Trump's 2026 State of The Union Reactions: Moments, Memes, And Meltdowns

And we're live. Welcome back to the LOOPcast. It's Tom, Erika, and Josh. We have a great show prepared for you today. If you didn't have, it was two hours, right? I think it was over 100 minutes. We're supposed to prepare for this? Well, Josh, you naturally did, because I think you invested the time to watch over 100 minutes of Trump's speech, Polly Market proved right again.

It was, it was... I don't want to give away the show before the show, but it was good. It was, it felt like some vintage Trump. Solid A. Vintage Trump. So, I want to get into the moments, the memes, the meltdowns, the heroes honored, the strategy, the response. I made Erika watch the counter-programming.

I saw frogs. I saw Chris Murphy attacked by a MAGA extremist. I saw... Not attacked. No, I'm just teasing, Josh. I'm just teasing. I just know because I watch the speech. But then all I can hear about is these frogs. So, the frogs kind of upstaged Trump. I don't know frogs. I don't know what that has to do with anything, but there's frogs. And then Abigail Spanberger, rising star in the Democratic Party.

Gave the response. We're going to get that, too. But before we get all that, welcome to the show, of course, brought to you by Zeal, and thank you to everyone in the chat joining us live. A couple of housekeeping notes. Number one, yes, Armageddon for some of you. I'm sorry. I think this is going to be a good evolution of the show, but we are going down to one time a week.

And I'm honestly really touched by the people that like listening to us and hang out with us three times a week. Seriously, really appreciate the support. That being said, we are adding a new part of the show, and we want it to be questions from the audience. So, we have the inbox, LOOPcast at CatholicVote.org, is where you can submit those questions, but we'd like to make a part of that Wednesday show. It's going to go down to one time a week on Wednesday.

We're going to expand the show a little bit, and we want to answer some questions from you. Okay, but here is the caveat. What is the caveat? You send in a question to us, and if you do not say who it is from, I get to answer it. Every one of them. So, if you do not say, this is a question for Erika, this is a question for Tom, I am going to answer all of them. Game on. You got to make it clear.

If you do not make it clear, I know there are a lot of my fans out there who are going to want a question just for me. The Josh heads? Yeah. The Josh heads are out there. They're waiting to ask him questions. They can't wait. You know, personal question, news question, politics question, controversial questions, spicy questions. Send them over. I'd be happy to make that a part of the show. So, we're going to make the show a little bit longer. We want to incorporate more, hear from you, hear from the audience, and so excited about that.

Second note, Erika is going to be interviewing Scott Hahn, or already did interview Scott Hahn. That interview is coming out. It's fantastic. Tomorrow. The big leagues. Scott Hahn, you know, the thumbnails are going to be huge, Scott Hahn. It was a dream come true. When you watch it, when viewers watch that interview, they're going to have to do, like, count how many puns that Scott gets in, and how many Erika gets in. Oh, Erika is right back. Scott is notorious for the puns.

Didn't know that. I just see the beard now. He had a big-time glow-up. Yeah. He doesn't look like he founded Intel anymore. Who was it? Steve Ballmer? The boys on stage in the early 2000s? He's had that beard for a while. Like, you're remembering photos from, like, when you were in diapers. The 90s. Yeah, from like the back of books, because you would write the books, Rome, Sweet Home, and you're like, okay, this is Scott Hahn. I'm like, whoa, glow up, beer time.

Now he's got the Charlton Heston as Moses look going on, which is very, like a lot of gravitas. This looks good, man. It was a great, but seriously, it was a great conversation. Dream come true. It's really fun to talk to him. So, everyone, make sure you're subscribed. Hit the notification bell on the LOOPcast channel here, or if you're on Zeal, zeal.co is going to drop it first, so you can watch it on the app or on the website. Awesome time.

And then, guys, you've got to tap into Time Across America. The ice fishing is live. It is live. If you're curious of someone who's never fished before going to ice fish for the first time in a competition of 12,000 people. Now is your opportunity. Go check out Time Across America. I'm watching it for sure. Josh, definitely watch it. It was super fun. Currently working on becoming a garbage man right now. The plumbing episode is in the edit right now. There's going to be lots of fun things coming from time across America.

So, go over. You can watch it now. Celine, if you want to drop that link in the chat, we'll have it in the description. It was awesome. Super fun. Yeah, we'll give you guys some things to chew on on those other days of the week. Obviously, we've got a lot going on. What better preparation for you to be a garage man than to talk about how Democrats reacted to this speech?

Great segue. Totally. Crash. Credit, credit. But that is not the segue that we have to make, because we've got to talk about our friends over at Charity Mobile. Not trash. The opposite of trash. No, opposite. The best among us, now more than ever, it's important to do business with companies who stand with you and your beliefs. Journey Mobile is a pro-life phone company that serves pro-life customers and supports pro-life. ProFamily Causes, they send 5% of your monthly plan price to your favorite charity, and they have sent millions of dollars to charities over the last 30 years.

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To get started, visit CharityMobile.com and use promo code LOOPcast. That is CharityMobile.com, promo code LOOPcast. Thank you to Charity Mobile. Okay, I say we get into it. Producer note from Celine. Clarification in chat, are we going? Yes, it is going to be Wednesday, 11 a.m. Eastern Time. We will probably be going from that 11 to 1 slot. I think it is going to be an hour and a half, two hours. My guess is we are going to extend it a little bit.

We are just going to talk as long as Josh has something to say. Well, then we'd have to do a 12-hour show. We'd just become live streamers. We'd be talking all the time. Whoa. Yeah. But Josh, guess what? I want to hear your thoughts on the State of the Union speech. A lot of hype around this. I kind of thought it was going to be more of a circus than it was. I was a little bit surprised, but of course, we get our 2026 State of the Union address, the joint session of Congress last night.

And as I said, the speech lasted approximately one hour and 48 minutes. That makes it the longest State of the Union address in U.S. history, surpassing previous records. Fun fact. Mike Johnson will be the first speaker, he was the first speaker in history to display George Washington's gavel during tonight's State of the Union. Very fun fact. It was used in a 1793 ceremony to lay the capital. I got worried about that, too, because I saw Nicolas Cage in the house. I'm wondering if he's going to scoop that up there.

Josh has got the Scott Hahn puns today. He's coming with good energy. So, I'll just say, before we get into the individual parts, I was reading a bit on the strategy, the approach from, say, Susie Wiles or Republicans as to, What this speech should be about? What is the opportunity? And it seems as though— The president did pretty much everything she asked. Stayed on message, rattled through biggest achievements, hailed America's heroes, brought powerful personal stories to his policy messages, and tore his opponents with remorseless venom.

That's from Politico. And above all, he mostly stayed on script. I will say the one time he did not go off script was maybe one of the biggest moments you see clipped up everywhere. That was, Josh, if you'd like to get into that now, if you want to get to that before the heroes. No, no, no. Let's keep it. Let's go. Let's go. So, yeah, that one moment, I think I had it deeper in here, was essentially, they were talking about the SAVE Act, I think, and Adler moment in the night, I'll just play it.

This was about midway through, I think. Again, long speech, but I will play this. One of the great things about the State of the Union is how it gives Americans the chance to see clearly what their representatives really believe.

So, tonight, I'm inviting every legislator to join with my administration in reaffirming a fundamental principle. If you agree with this statement, then stand up and show your support. The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens.

Let's scrub through here. Yep, that's a good half of the chamber not standing. It's just like, come on, man. You knew this was coming. You knew this was going to be baited. I think it, like, zoomed in on Mark Kelly. They could have stood up for, like, two seconds and done, like, a half a clap or two and then sit right down. But instead, they gave a television ad to every Republican running for Congress this fall.

Like, that is perfect. And, in fact, one of the guys, I forget the congressman's name, Congressman Forgettable, he's sitting there like this. I saw that. He was wearing the Ukraine pig. And he's wearing the Ukraine thing. And he didn't stand up for, you know, when he called out Iriana's parents, the poor woman that got murdered on a commuter train in Charlotte.

It's like, so you're wearing a pin to tell everyone how much you want to support Ukraine. That woman fled Ukraine to come to the United States, and she got murdered. And then he's... You know, you're just like, eh, whatever, dude. Won't stand up for her, won't stand up for her parents, won't stand up to say you actually support U.S. citizens above foreign nationals. So, let's get your bird's eye view, Josh. You watched the speech. What did you think, just in general?

