Trump's Disastrous Interview on China and H1-B Visas, Al-Qaeda In WH, And Pope Leo Movie Recs

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. Guys, I'm not going to lie. Not gonna lie. I've been mad since 9.30 p.m. last night when I saw this interview with Laura Ingram. Trump, some really, really strange, depressing answers on issues near and dear to my heart, including the American workforce. So, we're gonna go over those clips and talk about the context a little bit. Also, very strange seeing a man with a $10 million bounty on his head as of a year ago in the White House playing basketball with generals that is the new Syrian president.

I had Erika go collect some information. It was a bit of a whiplash. I remember even just talking to my dad, like, hey, did you see this? What are you talking about? So, we've got to get into that as well. We have a new president of the USCCB, and Josh has some good information on that one, so we are going to break down what does that mean, what does it mean for the future, is it a signal to anything, and of course, don't worry, good news.

We're going to do it today. Twilight Zone, all the good stuff. But before we get into that, the reason we could do today's show, today's LOOPcast sponsor, Ave Maria Mutual Funds. Now more than ever, Catholics want to align their investments with their moral beliefs, and a great way to do that is by investing in pro-life, pro-family mutual funds from Ave Maria. Professionals at Ave Maria have a morally responsible investment philosophy that's aligned with Catholic teaching, and their search for attractive investments, they apply moral screens to eliminate companies that engage in support for abortion, pornography, embryonic stem cell research, or that make corporate contributions to Planned Parenthood, an advisory board composed of prominent Catholics meets regularly to guide the fund's choice of moral criteria.

Since its founding in 2001, Ave Maria has become the largest Catholic mutual fund family in the United States. And now manages over $3.8 billion in assets for Catholics and other investors who have pro-life, pro-family values. Start your morally responsible investment journey today by visiting AveMariaFunds.com slash LOOPcast, and the link below, the good people at Ave Maria will send you a free information kit. You can also get the kit by calling 1-866-AVE-MARIA or use the promo code LOOPcast. That's 1-866-AVE-MARIA or clicking the link below.

We will throw that in the description. In the chat and the description for you guys to check it out. Offering Maria mutual funds just make it really easy for you to feel good about your investing, to take advantage of compound interest, and set up a future for you and your family. Really appreciate the service that they provide, specifically for Catholics, so go check them out. Really appreciate them sponsoring the show. And, of course, the OG, Charity Mobile. Look, we have a little bit of a holiday-themed Christmas baby for Charity Mobile.

Are you still spending your hard-earned money with a phone company who doesn't value you or your beliefs? Charity Mobile is a pro-life... Phone companies serving pro-life customers and causes, they send 5% of your monthly plan price to the pro-life, pro-family charity of your choice at no extra cost to you.

And not only that, Charity Mobile has never raised their mobile plan prices in their 30-year history, and all plans start under $50 before taxes and surcharges. You get the same nationwide coverage as the big guys and their friendly live customer services based right here in the United States, plus Charity Mobile is running a special promotion for the entire Christmas season.

I think we're getting close. I don't think this is Christmas easy yet, but I think it counts right now. Now, through February 2nd, new customers can use promo code LOOPcast to get a free phone with every new line, plus free activation, free shipping, and a free power bank, while supplies last. Switch to Charity Mobile, and buy the way you believe to get started. Visit CharityMobile.com and use promo code LOOPcast. That's CharityMobile.com, promo code LOOPcast. All right, time to get into the episode.

Thank you, Charity Mobile. Starting up with a little context. So, this interview was kind of slow-rolled over two days. So, one came out about the Chinese students two days ago, I believe, and then the one that came out last night really set the internet on fire about Trump's stance on H-1B visas. It was done with Laura Ingraham in the Fox News opinion section.

Slow roll it out there for you. We are going to start with the Chinese students. Those are the two major takeaways. There were other points made in the interview, but these are the ones that really stuck out. So, I am going to start with Chinese students at universities, and then we can go from there.

We'll push to get folks are not thrilled about this idea of hundreds of thousands of foreign students in the United States. We have about 350,000 Chinese. At one point during COVID, you were going to push to get them out, but that was pulled back. You've said as many as 600,000 Chinese students could come to the United States. Why, sir, is that a pro-MAGA position when so many American kids want to go to school, and there are places not for them, and these universities are getting rich off Chinese money?

Sure. Never said about China, but we do have a lot of people coming in from China. We always have, China and other countries. We also have a massive system of colleges and universities, and if we were to cut that in half, which perhaps makes some people happy, you would have half the colleges in the United States go out of business. Sounds great. I think that is a big deal. Are they fans of the United States? Yeah, but you would have, as you know, historically black colleges and universities.

Would all be out of business? You would have a system of colleges. And universities would go down the tubes. So, we're dependent on China to keep our university system going? No, not China, but I think it's good to have outside countries. Look, I want to be able to get along with the world. They're not the French. They're the Chinese. They spy on us. They steal our intellectual property. What, do you think the French are better? Yeah. Really? I'll tell you. I'm not so sure.

We've had a lot of problems with the French, where we get taxed very unfairly on our technology. They put 25% taxes on American products. Look, assuming everyone treats us badly, because that is the way I am, but we take in trillions of dollars from students. You know, the students pay more than double when they come in from most foreign countries.

I want to see our school system thrive, but at the same time, I know you and I disagree. We are never going to agree on it, but that is okay. And it is not that I want them, but I view it as a business. We have millions and millions of people. Also, I want to get along with countries if possible. You know, people are shocked. Remember Hillary Clinton said, we'll be in a war. I stopped eight wars in the last nine months.

I don't want to be in wars. If I am in a war, we're going to win the thing fast, and it'll be violent. But you know what? I don't want to be in wars. But one thing. You don't want to cut half of the people, half of the students from all over the world that are coming into our country, destroy our entire university and college system. I don't want to do that.

Interesting, because you wanted to do that. Don't threaten me with a good time. Wait, wait, it's not even that I want to do that. You wanted to do that not long ago. By the way. Weren't you just raising all these universities over the, quote, anti-Semitism going on? And revoking visas and everything?

Go ahead, Josh. I'm sorry. He was worried about the historic black colleges shutting down. The number of Asian students total at historically black colleges is very, very low. Right. And that's not, I'm sorry. What? How many Chinese students are going to... Let's talk about racism. Historically black colleges. Do you think the Chinese want to go to black colleges and universities? Yeah, no. He was just shooting off the mouth. Can I...

He looks at it like he's a boomer businessman. I'm so angry about this, and I'm angry about this because you yourself changed your position on this strangely around the time you went and met with President Xi and talked about taking tariffs down, because not only is this the 350,000 foreign students that come and take places from Americans that could be learning, because of course, where do you get the best jobs? It's at the best colleges, and anytime you give those spots to foreign students, I don't care that they pay more.

Harvard has a big enough endowment. Those are spots taken away from Americans that could be in better positions. What do you mean, sort of? Well, I mean... It is not like a fixed pie. So, what happens is, as more and more foreign students come into the country for our colleges, these colleges and universities in our country have expanded, and that is kind of my problem. I feel like they have expanded beyond what they should. It is not like they completely shut out domestic students or whatever, and there is some displacement, but overall, my bigger problem with it is that, no, we want other cultures and other countries.

To develop their own university system. I mean, having a few of these people in, if it's like 5%, like, fine, you know. But like, you know, 600,000 students from foreign countries, like, what? And like, having several hundred thousand just from China? No, no, no, no. Not interested. I mean, in Michigan, they had several.

Well, that was what they all banged into us, right, was Trump himself, national security concerns, fears of intellectual property theft, espionage linked to the Chinese Communist Party, stealing U.S. technology and jobs, extending this to universities as conduits for such activities. No direct welcoming statements on students were recorded during this period. And now, strangely… We get a meeting with China, where the tariffs are going to come down, and we're going to double the amount of students that come to the United States.

