particularly, have attacked everything, every action, every way, except for, like, actually, you know. deporting murderers they seem to not have a problem with that great but if everything you this is the point that i thought kelsey reinhardt our president made so well in first things the article she wrote if you're if you criticize and attack every single way in which we in which the united states does uh immigration enforcement then basically you don't believe in enforcement it's just a back door to open borders and like be honest with us because like but the thing is we get this we're doing this like two-step where because Catholic teaching does not actually believe in open borders.

You know, so they can't really say that, but it feels like they believe it. Yeah, that sort of like sums up the whole interview. I watched some of the portions of the 60 Minutes, and that pretty much sums it up. I did want to ask Tom especially, but Josh, I'm sure you'll have something to say. One of the concerns, shall we say, coming out Monday morning after seeing Trump's posts was that this is going to materially damage... The CatholicVote and start to split it away from support for anyone who's touched Trump, including perhaps J.D.

Vance in 2028, but also in the more near-term, the midterms coming up. So, McCluskey, I wanted to ask you, how do you see this playing out, if at all, factoring into what's coming up in terms of elections? In the new Trump age, I think that...

It matters what happens next. Is this going to keep on going the way it is? And I don't think it is. I think the President's tweet, more recent tweet, showed that. So, if there's a constant drumbeat, and I think there was a recent poll showing that at least Catholic mass, as we should.

Um, I, on that, at least a weekly schedule, still support the Pope, or the, I'm sorry, the President, and the Pope. And the Pope, too. And, um, but, uh, so I, I do not see, uh, unless this stretches out, I don't see it affecting. Um, as I said before, I mean, my main concern has been because I cut my teeth on, like, the marriage fights back in 2000, where we would Plead for priests to speak out more from the pulpit, and for bishops to speak out more, and they did, and it was very helpful.

Uh, but we would never have those victories in the early 2000s if it wasn't for the Evangelical Catholic Alliance, and at the time, Mormons as well. We've kind of lost the Mormons. It would be a real shame to lose the Evangelicals as well, and I just see a bigger and bigger rift growing, and this is, in the meetings I've attended, this has not been a helpful discussion.

Well, I mean, you know, I actually spoke with the New York Times about this story, and the story ran yesterday or whatever. You know, she asked me several questions, of course. She put in the one that, the answer that she liked the best, you know, in the newspaper, but shocker. But she asked me about this, like, hey, what, you know, how is this going to affect the midterms? Because that's clearly what the New York Times and their audience cares most about.

Like, hey, would this divide it, you know, cause a big rift? Salivating over the possibilities. Yeah, would it cause thousands and millions of Catholics to stay home? That'd be awesome, in their mind, of course. And I said, you know, if we're going to be perfectly honest here, Um, it is easy, it's kind of hard to say, you know, I don't know, seven months away from an election, what the American people are going to be thinking about when they cast the ballot in November.

I mean, that's just the honest question. Like, you know, people are upset, and they rightly are understandably upset about how President Trump attacked Pope Leo personally. I think that was a bad idea. But honestly, it is like, you know, are they going to care enough about it seven months from now to oversee anything else that will come up in the next seven months? Maybe. I kind of have my doubts. I mean, like, look, President Trump attacked Pope Francis, you know, right before, you know, the 2024 elections, and the majority of Catholics voted for Donald Trump.

It doesn't mean that they're particularly happy that he attacked them, but they said, you know what? I think this guy is going to protect the border, and he's going to fight the transing of our kids. And on those two things, Donald Trump has succeeded on it. So, again.

It's a package deal. Like, you know, if I could push a button and get all the reprehensible sins out of Trump, or some of the more egregious ones, great, show me that button. Hey, I'd do that for myself if I could.

Which is not an excuse. I mean, people are like, oh, it's just an excuse. Look, you know, what was on the offer? Like, if you didn't like Donald Trump in 2024... Your option was to vote for somebody that was going to not only not stop the movement to trans our kids, but was going to have taxpayers pay for it, and we're going to have a wide open southern border for another four years. It would have been a game over for our country.

So, that doesn't excuse everything he does, but it explains, I think, the rational decisions made by Catholic voters in 2024, as far as what's going to happen in the 2026 midterm elections. I, exactly what I told the New York Times, I think this was an unforced error by President Trump, and it's not going to make it easier to rally Catholic voters to try to vote for candidates come the fall. I want to make America great again. I want more family formations, young people to be able to get the house that they need.

You know, and better paying jobs, and to start families. So, anything that's a distraction from that, in and of itself, we can say that was an unfair and terrible attack, but the secondary effect is you're making it harder to rally voters to do the things that we need to get done in this country. So, you know, yeah, that's why I want to move forward. Yeah, for sure. Well, we're going to get into, in a minute, another why we're glad that Trump won in 2024.

First, before we transition over to the FACE Act, transition not meant, anyway, Zeal 250. America 250 ticket sales are now live for the big event on La Crosse, Wisconsin, at Cardinal Burke's Shrine for Our Lady of Guadalupe. We are going to be there on June 13th. There's going to be a big rally, and I had a friend call me this week and ask, okay, is this going to be like super political, like a, you know, 2028 kind of like rally? It's like, the point of this is to pray for America.

On our big birthday. And so, we are here to unite in prayer with Cardinal Burke. The link to buy tickets is going to be in the chat, so make sure you check that out. There is limited space, so please be sure to get your tickets right away. I'm going to be there. Josh is going to be there. McCluskey, I think you're going to be there, right? I'm going to be there. Oh my gosh, the whole team is going to be there.

You can meet the entire LOOPcast team, including the Voice of Reason. Tinfoil Tom. So, make sure that you get your tickets today. Again, that is in the chat, and we really hope to see you there. If you can't make it to Wisconsin, you will also see multiple ways to get involved in this massive effort to pray for America on her birthday, and boy, do we need it. So, this week, bombshell report dropped, and I was thinking with all the drama with the Pope and the President that it does behoove Catholics once in a while to reflect on how the world is changing.

So, let's get to it. We've come since the days of Obama suing the Little Sisters of the Poor, and turns out Joe Biden. Uh, me targeting pro-life activists, and we knew that this was happening. We talked about it all through the first two years of the podcast, because we knew that the prosecution of friends like Mark Houck and the pro-life grannies in front of the abortion clinics, people being put in jail, something was off about this. We knew it was bad, but this week, we learned just how bad it was, and it's shocking.

So, the DOJ report is titled, The Biden administration's weaponization of the FACE Act. It examined more than 700,000 records. There were multiple interviews with the investigative committee, and we have now an 882-page report. That reviews the Biden-era DOJ's response, this is under Merrick Garland, to complaints of violence from both pro-life and pro-abortion organizations, because you remember the FACE Act is intended to protect, quote-unquote, both abortion mills and pro-life centers and places of worship.

Wasn't exactly even-handed. I'm just going to do a quick summary. The extensive thing is that you're trying to protect access to the facilities. That's the extensive thing, like allow people to get in and out. So, churches, abortion mills, pro-life pregnancy centers, whatever.

block their access. You protest. It's one thing to protest. You can't block access. That's that's the rationale of the FACE Act. Right. So the emails that we got a hold of, they show that we had top Justice Department officials referring to abortion activists as MVPs for flagging pro-life protests to prosecute and seeking to track the travel plans of Christian pro-life pro-life activists not yet charged with crimes. The emails also reveal pro-abortion organizations, such as the National Abortion Federation, providing complete dossiers to the Biden DOJ with personal information and pictures of pro-life activists and their children, I just have to add that, who were later arrested by the FBI.

These dossiers contained information of people who had, as yet, committed no... They had been charged with nothing. This was just gathering information of people that abortion activists didn't like what they were doing. In hopes that one day they would cross a line and be able to nab. Many of these individuals were later prosecuted and even jailed by the Biden administration. This occurred, so all this discriminatory application occurred under the National Task Force on Violence Against Reproductive Healthcare Providers, and we're willing to name a group of officials re-established by former Attorney General Merrick Garland after the fall of Roe.

