Trump's MN Reset: Noem & Bovino Out, Tom Homan In, TikTok Addiction Lawsuit, And New Reading List

And we're live. Welcome back to the LOOPcast. Brought to you by Zeal. We had a great, we had a great. We're doing it live now? We're doing it live. We're still doing it live. Guess what, Zeal? Shout out to our marketing team, Top 10 News App right now on, is that Apple?

That's right. Very cool. Right next to, I think, like a police watch. That is always going to dominate. Everyone loves listening into the police scanners, myself included, but congratulations to the Zeal marketing team, and man, we have an IT team, which is cool to say. We didn't have that before, and they've just done a fantastic job. I like this. Yeah, the momentum is so fun. Let's just, so I got to compliment the team. I got to compliment the chat. Again, once again, the most strikingly beautiful and handsome, articulate, smart.

uh, intelligent bunch, uh, many of which joined us for the Q and a with Kelsey. So if you guys have more questions about it, we kind of covered it there, but I guess the best way to do is just go out and check out zeal.co, um, or download the zeal app even better. Um, you can get everything. You basically got everything you got before and more. It's going to be awesome. So, welcome to the show, guys. It's going to be very good.

We are covering the pivot, so there's been a lot of insider reporting of strategy at the White House as they're approaching Operation Metro Surge. It seems like someone got the proverbial call of, you know, the backup quarterback has been activated. We've made a change in personnel, so we're going to get into all the back-end details there. There was a meeting, I believe, actually. It was either this morning or yesterday with Tom Holman. He was on the ground in Minnesota, met with Governor Walz, and actually, as of a couple hours ago, there's a bit of sparring going on on Twitter between Trump and Jacob Fry.

So, anyway, I'm going to try to give the most up-to-date. Mayor, so I'm going to try to give the most up-to-date information there. Also, we had a pretty landmark lawsuit. It was a civil suit implicating all of the CEOs. The CEOs are being called in to testify for addiction to social media platforms. So, as whether these platforms knew that they were addictive and they were being pushed on children, there's a lot of really interesting documents that have been produced as a result of this civil suit.

It's spicy. Yeah, so I'm excited. Erika went in deep on that. It's going to be awesome. And then we have good news. We have Twilight Zone, everything you should expect from a good loop cast. We're just so happy to be joined by you guys today. But before we get into that, I've been thinking a lot about this. I have sponsors that I'm really proud to present. The show's over when I start presenting gambling ads or something like that, so you can just take that as time to go.

But we have fantastic sponsors. I'm so proud to represent them, and I'm happy to share them with you. First off, being Charity Mobile. I actually just had someone email us saying that. Trading Mobile was everything and more than it was promised. They're a fantastic company, and if you're still spending your hard-earned money with this phone company who doesn't value you or your beliefs, It's time to switch to Charity Mobile. The pro-life phone company 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.

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Switch to Charity Mobile and buy the way you believe. To get started, visit CharityMobile.com and use promo code LOOPcast. That is CharityMobile.com, promo code LOOPcast. And we have a new sponsor this week that I'm very excited to present as well. I was joking with Erika before the show that we both received college educations from Cardinal Newman Society-stamped institutions, so you could say, like, the ceiling is Erika and the floor is me. So, you could just end up kind of a crapshoot.

You can end up somewhere in between. Or it's the other way around. I don't know about that. So. I don't think that's right. But, there's one. Thanks, Josh. I mean, I got woken up a lot last night by newborns, so just take everything I say with a grain of salt.

The folks over at the Cardinal Newman Society are great friends of ours at CatholicVote, and they, of course, are the publishers of the Newman Guide. The Newman Guide is the gold standard resource to help families find faithful Catholic education.

I mean, can we all just level? We're in the trust tree here. Not every school that calls itself Catholic is authentically Catholic and faithful to the church. We're in the trust tree. We can say it. You know, we're in the trust tree. Catholic families have relied on the Cardinal Newman Society's Newman Guide for nearly two decades to discover a faithful Catholic education that incorporates the truth of Christ in all subject matters and forms the whole person for God. Known for helping families find Catholic colleges, the Newman Guide is now recommending elementary schools.

