Trump Ramps Up War On NarcoTerrorists, No Kings Protests, And 7 New Saints

I'm alive. Welcome back to the LOOPcast. It's Tom, Erika, and Josh. The LOOPcast brought to you by The Loop, every American Catholic's favorite morning newsletter. We're dealing with some Amazon Web Services outages right now, so the platform we're using to stream is struggling. If we have problems, usually it's on me. My camera shuts off like twice an episode, so it's not me. This is on Amazon. This is bigger than us. This is bigger than me. But we've got a great show prepared for you today, if we can get through it.

I had Erika look into these pesky narco-terrorism examples going on in the weekend. I feel like it's kind of been bumped. The way we put together the show, we have an A block, B block, C block, church block. It's always been on that C block. What is going on in Venezuela? Covert operations? CIA covert operations? Just, I guess, not so covert, if you're not familiar. I've never heard of that, yeah.

And then we just sanctioned Colombia. So, a lot of things moving there. We really want to give a full picture. Where did it start? Where are we headed? What's going to eventually happen there in that region? I hear things like regime change. People want to set their hair on fire, me included.

So, we're doing that. Then we also had, the reason no King's protest is going to be in the B block today, I feel like it was pretty uneventful. It is. I do have some highlights. I have some lowlights.

They were all over the country. People are fighting over size. MSNBC is showing old footage to make it look bigger. Who knows? We're going to get to the bottom of it. What happened over the weekend? And then C-Block, we have seven new saints in the Catholic Church. Now, this is our treat to get through to the end of the episode. I have some summaries. We want to talk about all of them. Fantastic news as a Catholic. Bartolo Longo. That's a Josh hobby horse right there.

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So, I almost am joking about it, because. There's so much stuff going on that it just gets lost, but CIA covert operations, we're hitting these drug boats, we're told they're terrorists, and Maduro is in a pretty active fight right now with the United States. So, just give me the full context. Why are we even looking at that region today? Yeah, like you mentioned at the top of the show, this has been amping up over the last, basically since Trump took office, but it's gotten even more intense in the last few weeks.

Indeed, President Trump... It has become public that he authorized CIA covert operations. I did look into that. To be fair, those have been going on in Venezuela since Trump 1.0, probably since forever. But he's also deployed. We have warships down there. We've had jets, B-52 bombers off the coast of Venezuela this weekend. And special forces also, boots on the ground, between 8,000 and 10,000 troops have been reported. ...near Venezuela's coast. I assume they're on vessels. So, we're shifting from targeting these suspected, these specific drug-smuggling boats.

Everyone remembers, I think it was September 1st this year, we had the big, they blew up a boat with 11 narcos on it, and it made headlines everywhere. And it seems to be shifting from that strategy to directly pressuring Nicolas Maduro and his inner circle to resign before they face a full scale. Invasion.

So, Maduro has responded. Trump, back in September, he also upped the, what is it? Not ransom. What is that called? The hit? Oh, the hit. Yeah, well, the bounty, yeah. Thank you. The bounty. He upped the bounty on Maduro's head to $50 million. I mean, this is like so, so crazy. Maduro has responded to all these pressures with nationwide military drills, defiance on social media, and in his speeches, calling for peace. Well, his opposition, the opposition figures, which includes the most recent Nobel Peace Prize winner, hope the pressure restores democracy following his disputed re-election.

I mean, talk about disputed. This was probably 80% of the country voted to get the guy out, and he's still there. That's what we mean by disputed. This isn't like 2020 America. There's no question. It was a rigged election. So, the primary movers on our side are Marco Rubio and Stephen Miller. Marco Rubio, of course, who holds 17 jobs in the federal government, the two most important being Secretary of State and National Security Advisor.

Rubio has been a longtime, shall we say, critic of the Maduro regime. He says it's a narco-trafficking organization that established itself as a nation-state, and Steve Miller also has said things to this effect about the Maduro regime, and they place their amping up of the efforts against the Maduro regime on a real sense of domestic urgency. This is part of America first. This is how it's... We have fentanyl deaths surging across the United States, and also the fact that these countries are sources of many illegal immigrants who have entered the country over the last four or five years.

There's another factor, though, that isn't being talked about as much from the Trump administration, although it's been floated a little bit, but I dug into this. We have the immigration and the fentanyl issue coming from Venezuela. Colombia. But the other big factor is America's sort of trifecta of enemies, right? We've got Iran, China, and Russia. And the way I saw this described in The Times over the weekend, there's a kind of Monroe Doctrine, right? Everyone, Monroe Doctrine. Josh? Oh, history class.

One sentence, Monroe Doctrine. What did that do? I mean, it's literally President James Monroe establishing that we're going to be less concerned about what's going on in Europe, but we're going to prevent European powers. From coming on to the new world in North and South America. So, that was to make sure that all those wars against each other in Europe did not come to these shores, North and South America.

Yeah, very much so. In which we have largely failed for the last 30 years. We have given up on the Monroe Doctrine. We are going to do everything all the time. The biggest threat to it right now is what China is doing in South America. Yeah, 100%. So, this is a sort of like Monroe Doctrine, but for the East, the East being Asia and Russia, which is most of its land masses in the East. So, these have become Latin America's biggest trading partners.

China surpassing the USA during the Biden administration as the number one trade partner with all of Latin America, I believe. But Venezuela, China has become Venezuela's largest creditor. They've lent over $60 billion to the Maduro regime in oil for loan deals, and Venezuela, of course, being the world's largest proven reserve of oil. Russia has also invested heavily in Venezuela's oil infrastructure.

And Iran uses Venezuela as sort of like key turning point in this hemisphere to circumvent sanctions, so it will offload its oil there, it will conduct financial transactions through Venezuela to access U.S. sanctioned goods. So, one analyst, Michael Shifter of the Inter-American Dialogue think tank says, President Trump has people telling him, look, if the USA doesn't get in there... So, really, another sort of third factor there, fentanyl, immigration, and this is a sort of, I don't want to use proxy war again because we say it so much, but kind of grounds for combating our enemies, Iran, Russia, and China.

I mean, we say it a lot because it happens a lot. It's true, because it's real. Okay, so where are we at right now? Strikes, at least 32 people have been killed by these U.S. strikes on the drug boats in the Caribbean since September 2nd, and the Trump administration has told Congress that we are in a, quote, non-international armed conflict with drug cartels, arguing that the narcotics they smuggle kill tens of thousands of Americans every year, constituting an armed attack and thereby giving the president the authority as the commander-in-chief.

to go after them. But they call it non-international armed conflict because they say that they're against drug cartels or terrorist organizations, most prominently Tren de Aragua from Venezuela and also Sinaloa Cartel and MS-13. So, they inform Congress, but they don't ask Congress's permission because we're not at war with another country. We're at war with terrorist organizations. Take that for what you will. We do have covert operations. We have authorized the CIA to carry out covert operations inside Venezuela, and right now, the narrative is we are trying to get a regime change.

We are trying to oust Maduro. That is clearly, I mean, we have a bounty on his head. We are pressuring the Maduro government, quote-unquote, to leave, and definitely... Leaning into the, hey, our military is about 32 times larger than anything you have. Yeah, I mean, even just announcing.