The task force was responsible for overseeing the FACE Act. And related, quote, outreach, and operated largely under the direction of Sanjay Patel of the Department's Civil Rights Division. So, among other things, we found that the Biden DOJ violated the rights of Americans by biased enforcement. The Biden DOJ collaborated with pro-abortion groups, specifically the National Abortion Federation and Planned Parenthood, to track pro-lifers' activities. Prosecutors engaged in inappropriate conduct. For example.

One of the lead attorneys called Christian pro-lifers culty in the courtroom and disparaged their religious beliefs before the judges. Federal Attorney Francis Lee Carlson complained to Patel that, quote, Unfortunately, we ended up with a very Catholic magistrate on duty this week, and he was very particular about the bond conditions and not infringing on their lowercase First Amendment rights. Patel replied, ugh, always a veritable circus. I mean, this is just one example. A very Catholic magistrate who's worried about First Amendment rights.

Ugh. And the DOJ put out instructions about how to pick a jury. Yes. Well, I mean, you know, that I would expect both sides to do. That's not as egregious on how to pick a jury, but like, specifically.

Being upset that the judge is too Catholic, and why? Because they care about First Amendment rights. So, I just want to go on the record being proud of the fact that being Catholic means you actually believe that other people have First Amendment rights. All the talk, we have, oh yeah, Catholics, what a bad influence on our politics. Yeah, because, you know, you might become a judge someday and actually believe that, you know, everyone has first amendment rights. What a concept.

Yeah, awesome. Yeah, another one, one of my favorites was the Biden DOJ. So, when they would prosecute the, like, two pro-choicers who they prosecuted under the FACE Act, those prosecutions, they asked for sentences of three months, which is the minimum sentence, right, under the FACE Act. Clearly. For pro-lifers, who they prosecuted many, many dozens, they asked for 14 months on average in prison and more. People like Mark Houck were looking at 11 years in prison. So, this was significantly harsher sentences.

Definitely, I mean, this was just the two-tier justice system that we were talking about the whole time. And then you layer this on with the revelations about The vast extent to which the FBI was monitoring Catholics in their own parishes and in diocesan chanceries, and you layer onto that the whole Arctic frost, where they're monitoring the emails and phone calls of sitting United States congressmen and senators.

It's hard to overstate the un-American, is that British way of saying it, activities of the Biden DOJ. I don't know. Tom, are people reacting to this today? They are, and especially because there's going to be a vote on FISA reauthorization, which is one of the laws with Arctic Frost, at least, not under the FASAC stuff we're talking about, but there's certainly a reaction, and it's all connected, because Rachel Bovard was part of Arctic Frost, another friend of the show.

However, one thing, and we shouldn't downplay that CatholicVote has been involved in this almost from the very beginning. Me, personally, I called for the repeal of the FACE Act, I think it was in 2010. Because Barack Obama was starting to use it, not to the extent that Joe Biden did.

And the first time I actually met Tom Begazik, I think, was when Mark Houck testified before Congress, because Brian came into town and brought in his glamour photographer, Tom. And I remember meeting him in the hearing room, and I had to introduce him to Speaker Johnson at the time.

And Jim Jordan's committee, the House Judiciary Committee, also used a lot of materials that we And we met with DOJ, the Trump DOJ, a few times. Kelsey did, I did, I think others did, on this very subject. So, people are very frustrated about it. I'm more thrilled to see that four people were fired over it, but there needs to be prosecutions, because otherwise, it's going to happen again. I will bet those four people, we should track them, because I bet if there's another Democratic administration, they will be rehired, because that has happened over and over again.

Well, the FBI agent in charge of the Richmond memo, he was hired by Abigail Spanberger, your governor, right, to be the head of Virginia's. So, they just keep going round and round. Yeah, absolutely, we need prosecutions on this.

Josh, do you expect to see any? I'm not particularly optimistic, but I do want to echo McCluskey's point that everything that pro-lifers had been saying for the last few years about how the Biden administration was militarizing the Justice Department and targeting enemies was absolutely, totally true, and CatholicVote has been vindicated on this. We've been fighting on this and talking about this for many years about how You know, they're prosecuting Mark Halk and a lot of other good pro-lifers, and, you know, I...

I'm very happy that, obviously, Mark won his day in court, but then also that the Justice Department settled with him this week and gave him a big payout and apology. So, that's good, like setting things right. But yeah, this is the danger. And so, you know, I don't want our federal government to have too much power and authority. You know, we're seeing, we saw so much of it. I mean, again, you know, I don't think it was zombie Biden that did it.

Whoever was running the White House over those four years. But it is very dangerous to see what was happening. And, you know, the biggest frustration for me over these last, one of the biggest over the last few years is just total projection. I mean, the left accuses us of fascism, and they're the ones who are putting their political opponents in jail, including a president, a former president. I mean, so it's just absolutely mind-boggling. Like, if we actually treated you guys like the way you treated us, The New York Times would lay an egg.

I mean, it's just unbelievable. There's Democratic members of Congress who are willingly, vocally, outwardly saying, we're keeping a list of who we're going after once we're back in power again. Right. They've learned nothing so far. Well, I mean, what they've learned is that, for the most part, we hem and haw, and we put out a report like this, and maybe fire four people, but how seriously are we taking it? This is like, beyond the bare minimum, we need to really ramp this up.

But again, like, I mean, that's why I'd like, you know, a new attorney general that would put people, you know, in handcuffs. Be good. Yeah, hopefully we get that soon. Arrest, you know, come on. Put them in jail.

That's what they wanted to do, the grannies. Yeah, some of the stories coming out were just shocking, especially when you realize that these could be your friends, right, who have these dossiers on them, their kids are being tracked, their plane tickets are being tracked and flagged, and it was just crazy reading, doing the research for this segment.

I have to say, a part of me gets jealous. Like, with Arc de Frost and stuff like that, it's like, why isn't my name in there? Why am I not doing enough that the FBI isn't tracking me? It's like a badge of honor. So, I get a little bit jealous.

All right, Tom. Who says they're not, Tommy? That's right. We might not have uncovered it yet. Are you in the files and all that? Yeah, I had some friends who are never Trumpers contact me this week. They're like, oh, I bet now you regret voting. I don't regret voting for Donald Trump. Did you see this report? Did you see what was going on? Yeah, I don't know. Is it that Catholics are destined to be like the wandering people? We're always going to be a little...

politically homeless right because we're not we don't fit neatly into the categories it's pretty it's to me it's like we're we very clearly do not fit in terms of the united states the two two-party system we clearly cannot fit into the democratic party because it's the party of death right and and the party of surveillance and totalitarianism um but there's always going to be a discontent with the other option as well and is that because we're catholic is that you Because, you know, like the scripture says, like, why do, why do, you know, just men suffer and wicked men flourish?

I don't know. What do you think, Josh? Are we ever going to have the Catholic state christened? I don't really have any problem with telling everyone else that they're wrong, so I'm perfectly comfortable. I mean, you know, some of these things have brought things to light, like, you know. A few years ago, I would have said that Babylon Bee was a really funny satire site. Nowadays, they're so pro- You know, Israel, that they're pro this war, that they lash out at Catholics left and right.

It used to happen every once in a while. That kind of seemed weird. Now, it seems like they do it every other day, and obviously, I think attacks on my faith are repugnant, and I would never return in kind. It would never occur to me. I have a lot of friends who are evangelical and Baptist, and I'm not suggesting all of them agree with the Babylon Bee, by the way. I'm not saying that.