Secondary schools and graduate programs in the 2025-2026 edition. That is fantastic. I will certainly be using that as I start looking for Catholic education for my children. Homeschool programs and curriculum providers are now recommended in the Newman Guide as well and can be found on the Newman Guide website. The mission of the Cardinal Newman Society is promote and defend faithful Catholic education, and in order for us to succeed in our mission here at CatholicVote, we need our friends at the Cardinal Newman Society to succeed in theirs.

So, make sure you order the latest version of the Newman Guide. It's available in digital and print forms. It's an amazing resource for you, your kids, your family, their kids, educators, and pretty much everyone you know. Click the link below to request your free e-book edition of the 2025-2026 Newman Guide today. And Josh, you're kind of implicated by proxy because isn't University of Mary Newman Guide stamped?

It is, and I have another daughter who is trying to figure out whether she wants to go to Benedictine or if she wants to go to Franciscan, and the thing is, for us, as a family, it really does begin and end with the Newman Guide. They started publishing this in 2007, but I think this is now the 20th edition of the Guide, and they actually are printing it out, too, which is really helpful, because some people just aren't as digital as much, and I'm like, here.

Check this out. This is, you know, your grandkids should go to these kind of schools, so I have been a super fan of the Cardinal Newman Society for well over 25 years. I've known those guys. They're really good people, and, you know, I think the Newman Guide is super helpful, and you get to learn a lot about the different colleges. You know, some of them have a little bit more, you know, arts background, which is what I'm keyed up on for my daughter, Margaret.

And others specialize in, let's say, business or nursing or education. So, not every school is the same. And they're actually really good about this. This isn't a guarantee that there's going to be the perfect place for you at all. You need to also discern. Just because a school is in the Newman Guide doesn't mean that means that is the school your kid must go to. It's a helpful guide to begin these conversations. And you can know that if a Catholic school You know, like Georgetown, well...

They're completely crazy. Not in the guide. Not in the guide. Trust tree. Every school that says they're Catholic, not Catholic. Okay. But if they're in the Newman Guide, then you know, wow, this is a school that actually takes its Catholic identity very seriously, and that's wonderful to see. The number of schools that end up in the Newman Guide over time is going up, and we love to see that. There's lots of colleges across the country that are closing. It tends to be That the Newman Society, Newman Guide Schools, are actually going up in enrollment.

Yeah, I mean, unsurprising. I remember I talked to, I did an interview a while back now with Benedictine's president, Stephen Minnis. Shout out, Benedictine. I don't know if we got some ravens in the chat. Yeah, I got some love in the chat. My older brother went there, and it is kind of funny. I feel like when you're kind of in the Newman, we almost say, I don't know what you call it, but the Catholic circles, the Newman guide circles a little bit.

It's kind of a tight-knit community, and then you meet people, and you find out, oh, these are kind of my people. I remember going to the March for Life and going to a party after, and it's like, oh, you went, of course, you went to CUA. You went to Benedictine. You went to Ave. And you kind of see, like, the... The type of people that end up at these colleges all have kind of a specific charism. So, I can almost like predict.

I'm like, oh, you went to Franciscan or you went to whatever. It's so funny. No, but it's funny, too. If you think about the March for Life, I mean, you're like, oh, my gosh, these guys came all the way from North Dakota, the University of Mary. Wow. That's what my daughter did. She took the bus. She went on the March for Life last year.

And then Benedictine, which is from Kansas, is also a very long bus ride. And you're like, wow. And then yet, right here in Washington, D.C., you've got. Georgetown University, it would be literally a walk. You could walk to the march. You could march and then march, and it's like, but you know, honestly, we probably don't want the folks with Georgetown. No, no, there's probably a pro-life group. There's probably a pro-life group. It might be small, but they're there for sure. I know, I know.

They have a Cardinal O'Connor conference every year, so I'm not trying to dog on all the people. Yeah, we can't go too hard on G-Town, but, and then, yeah, Celine, producer of the podcast, Barron, shout out. Shout out to the Barons. It's so funny. We're just littered with... The whole organization is littered with Newman guys. You know why the Franciscan is called the Barons? Why? Because the city itself is named after Baron von Steuben. Baron von Steuben, of course. Who fought in the American Revolutionary War.

Very cool. Happy birthday, America. I did not know that. Do you know what a gyrene is? Yeah, it is a nickname for a marine, and your university was started by a marine. It sure is, so unless you go to Aave, no one really knows that, so it is fun explaining. I remember the day he announced that nickname, and I am like, okay, I am just going to not say anything further.