I mean, what a slap in the face. I was even looking at STEM graduates, right, because people always make the argument, well, the people from China, the people from India, they come, they're able to work in tech, they take these high-paying jobs. We need them. We don't have these skills.

Currently, we have, of the 12 to 15 million U.S. adults, this is 25 to 64, holding a bachelor's degree in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics. Only about 27% are employed in jobs classified by STEM occupations. The read on this, we have an oversupply of people that have STEM degrees that are not working in STEM. They have the skills, or maybe their skills need to be slightly changed, but clearly these are not dumb people. It's hard to get a STEM degree in America, and that's not even including just the U.S.-born statistic.

The U.S.-born statistic is 23% to 25% have STEM degrees that are actually working in STEM. Now, I just don't understand, what is the message we're sending to American students? You're told, no, no, no, these spots are going to go to Chinese students because they pay full price. Well, why should I not have access to the academic institutions in my own country? I can't go anywhere else. Am I going to have to go somewhere else? I was under the impression that the trade was, you work hard, you get good grades, you go into STEM, that's what everyone wanted you to do, and then you get employed based on...

That hard work, and the answer is no, we're going to bring in people elsewhere to do that work. I'm going to get to H-1Bs, but education is a key part of this, because, oh my gosh, Harvard graduates, all the Ivy League graduates, they take up the most important positions in business and society, the highest paid, the most successful. They all come from there. Presidents come from there, etc. If you're blocking out Americans from those spots, you therefore block them out from those influence circles.

So, why are we doubling that number for China, let alone what we do with other countries? Right, and this is precisely, this is the The precise argument being made by Linda McMahon and the Department of Education when they were throwing it down with Harvard all summer, if you remember. Harvard's student, the graduate students at Harvard, 30%, almost 30%, it's like 27.2% of those students are foreign-born. And Josh, it might be that bringing in more students allows the school to expand, so maybe you get a raw number of American students that's bigger.

But I agree with Tom that It's an overbloated system. It's not just in STEM. It's every higher level degree in this country. We have an oversupply of people who are getting these degrees, and there's no jobs for them, right? There's no jobs in their field. So, that's one issue. And then, absolutely, these foreign students are taking the place of American students, and a big reason for that being that the foreign students who come in, Trump mentioned this, they pay full tuition often.

countries, and they come and their governments pay. In the case of China, where they come from wealthier families, as in the case of the Middle East and Dubai, and so they are a cash cow for these universities. And, I mean, P.T. Keenan was talking a few, she, two years ago, her oldest son, who had like a 4.2 GPA in high school, was the captain of multiple sports teams. He couldn't, he didn't get into UCLA. He was waitlisted, and it's because there weren't enough seats that he wasn't one of the preferred students because he would have been on scholarship.

So, I think that all of this, but all of that to boil down to just four short months ago when Harvard And the Trump administration, we're throwing things down, and it's like, we've got to blow this up. We have to, you know, reduce... Tax the endowments. Tax the endowments, and now it's like... Yeah, but we're going to bring in 600,000 Chinese students alone. It's just a total betrayal. It's completely irrelevant to me what country they're from, and I get the CCP concerns, but if our university system is going to only exist, if half of all universities only exist because we allow foreign students that are going to pay more money than Americans who can't afford to even get the thing, blow it up.

Yeah, they shouldn't exist. Seriously, they shouldn't exist, and it's insane that this man ran on this. And told us over and over again, changes are coming, and then to flip right after meeting with China. It's just so obvious what happened here. They had to sign some kind of deal, and they sold out my cohort. These are my, my. Comrades. Not to use a communist term here. Wait, what? Are you voting for Medani? What's going on? The frustration is we go to college, and you can't get into the best college because you have to compete with people who are willing to pay full price, which of course gives them an advantage.

After years of affirmative action, discriminating against you based on your race and skin, which we finally just got rid of, great. Step in the right direction. And then even if you do a great job, there's not a job waiting for you because I'm going to get into this H-1B thing.

I'm honestly at a loss for words. This is worse. Then the China thing, but we'll play that clip now. Republicans have to talk about it a lot. And does that mean the H-1B visa thing will not be a big priority for your administration? Because if you want to raise wages for American workers, you can't flood the country with tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of foreign workers. Well, I agree, but you also do have to bring in talent.

Well, we have plenty of talented people here. No, you don't. No, you don't. We don't have talented people here. No, you don't have certain talents, and people have to learn. You can't take people off an unemployment. Like an unemployment line and say, I'm going to put you into a factory where we're going to make missiles, or I'm going to put you into... How did we ever do it before? Well, let me just... When you and I were growing up. I'll give you an example.

In Georgia, they raided because they wanted illegal immigrants out. They had people from South Korea that made batteries all their lives. You know, making batteries are very complicated. It's not an easy thing. They're very dangerous. A lot of explosions, a lot of problems.

They had like 500 or 600 people. Early stages to make batteries and to teach people how to do it. Well, they wanted them to get out of the country. You're going to need that, Laura. I mean, I know you and I disagree on this. You can't just say a country is coming in, going to invest $10 billion to build a plant and take people off an unemployment line who haven't worked in five years, and they're going to start making missiles. It doesn't work that way.

You're the one who kicked them out. Right. Yeah, who's we? First off, he's wrong about the Hyundai example. The reason that that plant was raided is because three people died due to safety issues at that plant, so OSHA showed up and noticed that hundreds of people were being paid $5 an hour and working on B1 visas, which violated our visa program. That's why we were there. They weren't there training Americans. This is you. This is your administration. You don't know that?

And then to say to the American people, no, we don't have talent here, take away all the arguments, right, over the H-1B visa, which I have many. It's fraudulent. He himself has acknowledged in the past it's fraudulent. To say to the American people, no, you don't have talent here. You can't do the job. Who is this man, and what did you do with Trump? It's the opposite on everything you ran for. That's something I expect to hear out of Hillary Clinton.

Not President Donald Trump, who ran with the support and love of these people, who is now telling, no, you can't do it. Regardless of the semantics, to just dump on the American people at a time where youth unemployment is at almost all-time highs of 10%. We have mass layoffs from all of these major companies, Amazon, UPS, and the stock market keeps going up. That just seems to be the threat here. Sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice, but the stock market goes up, and we can make these deals abroad.

That's just fine with me. Look who he's meeting with tonight. He's meeting with all the tech industry titans at a private dinner in this gala ballroom that he's doing. It's too rich. This, of course, explains it, but you're selling me out. You're selling out the working American to do this, and it just drives me insane. I'm going to blackmail on all this. I mean, do I even need to get into his past statements on the H-1B? I literally have a copy here of it.

Megan Kelly asked about highly skilled immigration. The H-1B program is neither high-skilled nor immigration. These are temporary foreign workers imported from abroad for the explicit purpose of substituting for American workers at lower pay. I remain totally committed to eliminating rampant, widespread H-1B abuse and ending outrageous practices such as those that occurred at Disney in Florida when Americans were forced to train their foreign replacements. I will end forever the use of H-1B as a cheap labor program. And institute an absolute requirement to hire American workers first for every visa and immigration program, no exceptions.

March 3rd, 2016, statement by Donald J. Trump on visas. What more is there to say? This is just a complete betrayal. I think he's obviously doing it as a signal. To the big titans that he wants to raise a gobs of money from. I feel like, obviously, most politicians, when they say something like, now we don't have a talent like that here, normally that would bite them very badly. Trump has the ability to, I don't know. He's trying to get himself out of a pickle on some of the statements he makes, so that may not cost him too much, but I would have, if I could have said something to him, like, okay, sir, if you're trying to, you know, initially, you're super against H1BV, says, if you're going to be a little bit more open to having them.