I even have friends who are Mormon or whatever, and I don't disparage or attack somebody's personal beliefs. I wish Babylon Bee didn't, but if you're going to make fun of us. At least be funny. Like, some of these anti-Catholic jokes, they're not even funny. Like, come on, man. I could be funnier than that. You know, you can come at, I think it's fair to criticize Pope Leo and also churchmen, even in a satire way, for things that, like, for example, it did seem like Pope Leo was basically against every war ever.

I don't think he believes that, but the language he used was, I think, in that instance. It's sloppy, and so, therefore, you can kind of tongue-in-cheek, you know, but the thing is, it's a difference between, I say this to my children, it's one thing if you tease somebody playfully.

It's another thing if you mock and scorn them. Like, okay, now some people who are, like, you know, communists or support murderers or whatever, like, go ahead and scorn them because they are promoting something that is evil. But if you're mocking my pope and my faith, oh, okay, it's not just a playful tease. Like, you know, then, yeah, then I've got a problem. So, I have stopped several months ago yet. I've stopped.

I'm reading the Babylon B, and I just find them, you know, and it's like people have been, it was kind of funny, like a lot of good Catholics were like, honestly, like, hey, man, you know, tone it down a little bit. It looks like you're, you know, you can poke fun a little bit, but like, it seems like you're like anti-Catholic. And they're like, yeah, no, dude, we hate Catholics. Yeah, they're like, no, we aren't. It's essentially what they said. I'm not trying to quote them verbatim, but yeah, pretty repugnant, so.

Yeah. Sorry, Babylon B. Try again. It's kind of like when Stephen Colbert was on Comedy Central. And he had this character, he was making fun of conservatives. He was funny. He was funny then. Because just like Catholics, we know how to laugh about ourselves. But then he got a show, and he just became vitriolic in his real culture. And now the ratings show like it's bye-bye Stephen. And unfortunately, I think I see the Babylon Bee going in the same direction. Yeah.

We'll see. We'll see. All right. I'm not going to give them my money. On to some good news. My first one, I watched the Artemis II landing. Did you guys watch it live? We had the live feed going. The kids are sitting on the couch. They've got their ice cream because it's Easter week. We had a bacon burger because it was Bacon Friday. I got choked up. I was like, was this what it was like when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, which he did, Tom Pagasic.

Don't tell me he didn't. But there's these beautiful shots of them coming down from space. My heart was in my throat when the parachutes didn't seem to be opening. I was like, aren't they supposed to be opening? And there they did. They splashed down, landing perfectly. And I just, to me, this was...

Such a happy, good news moment in a kind of a dark week, dark couple of weeks here in the world, that human beings are capable of incredible things. Like, our closest animal cousins, the chimpanzees, are throwing poop at each other, which we do too. But we also send people out around the moon and land them safely back on Earth. Now, it's kind of funny you mentioned chimpanzees, though, because I saw one Twitter commenter. I had a really brilliant idea. Yeah. They should have had the Navy boys that get out there, and they open up the hatch, and they get the people out, and they bring them up on the helicopter or whatever.

I think that's just kind of the coolest thing. I remember that from the movie Apollo 13. Somebody's like, wouldn't it have been really funny if the Navy guys would have all dressed up in monkey suits, just like Return of the Apes, and just open up the hatch, like, what? You have been gone a while. That would have been epic trolling. Yeah, that would have been pretty funny, but I loved it. I was really excited. I hope we go back to space because I would rather we build data centers on the moon than here on Earth.

Check out my deep episode on data centers, which was crazy, but one of the coolest moments, again, these astronauts, solid people. Can we play this clip, Celine? This was just great, and he did this in space as well.

Some of us have never met before, and you know whose fault that is? Ours. So, let's choose to do this. Let's be this more. Let's be neighbors. I don't know if you heard me say it, but God told us to love him with all that we are, and love our neighbors as ourselves.

That's right. Amen. That was Victor Glover preaching it from the farthest reaches of space and in his driveway when he got home. So, that's my good news. I love it. One thing about the crew that I will say, how were the lefties handling it? There's a woman by the name of Elizabeth Rose Halligan, and she went on threads, which I don't normally go on myself, and she said, I'll censor her swear words here. Thank you. So, I'm not trying to knock the gesture here.

I get the sentiment. I feel for the astronaut who lost his wife, and it was devastating to lose my father-in-law, who I love very much. She said, but the four astronauts deciding to name a spot on the blanking moon after one guy's wife, while the other eight billion of us are down here on Earth with no input on naming stuff on the moon.

Still feels like a colonizer behavior to me. I don't care if one of them, you know, one of the pilots, you know, was a Black dude, and I'm just, I think it's just kind of like, whoa, like, how are the lefties handling this? They're apparently not handling well, and I think what Elizabeth Rose Halligan fails to remember is that Americans are, of course, the Indigenous people on the moon, and you need to respect our traditional placement. Yeah, we got there first.

We are. It is how many countries that use the metric system has reached the moon. Zero. That reminds me of... We should be happy, because wasn't there a Canadian on this trip? There was. We let him come. I know. What was the problem?

I don't know about letting a Canadian come on our moon, though. I don't like that idea. Well... We had to bring the back bacon. Yeah. All right. Josh, what is happening in your world? What is going well? I think this is good news.

We saw a proliferation over the last 15 years of claims of asylum, and these are not people that are like leaving Cuba on a boat. These are anyone coming from any country, even, you know, just economic hardship or whatever. It is different than political asylum. And so, we saw, these are the percentage of asylum grants rates that, you know, were. You know, accepted. In the Obama administration, it got almost up to about 60% before it finally started to decline, and it declined sharply in the first Trump administration, and then it spiked for Biden again.

We had four years of Biden doing just about everything wrong, and now in February, we had a rate of just 7% of asylum cases that were granted under Trump. Now, just to paint a better picture of this, if you look at the next graph, it is the same information, but I think someone put a line on there. I think it makes it really helpful to understand. When you look at it from about 2013 or so, Obama, they made a change in the way that they were handling this.

This was getting out of hand, and even they made a correction, and they changed things. So, overall, the rate is going the right way. It was the four years of Biden that were a true anomaly. They're the ones that got it wrong, and so this, to me, is good news. We've returned to normalcy. There actually are some cases that are asylum, and yes, they can be granted, but the rest of them, you know, it's not really what's going on. In fact, remember the boy that was left abandoned, and everyone blamed ICE for this instead of the father that left?

Oh, yeah, with the bunny hat. A judge ruled. That that family has to be deported, because in fact, they were not asylum seekers. They were just here for economics. Sorry. If you want to be a citizen of the United States, you've got to apply. Out the door. Bye-bye. Yeah, it's strange to look at the graph there with the red line, because it seems like after, so what you're saying is after 2013, the Obama administration was actually course-correcting, and that was continued by Trump, one.

Right. And then... In the Biden era, we kind of, we see the Democratic Party, the Democratic administration, right, like, I bet that that graph might even apply to other American issues, but I don't, I do believe that given some of the rhetoric from Democrats recently, and the example of Virginia, sadly, Tom, Abigail Spanberger, is that if once they're in power again, we go right back up. Well, what about she was just Kamala Harris, right? She was vice president, and she was running for president, and she would have continued on the Biden policy.

She wasn't attacking this, and they just asked her, was it Al Sharpton at an event this last week? Right. Hey, what about you running for president again in 2028? Basically, throwing the softball and encouraging her, and the audience was clapping, yes, yes, please, and she's like, well, you know, we'll see. But it clearly seems that she… Josh and I were also clapping, yes, yes, please, please. For other reasons, we hope that she will not lose the election like she did last time.

There we go. All right, Tom, good news. Well, mine, and I'm thinking I might have even done it, because today is tax day, just to talk about it. Is that good news? Well, it's not good news, though, speaking of Spanberger, I do believe my federal taxes did go down, I think, because of the big, beautiful bill. My state taxes, I believe, went up. However— Most of the people, I think, who listen here, of course, donate to CatholicVote, which is a C3.