Yeah, shout out to Tom Monaghan, of course, legend, whatever he says goes. Okay, so we have, I mean, we cannot just talk about college and human guide schools, unfortunately. Although, that actually comes back up in my good news. Yeah, we're going to come back to it. We'll come back to that. Spring break edition.

All right, so I'm going to do my best to try to give you a timeline of events, pretty much literally after the show. And I think, I guess I was, it of course was really sad. I mean, we had the loss of life. It was really tragic. I think, even as I've kind of sat with a lot of the reporting that we covered on Monday.

It actually received a lot of pushback from maybe the traditional circle, the wagons people. Of course, there's always going to be people that are just super hardline, support anything that the administration puts out. But 2A people, Second Amendment people, people in the middle, obviously the left wasn't a huge fan of it, but you'd expect that. But there was serious pushback, and I think for good reason. This one felt different than the Rene Good situation. It felt like an escalation of chaos.

There's no communication between... The camp's here, and it just felt like the people on the streets were really just kind of in the middle of all of it. And so, pretty much immediately after the show, we get this truth social from Trump. Governor Tim Walz called me with a request to work together with respect to Minnesota. It was a very good call, and we actually seemed to be on a similar wavelength. I told Governor Walz that I would have Tom Holman call him, and that we are looking for any and all criminals that they have in their possession.

The governor very respectfully understood that, and I will be speaking to him in the near future. He was happy that Tom Holman was going to Minnesota, and so am I. We have had such tremendous success in Washington, D.C., Memphis, Tennessee, and New Orleans, Louisiana, and virtually every other place that we have touched, and even in Minnesota, crime is way down, but both Governor Wallace and I want to make it better, President Donald J. Trump. And the significance of this is there was basically no communication.

All of it was just grandstanding and posting. Without actual communication between the two groups, it was really ramping up an escalation of what had happened before, and this felt like the first kind of reach across the aisle. This is getting out of control. We got to do something. There needs to be a change in some way. Course correction. Course correction. Vibe shift, strategy pivot, whatever you want to call. And so, we get Governor Walz's response to this.

I had a productive call with President Trump earlier today. I told him we need impartial investigations of the Minneapolis. shootings involving federal agents and that we need to reduce the number of federal agents in Minnesota. The president agreed to look into reducing the number of federal agents in Minnesota and talk to DHS about ensuring the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension is able to conduct an independent investigation, as would ordinarily be the case.

Not only did he say this, Trump also said that he wants a full investigation. He wants to see for himself a remarkable change in tone from members of the cabinet and the administration immediately after saying that. People like Greg Bovino and Kristi Noem saying that he was an assassin looking to cause... Carnage, kill people, maximal damage, posting pictures of the gun with the clips like this was somehow proving anything. So, we get a two-hour meeting reportedly on behest of Chrissy Noem at the White House.

This is reported by Jim Roberts, and in attendance, Susie Wiles, Corey Lewandowski, and Caroline Levitt. Notably, Stephen Miller was not there. Who's been a major player in all of this? And essentially, right after this meeting, we get Greg Bovino out of... So, Greg Bovino, if you're not familiar, he's the one that walks around with the coat. He's very public. He has the infamous haircut.

He's Border Patrol. Border Patrol. Not ice. So, he got sent back. Yeah, CBP. He got sent back to California, where he was before, and also people that were with him got sent back to California as well. Some of the members... So, Chrissy Noem, by all accounts, essentially has been sidelined. Tom Holman has been sent in and is directly reporting back to Trump. I've seen that. Interesting, I think this actually might help Chrissy Noem's case, is that Democrats are starting to draw articles of impeachment against her at this point, and from what I've been reading behind the scenes, I think Trump was especially frustrated the first time around in his first term how much chaos and shuffling of administration members there were, and he does not want that.

It might be the case that she might not get fired here, but she might keep a position, even in title, but lose power or access to decision-making and what goes on. That's kind of, I guess I'm reading the tea leaves on that. I can't say that definitively, but with Tom Holman being sent in, and then Corey Lewandowski, as the other name I brought up, he's Chrissy Noem's top aide. The split was, in strategy, was where you get the crazy, you know, helicopters landing on roofs in Chicago, hype edits.