Well, here's the interesting thing. I mean, Ronald Reagan was, I mean, so. Woodrow Wilson started this idea of actually delivering the speech in person. So, before that, the president would write a speech on the State of the Union and submit it to Congress, but Wilson's like, I'll deliver it in person. And then Ronald Reagan says, I know what I could do. I can call out people from the audience and talk about their stories and use that story as a way to try to sell the policies I support.

And so, every president has done that. They all have that laundry list of policy stuff, but Reagan was like, let me tie it to stories. And then, you know, Clinton did the same, Obama did the same. Well, here is the interesting thing that I found striking about this year. Now, it is just like... Who cares about the policy? I mean, he did talk about the policies in broad strokes, but he's not coming up with like, and this is why we need to, I mean, he didn't say pass the SAVE Act, right?

But I'm saying, he just like, let's just triple down on the stories, because the stories are what make people remember. And so, he brings, he talks about the young woman who left West Virginia as a member of the National Guard to try to keep the streets safe in Washington, D.C., and she gets shot by a... Someone in the country illegally, you know, and then the other guy who should have died, likely was supposed to die, Andrew, whatever his name was, and he survives, and then they put a Purple Heart on him right in the ceremony.

I mean, all this stuff was just amazing. All these stories bring us to life. Sarah Beckstrom and then Staff Sergeant Andrew Wolfe. Andrew Wolfe survived, got a Purple Heart, and then Sarah Beckstrom got a posthumous Purple Heart via family that was there. So, you can talk all you want about whether or not, hey, you know, like, should we have members of the National Guard go into cities to keep them safe, or should we let criminals, you know, run rampant in these big cities, and he brings it to life.

He said, let us talk about these two brave people that came to their nation's capital to try to make it safer for everyone, and it is safer now. Yeah. But one woman had to give her life. Yeah, I thought the whole thing was so well-crafted, not just for people who sit and watch it all the way through, which is what, like, 2% of the population likes. The chattering class and, like, some political ones. Like, really, who watched the whole thing? Josh did.

Thank you, Josh. I watched the whole thing. I did get up, like, early and finish the end of it. But the whole thing was so well-crafted, not only for the entire night as an arc, but for the reality that we live in TikTok world now, and you're going to get all these little clips. So, you got... And I thought Trump did such a good job this time of, right, like, he was rattling through, he was staying on point, he was getting, he was hitting each of his points and targets, everything was accompanied by a personal story, and almost every point was accompanied by a turning to the Democrats and saying, okay, you didn't stand up, you're nuts.

And like, at one point, my favorite part was, I mean, it's horrible that we have to talk about this, where he highlighted the story. Sage, who was a young teenager who was secretly transitioned by adults at her public school from female to male.

And then when her parents, like, didn't immediately affirm it, she was removed from her parents' custody and put into an all-boys, like, housing facility, and then they had to fight to get their daughter back. This was insane. And Trump could just, he highlights the ending gender-affirming care so-called for children, he presents the story, and he turns to the Democrats, and he's like, you are crazy. You're crazy, and I felt like all of those little moments like that throughout the night, they're super clippable.

Like you said, Josh, he just handed endless midterm ads, campaign ads, to all the Republicans, said, this is how you do it. So, I thought it was really well crafted in that term. But, I mean, like that story you mentioned, it's, I mean. I want to know who was in charge of the cameras. I mean, I think someone said it was the same guys who run TMZ, the Hollywood guys, because they talk about taking away the child, because they refused to affirm her identity as a boy, and then they whipped to the Democrat from Delaware, the dude, and he's a woman, and he's like, I thought you were going to talk about Ilhan.

Oh, there we go. That was another one, man. The Somali pirates who ransacked Minnesota. Remind us that there are large parts of the world where bribery, corruption, and lawlessness are the norm, not the exception. Good TMZ, man. Our own little Somali pirate in the audience. Yeah, but the thing is, what makes Donald Trump such a magnificent leader is that he has the chutzpah, the cojones, to actually say what everyone's not allowed to say. You're not supposed to say that. It's like the Somalis have come over to the United States.

They live in the town I was born in. And they are fleecing the people of Minnesota blind, and it is not just there. It is happening in Portland, Maine. It is happening in Columbus, Ohio. It is happening in California. And we are like, it is considered unseemly, racist, or xenophobic to say something. It is like, excuse me? It is one thing if they are all on public assistance, which is like 80% of them are, but it is a whole other thing that they are doing.

There's additional fraud. Right, like active fraud. Yeah. I mean, it's one thing, like, do we really want them coming to our country if 80% of them are in public assistance? No, I don't. But on top of that, that they're stealing from us. And Democrats aren't ashamed? Like, unbelievable. And he said that. He said, shame on you. And I think that was another brilliant way of crafting the speech, was that he just started off with all the 80-20 issues. Well, actually, you know, he started off with a 99-1 issue, which was the Olympic hockey team, like the men coming out, winning the gold.

Like, they juiced that out. And the 1%? Oh, yeah. There was 1% who did not stand for the hockey team, believe it or not. It was the journalist. Did you see the way that he did it? He brought him out by the journalist, and they were all kind of frowning.

Here they come. USA, USA. You got a guy in a mask here. America's right there. That's awesome. A lot of USA chants. So much. Yeah, the journalists are cracking me up. Well, and then from that point, he went through every 80-20 issue in America, right? So, he went through the SAVE Act. It was just really well done, and again, forcing the Democrats and really exposing that although the Democrats seem to be angling to position themselves as more moderate, like they're the affordability people, like Abigail Spanberger ran as, oh, I'm such a moderate.

He forced them to acknowledge that, in fact, They have not at all moderated since the 2024 election on any of these issues. They're still like trans the kids. Some of them would not even stand up. They still love communism and hate America. They still love communism. They still hate America, and there were Democrats who wouldn't even stand up to condemn political violence, and that was another moment where you're like, Charlie Kirk's widow's there, Erika. Most of them stood up, but there were still a few in there that most of them did stand up.

Elizabeth Warren. She stood up a couple times, but again, as a party, they're... There is still that extreme progressive element, and most of them are going to go to their base, not to a moderate middle, and he exposed that again and reminded us of what could happen if they win in 2026. That is why our good friend Peter Wolfgang, he had predicted actually on Facebook, he thought that the Democrats would nominate Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, who is a little bit less psycho, as their nominee in 2028.

I am like, no way, brother. Uh-uh. Not after that. Look at what happened at the State of the Union. I mean... There is no way that the Democratic Party is so full of anger right now that they are just going to be like, yeah, we got to win. We got to put someone not crazy up there. No. They are full of anger. They are going to pick a Kamala or a Gavin Newsom because they are just spitting nails. There is so much of this stuff.

Bill Clinton in the 1990s, that iteration of Bill Clinton. If he were alive today, in that iteration, and he was hearing this president give this talk, and he was like a swing state governor or whatever, he'd be, you know, he'd get up and he would clap. It's like, I'm not gonna, you know, like John Fetterman actually wore a suit. That was kind of neat. Fetterman, yeah. The Democrat from Pennsylvania. I say this.

If John Fetterman were the Democratic nominee, he would probably win 30-some states. Yeah, I had something from him. He said, tonight via text about how Democrats should handle tonight, the exact opposite of last year. I don't care who comes, who boycotts, who does counter stuff. No paddles, no yelling, no protests. I don't care who is President, Democrat, or Republican. They deserve basic courtesy.

Yeah, that's not what they got, because you had, you know, Omar, Ilhan Omar, and what's her name, Rashid? Rashida Tlaib, yeah. Just screaming their brains out, what little brains they have. Did you catch this, Josh? Someone was zoomed in. Again, TMZ camera work, but everyone's chanting USA.

Are you a lip reader, Josh? Well, I'm not, but others have said it looks like she was lipping KKK in response, you know, as a way of giving a middle finger. Again, it's just amazing to me that these people hate their country so much. They really hate the country, and it's been difficult because they have acted like this. Democrats have acted like this for well over 20 years.

But it's only now that we're able to start doing it, and Donald Trump is a political... Political genius. I don't agree with him on everything, okay? I'm not like a, he's not like a superhero. I worship him. I'm sick of that dichotomy, but he is a political genius. He finds those 80-20 issues like Eric was talking about. Like, I can't believe that the school would transition this child from a girl to a boy and not let the parents know, and keep them in the dark intentionally, and then not give them back, and the judge said, we're not going to give them back unless they affirm this.