You can write it off on your taxes. Not a lot of people know why you can write it off on your taxes, but in St. Catharine Drexel- That is for our education fund, just to be, our audience is clear. Yes. Our education fund is, we also have a 501c4, which is not tax deductible, but yes, I want to just make it clear for the audience. Both very important entities, except the reason we have a C3 status is because a little over 100 years ago, St.

Catharine Drexel, It was close to my heart. She founded the church my wife and I were married in. She founded a lot of churches, and she founded a lot of schools and a lot of orphanages, mainly for the African American and Native American communities.

She was very rich, inherited all her money from her parents, lived in Pennsylvania, and she realized that... The government was taking more than half of her inheritance, and this is money she wanted to go to the poor. She complained to her state senator. State senators passed special just-for-her status.

And that eventually became, very quickly became C3 status for nonprofits to be able to raise money and still continue with their mission, just as we do in our education fund and Catholic Charities and a number of other organizations out there.

Once again, it was in this 250th year, it was thanks to a Catholic that we had a more fair system. I love that story so much, because not only is she a Catholic sister, religious, crazy wealthy, Catholic nun, and that she was involved in politics. Like, she realized that this policy was hurting her ability to serve the poor, so she's like... Who's the guy who can change this for me? And she got involved. Like, that's so CatholicVote. That is such a CatholicVote.

And she hates taxes. I mean, how can you not love her? And she hates taxes, right. Awesome. Okay, if you want to know more about the Catholic nuns and why all the Catherine Drexels, like, disappeared in the 1960s, check out last week's episode of The Deep about what happened to all the Catholic nuns. That was one of my favorite episodes to write, and it's taken off on YouTube, so make sure you share it around because it has a hopeful twist. At the end.

Turns out, the nuns might be coming back. So, check out the new one. Make sure that you're subscribed right now. If you're watching, you're not subscribed, please subscribe to the LOOPcast channel, and you will get notified when tomorrow's episode drops. All right.

Moving on, we do need to turn our attention to Iran for a few moments here. We have some important updates. It was not top story, though. I will say I was relieved, not because Trump was trashing on the Pope, but because we had a different headline today. But we are back in the Iran war, so we're still in the two-week truce period. It is set to expire on April 21st. Over the weekend, as you know, J.D. Vance had a... Twenty-one-hour negotiation, I mean, wow, talk about stamina, in Pakistan with Iranian representatives that ended in pausing the negotiations and saying, we need to try again and come back to the table.

It was historic in that this was the first high-level conversation between the United States and Iran in over a decade. The Iranians had refused to meet with the Biden administration in spite of them begging them to for four years, just had to point that out. And it was the highest level United States representative to meet with Iran since 1971.

Turns out Iran was not ready to agree to any of the American terms. J.D. Vance said they did not seem to understand the position that they were in, or even really who was making the decisions for them at this point. Seems like there's a lot of fractured of the surviving leadership. Not really sure. But there are reports that we might see the talks resume as early as tomorrow. They're planning to meet in Islamabad again.

I did find this Trump quote from 2020, so just a little throwback moment. Iran never won a war, but never lost a negotiation. That was six years ago. Not sure he would say that now, because he's planning for them to lose the negotiation. And in fact, Trump continues to say that they've lost the war. And they just don't understand that yet. So, we immediately move to block the Strait of Hormuz. So, we did the, Iran is blocking the Strait, and so we're going to blockade the block of the Strait.

And it began on Monday afternoon, local time, applies to all maritime traffic entering and exiting Iranian ports. So, prior to this blockade- We're only blockading ships that are going to Iranian ports or leaving Iranian ports, just to be clear. Right.

UAE, Bahrain, Oman. Exactly. Yeah, they're still going in and out. So, before this, the Iranians had been permitting their own ships and Russian and Chinese tankers to continue to trade, those that would risk going through the strait, because it also turns out over the weekend, Iran lost a lot of its mines, not sure where they are. So, even the Chinese tankers were hesitant to go through.

Yeah, crazy, huh? Did we just lose Erika? I don't know. We might have. Forcing. We lost you there for a second there. Oh, no. This has been the day from Tech Hell. Are we back? We re-watched the show because you froze in a very interesting position. It was very... That's shocking. Okay.

All right, take a screen grab of that and put it all over socials. It'll make people click. But anyway, the prohibitions were aimed at cutting off Iran's oil income. So, basically, Trump's saying, guys, we have the upper hand here. And again, within hours of the blockade, the mullahs were asking for help. So, we're in week six. Trump had said four or five weeks.

I'm waiting for it to be over. Where are we going from here? What's the word in D.C.? I wanted to get the word from the Hill. What are people saying about this conflict there on the Hill, Tom? What are you hearing?

I hate to say nobody, and I mostly move in conservatives, not just Republican circles, but conservatives. Nobody can explain kind of why we're there. Fully, and it does frustrate them, just like us. I think they want a quick end to it, because they're about to face a huge, because the Pentagon just asked, I think, for like $1.6 billion or trillion.

To further this war, this is at a time when there's an anti-war segment growing both definitely on the Democratic side, because they only support wars started by Democrats, except also on the Republican side, beyond even the Thomas Massys and Rand Pauls. So, there is just a lot of, I think, frustration, and I do know they've been expressing this to the president. So, I'm hoping that with all these pressures, that these things end soon.

Yeah. Things end soon, and it's both for humanitarian reasons, but I think for members of Congress, thinking for political reasons as well. Yeah. Josh? Well, I mean, again, I tend to, when it comes to the war, you know, you have the reaction of Washington, which I get that. It is a lot of hopes and fears, and cover your own butts.

I think when you look at what is really going on in, for example, in Iran, I like to say, you know, straighter hermules and all this other stuff. Well, what happened? When Trump put this blockade himself in, the price of oil went way down. It is now like $89. It is well under $100. It was like getting to be $115 or whatever, and the stock market actually had a big rally yesterday. Again, part of that was because the economic inflation numbers were a little bit...

Not as bad as they might have thought they were going to be. So, not that it was good news, but it was not as bad. So, between that and the Strait of Hermes blockade, folks in Washington might have thought one thing, but the guys in Wall Street were betting their own money, felt actually a little bit more assured about what was going on. At least with Trump so far. So, we will see if that holds. It is just another indicator. I like to look at all these.

You are trying to find out what is going on in the world, and the price of oil is a helpful indicator. It gives you information. So, right now, it is like $89. It is a heck of a lot better than when it is $120. Yeah. So, we will see. Yeah, it is a lot of wait and see right now. I certainly hope that we can come back to the table and that we can end this thing because... I only see it either ending soon or boots on the ground, and I don't like that option.

There was news over the weekend that 121 oil tankers that had been headed to the Strait of Hormuz are now headed to the United States and the Caribbean for fuel from America, I assume Venezuela. And so, that sort of shift that we were talking about globally with the energy market seems to be happening very, very, very slowly. I learned, too. That oil tankers travel at the speed of a 12-speed bicycle. So, wherever you see these shiftings, it's like weeks, and we're talking weeks and weeks and days and days before any sort of...

There is a rumor, and now I see it's reached Twitter, now or X, that some members were bringing up today. It's usually dismissed because conspiracy theories... The main reason is because none of us are sophisticated to pull off what people think. That we're capable of pulling off. Because you have, right now with Iran with blockade, you have Venezuela back in January, and now we just made some big negotiation with Indonesia that also involves oil. And what we're basically doing is cutting China off from oil.

Yeah. Because that's the three main places where China gets its oil. If that is a side benefit, let's step back a little bit on this. I'm more afraid of China than I am of Iran. That is a benefit. I don't think it was some sort of 40 chess game, though.