Is that an oxymoron announcing covert operations from the CIA? I can't remember the last time we were like, hey, we're doing this. So, obviously, he's sending a signal. Like, hey, we're going to up the pressure. We're going to be very public about our opposition. Yeah, interesting situation. I've seen people really argue on behalf of the drug traffickers from Venezuela that they somehow enjoy. Yeah, dropping terms like due process, like did the guys on the boats get due process before we blasted them out of the water?

I mean, what a mess. Like, even just think about what we've kind of internalized from the American perspective. China manufacturers... Pounds and pounds and thousands of pounds of fentanyl, in which like this much could kill an entire room, like if you already heat it up and have it go in the room. Addicting Americans to it, the way that they get it to America is to send it through Venezuela, which then comes up through the southern border. So, they can't even make, like people don't even make fentanyl really in Venezuela.

I'm sure maybe a little bit, but all of it's made and assembled in China. So, yeah, you say proxy war, you're correct. It is a proxy war. Didn't the opposition leader in Venezuela win the Nobel Peace Prize dedicated to Trump? Before we dig into our takes on this, we should probably play. So, we have this sort of divide in MAGA, right, where we have people who are very much against regime change getting into another forever war, which is the concern here.

Like, we're going to get boots on the ground, and we'll be there forever or something, and all, you know, like an Afghanistan kind of situation. That's not a throwaway line. A lot of people are really concerned about that. Yes. No, it is totally real. So, I have two clips here. I have the first is from Maria Carina, who is the Nobel Peace Prize winner who dedicated her award to Donald Trump, and then we have Kurt Mills, who is the director of the American Conservatives.

You found two different perspectives. Yeah, here we go. So, you said at 23, you started? Yeah, so start the Maria Carina at 44 seconds, probably. 44. First, this is not regime change, because the change of the regime was already mandated by the people a year ago. So, this is not about an international movement to remove a legitimate president. This is not the case. Maduro is not a legitimate president of Venezuela. He is the head of a narco-terrorist cartel. That is true.

And that is killing not only Venezuelan people, but also American people and people from other countries, intentionally. This is what's happening. I disagree with her assessment. I mean, she's saying that this regime is illegitimate, therefore it's not changing the regime. You're still changing the regime if you call for regime change. I mean, right.

Sorry. And then you said you got Kurt's perspective? Yeah, then we have Kurt's perspective. He went on with Steve Bannon, and I thought he articulated sort of the concern from the anti-forever war crowd. Maduro is sort of, you know, a tin-pot dictator in South America, but not necessarily a major threat to U.S. national security. And I think the risks of going in versus keeping our powder dry are pretty clear. Latin America has a lot of problems, South America has a lot of problems, but what it doesn't have historically, and Venezuela is the one exception vis-a-vis Colombia, what it doesn't have is these massive refugee crises that we saw in the Syrian case, in the Libyan case.

And so, I think the way to think about Maduro is as maybe a Latino Gaddafi, and what do we learn from the Gaddafi case? What do we learn by not listening to Gaddafi himself? If you break it, you buy it, and you will see tons of people flowing over. So, I think it is curious, and I think you just... Oh, that's in the background of this video. I was like, what is it? Oh, yeah, yeah, it's the music of Stephen and Psychiatry.

But you're hearing that people like Stephen Miller allied with Marco Rubio for this regime change plan. I think you'd be completely counterproductive. And then if we're going to talk about fentanyl, the reality there, and I think there's concerning Iraq war parallels, the reality here is some of these guys are just cooking this up. Fentanyl is not what Venezuela is in the business of. Is there fentanyl in Venezuela? Probably above zero. But Mexico is the fentanyl. The CCP and the Mexican cartels are the fentanyl.

Come on, real quickly. All right, Steve's just going to go off here. But there you go. Is Major a Latin American Gaddafi, Josh? I mean, that is a good question. I think what I'd like to get back to is the boats, and so I disagree with Rand Paul that they need to have due process, but I also just like, how sure are we that any given person in this boat is a drug dealer with a bunch of drugs, or they're just a person in a boat?

That's the question I'd like to know, because I'd really like to make sure that our Navy isn't lighting up. You know, innocent people, obviously. But like this idea, if it were a drug trafficker bringing in thousands of pounds of drugs, trying to smuggle it into our country, like, yeah, no, that's not due process. That's not criminal. That's a terrorist invasion. So, I would have no problem with them being smoked.

Yeah. So, I actually wanted to ask you, do you think that the American military, American president, should be more involved and aggressive with enemy regimes in our hemisphere than in the other hemisphere? Of course. Of course. Yeah, because they're closer to home.

Yeah, the Monroe Doctrine. I would like to keep out foreign powers like China, especially, as a great threat. Now, I agree that China is doing more with, let us say, Mexico and down, I think, in Peru and stuff. I do not know if they are doing much in Venezuela. I just do not know.

You know, I get it. We have this massive military. We have a lot of assets, and we could probably, you know, that is why the Nobel Peace Prize winner was like, please, just take it out. Like, you are so powerful, you could do it, but I am hesitant because it is like, yeah, you break it, you buy it, and what happens if you get hundreds of thousands of, you know, Venezuelans who are like, okay, well, you know, can I come to your country now?

It is like, eh. Yeah, I think the Qaddafi example is pretty illustrative because I remember even as a young kid, people would make jokes in middle school about the way that he was gruesomely murdered, and that was my entrance into it, and then I didn't actually look into why were we so interested in toppling this Qaddafi regime, looked into a lot of the propaganda. I believe he was in the process of nationalizing his dollar. I think he was making currency moves to strengthen.

Libya, he was obviously a dictator. No one I think- Nationalizing the oil? I mean, the dollars- Yeah, I think it had something to do with currency, but the Iranian regime tried to nationalize their oil, and that was when the United States was a part of taking them out. I believe with Libya, it was something about gold. They were trying to get off some currency to prioritize national security and their own economy, and that preceded a lot of the international push to take them out.

But I don't think anyone would argue what has befallen Libya after he came is much worse than existed then. Right. I mean, it basically fell into a power vacuum in which competing terrorist factions now brutalize the people, are in constant war, and it's a complete mess. I mean, this isn't even someone you can deal with. So, I do think, like, in my head when I think about these things, two things can be true. Yes, I think we should be much more aggressive in our own hemisphere.

I think we often misplace national priorities. Like, I think of even what happened, what was happening in the Red Sea with Israel. Like, we were moving a warship from The Pacific region with... Taiwan. Like, I think we moved it out of there to move it into the Middle East. Like, I don't know if everyone appreciates that we have limited resources, and then also just the capabilities. I know, Erika, I know you want to dive into China a lot more. Like, their shipbuilding capacity, their industrial strength is light years ahead of ours, unfortunately, right now, based on a lot of our own ineptitude.

So, we have very limited wartime resources. If we were actually getting into a serious problem, we need to think. It's not just ineptitude, but yeah, it's a little more complicated. It's more complicated, but I think that the realism... I don't know. There's a realism of our place in the world right now, and that we should be a lot more aggressive in our hemisphere, especially at our borders. I think that was the biggest betrayal. If we just had super secure borders and we allowed liberty within them, we would be in a much better position right now, but because the borders were so insecure for so long, we have concerns now that are basically an impossible task to uproot.

I mean, people even talk about, we're going to get into the No Kings protests. I think a central part of that was... Immigration enforcement actions, and I think in some cases, like, they probably have legitimate gripes, like people were detained without, that weren't illegal, but again, how do you ask? After four years of an open border and legitimate tariffs in the country, how are you supposed to accomplish that? So, I think that's just like one of a hundred problems that that causes, this being one of them.