Chrissy Noem in makeup in Seacott in El Salvador in front of people in jail. It was a very flamboyant, hard-line social media, brazen, aggressive strategy. That was the Noem. The Noam Lomdowski camp. Tom Homan actually, I think, lost this debate at one point, because he is a cop. He's essentially a cop. I mean, he was 40 years law enforcement. No BS. No BS. He worked under the Obama administration. He wanted to take a more targeted approach, less show, a little bit more behind the scenes, and it feels like that is what the strategy shift that the Trump administration has made at this point.

He actually flew in yesterday, and on Twitter, he reported about his meeting. He said, today, I met with Governor Walz. Mayor Frey and top law enforcement officials to discuss the issues on the ground in Minnesota, we all agree that we need to support our law enforcement officers and get criminals off the streets. While we don't agree on everything, those meetings were a productive starting point, and I look forward to more conversations with key stakeholders in the days ahead. President Trump has been clear he wants American cities to be safe and secure for law-abiding residents, and they will be.

And then a note, too, on investigations that I had earlier. Federal agencies are preserving evidence, including body cam footage. Per court orders, DHS preliminary reviews of body cam footage shared with Congress indicate two officers fired shots but did not confirm Preddy reaching for his weapon, contradicting some of the initial claims, as I brought up. Kristi Noem, Greg Bovino immediately contradicted that without, and noticeably, Tom Holman waited and said, I need to see an investigation before you make a comment on that, which is.

I think speaks to maybe this pivot. Good, right. Witnesses and sworn testimony filed in federal court via ACLU lawsuits state that Preddy was not brandishing a gun and appeared to be helping someone or filming. Multiple Republican lawmakers have called for full, impartial investigations, aiding bipartisan pressure. It seems like Trump himself is calling for that. He wants to see it himself. So, I think...

Pressured for good reason. I think that hopefully we will get fruit out of this, and then even Tim Walsh himself, I think this is encouraging. Obviously, he got in his digs here, but here is him on CNN talking about his meeting with Tom Holman. First of all, the meeting with Tom Holman, how did that go? What are your thoughts on that? Well, Tom Holman's a professional, which is a lot more than Bovino and Kristi Noem, but look, I think the thing we said is we're very clear about this, that we need these folks out of...

Minnesota, and we need justice for Rene Good and for Alex, and those were things that we came with. I think the thing that I'm most concerned about is the tone was different. There was a tone shift. I wish it was because of the horrific shooting that somebody saw some morality, but I think it's probably the press. But with that being said, I'm not interested in a more efficient metro surge. I'm ready for them to get out of here, and I think that's what Minnesotans are talking about.

It was progress. Look, I never got a call from Bovino or Noam, nothing, no, nothing, when they're coming here, and Tom Holman landed last night, and he called me last night and asked if he could have a meeting, and he was there at 9 o'clock. So, look, I think that's progress, but they started this fire, so we're not giving anybody credit for putting it out, but right now, what we need is we need a return to normalcy by these ICE agents out of here.

Eric and Josh, your assessment of all of this information? Well, I mean, I think... Tim Wallace is a... I'm going to just hold my tongue. The idea, he's like, oh, I just, because of these two tragedies, now I want ICE to not do enforcement at all. And it's like, yeah, no, no, that's not happening. I mean, Harry Enten over on CNN did a video clip yesterday saying, like, four major polls showed that... Americans by 55% or higher support deporting all illegals, and that is a position that politically, 40 years ago, 20 years ago, 15 years ago, 8 years ago, people were like, that is insane.

Now, a solid majority of Americans believe that. The Renee Good thing, again, it was a situation where, well, it was unfortunate, it was tragic, but she did hit the gas, and she did run into a police. You know, to a law enforcement person, so therefore, the thing with the Alex Priddy thing is, like, I don't honestly believe that any of those men intended to kill the person. So, this murder thing is just insidious. There's no evidence to make that suggestion, but it does seem like...

It's very regrettable because it should not have gone down that way, but again, you're making split-second decisions, so I'm not going to second-guess law enforcement at all, but the fact of the matter is I'm super happy and relieved that President Trump is ignoring Kristi Noem and sending her to Siberia, hopefully, and putting Tom Holman in charge. Tom Holman is no nonsense. Now, results-oriented, he's been doing this for 20, 30 years. He knows what he's talking about.