False identity? Like, that is monstrous, and it's the kind of thing that, over the last 10 years or so, I would try to tell people, liberals in my family, that this stuff was happening. Like, that doesn't happen. They don't believe you. That's not true. That never happens. It's horrible. It's so psycho. It's so far left-wing, communist kind of stuff. Yeah, which... People in our own country are like, no, no, that's not happening.

Which I would almost... Caveat a little bit, because I don't think every Democrat in the country hates America. But clearly, the representation in Congress is way farther to the left than most Democrats would even want. I mean, we saw the Democrat poll as of recent, where it was like, I think over 60% of Democrats, registered Democrats, said that their party's too extreme to the left. I think that's true. But here's what I want to get at, Tom, though, and this gets into what your Twilight Zone is a little bit anyway, but if you look at the Gallup polls, the percentage of people who love their country express that patriotism.

For conservatives and Republicans, it's always in the 90s. It's always in the 90s. It doesn't change. It's been that way consistently for the last 30 years. No matter who the president is, yeah. Yeah, it doesn't matter who the president is. They still love their country. But then if you look at Democrats, and it's like... It looks like a heart monitor. It spikes when a Democrat is president, and then it's not just Trump. Any Republican is president, and it tanks. Bush, Trump, they don't like their country as much.

Now, is it less than a majority? I'm not saying that, but it does. A sizable chunk, maybe not a majority, of Democratic voters lose faith in their country. Express patriotism, and by the way, those are the most active in their politics, and that is who the political parties represent. So, in the bluer areas, you are going to find larger concentrations of those voters. Okay? I know that there's a lot of Democrats. I live in a rural area. There's a lot of Democrats in my area that are very patriotic, so I'm not trying to cast a dispersion on everyone, but yes, even in my town, I find some Democrats like that.

I mean, you're no different than Ilhan Omar in your politics. I think you're making a good point, and I guess it goes back to even what you were saying about Bill Clinton and John Fetterman. The fact that we look at John Fetterman and this guy feels like... He doesn't match the rest of the party somehow, although he's expressing things that people would have done in the 90s. Or just normal, right? Yeah, like, there has been, it almost feels like, and this speech is such a good way of pointing this out, I think what immediately stuck out to me was, all the medals handed out, right?

Like, the goalie for the U.S. team is going to get a Presidential Medal of Freedom, like, that was awesome. We have honoring the two National Guardsmen, we have veterans, we have... The swimmer, I love that they highlighted that swimmer, the U.S. Coast Guard swimmer, Scott Ruskin. He saved over 160 people.

Yeah, the guy that went to Venezuela, who, I mean, seriously, if I had to draw this guy. Who was flying the chopper during this? This is about what, I can't draw very well, but come on. That's what you would do. I mean, seriously, this is the most Chad American looking dude I've ever seen, shot in the leg while he was flying the helicopter, successful mission. And this is kind of the point, like, so you highlight all of these people, the fact that that would even be kind of controversial is crazy, but there's the optimism, the patriotism, it almost feels like it's kind of...

Somehow become cornered by Republicans, and I think Democrats are desperately trying to come up with some vision where they do express love for the country, and there is true patriotism, but still have to defy Trump at the time, but the way the political coalitions have moved, Trump has picked up a lot of, I guess, the more patriotic people, because former Democrats shifted over now, and I guess that is the big question. It is like the speech was very positive. It felt like he was on message.

Now, does this overcome a lot of the polling gaps, say, like the frustration over the last 13 months? Plenty of people my age are certainly very frustrated with the administration, foreign policy, Epstein-Files, etc., but there was people that were new to that coalition that it felt like, I was even thinking about this speech compared to when he came into power. Like, the Doge stuff was high. Like, we're going to cut a trillion dollars. It's going to be awesome.

Maha was hot. Like, everyone's like, we're going to get rid of these vaccines. It's going to be awesome. Food. Food, pyramid, yeah. There was a new, and the anti-war, like people like, we're done with foreign wars, we're done with these foreign entanglements. Those are new people to the coalition that I think were patriotic, they're proud of the country, and I think have been disappointed by the last 13 months. But this speech kind of felt like a little bit of that energy kind of back, and I guess, I don't know, I guess posit the question, is it enough at this point?

Or could this energy be carried through the administration into... Also, very interesting note. I listened to the entire speech. I did not hear ICE mentioned one time. You didn't hear ICE or Israel. ICE or Israel, mentioned one time. I mean, Iran was mentioned, but ICE is more specific to me, because I do think Trump saw that as, this is a catastrophe. If this continues, this is going to be horrible. We're not mentioning this. Plenty on immigration. Yeah, it was like the buzzword.

He might not have used that particular buzzword, maybe to triggering or whatever, to use the parlance of the day, but he did lean into immigration and getting the job done that he was. elected for, because again, it's still, regardless of people's opinion of ICE, the polling shows that it's still an 80-20 issue. Should we secure, like, should we keep the border closed? Should we secure the border? So, I think that he was threading a needle there, for sure. I think that, you know, just to, if I had two criticisms of the speech, one, I was disappointed that the only sort of maha element That I really heard discussed.

...was the IVF, and, I mean, of all the work that RFK's done, why would we highlight that one thing that is, well, I mean, on the pro-life movement... Why? ...is absolutely... Because it's in 80-20, unfortunately, against it. Unfortunately. Yeah, we're in the minority on that, certainly. Yeah. We are certainly in the minority on that. But agree, I was disappointed to hear that as well. I was disappointed on the IVF and that he was the story of the mother who can't get pregnant, or the woman who wants to be a mother who can't get pregnant, and now Trump-RX is going to make it possible for her to participate in this.

Fertility treatment, so-called, which doesn't address root causes at all. So, that was a real disappointment to me in terms of sort of the broad tent, very alienating for a lot of pro-lifers, of course. The other one was the Iran. We were hoping for clarity on Iran, the military buildup over there, certainly concerning. I mean, we've discussed that on the podcast, like what's going to happen.

And he spent less than, like, two minutes on the question, and it was just kind of this strange, like, Iran is on the brink of nuclear weapons, again, even though we destroyed it all last year. Is that Dick Cheney? Was that?

But he went very quickly through it. Iran's on the brink of nuclear weapons two weeks away for 20 years. Yeah, well, and we destroyed all the nuclear weapons, but now they're back there. But I guess you know why, Erika. Sorry to interrupt, but.

That is not a winning, why would he talk about it any longer than he did? This is a horrific issue. Yeah, like he had to do that. Majority of Americans don't want it. Yeah, so I would rather we like pull some of our military back, but. And there is indications that like all the aircraft carriers and all that stuff that we have moved into position in the Middle East do not actually involve massive amounts of, you know, ground troops. So, if there was some sort of, you know, desire.

For a ground campaign, we haven't made the moves for that. At least, that can be foreseen by all the movements that have been made so far. Yes, there's a lot of ships in the Mediterranean, and certainly in the Persian Gulf area, but they're not necessarily an indication like we did to ramp up for Iraq. Mm-hmm. That's true. Which is a good sign. Good sign. That's true. It is still a third of our Navy, but the one thing I will, again, trump back on the populist beat.

I love that. SAVE Act, obviously, I mean, that's just a slam dunk. Yes, do it. He said the only reason people disagree is because they're cheating, and I mean, it's just true. I don't know what else to say about that. Why can't we say this? It's like, that's the truth. Right. No driver's licenses for illegal aliens. I can't believe that had to be said out loud, but amazing, and then he, of course, unfortunately, brought someone. I think, was it a husband lost their life or something?

That was the little girl who has to learn to walk again because she was hit by an illegal CDL license holder. You need two forms of ID and a social security number to shovel snow in New York City. That was a great moment. You don't need an ID to vote. I mean, that's the kind of popular stuff that conservatives would say forever, and then the elected Republicans would never dare say that. It's an unseemly argument. Oh, we don't want that. We need boring arguments.

That works. The other ones that I— The other ones that I liked was the $1,000 for every child in the Trump accounts, I think is awesome. I'm a big fan in general of the Trump account idea. The other one he just tossed out kind of casually, this. So, for those not following, there is a lot of debate on the ground, especially in the very, very, very local level about AI centers, AI data centers. So, people are coming in, and then there are decisions that need to be made at the local board levels of big companies will come in.

They want the land to develop these AI data centers. They are very controversial because they spike people's energy costs. There is actually not a ton of jobs brought in by that because they basically run by themselves. Once they are built, it is like… Two or three million guys, yeah. Right, and then it's also like a big eyesore to the community. There's also questions about noise pollution. It's just, it's not popular at all, and there's a lot of people that are super fired up.