Yeah, I don't, yeah, it's probably, the answer is probably somewhere in the mean between the extreme explanations, right, and prognostications as well. You're saying a conspiracy theory that Trump had all these things going on or something, is that what you're getting at? Like it was all planned from the very beginning. Well, look, I mean, he did the action in Venezuela in January, which would have been a necessary first step before any massive engagement with Iran. Yesterday, we saw the news that the United States and Indonesia entered into a new.

A military agreement where they're going to cooperate better, and again, there's that straits right there in Indonesia where Chinese cargo traffic relies on, and so it's like, maybe we're not approaching super genius levels, but it does feel like Donald Trump did a few moves in preparation of what's going on. The thought that he's just impulsive. You know, and just, I'm not suggesting you believe that, but there are people who are just like, oh, he just lashed out, and like, no, I think he probably had a few chess pieces move ahead of time in preparation for this.

I mean, that's, I clearly think what was going on with Venezuela. This is one president, I think, at least in Erika's lifetime, that does think more strategically than either the Bushes or Obama or Clinton or anybody like that. So, yeah. The guy is a negotiator. I do feel, I mean, I do think George H. Bush was more strategic, but every president after him, I felt, was defensive and reactive.

George W. Bush knew the strategery. He knew how to do the strategery. I remember that. Gosh, God love him. All right, just a quick note to update on Israel and Lebanon. So, Israel, of course, our partner going into the war, they have continued to just pummel the southern part of the state of Lebanon. Marco Rubio actually got Israel and Lebanon officials into the same room in D.C. this week to start to talk terms.

Nothing was set in stone. We're still waiting on an official statement. Inside information says that both parties agree Hezbollah should be disarmed. Israel is still asking Lebanon to do all of the disarming from within, which seems almost an impossible ask, but the United States State Department will be sending up to almost 60 million in humanitarian aid to provide food, water, shelter, and other emergency support to the People of Lebanon, where more than one million people have been forced to leave their homes, and yeah, Israel has already occupied 14% at this point of the state.

So, that continues, but interesting that they were actually talking together, which was good. But I would like some action. A necessary first step to getting to a better place. A necessary first step. Yeah, absolutely. I heard the rumor it was very nice of Israel to give papers to the Lebanese. Can't hear you. That's probably a good thing. That was a good thing. All right.

Like a joke, I think. Set a seal upon my lips, says Tom. All right. So, well, let's see. We're going to go to the segment about Swalwell. And it's about Swalwell, but it's not about Swalwell. So, for those of you who don't know, Josh, can you just give us, who is Eric Swalwell?

And what's happening? No pictures, please. Yeah, no, of course not. He is a congressman from the Bay Area of California, and he has been one of the most vocal, visceral anti-Trump guys on TV over the last, you know, eight years or so.

It's worth pointing out, this man had an affair with a Chinese spy, but that was not enough to get him kicked out of Congress, okay? He ran for president a few years ago, obviously unsuccessfully. He decided this year to run for governor of California.

Now, there is a little bit of a problem, though, for Democrats. Democrats themselves put in place a new system within the last few years in California. It's called a jumbled primary. So, you can have five people running for governor. You can have a hundred.

They can be of all the different political parties. They don't have party primaries in California anymore. What they do is they take everyone running, and then the top two people, they could both be Democrats. Those two people will run off in the general election. Now, an interesting thing can happen every once in a while. There was a House race a few years back where there were like five people running for office, three Democrats and two Republicans, but the two Republicans had finished higher than the three Democrats, so that if you counted up all the Democratic votes, a majority of the voters in that district In the first primary, voted for actually a Democrat, but the problem was that the top two advanced, and the top two were Republicans.

So, the 60% of Democrats in the district were frustrated because they're like, wait a minute now, we're a blue district, and we're going to, the only two choices we have now are Republican. And so, a Republican represented that district for two years. Kind of dumb, but it was a self, you know, it's like an own goal, as they say.

Well, here's the problem for Democrats this time around, running for governor. There's several people running for governor. There's Katie Porter, there's Eric Swalwell, there is the mayor of LA, all these people running for governor. And there's two Republicans.

that we're running as well, and a lot of the polls over the last month or so have showed those two Republicans at the top with the four or five Democrats underneath them kind of splintering the vote in many different ways. This was going to create a possible nightmare scenario where the two Republican candidates, maybe they only get about 38% of the vote, but they would be the ones that would advance to the November election, and California would get A Republican governor.

We must not let this happen. Nightmare, nightmare, panic alert. Sacred democracy under threat. So, what happens? Suddenly, out of nowhere, we get all this dirt dumped out on Eric Swalwell, where he had a bunch of women have come forward with video and photo evidence, which we're not going to share with you, where he had a bunch of women have come forward with video and photo evidence, where he had a bunch of Sex with a bunch of people, and it was, they said it was not consensual, sorry.

So sexual assault, accusations, all this kind of stuff. So, initially, Eric says, I'm going to fight this, and then about another day or two later, he's like, okay, well, I'm going to quit the governor's race, and then a few days later, it's like, well, wait a minute now. If you're not acceptable enough to be governor of California, why should you be a member of Congress? And so, ultimately, he also resigned, and this just was a perfect example. Like, Democrats in California were perfectly happy if Eric Swalwell was leading in the polls.

I think they would have been perfectly happy with him being governor of California. But it is precisely because the vote was splintered in such a way where it might cost Democrats the election that the word went out to nuke this guy. And they did. And now, billionaire Tom Steyer is now number one amongst the Democrats in the polls, and it looks like, you know, the teachers unions have endorsed him. He was the guy who ran for president for, you know, and spent a billion of his own, I mean, not a billion, but millions of his own dollars running for president in 2020.

So, Tom Steyer could be the next governor. Celine, can you pull up that polymarket here from the deferrate? The numbers, it was crazy to watch these. Over the weekend. So, prior to Swalwell pulling out, yeah, if we scroll down to Steyer Surge's probability over time graphic. Yeah, so if you zoom in on that, you can see.

Yeah, Eric's number is just poof. Yeah, Eric takes that, and Steyer just goes up through the roof. There was another one where if you zoomed out, you could actually see the Republicans starting to... To get ahead of Steyer, and even challenge Swalwell's numbers, and the, yeah, it was just incredible to watch the Democratic... And this is even about whether or not, yeah, he'd be a member of the House, too. Yeah, whether he would quit Congress as well. Those people cashed in on pulling market, for sure.

But it was crazy to watch the Democratic machine kick into gear here over the last couple of weeks, because there was another sort of like shot across the bow at Swalwell. Someone was like, oh, well, he doesn't actually live in California. One Democrat came out, I think it was Steyer, came out and was like, well, he doesn't live in California, so he's not qualified. Then someone else came out and was like, you know what, I think he was paying his wife to take care of their kids out of campaign funds.

And you're like, okay, they're just being like, you know, little mean girls kind of stuff. But then you get that hammer blow with all of these sexual assault accusations coming out, and everyone in the mainstream media is like, yeah, we've known for like, you know, people have open secrets. in D.C., that Eric Swalwell is a womanizer, and, well, you know, but this was the last straw somehow, although Nancy Pelosi holds that she never knew anything about any of this. She denies knowledge.

That's a more honest answer. Not more honest, more consistent, I would say, because, I mean, I think, of course, Nancy's lying through her teeth. There's no way she wouldn't know, but I prefer that answer, like, just lie to my face, to someone else, these reporters. Oh, yeah, this was an open secret for 10 years. We knew about this. You're a reporter! Like, report on the news! Like, what? But again, it brings back what David Berg said many years ago. The purpose of journalism is to cover the news with a pillow until it stops moving.

Because we have to remember, Eric Swalwell is not a—he seems to be one of the more despicable of the bunch, but he's not alone. Tony Gonzalez... Yeah, okay, we lost Tony. Tony Gonzalez is a despicable human being, a Texas Republican who was sending obscene, lewd pictures and asking for lewd pictures from his staff member, and, you know, absolutely reprehensible behavior, and he also resigned this week. So, I mean, yeah, that's good news that two Two reprehensible moral human beings have decided to leave the house.