Like the fact that we have free flow of drugs across our border, have had for a long time, and it was like open season for 120 plus countries to bring them in. So, I don't know. It's complicated. I just thought we'd talk about it early on the upshot. I know No Kings is kind of more fun, like popcorn, because I think this is going to become a much bigger issue. Yeah. And you're going to be hit with a lot of the same.

There's arguments that, I'm glad Gaddafi keeps getting brought up, I'm glad the Middle East keeps getting brought up, because the same thing is going to be said, by the way, by Nicolas Maduro. It's like, take him out, take him out, take him out, and Venezuela could become a much worse place than before if we do do a regime change of any kind there, so. It also could improve, but, you know. It could, yeah. Right, anything could happen. In the words of Donald Trump, a bomb could drop on your head right now, who knows.

Well, I mean, in general, regime changes in Muslim countries, I'm. Very, very, very skeptical about. Yeah, absolutely. All right, before we get into the No Kings protest, Erika, we got another ad. Yeah, we do. Did you know that American homeowners have over $32 trillion in equity, and criminals are targeting it with a growing scam the FBI calls house stealing?

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Excellent. Okay, I'm just going to show something that I believe sums up the protest before we get into any of the statistics. Here is Nancy Pelosi from her account saying, no crown. I'm going to tear up the crown.

Ah, brave and stunning. Josh, how long has Nancy Pelosi been in office? She has been in office for 37 years. 37 years. Yeah, actually, just in Congress. I mean, she was there before. You know, she had other offices before, but yeah.

There's a few similarities there. And wasn't Barack Obama complaining last week about there's no, like, shadow prime minister of the Democratic Party? I mean, you could say Nancy is kind of the shadow queen. Of the Democrat Party. True, I'm kind of jealous. I wish that we had Nancy Pelosi on our side. She's the most effective politician of men's generation, probably.

Okay, so a little bit of facts to go before we get into the fun. Protests occurred primarily on October 18th, 2025. Interestingly, not just in the United States. However, in places like Canada, they did have to rebrand them from no kings to no dictators.

How come? Because they discovered, unfortunately, Canada does have a king. Oh, right. And in fact... Mark Carney in Canada, this very weekend, did his official pledge of loyalty, his oath, to King Charles III. Yep. Just small ironies of history there. Small ironies. Great timing.

And so, 20 foreign countries took part. I was shocked at the international appeal of the No Kings protest, although no dictators, no tyrants. Some had to adjust because they actually do have kings. Yeah, like no crowns, they had to say no clowns.

Because they have a lot of crowns. I was like, do we even really? The jokes just write themselves. I didn't even really need to prepare for this segment, but it was well-funded. So, we had organizers and partners coordinated by the No Kings Coalition. See if you recognize any of these names. Led by Indivisible. Sponsored by the AARP.

They have to read ads during these protests, probably. 200 partner organizations like the ACLU, American Federation of Teachers. Communications Workers of America, Human Rights Campaign, MoveOn, National Nurses United, Public Citizens, SEIU, United We Dream, a 1 million ad campaign by Home of the Brave promoted the events in newspapers.

So, of course, this is the time where everyone gets to argue how many people actually showed up. Organizers are saying 7 million people worldwide. That's a lot of people. That's about 2% of the U.S. population, if correct. That exceeded, they say it exceeded the June 2025 protests estimated for four to six million on over 2,100 events. Participants include, they say, diverse demographics, young students, retirees, military veterans, and furloughed federal workers. By all accounts on the ground, I have heard that they were pretty advanced in age, and I say that out of love and respect for my boomers.

Again, love my grandparents, but a lot of them were of an older demographic, certainly. Well, and footage would also suggest that maybe the crowds weren't as diverse in racial makeup either. So, age pretty homogeneously over 60, race, at least here in New Haven, I mean, do a little drive-by here in New Haven, 100% white in a city that is 30% black. Yep. Well, actually, how about Birmingham?

Alabama. I don't have an image. It was handy, but it's literally a city that's 70% black. There's a photo of everyone protesting in Birmingham, and you couldn't find a single black person in the whole crowd. Liz in the chat brings up a great point. Advertising in newspapers does show the demographic that they were after.

Didn't think about that one. That's actually really funny. Didn't think about that one. Fantastic point. Actually, in terms of newspapers, there is kind of an insidious thing. It's not related to this, though. Like, you know how for the H-1B visas, you're required to advertise for the job? Do not get me started on H-1B visas. They advertise for those jobs in newspapers where they know people who are actually looking for jobs never would look.

So, they meet the requirement, and it is not. Oh, interesting. Also, the H-1B visa holders had access to FHA loans, so they were given advantages to the housing market that I, as an American citizen, did not have, and as of the program being shuttered this year, it went down to zero. So, again, common sense. I could do a whole episode about how evil and loophole-ridden H-1B visas are. I saw a leaked memo of potentially just shuttering the whole thing. Yeah, give me the deep.

Yeah, I will. It makes me so angry, and I actually did have someone email in about it, and I just basically vomited on a page of all the different reasons why I hate it. It's bad for Americans, especially young Americans. It's a training problem, not an international problem. There's no inherent DNA difference. All right, we're getting back to no kings. No kings. It is important, but I think you saw the clip, too, this time. This person that did an absolutely vile and disgusting gesture.

Yeah, this was out there. Well, you got that tape? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, I see. Okay. So, this is some woman who's gesturing. Hey! Ugh. Gesturing with, like, a gun to her neck, like, Charlie Kirkland was assassinated. Yeah, turns out she's a public school teacher. Chicago Public Schools. Chicago Public Schools. Who's surprised? Um.

No, I mean, so unfortunately, like, you go through, and it was really, there was, it was tinged with a lot of, like, people beating Trump pinatas, like, we need better snipers, someone dressed up as Tyler Robinson, I saw, and like, I don't know, like, does this exist among, like, how would you feel comfortable enough to go in public and do this kind of thing? Here's the kind of thing, like, there's a, there's a graphic that was circulating around the.

Conservative Twitter over the weekend talking about how birth rates amongst conservatives hasn't actually fallen really that much at all since the 1990s, but it's dropped like a rock for the left, right? Yeah. And so, it's like, ah, awesome. We're going to win. Conservatives are having more children, liberals are not, but Yoram Hazani made a good point.

Conservatives have more children, but the left educates them. Right. It's who do you give your children to, to form them? It doesn't matter how many you have. There's a graphic, too, on the amount of time that you spend with your kid, I believe, gets like... You only get a third of the time you would at, I believe, middle school. So, it was an interesting graph just on how much physical time you actually spend with your children, and like, obviously, it starts with 100% when they're born, and then really tapers off around middle school.

So, yeah, I mean, you're completely right. You are formed by the people that you give authority to throughout the day. 100%. Yeah, but to answer your question, Tom, about, you know... Why, what kind of state of mind would that woman have to be in, to be like out in public, mocking Charlie Kirk's assassination, saying bang, bang, repeatedly, repeatedly, and like shooting herself in the neck with her handgun there. Like, it's amazing what people are able to do in the presence of a mob, right?