He's just interested in results, and he is a man who delivers. And so, I mean, Corey Lendowski and Kristi Noem were not helping us at all, actually, on this, and I'm glad to see. President Trump is not one who likes to admit he made some mistakes.

But he does do course corrections, and this was definitely needed, and it's very helpful. Yeah, I think that relief also describes my feelings as well when I saw the news that Homan was going in. Throughout this, throughout the Rene Good thing, he's just been much more the voice of reason and professionalism, saying, look, I'm not going to comment on the shooting. I'm not going to, yeah, I've seen the tape, but we're not going to rush to judgment. There's a process for this, and it's called due process, and we're going to let the process work its way out.

Everyone's accountable to the law. So, to have someone like that step in and be in the removal of Noam after her irresponsible characterization, which just was a layup for the mainstream and left media, because they could immediately say, we have the footage, we have Noam saying that he's going to massacre everyone. In the street, and he's brandishing his gun, someone said, and they could immediately, the headlines were all, video evidence contradicts Trump administration. And that, I mean, that's, it just wrote itself for them.

So, again, so grateful that Trump, it seems to be willing to make the course correction. It was, it was funny the last two days, though, to like see the reactions from both the right and the left, and one of them being, Trump caves after Walls stands up to him. And then the other one, Walls. caves and meets with Tom Homan. So, again, it is this inkblot Rorschach test that the firestorm continues, and the outrage right now is the Minneapolis situation. Do you remember 10 days ago when it was the invasion of Greenland?

Do you remember that? That was so long ago now. So, the outrage just continues, but what I am grateful for with Homan stepping in is that he seems to be someone who is willing to just get the job done. And ignore the noise. And one of his tactics has been… And it's very successful in mostly red states where ICE is also active. We forget that ICE is not just in Minnesota, Minneapolis. Yes, we have the surge there in enforcement action, but ICE is in all of the states.

They are working, and we don't see this level of violence and protest in other states. And part of the reason is that Tom Homan is committed to deporting the worst of the worst first, and that works best. When local law enforcement and the local judiciary branch are willing to let ICE know when they have someone in custody. We went over this on Monday. When they have someone in custody, they check their immigration status. They're like, oh, they should have had a hearing in court four years ago that they skipped out on.

They call ICE, and there's no need to put that person out into the neighborhood. There's no need for them to be driving around. There's no need for ICE to go out into these more dangerous situations. So, that is the kind of process that Holman wants to prioritize, and if Minneapolis can get itself back into that sort of application of deportations, it will be much better.

So, yeah, relief is there. Cautious relief, though, because I do not trust him or Mayor Frye to be particularly helpful. Yeah, they have already started kind of going back and forth a little bit already. The one thing I think, to add a little bit of helpful context, Bill Malugin.

How do you pronounce that? We've talked about them as a pretty reliable source when it comes to reporting on immigration enforcement, but basically, all that we're asking, all that the Trump administration is asking Minneapolis PD to do is to honor ICE detainers so that ICE can pick up illegal immigrants charged with crimes once they are released from jail, and specifically from jail, not prison.

Tim Waltz's shot back is somewhat of a retort, like, they do from prison, but they don't from jail, which, for those who don't know, prison and jail are two different things, so it's kind of a nice, like, deft sidestep, but basically, they have people in jail, and it's like, oh, you have a nice standard, let them know. So, there's still, because now they're arguing about, like, I guess I can bring it up, this was this morning, we have.

Fry, Mayor Fry. It's so annoying because you read it. Did he do this on purpose to mess with people? It's spelled F-R-E-Y, and it's Fry. That doesn't even make sense. Anyway. So, here is his little tweet storm this morning.

Today, Chief O'Hara and I met with Border Czar Tom Holman. I had a productive conversation. I reiterated that my main ask is for Operation Metro Search to end as quickly as possible. Public safety works best when it is built on community trust, but not tactics that create fear of division. I shared with Mr. Holman the serious negative impacts this operation has had on Minneapolis and surrounding communities, as well as the strain it has placed on our political... Our local police officers.

I also made it clear Minneapolis does not and will not enforce federal immigration laws, and that will remain focused on keeping our neighbors and streets safe. City leaders will continue to stay in conversation with Mr. Holman and his team.