Because, you know, what, he slapped a million-dollar fine on it? I think that is the idea. It was $100,000 six weeks ago. Yeah, and so, like, I think it is all in negotiation form. So, he gets the big tech guys to donate a ton of money, and then it comes down from the super high fee to something a little bit more reasonable. He carries favor with the tech.

What he should have said to, you know, when he gets on the other side of this fundraising thing, say, for example, to people who voted for him, who are concerned about the flood of H-1B visa immigrants that are affecting the labor markets, he should say something along the lines of, normally, I would have cut it way, way down, but I have to roll back some of this because, I don't know, come up with something. AI, give some reason, but don't completely surrender.

Like, that's, you know. So, I don't know. I feel like this is the beginning of a negotiation to both sides. He's going to try to, I mean, he's trying to. He's trying to play to both sides. He's trying to play to people who are concerned about the labor market. He's also trying to raise gobs of money from people who are highly invested in the AI. He just handed the political opposition, he just handed them the clip of the campaign that is, we don't have talent here.

That's it. That's the clip. Like, that's what matters. And that's what's going to come back to buy. This kind of an interview. Maybe there's like a long game, maybe we're playing 3D chess here, but these kinds of clips coming out, regardless of whether he means it or not, or he's actually going to do it or not, or he's going to flood us with Chinese students or not, regardless of all that, in terms of shooting himself in the foot with his base and creating the conditions for a national-level Mamdani-type election a year from now, I think is It's alarming.

It's scary. And to me, it's scary, too, because I was listening to Tom rant about this pretty much all morning. I'm so mad about it. What I hear there is something along the lines of, that's it. I'm out. Burn it all down. Give me a mandani. Not that you would ever vote for a mandani. However, no, but this... But for a less reflective Gen Zer, you hear this kind of thing, and you're like, okay, well, Trumpism is dead to me. That's it.

Anyway. Mega, as properly understood, is dead. This is the final nail in the coffin. That is what I am talking about. That is exactly the only answer. As probably, like, Trump is gallivanting all over overseas. Meanwhile, the other side, like our other option, and I am remembering a year ago, right, when we were like all in the campaign, Trump has just won. The bullet we dodged, the literal bullet we dodged, because the other side actually wants to kill us. Like, they killed Charlie Kirk, they tried to shoot Trump twice.

Who was watching Berkeley this week? I mean, TPUSA, like a Christian dude wearing a cross, got bloodied and beat up and then arrested. By the Berkeley police, that's what I'm worried about. And then for Trump to be like all these machinations here and to put the midterms in jeopardy like that, that makes me so angry. I'm so angry about that. I'm also angry at all the conservatives this week who are tearing each other apart because they're arguing over the meaning of the post-liberal order.

Meanwhile, TPUSA kids are getting beat up in the streets and then arrested. That's what I'm worried about. Guys, it's all like these shiny distractions to me. Yeah, I mean, obviously, some of the internet online debates are basically just never-Trumpers who are upset about foreign policy, and that's why they're attacking Kevin Roberts, and that's why they're attacking... Matt Walsh and J.D. Vance and all that, but now J.D. Vance is still considered, obviously, the frontrunner, prohibitive frontrunner for 2028, and Marco Rubio is currently the Secretary of State.

He has to do the policies on foreign visas that President Trump wants. There is no ability for him to have a delta. What you need is a 2028 presidential candidate or potential candidate to attack Trump on H-1B visas. Someone needs to do it. The opportunity here would be for, I don't know, maybe the Florida governor.

To get to Trump's right on this issue, saying, look, this is totally against what you campaigned for, and this is why I'm the true MAGA champion or whatever. It would be interesting, because then the super MAGA types who are angry at DeSantis for running against Trump in the primary are like, wait a minute now.

It's an opening. Yeah, it's an opening. I've got to hand it to Laura Ingram, too. Can I just say, like, slow clap for Laura Ingram, a little golf clap here, because she was like... Not a golf clap, I think a legit clap. No, I mean a legit clap. Sorry, I misspoke. Totally full-throated endorsement of how she handled that. And she goes, this isn't MAGA. And he's like, I am MAGA. I'm like, no, you're not. MAGA elected you. You came up with the campaign slogan.

If this is what it is, I don't want anything to do with it. Yeah, because you're the biggest promulgator of it, therefore you can betray it. Like, no, that's not how that works. Also, hysterical to use the example of we can't just bring people off the street to build missiles. We literally did that in World War II. We literally had housewives with no experience building planes.

Rosie was canning peas, and then she went to building missiles. We can't do this. We did a raid on that Nebraska plant, and people and all the illegal immigrants got sent out, and people lined up around the corner to get jobs at that plant. People want jobs. This is so anti the American spirit. What happened to that Rose of the River? We can build things in America. We can actually get things done. You look at China, they're building outrageously beautiful architecture and everything.

places in the world you can still build stuff. Some of that. Sure, right, and I'm not saying they don't have their problems, but you look at California, and billions of dollars in a high-speed rail they built like a mile of. I don't even think a mile of. That is the standard right now. Our cities are crumbling. They smell terrible. We're not deporting people nearly at the rate that we were promised. That tracker stopped. We're getting involved in those foreign policy adventures, and we just had a former member of Al-Qaeda in the White House, and I guess we're going to build some...

Some airport in Damascus now, awesome. Like, who asked for this kind of stuff? Like, all we asked for was fix the economy, give us a chance, don't talk down on the people that are actually going to fix the country, and what do we get? We get tech billionaire titans asking for bailouts preemptively that they're already going to get, and this is like no different than the Obama bringing in Larry Summers to bail out the banks, and then what happened to all the people that bought houses, and then they didn't get their houses back?

Oh, because you don't want to reward bad behavior. All that gets rewarded at this government level is bad behavior at the expense of the citizens, and I'm so tired of it. This all reeks of the same stuff. The deep state, now all of a sudden the Democrats are getting emails about Trump involvement with Epstein, because of course, because it was the worst cover-up of all time that no one believed that you ran on exposing. So, what do we have left of MAGA?

I am MAGA. What is MAGA anymore? No one even knows. That is why everyone is all disheveled and crazy. I am not saying Democrats have it better now, but typically when you see one party that is struggling, the other party is kind of unified and empowered. It feels like no one is unified or empowered right now, either side. I mean, Trump needs a course correction on this. I mean, otherwise, he is going to go for a bruising in the midterms. You say at the end, he has got a year to fix this.

Yep. Sure. I missed Charlie Kirk's advice. This is the social compact breaking down. We need urgency to restore it. It's talking about percent of 30-year-olds who are both married and homeowners. It's way, way, way, way down. One, mass deportations. Two, stop the H-1B scam. Three, dramatically reduce legal immigration. Four, end chain migration and the visa lottery. Five, build 10 million homes for Americans. Six, crush the college cartel.

I love it. Man, I miss Charlie. It's like he was the connection, I guess, to the average American, and that the advisors around him now are just like, ah, no, let's wheel and deal with China. Like, let's go make it happen in the Middle East. I would only caution that one of the ticks that Donald Trump has is he says whatever the last advisor told him to do.

And so, he's got this fundraiser for Big Titans tonight. And that's why he's mouthing all this stuff to Laura Ingraham and saying the kind of stuff that Elon Musk and all these other guys are going to hopefully throw a bunch of cash, are going to say, only for him to betray him months later. Maybe. I don't know. Wishful thinking, maybe. I don't know. But he does respond to backlashes, by the way.

You know, Donald Trump, when his base roils against him on something, he does actually respond. So, it is incumbent upon voters who supported Trump from the get-go to be very loud and vocal about this, and they are. They started to online, as you mentioned last night, and it just continues. You know, tons of people are saying, look, I've loved Trump for years, but this is garbage. So, you know, it's...

Again, open up an opportunity for, you know, another potential 2028 candidate to say, this is garbage, I don't want this, and, you know, this is why. Totally unsourced. Yeah, totally unsourced. I got my outrage out of the way here. I'm somewhat sympathetic. To the need for business to have a labor that's properly trained. And we're all acknowledging it, and people have emailed in saying, you know, the college system has largely failed, like the American workers just put people in a lot of debt.