I was even seeing in New Jersey, there's people at a board meeting till 4 a.m. with families to voice their, we do not want this in the community. Yeah, when it comes to data centers, we are all NIMBYs, like not. Yeah, exactly, which I think is totally fair. I mean, you can't just, so what's happening is people are, the companies are coming in, and they're using deceptive tactics to kind of get it done under the quiet of night. Like, we are not really going to give you guys a chance to weigh in on this.

We're going to get the sign-off, and then we're just going to start developing, and there's a lot of populist pushback to this. So, I think the main question is, AI data centers or AI companies need to make a better case as to why this should be, A, this close to the community, or just in general, how it's a benefit, because we've seen a lot of the negatives. And so, Trump threw out that there should be no AI data centers without electric bills staying the same, therefore saying that the centers would have to pay.

For the increase in electricity, you basically subsidize it because, obviously, they're going to be taking a lot more water and a lot more energy, and that's, I mean, smart on him. Someone, I'm sure, slid that to him because I've never seen so much of a groundswell in opposition to this kind of thing, which, of course, is smart on Trump. If they want to build more power plants, he's like, go for it. Right. So, he threw that in. That was interesting to me, and I think that's like table stakes to me outside of these AI.

Companies making a better case to the public that it should be that way. So, that was cool. And then, ending insider trading by members of Congress. Oh my gosh, this is great. Ah, got him. Got him. You even got Elizabeth Warren standing for that one. Elizabeth Warren stood up for that one. That was pretty fun. So, there's two things I liked about this. It was Elizabeth Warren standing. And they panned Pelosi, of course. Yeah, Pelosi. I don't think she's standing for this one.

Classic, man. As we ensure that all Americans can profit from a rising stock market, let's also ensure that members of Congress cannot corruptly profit from using insider information. There's Elizabeth. He's standing. Pocahontas is in the house. You're smart. The economic populist argument. I agree with you. Yeah, sure.

Notice, everyone in here is making these trades, by the way. That's what's funny. They're all standing, but they all make the trades. Well, if they're not illegal, yeah. Why not make the money? They stood up for that. I can't believe it.

I can't believe it. Did Nancy Pelosi stand up if she is here? Doubt it. Pass the stop. J.D. Vance is, like, cracking up in the background. Without delay. Mike's like, I can't believe that we. Yeah, right. Oh, that was bad. That was silly. That was silly. I mean, for the most part, though, we saw a lot less policy stuff. I mean, the SAVE Act, the Bannon search, it's good.

And I am not necessarily against it. Actually, I have to give credit to this libertarian who had a pretty funny comment, Robbie Sov, from Reason. He said, credit where credit is due. Turning the State of the Union into a rah-rah America rally, where we just give medals to total chads, is pretty awesome. Trump rally, it was great. Let's do it. Much better policy ideas.

To round out the Pelosi thing, she had to go on CNN after, and I can't believe she wasn't ready for this question, but here we go. There was one moment, Madam Speaker, where he called you out specifically around, of course, congressional stock. What do you say back to him?

I say back to him, as that is what members said, look at your own self. The inference he wants to draw is there was something wrong with that, which there wasn't, and if there was, people get prosecuted for it. For a long time now, we have been trying to pass this law.

Now, it has more support than it had before. Elizabeth Warren stood up and applauded. Elizabeth Warren stood and applauded tonight when the president talked about it. Well, we all did. I did, too. You said, did Nancy stand up? Yeah, I did, too. A lot of people stood up. A lot of Democrats stood up. I think that will pass. Depending on what the bill is. I mean, what we had, we thought we could pass. It was actually a tougher bill than Governor Spanberger had.

Nancy's sunsetting. I can't believe she wasn't ready for that. I mean, there's no question. I can. In terms of behind the scenes, she was the most powerful and influential. A lawmaker in Congress in several generations on the House side, and it is just stunning that, you know, she could go on TV like that, knowing that she should know they are going to ask this question, and then she just bumbled and fumbled her way through. It is kind of like watching LeBron and the Lakers now, you know?

Which I don't do. I don't watch the NBA. Right, but it's like, okay, LeBron, best player in the league for a decade plus, and now he's a bench player, and it's sad because he's old. It's like, you got to quit while you're ahead, and she did not. Yep. Two final things I want to hit. Tariffs. I thought it was coming, and I was looking through your notes. I was like, he kept it civil, because, of course, the Supreme Court is sitting in the front row.

Well, because after he threw like a temper tantrum on Friday, he suggested that the Supreme Court was in like the pay of foreign powers. Like, he kind of lost it. So, I was, yeah, Tom had my notes that I was watching, and I literally typed, thank you, Mr. President. Like, he just went right through the tariffs. Kept it civil. And then he's like, it actually was kind of funny on that, because he's like, oh, that's, he just said, the worst he said about it was, it was unfortunate.

And then he pivoted to say, well, I can pretty much do it anyway, and I'm just going to use a different law to do it. And that's okay. That's okay. It's actually better that way, I think. It's actually better that way. It's like, okay, very civil. Good job. All the deals are still deals. They're not leaving. The deals are still deals. They know if they try to do it now. All right. And then I'm going to play this before we get to the counter.

Because I think this, I just, come on. Talk about getting Raleigh fired up, you just give medals to Chad's, and then you end with this. Because when the world needs courage, daring, vision, and inspiration, it is still turning to America.

And when God needs a nation to work his miracles, he knows exactly who to ask. There is no challenge Americans cannot overcome. No frontier too vast for us to conquer, no dream too bold for us to chase, no horizon too distant for us to claim, for our destiny is written by the hand of providence, and these first 250 years were just the beginning, from the rugged border towns of Texas to the heartland villages of Michigan.

From the sun-kissed shores of Florida to the endless fields of the Dakotas, And from the historic streets of Philadelphia to right here in our nation's capital, Washington, D.C., the golden age of America is upon us. The revolution that began in 1776 has not ended. It still continues because the flame of liberty and independence still burns in the heart of every American patriot.

And our future will be bigger, better, brighter, bolder, and more glorious than ever before. Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America. Amen. Good. Setting record all around. That's great. Good ending. Love. Appreciate it. I mean, we really want to go into the reactions. I mean, I've always said the reactions to the president's State of the Union address are boring. Well, Josh, no, this is different. I'm going to get water here real quick. This is different. This is different. Yes.

Because not only was there reactions, there was actually different programming, and I made Erika watch it. Yes, I did, and I am not going to have wasted my time, Josh. You have to sit there and listen about the frogs. So, here we go. We had two counter protests. Two counter... Programming is going on. The first that I will cover is the most outrageous. You have to just watch this footage here. Just show the visual. We've got, on the left, we're going to have...

Frogs are insane. I don't know if you can... Oh, this is the wrong clip. Man, I got the wrong clip. Oh, it does. We have those green things on the stage. Frog costumes. I defy his authoritarian project by standing in joyful, radical, peaceful resistance with the Portland...

Okay, so in fact, that was the Portland Frog Brigade. They hosted the State of the Swamp rebuttal to the State of the Union. This counter event, I was like, is this AI? What's happening? I thought it was fake. This organization, with the help of Defiance.org, the Portland Frog Brigade, shipped 238 inflatable frog costumes to Washington, D.C. Where they donned them, they walked around the Capitol building handing out copies of the U.S. Constitution, and then they attended this State of the Swamp, and LOL, frogs live in swamps.

Get it? Does anyone get it? Apparently, this became a thing in Oregon for the ICE protests, and one of the frogs was actually like wounded in action because they were counter-protesting ICE, and like an ICE agent like whacked him with a, I don't know. Anyway, it was very, very dramatic, but they are supposed to symbolize joy and peaceful defiance. So, they joined attendees like Robert De Niro and Mark Ruffalo, as well as Failed gubernatorial candidates Stacey Abrams, Don Lamon, and Brandon Johnston and Jabe Goodfry, the mayors of Chicago and Minneapolis, and that was that counter event.

Very fun. The other option you had, if you were a little bit more, you know, moderate Democrat on the spectrum, you had the People's State of the Union, which was hosted by Joy Reid on the National Mall. I actually went and watched her opening remarks. But I decided we can't listen to them, because it was laced with so many F-bombs, that if we bleeped them out, you couldn't hear any words. I heard she rapped.