And I think that it can be, mobs and huge groups of people can. They inspire and evoke such things, right? Yeah, they can inspire us to great things, and they also can just drag us down to the lowest common denominator. So, for example, I have experienced at a papal mass in college, and John Paul II was coming down the center aisle of St. Peter's, and it was just this mob, and I felt myself lifted up and carried away in adoration for Jesus Christ, and people were just shouting the name of Jesus.

This was probably 8,000 university students at that mass. And that was like the beauty of a large group of humans who are all like elevated by this man's presence to praise God. This is the opposite. This is like the photographic negative of that kind of a gathering, right? This is just, she's deformed almost to the point of she's being irrational, she's being cruel, she's being everything ugly that she then accuses the people she's protesting of being. And I... This is why it is so important that our children be raised in the classical tradition, so that they're raised to be able to step outside of these sort of emotional moments of being drawn into something and ask themselves critically, okay, what am I actually doing here?

What's actually going on? What is our end goal? And how are my actions either forming me or deforming me as a human person? And being able to step away and walk away from a situation like that, it takes a certain kind of virtue and strength that, unfortunately, I think our educational system has not prepared us to exercise.

Yeah, I think of these moments at protests in general, because, like, as a young Catholic kid, like, I went to March for Life every year. March for Life, another good example. And, it's just, so, I feel like, funny enough, like, I would almost pay, if I was on the other side, I would pay a woman to do something like that. I'm not saying that was done here, but because, like, what does that give the opportunity to the other side? And then, how does it get picked up?

I remember the Nicholas Sandman moment. Yeah. And that was a radicalizing moment for me, because I remember not only seeing, and there's been this big debate online about disowning your friends or people within your coalition, like you need to cancel over the Politico release, and Josh, you talked about it, and I remember that moment being a moment where I watched that on a nuclear scale, where Nicholas Sandman, who now we know all the facts, did nothing wrong and acted like a perfect scholar, honestly more scholarly and gentlemanly than I probably would have at that age.

Like, he had every right to just be in that guy's face, get off me, push him, whatever. This is the, for those who forgot. Or try to kick the guy in the nose. Right, he was the Covington Catholic kid. He had a Native American protester in his face with a drum. Hit the march for life. And there's one picture, there's one picture of him smiling, and then the guy in his face, and then what was, everyone took it and ran with it, and said that he was agitating, that he was a racist.

I mean, the things said about him were crazy, and I watched conservatives, quote unquote, denounce this kid, knowing nothing about it, denounce it. Evil, terrible, whatever, and he got a huge paycheck one day after the lawsuits came through on slander and defamation, as he should have. I mean, his life was basically ruined as, I think, a high school kid. Yeah, he was 15. And yeah, I— Kevin Goe came to his side, by the way. And we did, and I think about that now, and I think Matt Walsh has been over this over the weekend, like— I think now is the time to realize what we are up against.

I just watched these No Kings protests, in which, ironically, people were allowed, under this tyrant, to mobilize these mass-scale protests, in which, of course, you would not be able to do if you were under some type of a tyrant or whatever. See how they treat people in North Korea.

And I watched people just openly promote violence. I saw signs all over the place saying, you know, wish the sniper wouldn't have missed. You know, Charlie Kirk, they defaced all of that kind of stuff. There's people that genuinely want to kill you, that are radicalized to the point where they're comfortable enough taunting you with violence, and if not Trump, you, right? Because Charlie Kirk was the big moment where it's like, oh, this isn't just about politicians. This is about people that share your political views.

I mean, Charlie's probably even a little bit to the left of my political views, if you ask me. What moment are we in right now? The moment isn't, we need to have all these little squabbles infighting of people of goodwill. We have real radicals. We have barbarians at the gates. So, I'd keep that in mind with all the online discussion about this. This was a real mask-off moment, I think, for many people. Again, it keeps happening and happening and happening. When are we going to address it?

There's all these open threats of violence. You feel comfortable doing this, and really, moments now. I'm with you on the violence stuff, but I just, I guess. The thing about the No Kings that just kind of drives a lot of us most crazy is the left, you know, used bulldozers to close open-air parks during COVID.

They sat by and did nothing as President Biden enlisted our federal agencies to clamp down on free speech, kick New York Post off of Twitter. Suppressed Americans' ability to share their opinions online. And you're calling Donald Trump the tyrant? I mean, it's absolutely asinine, and that's why it's like gaslighting in the extreme. So, I mean, these people are so full of crap.

Remember another radicalized moment? Remember there was a Coast Guard boat chasing down a guy surfing? Oh, yeah. During COVID. He's alone on the ocean surfing, and they're like, you are a vector. Get off the water. So, yeah. I couldn't buy garden seeds in Michigan, but you could go to a strip club or abortion facility, but whatever. Thanks, Gretchen. All just a joke. Yeah.

Seriously. All right, let us go to the good news now. Okay. I actually had something very beautiful happened at the No Kings in Portland, and this is a little bit long, but I really think it is worth it. This is, yes, good things can happen, even at No Kings.

Why do you hate Trump so much? I haven't liked him since 1986, and it's personal. I know where your guys' agenda is, and you can just keep moving, okay? Because I've had these discussions with you guys before. You say you're independent journalists or whatever the fuck, and then you nitpick. Sorry about the language. So, please move on. Have I not been fair to you? No, you have. I'll respect that. No, I'm just saying. They're with me. They're with me.

They're just my camera guys. They're with me. It's just me and you, brother. It's just me and you. But we're done. Okay. All right. All right, man. Hey, take care of yourself, okay? And I want to tell you one thing, okay? Charlie Kirk? I didn't agree with that. Not all of the left, you know, were willing to, are out there making fun of that horrible situation. I didn't like the guy. I didn't like what he, a lot of stuff that he stood for, but to take that kind of action and take him away from his wife and his kids, that's fucked up.

I know that you're an atheist, but, I mean, I would love it if you came to church with me sometime, just to, just chill. You know, I was raised a Christian. My parents were Christian. My grandmother, who I was very close to, she came down with cancer. We moved her into my house, or into our house, and for nine months during the age of, I was 15 at the time, my brother was 13, and we prayed, and we prayed, and we prayed.

Please, save our Nana. So, we prayed, and we prayed, and we prayed, you know, and she just got worse, and then it would be the nights where my parents were, you know, with her in the bathroom at one in the morning, two in the morning, and she's throwing up because of the chemo. It just, it broke me. It broke my brother. I bet. And then when I started questioning, you know, when I started questioning.

My prayers, and I started questioning the church. I got shunned. Family pushed me away. Yeah, you can stop there. So, this goes on a little bit longer, and by the end of the video, the old guy who was broken by his nana's death and suffering from cancer, he actually agrees to go to church with the guy the next day, and he's like, I'm going to come to church with you, because the young Christian guy is like, that was wrong. They shouldn't have shunned you for that.

You were in pain, and I want you to come. You should never let that move you away from Jesus and the love of God, and I was so moved by this, because I had just watched probably 45 minutes of No King stuff, and like finding out what was going on, and it's so dark, and you're like, oh my gosh. But then like a moment like that, where this young Christian guy is going around talking to people one-on-one, invites this dude to church, and we should pray for him.

We should pray for that he does find God again. So, there is beauty, there is goodness. I think that also reveals... An important aspect of, we keep asking the question, like, why are these old people that are supposed to be in the golden years of their lives, like, spending time getting angry, riled up on a Saturday, that, like, once he got past the initial layer of, like, the bitterness and anger and the conflict, you get down to the heart of it.