It has not prepared them to go into high-paying jobs. That's a huge problem. There were initiatives back in the 60s, 70s, 80s, where companies actually paid to train workers. A good example of this would be like the GMI. It was General Motors Institute, it's now Kettering University, but they actually trained people in the specific roles that they needed. Those all largely went away as we pushed college as this premium option. Many of them did, to the point where it's not even really a huge option on the table.

And what I will say, though, is it is an unacceptable answer for me, as an American, that you need to bring in labor abroad to replace workers that are hurting right now in America. Like, if the economy does not work for your country, it does not work. And the stock market being up is not an indicator of economic success that most of America can live with, because clearly most of that is going to the 1%. I am not saying you should completely ignore that, but we need to start programs to actually properly train Americans, because there is no IQ difference between us and South Asia, us and India, other places around the country.

If anything, we would have an advantage, even if it is not IQ, because it is not IQ only. It is, you know, you know, Who is going to be better to adapt into the American market than Americans? Hello. We have the culture. We have the ingenuity. We have the drive. I would just say, with regards to all this, it is not easy to look in the mirror and see your own faults. It is also not easy to look in the mirror and see your country's faults.

One of the things America Because we value, you know, achievement and all this other stuff, we also kind of like cheap fixes, quick fixes a lot, you know? And the H-1B visa thing is the ultimate cheap fix. It's, oh, we don't have the talent, just bring them in. It's like an all-sugar diet. Dude, this is not good for you. Over time, you know, you change what country you have. So, like, and then what you do is you... Cut out the ladder up into the middle class for a lot of folks.

So, this is not, you know, this is not good. It's like, how did you end up with, you know, rural areas like, you know, I mean, J.D. Vance, you wrote the hillbilly elegy about these small towns that are, you know, they just became wastelands. Like, well, hello. I mean, it's because we, you know, we spent a lot of time and treasure in these foreign wars. We allowed fentanyl across our border, and then we allowed the industrial base to be gutted. Like, Wake up.

Yeah, and I think that has been just the sort of pit in the stomach the last week with the Trump administration with these sugar fixes that you mentioned, Josh. So, H-1B visa being one of them, 50-year mortgage really feeling like another one. That is just a quick fix to get someone into a home, but it does not actually address the supply issue or the fact that we have these huge corporations buying up all the real estate or there is no starter home.

So, I think all of this to be said is that... I want the Trump administration to succeed. I want us to win the next election and the next, because we have to have some kind of continuity in our governance in order to implement these long-term reforms. So, we've got to stay focused on this, and that's what I feel like the administration has just lost its focus at this sort of pivotal moment. And we talk about, like, oh, the most important election of our lives.

Well… Yeah, we had 2024. Yeah, that was pretty important, but we have to sustain the power of governance, and we're not going to do it if he's giving interviews like this and just shooting off and reacting. So, we'll see. We'll see. We shall see. I think you're completely correct, and one of the points I just want to continue to make on H-1B is it basically brings over slave labor that is married to the company, and they can pay less than Americans.

So, part of this fixes the training. But you also, these companies need to sign up for paying reasonable wages to Americans, competitive wages to Americans, which we're told all the time, we have this market system, right? This is the beauty of capitalism. It's like, well, you can't have that, and then also have H-1B and abuse that system the way that it was done. Trump himself talked, he brought over Somalias from other countries with H-1B visas to work his place. He's like, it's dumb, and I'm taking advantage of it, because any company should.

But of course, that is your job, is to end this. And I know that Stephen Miller, actually, there's a leaked document of him getting rid of it. So, hopefully, Stephen Miller gets a hold of his ear. Whoever is talking to him now, this is not it. I promise you, it is not it. Let me get Tom McCluskey into the Oval Office for me. Yeah, seriously. Come on.

All right, let us talk next. I was a little confused with what was going on with the Syrian President, Erika. Yeah, well, you, me, and the other guy. So, this is, Trump has this, like, no permanent enemies, Doc. That is how we have, like, Tulsi Gabbard and Kristi Noem in there. But anyway, full display.

No permanent enemies. I can't speak. My five-year-old says eminies, so forgive me if that's how I speak. President Trump on Monday hosted a meeting at the White House with Syrian President, Transitional President Ahmed al-Sharra. The former al-Qaeda leader who took power in Damascus last December with his group of jihadists known as the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the HTS for short. You can see him here. Those of you who are on the chat, we've got... I mean, with the music, you know, he's playing basketball with some top brass military dudes outside the White House during his visit.

So, during the meeting, Syria officially became the 90th member of the U.S.-led global coalition to defeat ISIS, ironically enough. Al-Sharah has also pledged now to remove Iranian militias and Hezbollah from Syria. And he also, during the meeting, took the opportunity to accuse Israel of expanding into the Golan Heights and southern Syria, and Trump responded saying, yes, Israel should withdraw to its pre-December 2024 borders. So, he's like, we'll get Israel out of there if you get Iran. And so, there's a lot of sort of like national regional stability security talk going on there.

The United States also... Trump has been taking sanctions off of Syria since last May. That process continued during this visit. So, who is Ahmed al-Sharraf? And why is this so mind-boggling to people, that he was in the White House, shaking hands with Trump, getting some cologne from Trump? What's going on?

He was actually one of our most wanted terrorists. He was the founder of the al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria. And yeah, his radical journey began after 9-11, which he has said in previous interviews, including one to the BBC last spring, that he was inspired by 9-11 to become a jihadist terrorist. He got his start fighting the United States forces in Iraq, later founded Jabhat al-Nusra, that al-Qaeda branch in Syria, and he was captured in 2005 planting bombs on the roadsides that American troops would So, he was imprisoned, then released.

In 2016, he announced that he was formally breaking with Al-Qaeda, and he rebranded his Al-Qaeda group, the HTS, and then he started focusing on what he calls local governance and battling ISIS in the north. Battling ISIS, good. Local governance just means taking over all the villages that he could possibly take over in central Syria.

So, by 2025, the transformation is complete. HTS has now evolved into a semi-functioning proto-state that's enforcing the law in Syria right now. They toppled the Assad regime, of course, last fall, so we covered that here. And now, they're sort of like presenting themselves as these global technocrats who, he's given a speech at the UN, he did a roundtable with David Petraeus at the UN. He was on Fox News. He was on Fox News. I think I have that clip. Do you want to like, let's just- It's pretty shocking to see, like, wow, these guys are in a Fox studio.

Do you- Mr. President, have— What regrets that al-Qaida carried out those attacks that killed 3,000 Americans? 9 Americans. I was only 19 years old, so I was a very young person, and they didn't have any decision-making power at that time, and I don't have anything to do with it. And al-Qaida was not present right then in my area. So you're speaking to the wrong person about this subject. We mourn for every civilian that got... We have killed, and we know that people suffer from the war, especially civilians who pay the price, the price for the war.

Yeah, so the way that... Something was missing from that. Like condemning 9-11? Yeah, like, yes, I regret it, or that wasn't good. Yeah, no, he's like, I was a very young person then. No, you weren't like nine years old. You were 19 years old, and you immediately put yourself in an ISIS training camp so that you could help further, or al-Qaeda training camp, so you could help further the mission of Osama bin Laden. And he's like, oh, al-Qaeda was not in my area of Syria at the time, so I brought it there.

That's like, what's this thing? So, I don't know, Josh, should we just forgive and embrace the new real politic in the Middle East? Is this what we're doing now? I mean, again, some people might blanch at this. I would only, and I'm not necessarily endorsing that strategy, but what is the alternative?

I mean, this idea that we're going to get a wonderful, happy, polished citizen like a Mitt Romney-type leader out of Syria, well, that's never going to happen. So, the question is, if it's not this guy, who is it? Is it going to be somebody worse?