She rapped? I just feel like... How do you feel, Josh? I feel like you slighted. Stacey Abrams, by calling her a failed gubernatorial candidate, when in fact, as we know from Star Trek, she was president of United Earth. So, give her a little respect. Facts. Put some respect on her name. I have received your mansplenation of my lack of charity. I'm sorry. It is a lack of charity.

Yeah, so then we got the formal response from the Democrats. They chose Abigail Spanberger, the new governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Yeah. To give this address, I watched the whole thing. It's only 12 minutes long, but I would recommend not watching it.

It felt like forever. I had to mute after five minutes. This was pre-written. She didn't actually rebut or address any of Trump's specific points at all. If this was high school debate, she would have received like a 28 out of 30 point score. It was a terrible address. It was all affordability. Democrats are laser focused on affordability. And then she brought up... Ice, the little boy in the blue bunny hat, and how Ice is ripping nursing children away from their mothers, which...

I mean, the boy in the bunny hat, the dad left, and the ice cream guys were like, let's make sure this kid is okay. Yes, and I was starting to fact check her, and then I realized this is not about facts, so I stopped wasting my time. Also, it's odd that they're choosing her as kind of the rising star. I guess she won that election in Virginia, but she's former CIA. I mean, she's basically a spook.

That's not a problem for the Democrats. Yes, I would think it would. When was that initially? I don't know. You think they would do... Andrea, do you have a problem with it? Tom, you're thinking like a normal person. I guess. I guess. Why not pick AOC? Why not pick a true star, quote-unquote, in the party, and you go with Spanberger, who is kind of uninspiring? Here, let me put this out. Because they want her to run for president in four years.

In a bipartisan effort, I think Turning Point USA's counter-programming halftime show might be a problem at this point, because if we got to counter-program... Everything now, I'm out on it. If Gavin Newsom becomes president, God forbid, in 2028, Republicans, please show up. Seriously, show up, wear a suit.

It was hilarious that they thought that this would... Right, no paddles. It's crazy that they thought that this would make them look like the adults in the room with, I don't know, the frogs, the F-bombs, the rapping, and then, like, I'm fine with the speech after, whatever.

Counter-programming the State of the Union? Grow up. Seriously, we used to have adults. Partaking Congress. Like, Representative Joe Wilson yelled, you lie to Obama during one of his State of the Union addresses, and almost every Republican actor was like, yeah, no, dude, that was not cool. Condemned that. Don't do that. Please. That was not okay. And so, we kind of policed our own, and we, you know, moved forward, and we, you know, and the Democrats, you know, again, double standards. Like, it's all baloney.

Like, they're like, they were aghast that. You know, some Republicans didn't show up for Biden's speech, and then now 70 of theirs didn't show up. I mean, like, it's... It's embarrassing. Absolutely embarrassing. So, I'm putting it out. Counter-programming, though. There's always, there's been this tradition going back decades and decades and decades of having... Given the other political party a chance to respond under this stupid thought that the fairness doctrine meant that you couldn't just allow the leader of one political party, even though he's the President of the United States.

Just talk uninterrupted to the audience. You have to allow for the other political point. It is a baloney law. It is stupid, and that is why no one has ever come out of the State of the Union response and having their stock go up. Oh, we will have Bobby Jindal do it, or we will have Marco Rubio do it, and then we will have... You know, Virginia Republican Governor Bob McDowell will do it, and it's just like, oh. Remember last time, wasn't it, it was a woman doing it in her kitchen?

I forget her name. It was brutal. Yeah, the senator from Alabama, Katie Britt. Brutal. Yeah, Katie Britt was rough. Brutal. Oh, I actually looked it up, so in 2016, it was Nikki Haley. She did the government response. Oh, my gosh. How far have we come? I mean, that's what I'm saying. You guys in the Generation Z are like, oh, this is so terrible. Did you have no idea how bad this was?

Nikki Haley. I would take a shit over Nikki Haley any day, have my disagreements with Katie Britt, but... It was just a bad... Look, I don't even know what she even is about, but the response was really bad and cringe. It's always bad, but the only good thing about it is it's forgettable. Yep. Yeah.

Just like the State of the Union, to be frank. No, actually, I think I remember this one. The State of the Union has a long tail on it. These clips will get shared. Again, you are right from the start on this, Erika. It is a long speech.

People watch it in sound bites afterwards. They see it on the local news or whatever, and for the most part, it would just be what... CNN, NBC, and ABC wanted you to see, but with the internet, you're like, you get to see the clips that you actually want. Oh my gosh, did you see this? And you can find the great clip you like and share it with all your friends. Did you see this? So, I do, whether you call it TikTok or Facebook or whatever, I much prefer this because we have the ability to share these clips.

Like, look how they respond. Like, really? Wow. So, it's very helpful. Thank you to the internet. Yeah, I saw one. Somebody had made a... An AI-generated image of, if Elon Musk had not bought Twitter, and it was the State of the Union, it had Kamala Harris, Tim Walz, and it came Jeffries, and then, like, rainbow flags behind them, and I was like, thank you, Elon. I saw a tweet, speaking of the U.S. hockey team kind of roaming the halls of the White House, and they were playing the song Free Bird while they were going through.

First off, awesome. And someone quote-tweeted it to be like, Biden's 31-year-old bisexual staffers would have played Pink Pony Club or something like that. And then also, you forget. I mean, yeah, you forget what was going on with the Biden administration, what a circus. Well, we got reminded last night. Yeah, seriously. Part of the gift of that. Very true. All right, let's rock good news now. Erika, what do you have? Yes, this is great news from my corner of the world, which I'm always happy to share.

So, the state of Vermont... There are these two couples. There are Pastor Brian Wuody and his wife, Katie, and Pastor Brian Gant and his wife, Rebecca. They had been foster parents for years in the state of Vermont, which has a massive dearth in available families compared to needy children. They had adopted children from foster care, and just a couple of years ago, after years in service to their state, They were told that their foster care licenses were going to be revoked unless they agreed to speak in ways, quote, that conflicted with their religious beliefs, wait for it, about gender and sexuality.

In other words, if they did not promise that they would affirm and endorse specific identities, including bisexuality, everything on the LGBTQ alphabet suit, then they would lose their licenses. And thank God for the Alliance Defending Freedom. They... They helped the couples to sue the state of Vermont, and just this week, we learned that Vermont officials revised their foster care, their Marxist foster care policy, and clarified, I loved the way they put this, we clarified that prospective foster parents are not, in fact, required to use preferred pronouns or affirm these identities as a condition of licensure.

That was a massive win for freedom of religion, freedom of speech in the state of Vermont. And yes, thank you to the two pastors and their wives, because going through that battle, I am sure, was hell for their families, not easy, but that win will hopefully set the standard, even in deep, deep blue states like where I live. So, wonderful news out of Vermont.

Awesome. Now, they just need to make more babies in Vermont. We do. Josh. Well, our president, Kelsey Reinhart, had a great article in First Things, and let me just give you, she says, this is the opportunity. Right now is the moment where the bishops must reclaim the church's full teaching on immigration. She said, a nation that cannot control its borders is not a nation.

That statement should not be controversial for Catholics. It is not a partisan slogan. It is a basic moral premise of political community. And yet, for years, many faithful Catholics have been left with the impression that the Church's teachings on immigration begins and ends with a single imperative, welcome the stranger, full stop.

Now, as the temperature drops in places like Minneapolis, And the national conversation becomes less apoplectic and more concrete. There is a window for real catechesis. This is precisely when our bishops should step forward and offer what the country badly needs, a better understanding of Catholic social teaching on immigration with the full architecture.

intact. I just, I have to commend this article, you know, just well stated. I mean, she says, the bishops can fix it by stating plainly what Catholic doctrine actually allows and requires, namely, that many nations may say yes, and nations may say no.

This is not that hard. This is not that complicated, but again, we have been browbeat on this. This article, I just cannot say it enough. She said, first, criticism of the how of enforcement, in other words, cannot be a backdoor denial of the why.

If every instrument of enforcement is portrayed as inherently cruel, then the only practical outcome is open borders by moral intimidation. That is not church teaching. It is an ideological posture. Kelsey Reinhart, for the win. So good. That's like Dominican training going in. That is. Speaking of ways I think that this might help, Josh, I'm going to tack it on. We were looking this morning.