Whereas, like, he had a really traumatic experience that, and then the way that he was treated, the way he perceived he was treated, pushed him away from satisfaction and peace. And if you have no outlet for that kind of anger, like, You look for opportunities to be angry, at least I think, and then that is kind of how you end up at these. I think that is a really good, actually a great video illustrating why I think a lot of people are at these protests.

And sure, there may be some, you know, truthers out there who are like, you know, I really just want to stick it to the king or whatever. But I think most people are just angry and looking for a way to express that.

I doubt there are too many satisfied people at this protest. I guess that is kind of the point of protest. Uh, Josh, what do you got? Okay, so I'm not saying I'm a fan of Disney, but... Uh-oh. This is kind of interesting. Did you see this? Disney is getting, like, patriotic. Wait a second.

Watch this, uh, watch this, uh, video. I need evidence. Sora's out there, Josh. Gotta watch out. A.I.'s everywhere. What's from Disney Parks' account? All right. Hello, I'm Patrick, your chief flight attendant. Soon, as you sail through our spacious skies, you may see amber waves of grain, purple mountain majesties. That's right, we're going to be soaring across America.

What better way to celebrate the country's semi-quincentennial than with a limited-time sea-to-shining-sea itinerary? America's packed a lot into her 250 years, so you'll want to pack a lot of party favors into your roll-a-board. This includes Betsy Ross flags, hot dogs, apple pies, bald eagles, bunting pocket constitutions, powdered wigs, and, of course, these little beauties. Ashworth Powell.

Happy 250th America. I do love his voice. Wait a second. What was that? Are we getting got? I thought the Betsy Ross flag was racist. Remember, they had that on the shoes, and there was the big controversy about it. Nike pulled it after Captain America had a problem with it, but the Betsy Ross flag is okay now. I mean, that is a beautiful poster. I do love.

So, okay, here's a philosophical question for you, Josh. Because a lot of people, I imagine, are going to be like, well, Disney's still bad, and they're just trying to pander to get back the good graces of Trump. Where are you with that?

It's good, even if it just is pandering for people to start moving in the right direction, in your opinion, or are you like, oh, we still got to be wary? How do you feel about it? We should still be wary, but I'm long a believer that people can be cornered into virtue. They can do the thing they ought to be doing after they've exhausted every other possibility. So, I welcome this. I much prefer this than a Death Star of... You know, hedonism and barbarism, so, you know, if they say, if their shareholders are like, we've got to lean into this patriotic stuff, we're losing a lot of customers, hey, try it.

That's right. I'm all for it. I like it. Maybe Netflix will pick up on that, too. Not so far. Yeah, seriously. Okay, I got another. So, I'm going to have a Sean Duffy one-two punch. Good news, Twilight Zone. Love Sean. All right, Sean Duffy, Secretary of Transportation.

I watched this video, and I actually was like, again, I have to watch every video a couple times to make sure it's not AI. This was in Indiana, and now Sean Duffy has picked up on it. I'll play some of the video. I think they believed the swearing, but to be fair, I'd be swearing, too, in this situation. Not to be f***ing kidding me.

So, I'll annotate here. It is a truck driver driving in Indiana. He is watching another truck. Semi-truck drive the wrong way down the road right at him, and he puts his truck right in front of him to make sure he stops and tries to figure out, you know, what's going on here.

What are you doing? I'm going that way. Right here. But it's not working. I'll go down the other side. Let me ask you a question, man. Okay. You are going the wrong way down the freeway. You are committing a felony right now.

Well, one, why the fuck going the wrong way down the freeway? So, it becomes pretty clear they were about to come up to a toll, it looks like, and he just turned around at the toll to go the other way. And so, Sean Duffy did pick up on this, because I saw his video, and I was like, I had people share this around, because he's from Indiana, and I was like, this is the most unbelievable. I cannot even imagine a semi-truck coming the wrong way down the road.

I mean, I know people who have actually died from this kind of thing happening. He said, my team has reached out to the trucker who recorded this chilling video. He did the right thing, reporting the trucker driving the wrong way to police. This could have easily ended in disaster. Foreign truck drivers not being able to understand the rules of our roads is a crisis that is putting lives in danger. US DOT is doing the work to fix it and save lives.

I'm glad someone is, because all I've seen is like CDLs being given to people who should not have CDLs. We have Clearly, people who don't understand the rules of the road somehow came in possession of a CDL and can barely communicate with a truck driver who's trying to say, like, hey, don't go the wrong way down the road. I mean, there's obviously, this is such a, like, layup problem to fix, right? Well, he's arguing with him, like, but I had to, I needed to, I needed to go this way.

I'm with Bill in the chat. I think he got his license in California. It's just, it's just awful. And, Sean, you didn't go far enough because someone gave, a business gave this guy a truck. Someone put this guy into a truck into America, and that business should be shuttered. Yeah, it's not like this guy acquired a semi-truck by buying it.

Like, people are complicit in this problem that literally could kill someone. I mean, this would have killed someone, could have killed someone. It has killed people already. This is like a layup, red level five problem we need to solve immediately, and businesses need to cooperate. I mean, give a man a seat, whatever you got to do, get these people off the road. Part of the problem is Sean Duffy is dealing with a million different problems at once. He's got this problem, and then he's also got the problem with air traffic controllers.

Right now, A lot of air traffic controllers are working for free because of the government shutdown, but not just that. You have computer systems that haven't been updated in decades, so like Newark Airport is just a disaster. I flew into there recently, and it's just like delay, delay, delay, delay.

So, Sean Duffy is a talented guy. The only thing I wish he wouldn't have done is taken on the NASA administrator job temporarily, but, you know. We need you to focus, brother. It's just whack-a-mole. But two good news there. Sean Duffy is addressing this and taking it seriously. Second good news, shout out to this guy that put his truck in front of this truck to solve this. Like, if there was not an ordinary citizen that stepped up and stopped this guy, he could have just kept going and he would have hit someone.

So, shout out to the virtue of the driver, and confronting him, calling the police. I mean, he went through all of it. Like, thank you. That's good citizen activity. Okay, church corner. Finally, we get to the candy. This is awesome. I'm going to make Josh wait for his favorite, I think, but we have seven new saints in the Catholic Church. Now, it's over the weekend.

Says their live shows, Light of Christ to the World. I have summaries on each of them. Now, you can just sit back and enjoy. Let me know if anyone in the chat. I was excited about any of these in particular, and boy, I'm going to try my best with pronunciation, but some of these are intense.

All right, I'm going to show pictures, too, because the pics go hard. All right, here we go. First up, Ignacio Chukarala Maloyan. Born April 18th, 1869, in Mardin, Turkey, to an Armenian Catholic family, orphaned young, sighted in Lebanon, ordained in 1896, and became Archbishop of Mardin in 1911. Served in Egypt and Constantinople before returning to Mardin amid Ottoman persecution. During the 1915 Armenian genocide, he was arrested with 400 others and refused to convert to Islam, leading to his execution on June 11th.

Eligible for sainthood due to martyrdom for fidelity to Christ. Upholding virtue against evil and was canonized. I believe we have a direct quote. Muslim, there is no way I would reject my religion and my savior. You can only beat me and cut me into pieces, but I will never deny my religion. Yes. I love it. I love this guy. Hey, shout out to our Armenian brothers and sisters, too. You guys have endured so much. The Armenian Genocide. I can't believe people don't know.