Yeah, I think what was disturbing about it was that, you know, we were fed all this moralist language about getting Assad out of there, and then all of a sudden, all the Christians and Druze start getting massacred, and then we were somehow- Yeah, if I could just add to that. So, in none of these, like, big global, you know, meeting with Petraeus, the meeting in the White House, and maybe behind closed doors, this was brought up, but there has been no public recognition or challenging of him, even from the Fox News anchor, about what about the massacres- that are occurring right now under your government.

So, we have the Druze, we have the Alawites, and we have the Christians. This has been picking up pace ever since his government got into power. So, we just had in June, the suicide bombing at the Mar Elias Church in Damascus killed 22 worshipers. It was the first massive bombing of a Christian worship site in Syria in hundreds of years. This didn't even happen under Assad. Not that he was, you know. Right, I'm not saying he's a great guy, but the language fed to us was, this guy needs to go, and things are going to get better, and they just objectively got worse.

It's just kind of hilarious that Fox News will, you know, have no objection to this guy being in their studio, but they won't have Tucker Carlson. No, it isn't funny. It's actually very insidious, in my mind. Because what Trump could have done here, you know, maybe not do the basketball with the generals, maybe not do the cologne joke about your wives. Maybe not just give them a red carpet rollout. Like, this guy is attached to 9-11. I mean, one of the worst, most horrific scarring events ever.

You could have done a tough talk, sit down, hey, we're, you know, we don't like each other, but like, we're going to, you know, try to work together. Maybe you want this airbase in Damascus. A little bit less schmoozing. Less schmoozing. It's so insulting to all of the American soldiers that died or lost limbs doing things in support of what is now just a complete mess, and oh, we're just friends with the guy now. Yeah, like, you can do real politic.

Without actually, like, honoring the dude who's this really, really bad guy. And I think, like, contrast this. A lot of people want to contrast this with the way that they pulled in Zelensky that first meeting in the Oval Office, which I enjoyed watching. Yeah. I did enjoy watching J.D. Vance tell him to wear a suit and say thank you. And that changed his behavior, at least in terms of wearing the suit. I guess this guy wore a suit. This guy did wear a suit, so maybe he gets cologne and, like, a big hug or something.

But, again, like... You don't have to treat it this way. We know that Trump is capable of being really strong with people in public, and he just chose not to with this guy. Yeah, so I guess I'm not opposed to, I guess, the real politic in friends and enemies that changes, and you've got to do what's best for the country.

One, this just feels like a lot of expanding, dying empire talk that I thought we were going to get away from, and then the way he went about it with the schmoozing. Who has he insulted most over the past two days? Americans who can't get jobs or are struggling financially, and then now American soldiers that went to die for a message that just really wasn't true. The moralistic language, I think, really bothered me about. We're going to bring peace and freedom to the Middle East, and it's going to be awesome, and now it's like, well, it descended into a bloody civil war, and now we're like best friends with Al-Qaeda, I guess.

It's responsible. I don't know. What did Lindsey Graham say about it? Lindsey Graham said, the RNC is doing a great job. We're running out of bombs, and we're killing all the right people, was his exact marker of success. I think we're cutting taxes, and we're killing all the right people. Lindsey Graham still has a primary. She's not going to attack Trump, so maybe that's not the best signal. Well, Trump endorsed him.

Yeah, I know. So, I mean... Interesting times, as Ross would say. Keep me from blackmailing, Josh. I'm trying my best to, man. Okay, we can do this. It's news time. That means we can pull back from the black pills. We're going to have some... We had a video from Pope Leo.

And it's just really cute. He let us know his four favorite movies of all time. So, let's roll the tape. I can't deny it's very cute. It's so cute. My four favorite films. It's a Wonderful Life, Jimmy Stewart from 1946, The Sound of Music from 1965 with Julie Andrews, Ordinary People. The year was 1980. The stars were Donald Sutherland and Mary Tyler Moore. La Vita Bella. 1997, Roberto Benigni.

I don't know, when you think of Josh, yeah, it was great. He has good taste, three out of four. Do you know Ordinary People, Josh? I haven't seen it, no. I watched it in high school. Maybe I'll have to go re-watch it now, but it was a long time ago. I do like Donald Sutherland, and La Vita è Bella. It's a beautiful, life is beautiful, a beautiful life. I assume it's, is that an Italian movie, like it's in Italian? It is, and you'll love this.

It's set in World War II, Pogo. Oh, interesting. Go watch it. I mean, I got no issues with World War II. It's about a Jewish family. Oh, nice. I'm sure it's a lovely story. It is very, very beautiful. I'm sure it's a lovely story. Speaking of Hollywood, I've got some good news. Okay.

Nearly half of the LGBT characters on TV are going away. What? Yeah. I'm glad I put this out. Oh, man. A lot of the TV shows aren't getting renewed, and just overall, the number of characters are down 41%, and that's sad, bad news for GLAAD, but GLAAD news for us. I like it. So, you know, is it still pop culture filth? Yeah, but it's like, you know, no longer is it like 80% of the characters are all, you know, the Rainbow Jihad.

Yeah. You know, it might actually get, you know, and I think it's ratings, you know, like, I mean, Hollywood's like, you know, they're pushing the outer limits of how much they could do. You know, you can't boil a frog too much, he's going to jump out. Yeah.

Here's a hot take. I actually don't have an issue with... Characters of same-sex attraction or that are gay or whatever, if they move the plot, if they're compelling, if they're 3D, if they have actual emotions that come across on the screen. But I just think, and I guess the 41% number shows this, the trope of the gay best friend is the most lowbrow, low-hanging fruit. Plot progression thing of all time, and it's just so annoying. I'm just like, this doesn't add anything to it.

There's no reason for them to be that way. That's the character. So, in other words, you loved Brokeback Mountain? I did never check out Brokeback. I never checked. I have not taken the time to go check out Brooklyn. That is what I am hearing. I prefer, of course, a lot less of the characters overall.

It is worse when it is in your face. It is also bad when it just does not even make it interesting. And it is terrible when it is marketing. Overall, I would rather have less degeneracy. Thank you. Less degeneracy, stop marketing it to children. That is pretty solid.

Okay, mine looks like... This is not loading. I'll pull it for you. CatholicVote. The bishops voted to consecrate the United States the Sacred Heart for Nations 250th anniversary. I thought that was good news. I could use some more of that. We need it. We need it. Is that on our X account?

It's loaded for me. It's not loading on the CatholicVote website. Let me pull it. It was a cool graphic. Oh, actually, no. You kind of had an issue with it, Josh. Who had an issue with it? You, the image that was the graphic. You said the flag was on the wrong side or something?

Well, look, if you go to our, you know, that is the graphic that we put together. The bishops put out a graphic themselves with the Sacred Heart in front of the United States flag. Ah, here we go. There you go.

So, this is Josh Mercer, okay? My father served in the United States Navy. He's going to be the one that lets me know this. When you fly the flag vertically like that, the stars are still supposed to be in the upper left. So, in other words, you don't just take the flag at 90 degrees. It's supposed to be like that. Roger.

I understand. That makes sense. And actually, it was like, what, it was a Jeep that recently issued a car, and they'd have to explain to people that they put the flag on both sides of the car, and when you do that, if you're on the right side of the car, not the driver's side, it looks like the flag is backwards, so they'd explain to people, no, this is how you're supposed to do it. This is the way. Don't think we did this wrong.

I'm not mad at them for doing this. It's not a big deal. Yeah, yeah, no, okay, okay. No, that's a fun fact. I actually wondered that about Jeeps. I didn't know that. I always saw the flag backward and thought it was just a design thing. Yeah, no, no, no. They actually did a video explaining to people, no, this is actually the custom of the U.S. flag. This is how you do it. And so, like, when men have the flag, you know, on the chest or whatever, sometimes, you know, they're both like that way.