So, if you notice the words in there, that might set someone off. We quickly get a truth from Donald Trump. Surprisingly, Mayor Jacob Fry just stated that Minneapolis does not and will not enforce federal immigration laws. This is after having a very good conversation with him. Could someone in his inner sanctum please explain that the statement is a very serious violation of the law that he's playing with fire? And then Fry shoots back, the job of our police is to keep people safe, not enforce immigration laws.

I want them preventing homicides, not hunting down a working dad who contributes to MPLS. And it's from Ecuador. It's similar to the policy your guy, Rudy Giuliani, had in New York City. Everyone should feel safe calling 911, which, of course, this is stupid. That's so stupid. Because no one even asked. No one asked the Minneapolis PD to enforce immigration law. They just said, get out of our way.

Right, or assist when it's necessary, but not to actually enforce the law. But, you know, there's a guy, Chris Shaliza, he used to be with CNN, and he actually made the point. Jacob Fry's pronouncements are really dumb, he said, because he said a majority of the country, A, thinks what the Trump administration is doing in Minnesota is way over the top, and B, wants people here illegally removed from the country.

And so, Chris, she loads a point, and this guy's obviously a liberal, but I agree with what he's saying. He said, the more the debate is about A, that Trump's, what he did in Minnesota was way over the top, it's better for Democrats. Right. That's true. He says, the more the debate is about B, do we want people here illegally to be removed from the country, the better it is for Republicans.

By Donald Trump doing a course correction and saying, yeah, some of these people are doing a little too flashy stuff and being a little bit kind of careless and stupid, let's get them out of here, let's get the responsible professional, Tom Holman, and his guys in there and get the job done and focus actually just on removing people here illegally, then Jacob Fry, that's still too much for Jacob Fry, he's going to lose his marbles and he's going to scream and holler, and you know what?

The American people will be with Tom Holman because... That's what they believe. Yeah. And it brings up a funny little graphic that's being circulated on social media. I mean, some people don't think what Donald Trump's doing is too harsh, but work with me on this graphic. I think it's kind of funny. It's just people's perception. So, this is the perception, you know, draconian enforcement of all immigration laws. That's where Trump is, apparently, right?

But if you ask the American people where they are, they're at this other level. Practical enforcement of all immigration laws. But see, the people on the left, they actually think, well, no, no, no. The American people want practical enforcement of some immigration laws. And then you got the people like Jacob Fry at the very bottom who want no enforcement of any immigration laws. And then the joke here is that these are the useful idiots that will get Trump elected to a third, fourth, and fifth term.

So true. To be fair, Jacob Frey has put himself in a very difficult situation, because if there is any whiff that he's going to bend the knee at all to any Tom Homan demands, he really is just turning himself into a Nazi collaborator, given his own rhetoric.

Remember what you said, Erika, that made Tom almost fall over last time? It was, you know, we're this close to getting Tim Walz as Vice President of the United States. We're also that close to having that Somalian socialist as mayor of Minneapolis. Remember, Jacob Fry barely won. Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. It would have been an absolute nightmare.

So, the interesting thing on this, you bring up, people keep trying to assess the American people's desires when it comes to enforcing immigration. Steve Bannon pointed this out, and I think this is largely true, and I just, I don't know the proper way to beat the drum on this, but Trump also is kind of shifting his rhetoric away from like illegal aliens to criminals, and then like, we got to target the worst of the worst. I think some of that is euphemism for like, okay, we're not going to go after.

Business people employing illegal aliens. Or people who have been here 30 years illegally. Exactly, right, like kind of soft on that, and I do think it's good, and maybe that's more of an extreme part of the party. I know, Josh, you said that most Americans feel like there should be some kind of like college branch extended to people that have been here 30 years or whatever.

I, count me in the Steve Bannon part of the party. I mean, the main rub that actually affects the majority of Americans, of course, like the criminals that are like murdering people, obviously bad, but businesses taking advantage of cheaper labor at a slave rate.

And then those people taking advantage of benefits here. Tom, I agree with you 100%. I think Donald Trump could put some CEOs in handcuffs, and his polling numbers would go way up, dude. Absolutely. But that is the thing. Go after the employers who are actually giving the jobs to these people. And I wonder if he could at some point. I feel like he is just not, because he obviously has a lot of very successful business backers, and it would change their business model, and it would be very disruptive.