And we still can't hear you, Tom. You're here to be a beautiful face, that's all. Remember that principle. We'll try again in a second. But Josh, you said that we have more, this is like a supercharged push now in Congress to like oust people. Does this happen often? Is this also Republican machine kicking in? Well, you know, you do get these things every, you know, every couple of years or whatever that, you know, somebody resigns from Congress. Because of allegations or something like that, you know, maybe the party finds a golden parachute, get them out of there, because you're causing too many bad headlines.

Some people stick it out, though. They don't care. I mean, they might get, like, indicted or whatever, and they stick it out. They say, no, I'll let the voters decide, but in this case, I think, you know, Gonzalez, Texas saw the writing on the wall. He quit.

There are two other members of the House that are under different allegations. One is a Republican, Corey Mills. The other, I forget, a Florida Democrat. I forget her name now. Sheila, I cannot say her name. Sheerphilius McCormick. That is it, McCormick. So, McCormick and Mills, the idea is that the House might just go ahead and vote to expel them, because the House, of course, has that authority to expel someone. And that, of course, the voters could. If they wanted to, send them back, but that's very rare.

Mills probably survives. Can you hear me? Yep, go for it. Mills probably survives. The Democrat does not. She's already been convicted of her crime. She was using campaign funds for personal uses, and I think also stole from a non-profit that she was involved in as well. She's been convicted of those, except whenever I meet with somebody who's running for Congress or a new member of Congress, one of the first things I always talk to them about is Find yourself a church, whatever your faith is, find yourself a local church so you have that type of community, because it's not a good atmosphere here for members of Congress to be separated from their families.

You have these cocktail parties at night, because D.C. is Hollywood for ugly people, so you basically have these young women throwing themselves at these members of Congress. Because there are even conservative members he's no longer in that I would refuse to work with because of the stories I'd heard. We need more of that ostracization as well. We need more calling out. I mean, let us remember, in the last Congress, for six months, we had no idea where the House Appropriations Chairwoman was, and it was because she was in a nursing home because she suffered from dementia.

And the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, said he had no idea where the chair of the most powerful committee in Congress was. So, we need to stop treating Congress like the House of Lords and start holding them a little more accountable. Amen. Amen.

So, we used to have one decent congressman, at least. I know we've had more than that. There's more, but I did want to touch on this. This interview came out last week. Ross Douthat sat down with former Senator Ben Sasse from Nebraska, and we've talked about Ben before. He is publicly dying of pancreatic cancer that's now metastasized to multiple organs, so multiple forms of cancer. And I would... I would recommend that everyone watch this interview, primarily because Ben Sasse is witnessing to how to die like a Christian and what Christian hope can do for these kinds of diagnoses and processes, but also because Ross treated him like a still-functioning human being and asked him some challenging questions.

And really wanted to dig into how the knowing that you have months, weeks, if not months, to live affects how you sort of look at the things you've done in your life. So, we asked him about his time in Congress, choices to run for Congress, choices to leave, and there were some really beautiful moments. One, if you do go watch it, just fair warning.

Ben is on a treatment that causes him to not be able to grow skin cells back, so his face is bloodied. He looks like someone compared him to Jim Caviezel in The Passion of the Christ. It looks like he took a cheese grater to his face. I mean, I'm not trying to be mad, but that really does look... Awful. Awful. Poor guy. It does. It does. Yeah. Yeah, I actually got to, I was hanging out with Ross Douthat this weekend, and he was telling me about sort of like going into the interview and not being prepared for just, you know, the cross that this man's enduring.

Just incredible story. But there were a couple of comments that he made about working in Congress and his choice to leave the Senate, that since we have time. I wanted to run by him and kind of get his inside reaction. So, at one point, Ben Sasse says, this is in Thanksgiving of 2015. So, he was giving his maiden speech to the Senate.

In Thanksgiving of 2015, he said, the tribalism of 2020 or even 2017 wasn't as apparent then, but it was bubbling up fast. People involved in politics love to do nutpicking about the crazy people at the other end of the continuum that aren't in their party, and there's a lot of truth to that. But it's a definite subordinate story in my mind to the big things that are really happening. So, in that speech, I just wanted to contrast the idea that the public approval numbers for Congress Bounced around between 9% and 15% or so.

When you ask people objectively what they think, they think everybody here is bad at the job. It isn't that Republicans are right and Democrats stink, or Democrats are right and Republicans stink. It's that these institutions are just not working very well at all. Which played into his decision not to run again for Senate. So, thoughts back on that, that even in 2015-16, it is still not, it is not doing well then either. When he was in the Senate, because I interacted with him a little bit when he was, and I actually just had coffee yesterday with two of his former staff members, he always gave a fantastic speech.

He always seemed to be very observant. And from the very, he's always been a decent human being, which, unfortunately, it's not rare in Congress, but, I mean, one of the reasons he left, I believe at the time his wife was ill. It is insurance, by the way. It's not rare. That's why he left the university.

That's quite interesting. That's correct. He was an excellent university president, I think, working hand-in-hand with the university. And right now, I mean, We lost you, Tom. We're losing you again now, Sarah. We're losing you again. Darn. Can you hear me now? Okay, yeah. There you go. Stay right like that. He's emulating Jake.

Nope. It's not working. I'm going to have to interview you on Riverside, because I really, really love your thoughts on Ben Sasse here. Well, you know, it's interesting, too, that there's a thing that blew up on the internet over the course of the last week during an NBA basketball game. That was being played in Indianapolis, the Pacers. There was this couple, this man and the woman, they were having this pretty robust discussion, and the camera pans to them for like 10 seconds, and he's trying to explain something, and the girl's like, you could see it from her lips, what are you talking about?

She's, you know, it seemed like she was saying another word in there as well. Yeah. And so later, of course, as these moments kind of go viral. Like, loving this and circulating this around and putting their two cents in. What do you think they're saying? What do you think they're arguing about?

And finally, you know, Sports Illustrated tracked this couple down. Like, okay, so... What were you guys talking about? What were you discussing? And he said, I was talking about Ross Duthers' interview with Ben Sass, and the effect on liberal arts and higher education. And she was so funny. She goes, and I was like, what are you talking about? And it was kind of a bluster, and I was kind of filibustering until I could think about a response.

Look, I have no idea what these guys say, and I hope they enjoyed their 15 minutes of fame and don't go on any further, but I actually just thought it was such a heartwarming thing that that viral moment at an NBA game where this couple were yelling and screaming, not overacting, but definitely in a heated argument, it was because of this Ross Douthat interview of Ben Sass that cracked me up. It made me smile. Yeah, it was pretty funny, what everyone was talking about.

Tom, are you back? Yeah, but I'm sorry I missed that anecdote. Let's try again. All I was doing, and it's probably good that I cut out because I always tear up when I think about JP2 dying, except he showed us how to die.

Well, it's why I was so upset when Benedict left, because he was feeling ill. It's like, no, that's part of our lesson as well, and I think I just really see that in Ben Sasse, and I mean, I hope the guy lives for years and years and years, because we need more people on this earth like him, but it was very moving. Allow me to come to the defense of Pope Benedict for a second there. I think the real reason he left is he didn't feel he had the vigor to fight the corruption and the filth that was in the church, not that he was afraid of publicly dying.

You know, and I think it was a beautiful thing that Pope John Paul was willing to publicly, you know, die, die very publicly, as Ben Sasse is doing, which is just a remarkable testament. I think it's an amazing thing. You know, I think about, of course, you know, Benedict a lot. I love him so much.