I forget. Anyway, but I do know when it comes to and that's actually my tell when I watch movies, like a lot of times when they have the flags, they'll have it just like that. They have it incorrect. But then, usually, when you see a Hollywood movie that has got a politics, where they have to hire somebody from Capitol Hill to give them advice, you will notice there will be someone like me who will go, you have to fly backwards. In political movies, you'll see it usually the right way, because there's somebody on the staff that's like...

That knows ball. Yeah. But if it's just like a basketball movie, you know, and then you're like, oh, the flag is the wrong way. Yeah, fun fact of Tom Lord, when I was in elementary school, I was on flag duty. Oh, cool. They would put someone up to... So, my job every morning, and then... I can't remember if I did it at night.

Was to raise the flag. So, I get there early. I would fold it properly. I would put it up. So, it is actually kind of a cool experience. So, I have to learn how to take care of flags properly. I did not know that, which means, I mean, maybe I forgot something since elementary school, but that was cool. Is that a public elementary school? I wonder if they still do that. I hope so. It is a cool experience for me. Hopefully, it is still the U.S.

flag. Yeah, right. Exactly. Okay. Church Corner Archbishop Coakley. New, voted new head of USCCB from Oklahoma, Josh, you know, run me in on this guy, which I know about Archbishop Coakley, and what does this vote mean? Well, I mean, I think 10 out of a 10, the selection here of Coakley. You know, he gave a speech a couple of years ago where he talked about the plague of relativism. And he referred to it, the eclipse of truth. He said that's sweeping every aspect of American life.

He denounced the transgender movement as well-intentioned madness. And so, we're talking about somebody, you know, like, you know, of course, the New York Times, like, oh, he's a social justice, or social, I mean, social conservative, whatever. It's like, well, to me, just, he sounds like, what is it called? Oh, a Catholic. So, it doesn't strike me as that weird. Sorry. You know, perfectly fine. But, you know, it is interesting, the election. So, for, you know, the other candidate, Was Bishop Daniel Flores of Brownsville, Texas, he was an auxiliary bishop in Detroit here in Michigan for a while.

Daniel Flores is a good person, a good man, but definitely very focused on the immigration issue. He is a bishop in a border diocese. And the fact that he did so well that he almost won, I mean, he came within like 19 votes or something like that, did signal to me that the Bishops Conference were, you know, they do consider immigration to be a very paramount issue. But that they chose to pick Coakley instead of Flores signals that maybe they didn't want to go too far, but it doesn't mean that the bishops have suddenly become right-wing, you know, Trump on immigration, far from it.

But it made the Catholic lefties really upset because they thought it would have been great to have Flores because Flores would have attacked Trump, and maybe that's true, maybe not. I thought the attack was that he put up some criticism of Francis or something like that. They were really trying to... Take that into Coakley. I don't know. Yeah, so what happened was Vigano was very critical of Pope Francis before Vigano went kind of very on the extreme. So, what Coakley did is defended Vigano's criticisms, and that's what made the lefties like, how dare you?

Which is hilarious. It's like, you know, the criticisms that conservative bishops have had about Pope Francis were very measured in many ways, right? As opposed to national so-called Catholic reporter in the Jesuit magazine America, the way they attacked Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict was, you know, it was not done with respect and deference. It was like, these guys are terrible, and it's like, but then conservative bishops are like, I don't know, Francis seems like he's a little bit too, you know, they're being very courteous and respectful, and it's like, how dare you not totally love and think Francis walks on water?

Yeah. Who are these people? I mean, this is absolutely crazy, but... They're the people who voted not to consecrate the United States to the Sacred Heart in June. You know, look, I'm not going to get on that. I'd love to hear the rationale on that. I don't know.

Maybe there's a good reason. Maybe they want something else. Yeah, there could be a good reason. I'm not in there. But I did want to say, by the way, an interesting little fact about Archbishop Coakley that was pointed out by Jonathan Lytle, who writes with the National Catholic Register, and did a really good article. He's solid, yeah. I'll put this in the chat here for us, so you can open it up if you'd like to. But Archbishop Coakley... Bishop Conley of Lincoln, Nebraska, and Bishop Wall all gathered together and journeyed on the Camino.

I remember this picture, yeah. Three bishops, and I know where that is. That's so cool. We are just there. That is why I was drinking out of my Camino cup today. Oh, there you go. Very cool. I mean, like, just, you know, who would imagine it? Like, imagine you are walking in the Camino in the middle of Spain. Like, oh, hi, how are you? Oh, hi. Like, wait, what do you do? Oh, I am a bishop.

What about you? Oh, I am also a bishop. Like, what, and you? Three bishops? Can you imagine running into three bishops on the Camino? That is so cool. The jokes just write themselves. Three bishops running to each other.

Not a bar, but the Camino, I guess. So, those are three really good guys, and, you know. All right, gang, Twilight Zone. Josh, I see you have two. Well, I mean, you know, we had a lot of stuff to get through, so I didn't want to do all sad stuff. So, I wanted to put a little something good in there, too. But the sad thing I do want to start with, and I am worried about this stuff.

You know, I think sports gambling is hurting families, you know, and it's costing a lot of people jobs. But we're not thinking about maybe another dark side of this. Now, this is a baseball player, Ryan. Stanek, he's with, I guess, the New York Mets. He said, I get death threats all the time, every day. It's not anything that every baseball player doesn't deal with all the time. Like, you cost me my parlay. I hope your family dies. Now, some of that is just like people venting their frustration, but like, why would you ever say that?

And the problem is that this is going to get translated into, you know, college kids. Like, kids were just like, you know, 18, 19 years old, and they're playing basketball or, you know, whatever, and they lost a lot of money. This, I just think sports betting is a scourge. I think it is very bad. I think there is a reason why we did not have this for many decades. Did you see the FBI stuff, Josh? Yes, I know. One second. The thing that bothers me about this, it was not like Congress decided, let us allow sports betting.

It was a court case that came up in the Supreme Court, and a lot of them are so-called conservative justices. They said, well, I guess... We got to get rid of this because of whatever, and I just thought to myself, like, in general, I do not like it when major changes in policy are decided by our Supreme Court. I think it should be left to the people's representatives in the Congress. I do, because, you know, you just get, well, I guess, technically, it's against the Constitution, and therefore, all of a sudden, all the states are like, sweet, now we can do this, and money comes in, and the states start doing it.

I think that's terrible. So, I pray for an end to this. How did that, because it was in Vegas to start, right? So, did the people of Vegas vote to make gambling legal before everyone else? No, it was a Supreme Court case that came up, and I don't know what state it came from, but then soon after that, my state of Michigan, you know, they moved really quickly to legal. Oh, no, I remember the knock-on effects, but I thought previously, before all the knock-on effects, you could only gamble in Vegas.

Yeah, you could gamble in Vegas, you could gamble in New Jersey. What is it called, the big casino? Like the riverboat? Or no, sorry, Atlantic City, right? Atlantic City, yeah, exactly. By the way, that was why the city of Las Vegas, despite being a very large metropolitan area, never had a baseball team or a football team or a hockey team at all, because it's like, well, wait a minute now. If you have a sports team there, you might have economic influences from gambling in the industry, and so that city didn't have anything.

Well, now what happens? They've got a hockey team, they've got a football team, and a baseball team is coming in another year or two. The major sports teams, leagues, have all got in bed with the gambling industry. The death of sports, yeah. And I got to say, honestly, I mean this. This is one of the major reasons why my interest in sports has gone way down. I just, I do worry about it, and I'm not going to put my dollars in it.

I mean, I'll watch a game here and there, but overall, I just... It does sicken me to see what this is doing to people. The NBA stuff is insane. So, one of my new favorite, it is not even a conspiracy theory, I think that there is a huge bubble for sports media right now, where shows that would not even exist or would not have any funding or interest exist now because they are propped up by all the gambling money, because the house always wins, right?