The administration just today got approval from a judge to start using IRS data at DHS so illegals can be identified, because illegals do tend to pay taxes, and as a result, the IRS does. And they have bank accounts. They have bank accounts in the United States. Yep. That is the other thing, too. Trump is weighing a possible action or executive order to require banks to collect citizenship information from its customers.

That was going viral as of February 24th, yesterday. Okay. And... To me, so I was thinking about exactly the framing that Kelsey was putting on. I think it's easy to take the most extreme examples, which... We've seen a change in strategy. I think the more targeted approach from Tom Homan was a necessary revision. Amen. I don't think that people want special forces going in their neighborhoods and being loud in people's faces. Totally agree. Now, if you move on to, in my opinion, the bigger fish, and what we should be focusing on is the businesses that employ illegal aliens and illegal aliens that we know where they are, and they've been here for a long time, and we want to use enforcement action to clamp down on the benefits.

Remittances. These are humane legal ways to do this. There's actually a legal precedent for Trump to be able to do both of these things. I think that combined with repatriation efforts of, say, hey, we'll give you a couple thousand dollars. Yeah, the self-deportation. Right. Makes sense. So, now, if you're criticizing those things, again, I think it's revealing. When you bring that up, you're like, hey, this would be really humane. We have an illegal immigrant problem here. What is your problem with this?

And I think it reveals. A lot of people that it is actually not about the tactics, it is about the principle. And if you disagree on the principle, then we have a fundamental disagreement on principles. So, that was just a thought there. That is because the Chamber of Commerce wants cheap labor, and Democrats want more votes. Yes. Neither of which care about the average middle class family, or the working poor. They don't.

Yep. Agree. Okay, speaking of buyer's market. Here's a Redfin News article. America has 44% more home sellers than buyers, a near record gap. There are 600,000 more home sellers than buyers, giving buyers who are in the market negotiating power. Only five metro areas are sellers markets, most of which are located in the Northeast, South, and West are home to the strongest buyers markets. Very interesting. Keeps going up. I think it suggests, and then the other thing that I saw today on Zeal News, shout out.

Next is, we'll see if it loads here, mortgage rates drop below 6%, reaching the lowest level since 2022. So, listen, I'm not an expert. I think that they're, I think this is encouraging. Both of these signs are encouraging. These are good signs. It doesn't mean there's change happening right now, like we're going to get the big necessary event. And even in the State of the Union speeches talk about this, it's like, we want people to retain. The wealth that they've gained from the houses, but we also want people to be able to be entrants into the housing market.

And so, I think that the direction is positive right now. Yeah, I think so, too. I saw these as really good signs and just further signs that it's not hopeless, that things can move, that there's some, it's been such a frozen market for so long.

But this is the time for Trump to really... And all of our lawmakers to lean into the deregulation and to increasing the supply in terms of how much housing is available, especially in areas where the demand has been so high and kept the prices too high. So, yeah, I was encouraged by both of these signs. I think housing is so important, not only for looking at the midterms and 2028 politically, but also culturally in terms of... Just, we have got to build a culture that encourages people to get married, and housing is a huge, huge part of that.

Get married, have kids. So, yeah, this gave my heart a little leap. Erika, I agree with you, is that it's like a fork, right? So that if you get that ability to get into a house, and then you get married, and you have family formation, and then... Your ties to your community grow, you bring forward more children. Yeah, it's a snowball. It's a snowballing effect. Two metaphors. It's the opposite, where you have too many men or women that are single, and now there are many good, holy people who are single.

I'm not trying to throw shade on this, but again, the idea is usually the normative here is to be in a marriage and to have children, and that, I mean. Who doesn't understand this who is married? By getting married and having children, it is denial of the self. It is denial of the self. It is service to your spouse and to your children. That's what it is, and that's just, in general, will create a better society when people are trying to think of not just what is good for themselves personally, but for the next generation.

I'm not trying to say single people are selfish, but I am saying that marriage as an institution and having children and... Family formation is, in general, a very positive element for society, one that society has an interest in promoting. We're not just all individual economic actors in a marketplace.

We're more than that. Man does not live by bread alone. Amen. Good Lenten reminder. I love that scripture. Okay, Josh, to our zone. Well, it's, you know... This whole thing about, I know you're going to get into, Elaine. Claimed it.

Yeah, that's fine. But I just want to point out, ESPN has a channel on Twitter, ESPNW. You know, for wins, but it's for women, right? So, they're like, you can't win without women. So, they have this little photo of the one figure skater who's, you know, she's got the weird streaks in her hair or whatever. She's very nice. She's very pleasant. And ESPN's like, eight of the 12 USA gold medals were won by women.

Can't win without women. And I'm thinking to myself, wait a minute, ESPN and the lamestream media actually know what a woman is? This is fascinating. I had no idea. But I do want to get into, just for half a second here, I'll let you cover the media treatment for the most part, but I do want to just bring up this fact that this figure skater, I forget her name now.

The one that is in the picture. Alyssa Liu. Yeah, Alyssa Liu. She's not, like, objectively, like, very gorgeous. I don't go for the digging of the difference, dyeing of the hair. She's got some weird thing on her teeth. Where are we going with this, John? Now, hold on a second.

Now, Elaine Gu, objectively speaking, is, I think, more physically attractive, by far. But I would wager to bet, and by the way, for me, I'm a happily married man, I'd be willing to bet that if you grabbed 100 men who are single, they'll still pick Elisa Liu over Elaine Gu, and I'll tell you why. Why? Because Elaine Gu is in love with herself, and there is something to be said. I mean, like this...

You know, Eliza Liu, whatever, she's got a warm personality. She's bubbly. She's got joy. Well, do you know the backstory? Here's my point. You don't even need the backstory. When men are looking at this, and they look at it, and they go, she seems nice. She seems pleasant. She seems funny. I would like to go to a bar with her. Hang out with her. Right. And you look at Elaine Gu, and you're like, danger, Will Robinson.

So, this is the point. I tried to make it. What is the point? There is something to be said. I mean, if you want a deep theological thing on this. Sure. St. John Vianney would talk about the fact that our souls have a scent, and if you are You know, riddled with sin that you actually give off an odor. There's this one famous woman that was coming through the R's and he was like, he had him step back and move away.

And everyone was like, oh, here comes a celebrity. And he was, St. John Vianney backed up, backed up. He goes, the stench of your soul is too bad. I can't handle it. This is gross. And so, pride. And sin can actually make you unattractive, because Elaine Gu is, objectively speaking, like standards of beauty, a beautiful woman. She's blood-smacking. She's a model for a reason, but she has this kind of pride and so enamored with herself. It's totally off-putting, and it's disgusting.

So, that's what I wanted to emphasize in the Twilight Zone. I also want to point out, by the way, there's a new interview. Uh, over at Crux. That was, sorry, that was the crazy, I know, that was like Captain Sully flipping, doing flips, and landing in the Hudson. I can't, I, if you were to give me a million guesses, and said that it's actually going to come back to St. John Vianney.

That repugnancy of sin in the soul, I would have failed. That was unbelievable. Josh, you are one in a million. It was like one of those freestyle routines going down the mountain. Yeah, it was like the one that got flipped up and then came down backwards and ended up winning.

That's incredible. Okay. Sorry, I had to break. I love you. No, you can go years now. I'll save my energy. No, no, no, no. I want crux. Well, it is a fascinating interview. The U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See, also known as my good friend Brian Birch, sat down with Elise Ann Allen, the widow of John Allen, who just passed away recently, and they talked about the Catholic moment with Pope Leo, and there's the two guys from Chicago there in the graphic there, and they talked about artificial intelligence, they talked about religious freedom, and they obviously also, of course, talked about...

The one most obvious flashpoint of disagreement between the United States and the Holy See, and that is on immigration. And I just think that Brian did a very admirable job. He talked about how it's... There's a tension between two goods. Like, yes, you want to help other people. You want to welcome the stranger. Yes, that's a good thing. But you also want to make sure you have rule of law and order in your own country. So, like this idea that how could you be against welcoming the stranger?

It's more than that. It's trying to find out what's the right balance for different countries and stuff like that. So, I thought, overall, just a very well-rounded and good interview. Go to Crux Now. Yeah, I kind of want to, do you know the exact point here? I see, I actually am curious now. So, there's many areas where the Holy See in the United States do have a lot of common ground.

What do you think are the strongest points of interaction and dialogue between the United States and what we see at this point? Well, I mean, the point that Brian said is that U.S. immigration law is, quote, not rooted in hate or xenophobia. Like, that was his big point he's trying to make here.