If anyone really wants to go look into the depths of evil, look at the Armenian Genocide. It's really shocking that more people don't know about it. Horrific. Horrific. And lots of beautiful martyrs, including this one, came from it.

Next up, Papua New Guinea on the map. Peter Tarap. Born in 1912 in Rakanai, Papua New Guinea, to early Catholic converts, became the youngest catechist at 21 in 1933, leading evangelizations, baptisms, and education in his village. During Japanese occupation in 1942, he sustained the faith community, performed marriages, and defied polygamy orders, arrested in 1945 and executed on July 7th for refusing to renounce Christianity.

He is now a saint as a martyr defending marriage and family, and was canonized, Papua New Guinea's first native saint and symbol of lay evangelization. Shout out Peter to Rob. Love it. Pray for us. Next up. Oh, she's beautiful. Vincenza Maria Poloni, born Luigia Poloni on January 26, 1802 in Verona, Italy, as the youngest of 12 children, developed a vocation amid family hardships and began aiding the poor. She co-founded the Sisters of Mercy in Verona in 1840 and Charles Steeb with Charles Steeb to serve orphans, the sick and dying, professed vows in 1848 and led the congregation's expansion until her death from a tumor on November 11, 1855.

Eligible for sainthood through heroic virtues of charity, humility, and mercy, and serving the marginalized, and was canonized. Yes. Next up. Oh, there she is. Another beautiful one. Yeah. Maria Del Monte Carmelo Rendiles Martinez. That is, that is, that's a... Good job. One, two, three, four, five, six parts of that name. That's awesome.

Born August 11, 1903, in Carcassus, Venezuela, without the left arm. See, I tried my best. Carcassus. It's all right. It's important, though. That would have been like a Tucker Carlson moment. Like, can you pronounce Carcassus? Do you know the population of Carcassus? If you want to regime change them?

Without a left arm. Oh, Josh left. Amazon Web Service. That's right. Joined the Servants of the Eucharist in 1927, professed vows in France, and returned to lead in Venezuela. Founded the Congregation of Servants of Jesus in 1965, focusing on education, empowerment for the poor and marginalized women, and advocacy despite her disability. Eligible for sainthood via a miracle. Curing, oh gosh, hydrocephalus. Yeah.

In virtues of resilient mercy and inclusion, canonized. Awesome. Josh is stranded in the cold right now. Let's let him back in. He's a native Venezuelan, too, so maybe we should ask her to intercede for Venezuela, right? Seriously. All right, Maria Trincotti.

Born February 16th, 1883 in Brescia, Italy, to a poor farming family, entered the Salesian sisters in 1908, served as a nurse in World War II, and vowed missionary work after surviving a storm. Missioned to Ecuador in 1922, reaching the Amazon's Shuar people in 1925, provided healthcare education, midwifery, and peace mediation amid dangers until her death in a plane crash August 25th, 1969.

Eligible for sainthood through a miracle, healing a Shuar man, and heroic virtues, and compassionate service to indigenous peoples. New saint. Next up, St. Jose Gregorian. Nice mustache. Solid stache, my boy. October 26, 1864, in Trulio, Venezuela. Two Venezuelan saints. Two Venezuelans. It's a sign.

Studied medicine in Caracas and Paris, becoming a professor, scientist, and innovator in bacteriology and x-rays. Known as the doctor of the poor for treating the indigent for free, especially during the 1918 flu. Joined secular Franciscans in 1899, and attempted priesthood, but hindered by health. He died June 29, 1919, in an accident. Eligible for sainthood via miracles and heroic virtues harmonizing faith, science, and charity, and is now canonized. He is Venezuela's first male saint. There we go. That was it. First male saint.

All right, the moment Josh has been waiting for. Bartolo Longo. Yes. Now a saint. Born February 10th, 1841 in Latiano, Italy. Rebelled in youth, dabbled in occultism at university, and became a satanic priest, but suffered despair leading to conversion in 1865 via a Dominican friar. ...became Dominican tertiary in 1871, moved to Pompeii in 1872, revived faith through catechesis, founded the Sanctuary of Our Lady of the Rosary in 1876, and established orphanages and social works, died October 5, 1926.

Eligible for sainthood through total conversion, heroic virtues, he is known as the Apostle of the Rosary, and Missionary Works Uniting Prayer and Charity, he is now canonized. Yeah, he was one of the patrons of the annual Dominican Rosary Pilgrimage in D.C. this past fall, and we got the privilege of being there. There is a new chapel at the Basilica in D.C. for anyone who has been there before, but it is dedicated to Our Lady of the Rosary, Pompeii, and it is in memory of Bartolo Longo.

So, it is a very beautiful little tiny chapel right near the front when you walk in first, so everyone needs to go back to see that. Check it out. But the Dominicans were all like, a month to go, we are going to have another Dominican saint. They were living it up. I love this story so much.

Any final thoughts, Josh? I mean, I feel like he is a great saint of our time. I mean, that is why John Paul II called him an apostle of the rosary. He devoured himself by modernity. You know, he goes to the university, studies the occult, would rag on his friends who are Catholic, you know, and, but, you know, sometimes it just takes someone coming up to him, like you said in the other video, and a Dominican friar came up to him and was like, you're not even happy.

Like, you know, let's go, let's find another way. And he surrendered himself to Our Lady and became... You know, invigorated with a love for everyone else. So, I mean, it's just, I love it. It's awesome. It's a great story. Here's a thought bomb I'm going to toss out here, because you said of our times. I almost feel like...

I think of the new atheists, like in Erika, where I think you were, were you slightly enamored by the new atheists? You mean because of me and the new atheists? No, no, I just remember talking to you about the new atheists, like Sam Harris and all them, and they like had a real kind of social cachet at the time, and I think there was a period in time, I remember, kind of like middle school, high school, where it was kind of cool and edgy to be atheist.

Yeah, for sure. I almost feel like right now, if you sit down right now into time. I think people think atheists are stupid. Like, I actually think that it's not taken seriously, that it's not appealing at all, that they don't have any social cachet. Maybe I'm just not in these circles. Maybe I'm just completely bubbly, but I do feel like there's a little bit of that kind of like little swagger to Christianity right now. Like, it actually, I don't know if it's just because we're all more aware of evil right now, if things don't make sense to people with AI, whatever, they're looking for something real to hold on to, and I mean, what's the only institution that's lasted?

2000 years. I mean, it's Catholicism. So, is that just me? I almost feel like there's no, like, what's our times? Like, our times right now is like, that's kind of the appeal. That's kind of like the edgy on the come up. Like, why are you living so counter-culturally? And maybe it's the misery promoted by kind of all the other, like, modernity type lifestyles. Like, what is it? I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I think a couple of threads going on there.

I'm sure Josh has some stuff to add to this, but a couple of threads. One is that it is true that we've seen a rise in the rate of conversion to Catholicism. And we've covered this on the show, the numbers coming out of Western Europe, where two years ago, maybe France had... 1,200 adult converts, and now it is like 8,000 or something like that. I forget the exact numbers. And similar trends here in the United States, where there is an openness and what seems to be a growing trend in Gen Z, especially back toward the church, especially among young men.