So, the gambling, of course, huge revenues. And then they take some of that revenue to kind of astroturf a lot of the sports media to talk pretty favorably about sports gambling or put up betting odds or things like that, keep them afloat so that if something comes up, you know, people won't be negative on the gambling industry because they're basically paid for in the sports space. Because if you look at the FBI case, one of the big problems that could solve all of it, not all of it, but a lot of it, is getting rid of prop bets.

So, the idea that you can vote, you can bet on a specific player's performance. Either above or below on a specific metric. Of course, gave the opportunity for people like John T. Porter. Actually, a guy in the Pistons, I think, is getting implicated in this, too. Malik, I think it's Malik Beasley. They kind of tipped people, hey, I'm just going to take myself out of the game. I'm going to get an injury, and then I'll be below whatever the prop bet is.

So, then there's an unusual spike in prop betting on this role player, kind of not even a big deal, and then people made a lot of money on it, and it was all coordinated, and the FBI is getting involved now because it's got so big, and there's old mafia names involved. I mean, it's just like you can't even make it up, but a lot of the harassment would go away if you got rid of prop betting. And things like parlays. If you could just do it on teams, and this, of course, is so many tiers down the problem.

I think everything has largely gotten worse in the vice industry when you started moving that out of Vegas, and you put it in people's pockets. And now, pretty much every state, you can do it at any time, whenever you want, which, of course, takes advantage of the most vulnerable people, too, say sports gambling. It's the same thing with weed. I don't see them as very different. Like, if you had certain places that maybe you could do it, or it was illegal, people kind of hid, they didn't have to do it now.

But now, if you go to the Michigan border, Josh, what do you see? I mean, it's all signs for weed everywhere, weed dispensaries, and, like, everyone's getting access to it. And the stuff they're making now, I think the argument, too, is, oh, it'll be safer, right? Like, it won't be kind of, like, off-market. You're not sure where it comes to. People won't grow it in their backyards. Now they're making, like, Frankenstein-type stuff that, like, no one knows what the psychotic effects of stuff that strong could actually be on people.

I think, imagine that our ancestors had some wisdom. There was a reason why there was laws placed against vices, because it kept them in check, largely, and if they run unchecked, it's bad overall for general society. That's why our downtowns stink right now. That's why you see people in serious, serious debt and degeneracy because of sports betting, and you're getting death threats to the players, too, which is, of course, terrible.

Yeah, man, not good. Anyway, there was a law passed by Congress in 1992 to prohibit the whole sports betting, stuff like that, in the United States or whatever, and the Supreme Court in 2018 overruled it, because they said the 10th Amendment, it should be delegated to the states, and I just feel like we are going to learn this the hard way. What is going to happen is a lot of people are going to be hurt. The sporting leagues are going to be very corrupted, and we are just going to need people in their individual states to start passing laws against this kind of stuff.

Again, part of the thing is, sometimes we only pick the right, you know, they say, what did Churchill say about democracy? It is the worst system except for everything else. All the others, yeah. I mean, this is what is going to happen, is we are eventually going to get to...

The right answer, which is to really, again, regionally restrict this to, if you want to get your fix, go to Vegas or Atlantic City or whatever, but for the most part, you don't allow it because it's such a scourge on society.

Same thing applies to pornography. Yeah. You said you had a happy one, though, Josh. Yeah, what was the— Bring us up a little. Well, look, you know, MSNBC is now— MS Now. They've changed, so they got a little rebranding, and they have Rachel Maddow. It's a new dawn. It's a new day.

So, Rachel Maddow, a white anchor. Don't worry, it's not just all a bunch of white people in the ad. There's black people in the ad, too, except for, oh, yeah, the actors. The black people in the ad are all actors.

Oh, wait, so it has Rachel Maddow and then a bunch of actors? Yeah, the only other person other than Rachel Maddow is a white journalist, but all the rest of them are black actors. Let's go. This is a super cut done by Washington Free Media. Okay. In order to form a more... There he is.

Oh, man. And all powered by Intuitive, for hospitals, care teams, patients, and surgeons in training like me. Another one. Oh, man, this guy's pretty successful. I don't blame him. I'm proud of him. This guy's doing it. United States.

Oh, my God. Yeah. So, it is just a bunch of... Put a shirt on, babe. Maybe don't stop it there, bro. Yeah, that was an odd stop. I just got a big kick out of that. That's really funny.

MS now. This is the kind of thing where, like, normally, if Republicans stepped in it, or conservatives did something like that, Fox News, the left would go bananas on it. And Washington Free Beacon, I'm not a supporter of everything that their editorial board or whatever, but one of the things that they do is they keep the other side honest. They totally skewer them when they screw up like this, and I thought it was pretty funny. Sweet.

All right, Erika, what do you got? All right, I'm going to go with, do not take... Your parenting advice for your 13-year-old boys from a confirmed tech bro. So, just to set it up a little bit, it's a technology daily podcast show. These guys are actually really good. They're very funny. John Coogan, Jordy Hayes, they're great. They're really funny. They went to Mark Zuckerberg's big Meta 2025 conference, and they're interviewing this kid who's also very successful in the meta space. The AI industry space.

But they were like, okay, so if you were still a teenager, what advice would you have for kids today to really get ahead in success in life? So, if you could play that for about 40 seconds. Yeah, so this guy, Alexander Wang, actually just got a huge bag from Meta. I think he got like... An insane, over $100 million contract, because he started his own AI company, dropped out of college. He is like a child prodigy. Yeah, actually, he was the inspiration for our other G-Mans in your chat, GPT, deep episode, I believe, because he was going to do the...

Oh, yeah, he is going to wait to have children until the new one comes out. Here is how he is going to parent those kids when he gets to them. The tools, not just to learn them, but actually making money from them while they are in middle school, high school, etc. I think it's exactly that kind of thing. It's almost like when personal computers first came about, or just computing in general, the people who spent the most time with it and grew up with it had this immense advantage in the future economy, like the Bill Gates of the world, or even the Mark Zuckerberg of the world.

So, I think that that moment is happening right now, and if you are 13 years old, you should spend all of your time vibe-coding. That's how you should live your life. What happens when kids spend all of their time vibe-coding and in the basement and online and have extreme online lives? Maybe a couple of them will turn into Mark Zuckerberg. Most of them will turn into trans furries and Tyler Robinson, though. So, that is a no on how 13-year-olds should spend their time.

That is a no for me, dog. That is a no, dog. Yeah. If you are 13 years old, I have a 12-and-a-half-year-old son. If you are 13 years old… Wait, he is not vibe-coding yet? Yeah, he does not even know.

Slag, he is behind. Reading the Odyssey, listening to podcasts about history and the Roman world, and then going outside with sticks and preferably a toddler-sized brother, and just, like, hitting things. Erika, how is he going to compete with all the Chinese students going to Harvard? Like, does he want to get into the Ivy League universities? He should be vibe-coding ASAP. He should be taking ACT, SAT classes to the max, all the AP classes, you know, community service. I have dreams for him way beyond Harvard.

I am shooting for heaven, not Harvard. No, 13-year-olds should not be vibe coding or on the screen at all. Like, they don't need to be on there. They'll figure it out when they're 20. Benedict option. Okay. Mind, Twilight Zone, and listen, this is, you know, this is just the Tom Angry episode, I guess. I'm going to share the clip, and I'm going to play the context, because this wasn't done a lot, and I'll give Erika a chance. This is Ben Shapiro on the Trigonometry Podcast, and it got clipped.

It was tough. If you're a young person and you can't afford to live here, then maybe you should not live here. I mean, that is a real thing. I know that we've now grown up in a society that says that you deserve to live where you grew up, but the reality is that the history of America is almost literally the opposite of that. The history of America is you go to a place where there is opportunity, and if the opportunities are limited here and they're not changing, then you really should try to think about other places where you have better opportunities.