And, you know, I was just saying it to one of my kids the other day, because, you know, I was like, oh, because there's some news report like, oh, you know, the Vatican's going to investigate whether or not, you know, he really quit on his own accord. It's like, he did. He did quit of his own accord. And the fact of the matter is, is even if he didn't, he felt like he was pressured. I only quit because I was pressured.

He never said that. But if he did, then you still can't be Pope. You can't have someone who would feel pressured. You need the independence of the chair of Peter. But I do, you know, There have been a lot of conservatives who are frustrated at Pope Francis and kind of blamed Benedict, and I do not allow that. You know, it's one of those things where, well, they're like, well, if he hadn't quit, then we wouldn't have got Bergoglio elected in 20...

Okay, but that's like saying, just because it was a necessary component doesn't mean you can blame Benedict for it. If you had a problem with the election of Francis, you blame the people who elected him, not the person who quit to make it possible. The fact of the matter, it's like if you suggest to your friend to come over to your house, and in the course of driving, he gets in an accident. You feel terrible because it was necessary. He would have never driven there for what you said.

That doesn't mean it's your fault. You know what I'm saying? But we do that to ourselves. To clarify, I'm not going after Pope Benedict either. The man actually blessed my wife's and my wedding rings. Pardon me, like if you could rewrite history. I love the man so much, I wish we had him longer.

I give you that. There's a lot of guys like that. Richard John Newhouse comes to mind, too. Kind of wish we'd had him a little longer. I do just want to end. Let's play Ben Sass. He's explaining to Douthat how he reacted to the cancer diagnosis, and I think this is good for all of us to ask how we would react in his situation.

I was incredibly blessed to be quickly at peace. I kept hearing the Pauline phrase, to live is Christ, to die is gain. And death is terrible. We should never sugarcoat it. It is not how things are meant to be.

But it is great that death can be called the final enemy. It's an enemy, but it's a final enemy, and there will then be no more tears. I believe in the resurrection, and I believe in a restoration of this world.

I didn't feel great fear about my death. I didn't want the pain I was going through. I didn't want to be a pansy ass, you know, in the final moments. You're doing okay right now with that. I am doing okay. So far. Oh, thank you. But I did immediately feel...

Regrets about a lot of misprioritization. You jokingly referred earlier to my podcast, which takes its line from Monty Python, Not Dead Yet. We're all on the clock. I wanted to have prioritized better, and whether I really only had three or four months left, or if I get nine to 12 months left, I want to prioritize better from then. But in my tradition, in Christianity, the need for daily repentance is just a truth. I am broken. I leave undone those things which I ought to have done, and I do those things which I have not done.

You know what? Morphine. And there is no health in us, and I get to repent every day of both my sins of omission and commission, and yet, at a slightly bigger level, if you're only going to get three or four months, you really want to get some of your affairs in order, and my boy was only 14, and I felt a heaviness. I knew that God wasn't surprised by the diagnosis. There is not a maverick molecule in the universe, but I didn't like the idea of my 14-year-old son not having a dad around.

At 16, I didn't like the idea of my daughters, who are 22 and 24, not having their dad there to walk them down the aisle. And I felt a real heaviness about that, but I've continued to feel a peace about the fact that death is something that we should hate, we should call it a wicked thief, and yet it's pretty good that you pass through the veil of tears one time, and then there will be no more tears, there will be no more cancer.

Can I ask how you think your kids are processing the experience? We can stop there, Celine. That is good. It goes on, but it is so beautiful. So, here's to Ben Sass. Everyone, please pray for him and his family, and I hope we can all receive our final diagnosis with such grace. All right, into the twilight zone. Josh, I see Richard Nixon is in our twilight zone again. I love the man. I'm on a bender for it.

So, he had this idea called Project Independence. It was his reaction to the 1973 oil crisis. Now, some of the things... Kind of like, eh, laugh at, like, eh. Lowering the highway speeds to 55 miles an hour, I was glad that Republicans in the early 90s finally got rid of that.

But, you know, and he, you know, steered some highway, federal funds for highway construction to mass transit. I mean, until we take care of bad behavior on mass transit, you know, Americans aren't going to go for mass transit. So, I think that's kind of silly. But he did do some things, like convert some power plants to coal and complete the transatlantic pipeline, which was very good. But he also had another idea in this Project Independence.

President Nixon's idea was to have, similar to like the Manhattan Project, build 1,000 nuclear power plants by the year 2000. Just think about if that had happened. Those 1,000 plants would have provided 200% of the United States' power needs by 2022. No need for coal.

Wind, solar, give me a break. We wouldn't even need natural gas. No carbon emissions, 100% clean, made in America, nuclear power. It could have been all ours. But no, we got just, you know, of course, he had his scandal and he was run out of office because the CIA didn't want him for other reasons.

And then we had a three-mile-isle incident in 1979, and a generation or two of Americans turned against nuclear power. And that's a tragedy, because if you really, truly do want abundant, clean, and affordable energy, you want nuclear. And so, if the left is like against all these carbon-based things, if they want less, you know, coal burning, if they want less, you know, gas in our cars, all that kind of stuff, if you really want to make a dent and change things, then you should be, the left should be the loudest champions of nuclear energy.

And when you ask about that, like, no, no, no, no, we're not nuclear. Oh, it's because you don't really care about clean energy. You want no energy. You want communism. That's what you want. But there was a good article written here about a year or so ago in the Washington Times where someone said, hey, you know, we should.

We should take what President Nixon had boldly stood out here, updated, of course, for the times, but yeah, nuclear power, that would be a fantastic way. So, as things are going on in the Middle East, and we see the prices of the oil go in all these large spikes and valleys, it is worth saying, you know what? President Nixon was on to something. He was right about so many things.

He was wrong on a few things, too. He was wrong in a few things, and on the life issues especially, but I'll call a spade a spade, and on this one, this would have been a fantastic thing for our country, and we can do it again.

Yeah, the tech bros are sure hoping. I know that like Mark Zuckerberg, so all the tech bros who are part of the AI revolution push. Crisis, whatever, wherever you're coming from, what you want to call it. They're also pushing for more nuclear energy, and Europe is regretting blowing up its nuclear power plants right about now. So, I know France has... I know Germany did that. Did France scuttle some of these? France actually led the way. No, so Germany, that was my April Fool's.

Like, I got totally snowed by April Fool's joke, and it was my Twilight Zone. I was like, Germany's going to rebuild, and it was totally just an April Fool's joke, but it was... Is it actually true that France was rebuilding some of their nuclear power? So, people are seeing the writing on the wall. We've got to get off of the oil dependence for sure. Okay, my twilight zone. I love this one because I love talking about making babies. It's super fun, and it turns out that conservative men, extreme conservative men, Now have almost four times as many children as extremely liberal men.

So, if you scroll down, this is a shout out to Charlie Smirkley, my new friend on the Twitterverse. He's a fun follow, but he does a lot of demographics analysis, and he came up with this chart. So, men who self-identify As extremely liberal, liberal, slightly liberal, you can see it creeping up there. They're having, extremely liberal men are having 0.5 per man. That's below any kind of replacement rate. Then we have going up through the ones for liberal to slightly conservative.

The only demographic that is hitting replacement-level reproduction patterns is the extremely conservative man at 2.14 children. Now, that is still a small number, but it is at least above replacement level, and it turns out they're the only. Man, the only political ideology to be reproduced. Well, the other one that is conservative is just a sliver under it, because I think it was a 2.1. 2.1 is your technical. They're a 2.9. Yeah, so there you have it. Turns out ideology does seem to play a role, or at least be correlated with your interest or willingness to have children.

It sure belongs to the hurdle. Yeah, are we going to outbreed them? Oh my gosh, his analysis of the Amish, though, it is like South Korea in reverse. The Amish are going to totally take over Pennsylvania, just because the rest of Pennsylvania. And Ohio, and Indiana. And Ohio, and Indiana. Southern Michigan, yeah, I've not seen it. Give it two generations, oh man.