And yeah, we have a great deep episode on that, if anyone wants to go check that out on the LOOPcast channel on YouTube. I think there's also, there's at the same time another trend. We continue to bleed older Catholics, right? We continue to see people leaving the church, but I do think that the new atheism and that sort of trendy pop atheism from Sam Harris back in Dawkins, it's kind of burned itself out in a way, and there's two places you can go from that.

One, Is into this sort of neo-spiritually, new-agey occultism, which we do see a massive rise in as well right now, if you look at numbers. And the other is an openness to the one true God. And so, I think that we've...

I agree. I think that atheism is a little more passe. It's not gone. It's still a strong strain, especially in like the higher educated elite kind of circles, but there's more of an openness to the transcendent and the reality that there's more to life than just the material, for sure. I would agree.

Well, there's a short look. I was going to ask a quick follow-up on Erika. You said burned itself out. What do you mean by burn yourself out? So, the New Atheism, their arguments were mostly predicated on the problem of evil, which will always, I think that will always be a reason people leave the faith or leave the church, is the problem of evil. Why is there suffering if there's a good God? Ergo, there is, well, there is suffering, ergo, there is no good God.

And so, like Alex Cooper, that kind of younger, taking up that banner. So, their arguments, though, were ergo, there is no good God. And so, like Alex Cooper, there is no good God. And so, We're so extreme that if there's no good God, there's no spiritual, there's nothing beyond the material. And that's just ultimately not satisfying. And so, that can be a fad for a while, but it's not something that can actually undergird a society or undergird a culture, because it's empty.

There's nothing there. And the reality is, human beings, we are aware that there is more to life because we are more than just materialism. So, even if people can't articulate that or make an argument, The argument for, you know, the existence of God, a la Thomas Aquinas or something, if they can't do that, the new atheism arguments will not ultimately be able to sustain themselves long, because they don't reflect reality. Reality has a way of reentering the conversation when it has been shunned too harshly and too extremely, the way that the new atheists shunned it.

Yeah, I think the people that I encounter, at least, I think there used to be kind of a certainty of atheism, and like a certainty and like a moxie, almost, like a confidence. Like, I am confident there is no God I need to tell you about. Yeah, for sure. And I feel like that's almost gone. Like, if I talked, I'd say the best way to describe it is more like a nihilistic agnosticism, or kind of a passivity to...

Just resignation to the way things are and to just not. I think because there's so many things that just like vie for your attention now that you can just easily. Give your mind to, say like, oh, this is stupid, but like Instagram Reels or TikTok or whatever. Like, anytime you get a little uncomfortable, be like, ah, I'll just go watch TikTok, or like, I'll listen to this podcast or whatever. Yeah, we're very insulated from suffering in a way. Insulated from suffering, but even thought.

So, like, if you go through most of your day, most people's days. Yeah, yeah, in a way. So, I just think that people are like, ah, I don't even want to engage in that, because that would just require so much thought or whatever.

But I have lost contact with the kind of like edgy, confident atheists. Like, I just don't see it anymore. So, I was just curious. Total thought bomb side thread. What were you saying, Josh? I mean, Jordan Peterson, you know, keeps looking like he's stepping, you know, steps closer to possible Christianity. We'll see how that shakes out.

You know, Dawkins, you know, aggressively atheist, was so taken aback by the rise of radical Islam that he's called himself a cultural Christian. Not that he's a believer, per se, but these are interesting things. And then Charles Murray, you know, he's on the conservative side of things, right? He wrote The Bell Curve. He wrote Losing Ground on Welfare back in 84. He wrote Coming Apart, which is actually, I think, a really fascinating book, because that's the book where he showed that the In fact, the nation's poor live by the countercultural values taught to them by the elites, whereas the elites themselves actually live by traditional concepts of work and marriage.

And so, just by being somebody like he is, who observes trends and the way things are, what now happened? Well, he put out a little book. Taking religion seriously. No one would have said this guy was religious 10 years ago, you know, because he's a pretty well-known agnostic, and so, you know, something's afoot, you know, so it's not the Gen Z stuff for men, absolutely, but like something else is going on with the boomers, some of these guys who had a long time either atheist or very agnostic.

They're taking another look, and maybe it's just because they're at the end of their lives, or near, you know, Charles Murray's 82 years old, you know, like, I don't know. There are no atheists in the foxholes, or. Yeah, and I'm like, Elon's got some interesting beliefs, but I think he's made the point, too, like.

Basically, when Christianity leaves, there abhors a vacuum, and what she calls the woke mind virus takes over, and I'd much prefer the cultural Christianity, basically, the structures that come with it. So, I think a lot of people see the benefits of a Christian culture and want those benefits, but maybe- Right, because they've been living on the residue of Christian culture for a long time. The fumes of Christianity, yeah, have been really nice, and I think as people see that leave, there becomes kind of more anxiety of like, well, what comes next?

And unfortunately, I think- The public square is naked. Yeah, people often say, like, oh, you didn't like the religious right. Like, just wait until the post-religious right comes. And they have a good point. I think they have a really good point. Like, if you look at, like, really hard right movements without God, it gets pretty nasty, and not very good for humanity. We've seen it before, right? Yeah, many times. Okay, Twilight Zone Now, thank you for entertaining my thought, Josh.

Okay, so obviously, my dream job here is that CatholicVote, but my second dream job is being a headline writer for the New York Post. Now, first, let me set this up. You can still do it, Josh, if you apply your mind and you work hard. I know, I know. I pray, I pray. And take less trips to Spain and elsewhere, but... The leading candidate for, and he probably will get elected mayor of New York City, Zoran Mondami, was seen in...

Oh! Don't do that part first. Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. Give it away. Give away the farm here, bro. Sorry, sorry, sorry. So, he was campaigning with somebody over the last few days, and this person, you can show the photo. Okay, I can show it. Okay. Yeah, the first photo. Here we go. This is on his own Twitter page. I had the pleasure of meeting with Imam Sera Wahashi, if I can say the name right. One of the nation's foremost Muslim leaders, he says, and a pillar of the community for nearly half a century.

Yeah, he was, who is he? He was one of the people who were not indicted for the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. Uh-oh. Ro-ro, Reggie. So, again, some people are like, is Mondami clueless, or is it evil? And I'm like, what if it's both?

It could be both. He's taking a photo of a guy who was unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Oh, my gosh. That was the precursor to the World Trade Center going down in 2001. And so, like, this is just very evil, right? But this is why I love the New York Post. Here's their cover of this. Oh, no. Okay. Yeah. Photo bomb. Oh, no.

Oh, no. Photo. Oh, no. Yeah, the New York Post headline writers are like the soul of Josh Mercer. This is the ethos of. My id right here. Yeah, if Josh was unchained by Christianity, imagine what he'd be capable of. I'm just saying. Unburdened by what has been, this would be Josh. Totally. Let him loose. Let the big dog eat.

Photo bomb. It does not mitigate the gravity of the situation in the New York mayoral race right now, but it's really funny. Hey, you know what? You got to get the attention of people somehow. You know how stupid this is? How stupid this is? Like, the Democrats, the best they could do is run, like, basically in the court of public opinion, a convicted, like, pedophile, like, sex pest. And who's, like, openly corrupt that everyone knows about, like, horribly bungled COVID. Like, that's the best they had to offer for a Democrat.

And then, like, Kurt, is it Curtis Silva, the other guy? Silva, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Who's, like... Clearly loves New York, but, like, got no shot. And then, like, this kid from South America just comes over and, like, sure, I'm going to do sweet TikToks, and I'm going to promise free things to people, and, like, that's it. You now are in control of one of the largest cities in New York. The largest city in the United States, and this guy wasn't even a citizen, like, what, seven years ago or something like that?