This is a lesson in how to lose elections. If I just wanted to hand someone the 2026 election on a platter, I'm clipping up Donald Trump saying that Americans aren't talented, and then I'm clipping up Ben Shapiro saying you do not deserve to live where you grew up.

And I know there's some more nuance. I'll play the full clip because I want to give him the benefit of the doubt, because Erika brought this up, which is fair. I'll play the full clip, although I was mad about that clip, so I'll do it.

...to pursue... Affordability is not like Beetlejuice, where if you just say it over and over, it suddenly arrives. You actually have to pursue policies that are likely to alleviate an affordability problem. But if your solution is always, give me more power, and it does seem like that is the solution of the day from both sides, actually, then you're likely to just continue penduluming one side to the other. Because people don't want to learn the actual lesson, which is if you actually want affordability, then either you have to change policies or change locations.

Those are really the only two things. And also, I think, more broadly, it's not about affordability. We have trained an entire generation of people to believe that if their lives are not what they want them to be, it's the fault of systems, as opposed to decisions that are in their own control. And politicians absolutely have a stake in selling that. A lot of people in our industry have a stake in selling that. It makes people feel good about themselves and bad about the world.

And the reality is, if you want a better life, you should feel better about the world and worse about yourself until you actually, you know, go do the right things. I broadly, generally speaking, as a matter of principle, agree with you. But, I mean, I was looking around at property prices, real estate prices in New York. I'm doing pretty well for myself. I feel kind of poor looking at those. Oh, no, and I'm not saying it's not affordable. It absolutely is unaffordable, and if you wanted to make a political difference, what you would do is you would relieve the building regulations.

You would make it easier for people to build, not harder. You wouldn't rent control, because if you stop rent controlling, then that creates incentive for people to build. You would allow people to build up further. You would get rid of many of the code regulations that are kind of antiquated. There are things you actually could do, and then if you're a young person and you can't afford to live here, then maybe you should not live here. I mean, that is a real thing.

I know that we've now grown up in a society that says that you deserve to live where you grew up, but the reality is that the history of America is almost literally the opposite of that. The history of America is you go to a place where there is opportunity, and if the opportunities are limited here and they're not changing, then you really should try to think about other places where you have better opportunities.

So, some of what he says is true, like with regards to New York City, all these rent controls makes it so that the companies don't actually improve the properties. We also don't allow more zoning to allow other companies to come in and build more housing units, so we've done that. So, I agree, allow the market to correct some of these problems, and we're stunting that, and so we should stop stunting it. We should allow for it. However, I also want to say, yeah, it is true that we sometimes would migrate.

You know, to find better opportunities, but I think we should try as best as we can to encourage people to live, and not for a long time, we were all just kind of moving to these larger cities, and in fact, with the internet now, I think we should try to encourage people to kind of stay in their historical area. I like what Evita Duffy Alfonso now, she's got a new last name, she said, my family has lived in the same northern Wisconsin town for five generations.

And it's where I live today. Planting generational roots in one place is actually good and beautiful. The goal should be to preserve community rather than normalizing constant rootless economic refugee status within our own country. With that, I'm with them. Yeah. Like, Ben himself is an economic refugee in some ways. I mean, he fled California for Boca Raton, Florida, and with his company going to Nashville, so he has a home there, too, but... We should normalize, though, intergenerational thinking. Yes, exactly. Because it's almost like America isn't just an economic parking lot, and people here, citizens, are not just interchangeable economic units.

I just, well, one, I think politically, I can't believe he just said that out loud, because exactly what people want to hear, right? And I think it's fair to say, like, yes, each individual has agency. Charlie Kirk did a great job with this. Like, he's always like, listen, like, go out, you know, work your butt off, read great books, make good connections, work hard to achieve your dreams, like you still do that in America. Yes. But on a level, I just think it's really insulting to tell people who are struggling right now, like, stop blaming the systems.

I didn't bring in millions of legal immigrants to mess with what I got going on. I'm not bringing in 600,000 Chinese students to take my spots at universities, and I didn't sign up to have college debt be completely out of control just so that I can enter into the good job market. None of that is any person's fault individually. I'm not responsible for rent being so high right now. I'm not responsible for healthcare being completely out of control, and you can say that maybe people at some point The industries that are most expensive now have the most government involvement.

I'll take that point, completely take that point. But the answer now is not to just kind of wag your finger. Well, if it's not here, just move, because all the opportunity is in cities. Let's all not pretend you can just move out to rural wherever, and you're going to get the same opportunities. You're just not. It's just a crazy thing to say out loud. So, I completely disagree with that assessment. I do think generational building is great. I think you should want to.

Own a home, build a family, have people get attached and really grow that area, form a community, that's all great. And, like, if the reason that you have to leave that is because stuff out of your control is a problem, let's address the problem, not the people. Not just say, hey, just go ahead and move. It's fine. And, of course, the thing is, like... The most of the experience in this country has been that each generation was adding more wealth to the country, and that the next generation would end up being more prosperous than the previous one, and we are facing the situation where that might not happen, where the next generation is not going to be more prosperous.

And so, people are right to say, what is going on here? And I think a lot of it is that you have taxes and regulations that have gone on too high. The importation of cheap labor also undercut the working class. So, there's a lot of problems. We need to start fixing them. So, we thought Donald Trump was a great champion of that. The rhetoric that we've heard the last few days has not been helpful, so I hope, I like Donald Trump a lot.

I hope we get a course correction, get back on track with what he's done before. Come on, man, because I don't want the other option. Yeah, I completely agree. There's no one I want to succeed more. I mean, seriously, like, he didn't get saved from the bullet to just. Sell out on all of his major issues, you know what I mean? Like, I would love him to succeed, and I think he's done a lot of good things for the country, and I think it's fine to, it's actually good to acknowledge that and give him, you know, be grateful for that.

Like, we have a closed border right now. I'm definitely grateful for that, but that does not exempt him from legitimate criticism from people that supported him. If anything, like, please respect the people that did support you at this point. And he does respond, so I'd say make your criticism loud. I know I sure am. And hopefully, we'll get some change.

Awesome. Great episode, guys. We've got a good one coming for you. Good episode of The Deep coming on Thursday. Yeah, tomorrow. TikTok and politics. Yeah, what is going? It's going to be really good. It's going to be awesome.

And that being said, we also have an interview coming on Friday, so I'm going to live-premiere an interview with the amazing Katie Faust. It was fantastic. Erika and her got into it. Touching all of the issues you're not supposed to touch.

We did. She is awesome. We were on the third, fourth, and fifth rail on this one, so Katie and I really went and dug into it. We're excited for you to see that on Friday. Absolutely. So, we won't have a normal LOOPcast on Friday. We got that great interview with Katie Faust, and I would just ask...

My LOOPcast listeners to join me in praying for the repose of the soul of Jack Tarrant, my lovely wife's uncle who passed away last Friday. His family had a good, strong devotion to the first Friday, and so he went to Mass, and he went to confession, and later that afternoon, the good Lord called him home. So, you can't ask for better than that, but pray for Jack, would you? Thank you.

That is literally the dream. That is the ideal situation. Sometimes, I hit the confessional door. I touch the doorknob. I am like, listen, if it is now, it is now. I will be okay with that. I can go. So, pray for him. But, yeah, join us in prayer. We are going to do a prayer to the Holy Spirit here. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Breathe in me, O Holy Spirit, that my thoughts may all be holy.

Act in me, O Holy Spirit, that my work too may be holy. Draw my heart, a Holy Spirit, that I love, but what is holy. Strengthen me, a Holy Spirit, to defend all that is holy. Guard me, then, a Holy Spirit, that I may be holy. St. Thomas More, St. Fidelis, Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us. Great episode, guys. Got good things coming for you. We look forward to seeing you then, and hope you have a great Wednesday, and we'll catch you later. Peace.