Let's see. Armchair theologian. The administration of our immigration law is something where I suspect the Holy See and the United States will never be perfectly aligned, but I think there is something important here to emphasize, and that is there are two sets of moral goods that are often in tension, and this is the report. Namely, he said there is the U.S. need to, quote, protect the safety, security, and coherence of our laws.

And that is coupled with, quote, the emphasis from the Holy See's part to welcome the stranger, to provide a sense of welcome to the poor and vulnerable. So, he says, how you resolve those moral tensions is often not perfect. And he lamented the recent killing of U.S. citizens by immigration officials in Minneapolis. Yeah, interesting.

Yeah, he is in a... There's the interview they had, and there's a follow-up story that they had done on immigration. So, if you're looking for that, let me just give you that. Yeah, shoot it out. That in there, I don't know. Give me a second on this. Did he say that the Vatican has a theological claim to all of Italy?

No, Tom, no. Don't go there. We almost made it through the whole show. I had to do it. I had to do it. No, I do think about Brian a lot, though, of what an interesting position he's in as the ambassador, and a Catholic.

Of course, doing a great job from what I've seen. That's cool. I actually need to read that interview. I didn't see it yet, because I feel like we don't hear from Brian as much. Well, obviously, we hear from Brian every day, but not as public, I guess, or maybe there's just less emphasis. Some of us get messages from him from time to time. Yeah, some people are closer than others, for sure.

Hey, maybe I'll go see him. I'm actually going to head over. Yeah, there you go. All right, cool. Erika. Okay, this is, you know, February is a hard month. February is tough. February is when I want to throw in the towel on parenting and homeschooling and what have you. It's an honest month.

It is. It's a short month, too. We have like two more inches of snow today, but we have this encouraging new report from Institute Family Studies where I have been renewed in my commitment to strong parenting. So, we have 24,000 parents were surveyed, and it turns out that Stricter parenting is harder, but results in better relationships with your kids. So, a couple of really interesting things in this report. It is a great read.

This was a really cool one, too. So, the report said that when is parenting hardest? So, dads report saying that parenting is hardest when the kids are two years old and younger. So, those infant-toddler ages are the toughest on dads, but moms say that parenting is harder.

Four years old and up. So, to me, kids need both moms and dads, and dads and moms need each other. So, that was kind of a cool thing. I don't know if that tracks with y'all's experience. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, you think the babies are the hardest?

Absolutely. Yeah. I am on the verge of having five teenagers, right? Yeah. Because when Johnny hits 13, so yeah, and this is like, to me, much better. And my wife is like, oh, I love them, and they're so little and tiny and snuggly and all. Nah, dude, I'd much prefer when I'm like, I don't have to turn my back and I'm afraid they're going to put something in a light socket. Are you kidding me? Yeah. I think it seems, at least to me, it seems like there's more that I can do.

I feel somewhat limited when, obviously... I guess it depends on what political side of the aisle I'm on. I can't breastfeed. I can't chestfeed. I don't know what they're calling it these days. I can't do that. So, it does feel limiting in some way.

Do we need to study for it? I don't know, but it feels like women obviously have more of a nature for nurturing and carry the baby for nine months in their womb, so there's just a different soothing type relationship. I could try my best, but I'm never going to replace a mother, so I feel like a lot of that work happens in that one, too, and then I'm, let's just say, it's a lot easier for me to throw down on my three-year-old, like, all right, buddy, we're going up to the room.

This is getting crazy. Time out. So, that sounds easy, but we'll see. The other piece that was fun from this, I mentioned up top, stricter parenting is harder, but better relationships are reported both by parents who are stricter parenting. They say it's harder to be strict, but we have better relationships, and by their teenage children. So, teenagers who were more strictly parented report having better relationships with their parents. So, it said, parental-enforced rules are mostly associated with Better relationship with kids.

Both in parents and teenagers, these rules that they surveyed included having a curfew, a bedtime, screen time limits, restricted sleepovers, which I was really happy to see because I get a lot of slack from that for my kids, and forced outdoor time. So, controlling for all the stuff, they discovered that the highest payoff of those really strict rules, if you're looking for, okay, I can only take enforcing one set of strict rules, the highest payoff, so like, Lowest resistance from kids, best relationship outcomes is enforcing outdoor time.

So, if you were wondering, I can only do one thing. I'm going to enforce kicking him outside for one, two, three hours a day. You know, that's not surprising to me at all, Erika, because it feels to me that I can see why it's acknowledged on both sides, because it's almost, well, one, order is of God, and there should be proper order. Just as the church has ordered of proper hierarchy of authority, but if we want to set that aside for a second, it feels like there's more effort.

In order to parent harder, it requires effort. It's arduous. It's not easy, and I think that that is recognized by both the children and the parents. So, even if I disagree or even if this is annoying at the time, you look back, you're like, my parents actually really cared about me because they did things that were hard and would have been much easier for them to be. Let me do my own thing.

It's kind of like relationships in general. Like, if you love someone, you have hard conversations with them. At the time, you think, oh, man, this is going to be terrible. Yeah, I blew it. And then you leave being like, wow, I actually feel closer to you now because you were really honest with me.

And so, it's cool to see that show up in surveys. It's always funny when I see stuff like this. It's like we needed a survey for this. I mean, I guess you kind of do. Exactly, exactly. But it's, yeah, that's a cool, good find, Erika. That is.

I don't know if that... Is that Twilight Center good news? It feels like a little bit of both. A little bit of both. Why not? And why not? Love that. Could have both. Love that. Okay, mine is going to be less theologically profound in twisting and turning than Josh.

I, just like others, have been observing the treatment of our Olympic athletes. Yes. And so... Here is Eileen Gu, Josh's favorite looks maxer. She was the highest earner in the 2026 Winter Olympics. The scientist, politician, skier, model, and student is like a magician. The audience dazzled by her mastery, but somewhat irked how she does it. Now, why you might feel a little bit ruffled as American is because we provided everything for her, and then she decided to compete for the Chinese.

Not Americans. There was a time in this country that if you were to make that decision, let's say during the Cold War, and you wanted to go compete for Russia, you would be heckled in the streets by Americans because that's traitorous. And she's getting the puff piece glow from the New York Times. But, of course, our American boys. The hockey players. It's nice to be feted as a winner, as the U.S. men's Olympic hockey team has been, but who's celebrating you and why they're doing it matters more.

Athletes would be wise to recognize that in this climate, celebration is easily repurposed into political capital. Oh, my gosh. Debbie Downer. Can I get the Debbie Downer meme from Saturday Night Live? Big time thumbs down. Big time thumbs down. I can't believe it. Then, yeah, of course, you get over to Vox. You have a... Eileen Gu, three medals, one gold. Like, she's not American. Why are we even? I don't understand. That's total rage bait. She competed for the Chinese.

This isn't Chinese media. Go over to Chinese media and celebrate her. This is America. I'm rage baited. Cortisol spike. Eileen Gu won three medals, one gold and two silver, and Milana now has six total medals over the span of two. Quadrennials. She also made herself one of the most profitable and recognizable athlete in the 2026 Winter Olympics. And you go over to the, they said she was the winner. And then they go over and say, loser, the US men's hockey team.

And all the conditioning on this is just, I'm being rage baited by the copy, but you're rage beating me. I'm getting stressed out. Even though they won a momentous and hard fought gold medal game against chief rival Canada, even though. It's just only our first gold medal since Miracle, an amazing film that you probably hate.

The U.S. men's hockey team and its fans barely got a chance to savor it. Thanks to an Instagram Live and subsequent leaked video, we know the players partied with Kash Patel and took a congratulatory phone call from President Donald Trump. During the call, Trump also made a joke about reluctantly having to invite the U.S. women's team, too.

Boo-hoo! Boo-hoo! One of my favorite parts of the... One of my favorite parts of the State of the Union, the USA chants. There's nothing like a USA chant. Everyone should partake when it starts. There's no bad reason to have a USA chant. USA chant, platinum, triple platinum every time you hear it, and I'm sick of these people conditioning our boys, our good Michigan boys, winning the first gold medal, making the country proud. And now you, like, you have to be sorry for winning now?

Like, who can, you won for the country. I'm not sorry for, the only reason you don't have to be sorry for, also, they didn't even bring up that this Eileen Guczyk was supposed to win gold and didn't. She won silver. She didn't even win gold, and they're just slobbering all over her. Competing for another country. It'd be one thing if she didn't get gold for America. She took all the training and went to China.