I mean, it's like, come on, man. Oh, my goodness. That's where we're at. I can't believe Cuomo is the best they had to do, and Eric Adams is not better. That was the other thing, like, oh my gosh. Although his social media activity is hysterical. He's one of my favorites.

Yeah, he's going to win. I think in Paris, we had the ultimate no kings, no crowns protest because four suspects disguised as construction workers using a hydraulic lift entered the Louvre Museum. Sunday morning, about 30 minutes after it opened, they took this crane, you can see the picture of it there on the screen, they take the crane, they put it up into the third floor window in the back of the museum, they smashed a window, and in a four-minute heist, four minutes from the time the window smashed to the time the thieves escaped, they were able to abscond with multiple crown jewels and jewelry from the Napoleonic.

Era. And this was just an insane heist, and I think I've been infected by the Oceans 11, Oceans 12. I think we all were a little bit, because grand robbery is a terrible, terrible thing to do. It's a terrible sin, but man, it looked really attractive and amazing. And just the feat that they could do this in four minutes and get away unidentified, one of the highest security... Like, museums in the world, supposedly, although maybe not, was pretty impressive. Did they rent the crane, or was it one there?

I mean, it seems like they drove the van up in the early hours of the morning and parked it, and then when the museum opened, I don't know why they waited for the museum to open, but this was broad daylight, and yeah, they got away with a crown.

So, yeah, no crowns compared. They took advantage of the oldest social bug of all time. If you wear a neon vest, you can get in anywhere you want. Exactly. It's just in human nature to be like, oh, they're probably where they need to be. This is like law and order 101. You just put on the workman's vest, and you can get in just about anywhere.

Continues to be proved over and over again, and this time in France. Oh, my goodness. Is it possible the security guards surrendered? Say it again? Is it possible the security guard surrendered? It is. Got to look at all angles.

It is France. I mean, come on, froggies. Someday they'll return to glory. Today's not that day. Oh my gosh. But yeah, I think we will be seeing multiple film renditions of this event in years to come in our old age.

Awesome. Remember that heist. Anyway. Kind of crazy. I'll probably get in trouble for that comment, but we've got all the Frenchmen. Oh, yeah, we'll get the French lovers, the Francophiles in the email. Francophiles can be all over the email inbox, for sure.

All right, mine, Sean Duffy part two, as promised. Oh, more Sean. Sean, he's a great guy. I'm a fan. Here is the original News Nation thing. It's AOC, right, but the GOP. Okay, so, like, I'm going to play this. And in your head, try to think about what was controversial about what Sean Duffy said. I really need you to stop what you're doing and put some mental energy into what could be controversial about this. Is AOC right that the GOP is luring in men by legitimizing their racism and their desire to be kings?

Right, because you have Republicans who say men aren't toxic, right? We want to celebrate masculinity, and what has happened with young men today is pretty remarkable. They have been told you should be responsible. You should respect women. You should get a job. You should work hard. You should actually go back to church. Be honorable. That is what they are called to do by this new movement within the Republican Party, and they have embraced it, which is wonderful, but I love your opening on the No Kings protest, which is actually a Hate America protest.

Donald Trump King, he won the seven swing states, he won the popular vote, and then everything he's doing, he actually ran on on the campaign trail. He told everybody he was going to do this, and the majority of Americans voted for him. This is just disenfranchised Democrats, but also George Soros is funding it. The socialists of America are funding and supporting, and so are the communists of America supporting this rally. So, again, it is the offbeat crew that lost and are angry that are going to come and protest and say Donald Trump is a king.

No, he's just a great, strong American leader. Okay, so time for your guesses. What part about this? Offense. Okay, and for contest, it was a political writer that was offended by something. Okay, go Josh. I already know the answer, so I'll pretend that it's the communists.

Communists? Erika, any thoughts? I'm going to church. Bingo. Yeah. Did I get it? Josh Gerstin, should an official Twitter account be used to Hector people, male or otherwise, to go to church? What? Hector? Eric, I know you're a fan of both classic literature and good words. Hector. I am also a fan of Hector.

Because I'm dumb. I was like, what does Hector even mean in this, and why does everyone pick up on this Hector word? I'm like, okay, you know, Hector from Troy. He wasn't Brad Pitt. He was the other guy.

And I had to look up, like, what does Hector people mean? Hector means to bully, harass, or aggressively intimidate them, often through domineering or overbearing speech or behavior. Hector people to go back, that is Hectoring people to go back to church? He was actually describing what the movement was, although he was approving of it, but it wasn't like he was saying, you know, he was belligerent, you know, being belligerent.

Yeah, he didn't go far enough, in my opinion. Hector, that's soft, man. Yeah, like, you should go to church. Exactly. So, yeah, maybe I should start adding that to the lexicon to say Hector. Hector is a great word. That's a good word, but a dumb takeaway from this. I mean, Trump definitely had the cabinet out running, doing a lot of these interviews, press, and then making fun of the No Kings protest, which was hilarious. I think Trump himself tweeted a picture of him with the crown on, which is just awesome.

No, no, no. You have to take these seriously. But Hector, Hectoring people to go back to church. I need to Hector people to go back to church. I'm not going far enough. If this is that bad, and Sean Duffy, Catholic, has a billion kids. I think he has like nine kids. Just by all accounts, awesome man, lives a great life. Hector people to go back to church. I think the country would be remarkably better if people went back to church of some kind.

So, that's what I got. Hector, I can't get over that. I need to find a way to slide that into a title to a show or something. Hector. All right. Okay, before we get out of here, we have, what is this, Steve Cortez got a new documentary on Maha? Oh, yes. What's up, Josh? Can you tell us what this is?

Catholic Votes Senior Advisor Steve Cortez has got a new documentary on the Maha Effect. He interviewed a bunch of people in Virginia just talking about how we can make ourselves healthy again. What is being put in our food, what is being put in our medicine, just really trying to re-examine that. So, today at 3 p.m. Eastern, there is going to be a special edition of The Loop.

It is all about the Maha Movement and the movement that is trying to build a healthier... And a happier country. So, check into that, and there will be information about Steve Cortez's great documentary. So, all that and more coming up. If you are not signed up for The Loop, go to www.kazakwood.org and sign yourself up for a free email that you will love.

Anytime I go anywhere, I get every time. Thank you so much for the loop. I love it. Oh, that's wonderful. Yeah, that's great. So, universally loved. Everyone loves the loop. Sign up. Are you hectoring people to sign up for the loop? He's hectoring. Yes, I am.

Awesome. Good show, gang. If you want to help us out, leave a review, Apple Podcasts, Spotify. Go ahead over to YouTube. We got a lot of extra good content on there. That helps out a lot, so go ahead and subscribe there. Go check out our content, and pray for us, of course. Today, we have Psalm 62, 5-8, so I'm going to pray that, and then we'll get out of here. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Amen. For God alone, my soul waits in silence, for my hope is from him. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress. I shall not be shaken. On God rests my deliverance and my honor, my mighty rock, my refuge is God. Trust in him at all times, O people. Pour out your heart before him. God is a refuge for us. Amen. Amen. St. Thomas More, St. Fidelis, Eleanor Lupe, pray for us.