And their retention rate. Defying it. They have high fertility, and their retention rate was something like north of 85% or something like that. Really impressive. Go Amish. All right. You know, by the way, I saw a chart a few days ago about all the, because there's Mennonites, Amish, all the different ones, these different religious sects that kind of push back at, you know, a lot of modern technology, but the one piece of tech that almost all of them, if they're going to bend the rules, the one that they allow, do you know what it is?

No. Satellite-ish. Washing machine. Oh, the women are like, nope, we draw the line here. Give us the washing machine. The men are like, let's let the ladies have this, because the absolute chore. Of washing clothes is so grueling for the amount of work it takes to do it manually, as opposed to machine. Almost all of them give the green light on that. I thought that was kind of fascinating. That is fascinating. I love that tidbit, especially as a housewife. And I have a washing machine, and I am overwhelmed by laundry.

So, sometimes as I'm folding laundry, I look out my back window, and we have a creek out back, and I remember my great-grandmothers of yore, who would have had the washboard out in the creek, and I... Like you, Josh. I'm like, you know, I don't have it that bad.

Well, you start to understand why people would wear clothes several times before washing them, because of the amount of work it would take. You know, and now it's like, you know, kids will wear it for like 10 seconds, then throw it on the floor. What are you doing?

Do you know the energy that went into washing that shirt? Yeah, absolutely. And why kids got yelled at so much for getting their clothes dirty. Like, all the old books, they're always yelling at kids for having their clothes get dirty, and you're like, well, calm down. Like, don't be so mean, parents. But then you realize what it took to wash that dirt out. Yes. I get it. I totally get it.

Be thankful. All right. McCluskey, can you bring us home? Let's see. Let us see. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay, I'll try not to move around. Catholic Voter has been very involved in Virginia in fighting against this Democratic takeover of changing the number of congressional seats that Democrats have in the state. They want to make the A ratio of something like 10 to 1, I believe, Josh, is that the number, in an attempt to kind of retake Congress. And in doing so, of course, what they're doing is people who might, I already live in a very liberal part of Virginia, and sometimes I feel like my vote is wasted.

And no voter should ever feel that way, but a lot of times when my wife and I go vote, we fill in names. Like, I can't tell you how many times my wife has run for sheriff. She would be a great sheriff. Mary, yes.

She is a crack shot as well. So, Spanberger has gone even farther in that she has just signed into legislation having Virginia doing this collective that is mostly out west. Of the popular, that the state will go with a popular vote, not where the voters of Virginia go. It means my vote in Virginia, if I vote, because I'm sorry, unless the Democratic Party goes to jail and to misgender my children.

I'm going to vote for a Republican, and except the Democrats in the state want to make sure that my vote doesn't count, along with millions of other Virginians, so I'll go with a popular vote, which is normally, unfortunately, unlike Democrats.

Wait, wait, so the national popular vote. I'm sorry, the national popular vote. So, this legislation would require the electors from the Commonwealth of Virginia to vote, not how the people of Virginia voted. But how the National Popular Vote would, which if this had been placed into law in 2023, then Virginia would have voted for Donald Trump, even though the people of Virginia wanted Kamala Harris. This is what's so asinine about this proposal. It's so bizarre. But you have to admit, it is rare in recent history that we have won the popular vote.

I think prior to that. I think George W. Bush in 2004, prior to that, probably Ronald Reagan. That's insane. No, no, no. George H. Bush won 53% of the vote in 1988. In 88. Yeah. No one's come close to him since then. So, you said join Western states. There are already states that do this? Well, it's this interstate compact. So, there's a bunch of these states that came up with this, you know, it feels like a college dorm room idea that sounds great on paper.

They're like, okay, so we'll just have this interstate compact so that if we get enough states that amount to 270 total electoral votes, we'll just all decide. We're going to vote for the candidate who wins the national popular vote, regardless of who wins the electoral system. The idea behind it, if this had been in place in the year 2000 or the year 2016, the Democratic candidate for president would win, because it wouldn't matter what the other states were.

Again, this is one of those things where it's like, people don't understand. The rules matter, okay? I liken it to the World Series. So, the Cubs played the Indians in the 2016 World Series. The Indians actually scored more runs over the course of those seven games. But the Cubs won, because you don't count the total number of runs over the course of all the games. It's not who scores the most over 56 innings. It's who wins game one, who wins game two, and it's a series of seven contests.

And then if you win a majority of those, then you are the champion. That's how it works. And if you don't like it, we can change the system, but this is like a backdoor way to change the system, and it's not good. And the thought is, well, if we would have just went to the national popular vote, then obviously, Al Gore would have defeated Bush in 2000, and obviously, Hillary Clinton would have beat Donald Trump in... 2016. But see, you do not know that.

Yes, that is probably true, especially in 2016, but even then, if Donald Trump did not have to worry about the blue wall or whatever, he could have gone to California. He might have gotten more liberal, but he would have tried to win over votes. There are people in California and in New York who are conservative, who think, what is the point of me voting? My guy is not going to win anyway. Connecticut. If you switch the system and it was like, Whoever gets the most votes in this country wins, then every conservative in California, and there are millions of them who don't normally vote because it doesn't matter, they would vote.

So, like, the rules determine how you play the game. That's a really good point. Man, fascinating. I thought I had it on good authority that Donald Trump was the threat to democracy, but... Well, actually, I want to just add a little addendum to what Tom said, though, because this apparently just came in that Abigail Spanberger signed a law ending tax-exempt status for the United Daughters of the Confederacy and their groups.

And so, this is kind of interesting. Like, you're now, you know, nonprofit groups you call extremists no longer are able to be considered nonprofit organizations? Like, are we going to make that determination? Are we going to, you know, the laws that we have governing charities and non-profit associations and that kind of stuff, are we going to now apply a litmus test? You know, we are going to determine whether or not, are these, is this the new rules that we are going to have?

It is like the Southern Poverty Law Center. They went after groups that had little, few sympathizers. And then, once they were successful there, they started going after other groups, like Family Research Council, and Heritage, and other groups. They would love to see groups like CatholicVote lose our C3 status.

Yep. Well... Let's hope that doesn't happen because we're going to fight it. That's why we keep, this is always the Twilight Zone. That's why you need to donate today. Yeah. Thank you. Actually, that's a really good point. If you like the show, if you like what we do here on LOOPcast, please consider becoming a member of our Champions Club. That's the only way that we can keep the lights on and maybe upgrade our microphones for the next show. We will definitely be putting all of your donations straight to our tech.

But seriously, check out the Catholic Club. Also, check out the ticket options for that June 13th event with Cardinal Burke and Kelsey Reinhart and all of your friends here on the Catholic Boat and Seal Media team. We really hope to see you.

We will be praying for America, and we will end today praying for our country. So, let us pray. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. O Sacred Heart of Jesus, King of Heaven and Earth, I place today my nation, the United States of America, into your heart, pierced for love of us. On the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, I acknowledge that true liberty is your gift. And that our lasting homeland is the eternal kingdom of God.

Under the mantle of Our Lady of Guadalupe, patroness of the Americas, and through the intercession of her immaculate heart, bless my homeland anew, purify her from sin, and guide her leaders in truth, justice, and peace, so that she may safeguard all human life, respect the integrity of marriage and the family, and honor the practice of religion.

Reign in my home and in my nation. Draw every heart into communion with you, that your truth, love, justice, mercy, and peace may triumph in America and throughout the world. Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us. Saint Fidelis, pray for us. Saint Thomas More, pray for us. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, amen.

Thank you, gentlemen, for your perseverance today, and Tom Pagasic will be back in the driver's seat next Wednesday, so get ready and buckle up. Josh, you've had a good time, but we're happy to have him back, but always happy to see you, Tom, and all of you as well. We'll see you next time on LOOPcast. Peace.