Okay, so here is the thing. I mean, Donald Trump basically joked with these hockey players, like, oh boy, if I don't invite the women, they are going to really overreact and get really angry, and boy, did the women prove him totally wrong. I know, they played right into it. I am like, girls, girls, please, please, no.

He said at the State of Union speech that they are going to come. They are going to come. They are actually going to come after all, it sounds like, at a different time, but the men had more opportunity because they're NHL players, and they can easily fly, and they make a ton of money, or whatever. It's not a big deal. The teams will fly them back, or whatever, but... Can I ask you guys a question? I was thinking about this and asked my wife.

Erika, you just won the gold medal. What would your sport of choice be? Curling? Oh, no. Mine would be the long-distance cross-country skiing. Okay. If I had just the strength to... ...for three hours in the mountains. How cool would that be? Erika crushed some chick from Norway, and she got the gold medal. Everyone's loving it. Awesome. Representing Connecticut, and you got invited to the White House, and so my question is... So, if it's Gavin Newsom, or Biden, or whatever, would you still go?

Heck yeah. Is there a line where you're like, I would not attend? So, is there something where you're like, I couldn't attend? Or is it always going to be, this is the president, you go to the White House, you get invited, you go? Yeah, I think, yes, I think there would be cases where I would not go to the White House, but I don't think Joe Biden reached that level, that threshold for me. I mean, Matt Burke chose not to go because of Obama.

I remember that. I don't remember that, but that's interesting. Matt Burke was with the Baltimore Ravens. They won the Super Bowl, and Matt Burke, good Catholic guy, is like, I'm not going. And so, I mean, I respect that. If he decided that he was going to go, I wouldn't have a problem with it either. Because Bucker, for example, like Bucker won, and he's still winning. We're a pro-life tie, whatever. But I think I'd still go. I think there's very little that would stop me from...

Attending a State of the Union, going to the White House, it's the president. Yeah, because to me, it's my house. To me, that White House is my house, right? This is my country. He works for me. So, yeah, I'm happy to go, even if he actually works actively against things that I hold very dear. But yeah, to me, it's more like the office, the ceremony, the being proud to be American. Can I imagine a world like... If we elected a guy who turned into Joseph Stalin and was, like, famine-ing out Indiana, I wouldn't go, but we're not quite there yet.

Okay, but so, this raises an important question, though, because what Tom was getting at before, though, was this blew up on Twitter like crazy, right? Like, all these women were talking about how offended they were that President Trump joked like this. Yes. And I'm just, like, wondering to myself, like... Have we entered a completely humorless age? You know, that was what we had five years ago with all this stuff, 2019, 2020, the height of progressivism, and I think Americans have had it with this stuff.

We should be able to have like a good-hearted jab at each other. There are tendencies that men have that are kind of dumb, and that women should be able to poke fun at. I think they'd be fine, and then they asked the mom of the, you know. The Hughes mom, Ellen, I think is her name, they asked her on the Today Show or something, I guess, like, what about this joke? And she's like, basically was like, trying to be as polite as possible.

Like, obviously did not care that joke. Who cares? Like, give me a break. She's like, I'm happy for the women's hockey team. She was a consultant on them. They won gold. And then her son wins the game winning goal for the men. Like, how could she not be happy? Why are we distracted with these silly, stupid, like, freak out about a joke? I feel. I'd like to say, today, we should have permission to poke gentle fun. Now, here's the thing. I always tell my kids about this.

We're talking about a joke. Oh, parenting. Okay. If you're saying a joke, and you intend it to be mean, as an insult, to hurt someone, then it's not okay. If it's to poke fun and to laugh together, oh, yeah, you got me, I think that's fine. And so, in that spirit. I would like to share a joke from comedian Drew Carey many, many years ago. Oh, I thought you were going to say something really mean about me.

I thought you were leading up to that. When Drew Carey gave a speech to the White House Correspondents Dinner, there's George W. Bush and his wife, Laura Bush, and he decides to tell a little joke about politics and world leaders, and here's where we go. Okay.

I was at a party, and somebody said to me, they said, you know, if women ran the world, there'd be no war. I was like, yeah, right. I'm sure no one would start a stupid fight for no reason if women ran the world.

Hi, this is England. How come I'm being invaded? Oh, I think you know why. I saw the way you were looking at France. No way. That's perfect. And his bipartisan audience. 20 years ago, laughed their butts off because it was funny. It was poking fun in a gentle way, not in a mean way. We can do this as a country again. We can be like this. And that's what Donald Trump was doing. He was a gentle joke. Oh, they're going to go crazy.

Oh, you're right, Jack. They're going to impeach me if I don't invite the women. I better do that, too. And, boy, you know. Well, he started off by saying, like, oh, it's kind of an average performance from the goalie. Oh, he totally busted his chops. Seriously, grow up. People are so annoyed about that. The funny thing that has been revealed about this is how soft hockey Twitter is. I don't know if this is getting in the weeds here. Oh, my gosh.

We all have so horrible. Sports reporters are worse than political reporters. Yeah, totally, totally, but I saw a tweet. It said, basically, that hockey Twitter, oh, I have to unfollow my favorite player now because they follow someone that I don't like. And then it said, NBA Twitter, I just made an edit of Shy Gilgis Alexander as a terrorist leader. That's so true. And if hockey Twitter is so liberal because they have too many Canadians in there. The Canadians ran into the Americans on hockey Twitter, and it was glorious.

They had no idea. They just didn't even know how to act. It was like getting smashed by a wall, like a huge wave. I wasn't even that big of a hockey fan, but I've always loved the movie Miracle, and then that game, watching this game, the men's hockey, I'm in. I want to start watching hockey more. That one and the Four Nations classic when they started the flights. I'm serious. I wasn't following the NHL, really. I mean, I used to be a bigger Red Wings fan, and they're actually getting good again, which is awesome.

Dylan Larkin, shout out. He's on that team, but the Four Nations Classics came around, and any time it involves us beating Canada or beefing with Canada in pretty much every sport I'm in, I was in. It was such an easy sell. This is the best. It just brings people together. That's the kind of funny thing is people are kind of telling on themselves. This is a cool event. It's a great event for Americans as an American. I feel like I was talking to Simon about this, too.

The Winter Olympics had more cachet this year. I don't know if it's better marketed or it was because people are just looking for something to cheer for, and they want some positivity, which could also be part of it. And so, the people are telling themselves that are just hyper nitpick negative on stupid stuff. And so, you don't even have the sense to enjoy. You've conditioned yourself to just look for these nitpick negatives and to somehow see it as a negative to go to the State of the Union address with a medal, wearing a United States sweater, celebrating an accomplishment.

It's like you kind of lost the plot a little bit. And you're right, Josh. I feel like, as well, the last election was a memorandum on the joke police. Absolutely. And the gender of police and everything. Because what they're trying to do is they're trying to shut people down.

You know, the leader of the Barstool Sports in New York City, she was, like, scolding people for not apologizing for laughing at a joke. Shut up, woman. Well, hold up. Hold up, Josh. Oh, plane's back in the air.

Landed it. Landed it, Josh. Okay. What an episode. This was great. What an episode. I feel like, yeah, it felt vintage. The last time we did the State of the Union reaction, it felt very similar. It is a good time. Thank you, Trump. Thank you, Donald Trump. When we were prepping this show, Tom was like, can Trump just give a State of the Union every month? Can we do this like once a month? Seriously, it would be better for his poll numbers.

This is vintage. Instead, we got to hear about the leaks and all the bad stuff. It is like, just get him doing this, and his poll numbers would be much better. Okay. Again, Time Across America, you want to see me ice fishing, that is available for your viewing pleasure. You can throw that in the chat. Again, it will be in the description. Just go right below, and go ahead and subscribe on the Time Across America YouTube channel. A lot of good things coming.

Scott Hahn interview coming up. Excellent. And then again, we are moving to one time a week. It will be on Wednesday. It will be extended, and we want your questions. Lubecast at CatholicBoard.org is where you can send those questions. We want to make that more of a regular part of the show, so we appreciate your help.

And we'll end in our daily prayer. That is the prayer for America 250 by Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke. In the name of the Father, Son, and 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.

Amen. St. Thomas More, St. Fidelis, Our Lady of Guadalupe. Pray for us. Great show, gang. We'll catch you on Friday for another one. We got Scott Hahn interview dropping tomorrow. See you then. Peace.