But, I mean, that's the only solution for the working class. I think Tom Holman's strategy to isolate the actual violent thugs and criminals, get them out first, and then, we also have to remember. You know, there are hundreds of thousands of people who have voluntarily self-deported. They've used the CBP1 app and the $1,000 bonus. Now, it's gone up to, I think, $2,000 or something like that, and these people are deciding, you know what? I'm not going to cause a fuss. I'm just going to head back to where I belong, and to the extent that we can encourage that further, I also think states have the ability to pass E-Verify.

We have a lot of red states, by the way, that you think are really strong. North Carolina is a sanctuary state. It is because there are a lot of agro CEOs who love cheap labor. So, we got some work to do in red states, blue states, purple states, but yes, I think the more that we can increase enforcement penalties, we can get people to just decide to sell at the port, I think that would be great. Yeah, and then final note on this, frustrating.

The Department of Justice withdrawed their request for arrest warrants for Don Lemon, whatever you like to call him, other protesters who disrupted church services in St. Paul, Minnesota, after a federal judge refused to sign off. So, it looks like we're only getting three of the main group, and definitely not getting Don Lemon here, which is very frustrating. That's an embarrassment. And embarrassing, in my opinion.

It's also the hardest one to make, because he could, you know, the leeway for a journalist is higher, but... He was just chronicling, guys. He was just there to chronicle. That's the line he kept using. You're like, no. Sure. Well, you could figure that real quick if you got him into court and went through his text records and emails, but they're not going to do that. It would be nice to have allowed it to go to trial and at least plea him out, because he wouldn't have gone for discovery.

Right, totally. Okay, Erika, take me through this landmark addiction case here. Okay, so I am always interested in the way that addiction has been built into our social media, because it is a big part of everyone's life, for sure. It should be a smaller part of my life, but hey, it is my job. So, the usual suspects are headed to court, most of them anyway. So, this is TikTok, which joined Snapchat, which settled earlier this year. TikTok has agreed to settle.

In this major social media addiction lawsuit, just before the scheduled trial was about to begin, jury selection is this week. The terms remain completely confidential. That was part of the settlement, and I'll get into some of the reasons for that in a minute.

But the landmark civil trial was brought by parents who accuse now Meta and YouTube, oh my gosh, I can't even talk, part of Google. ...of causing their children to develop social media addictions and mental health issues. So, the case brought by the plaintiff, it focuses on a 19-year-old girl who is alleging that design features like infinite scroll, autoplay, and algorithmic recommendations, they hooked her onto social media as a minor, and fueled her depression, anxiety, she has body dysmorphia, and suicidal thoughts.

So, pray for that poor girl. But her side argues that companies bypassed Section 230, which is the Communications Decency Act, which typically shields platforms or entertainment industries for liability from third-party content, but which the plaintiff argues does not exempt social media platforms from the damages caused by their design. So, it's that they've designed the platform specifically to... ...to addict their users without any regard for age. And obviously, in young children, we know from a lot of sociological study brought forward by Jonathan Haidt that it is so highly addictive, especially for young developing brains.

And anyone that's seen kids on an iPad in a restaurant kind of understands this. Yeah, or tried to peel their child off of an iPad if we enter real life, and then all of the adult ensues. So, the companies, for their part, the defendants, are denying these allegations, of course, and arguing that they've invested... Safety tools. So, they've done their job. It's expected that Mark Zuckerberg and the head of Instagram, Adam Masseri, are going to testify, so that should be really interesting.

The argument is that the use patterns, which is a euphemism for addiction, are driven by the users themselves, not by any deceptive design on the part of these social media platforms. They say that youth mental health is influenced by many factors. Beyond just social media use, including family breakdown, school, biology, and offline experiences, and so the plaintiff's claims are oversimplifying causation and putting too much weight on social media in this particular girl's issues with her mental health. They also argue that their platforms, all these arguments, they just kind of like build on each other until you're like, wait, I thought you said that it wasn't your fault.

But then they're also arguing that their platforms are vehicles for protected expression. So, even if the child did, as a result of her use of their platform, get addicted and get upset and depressed, they're a protected expression anyway, and users voluntarily choose how and when to engage with the content, so it's inappropriate to hold the companies liable.

So, that's sort of like the both sides of the case. Really interesting. Could go back and forth on that, but it's being seen as a bellwether. This is really platform design put on trial, and it's also a part, if this case goes through and there's some kind of remuneration for the family, if there's a guilty verdict from the jury or the judge, there are 3,000 other lawsuits of a similar standing in California alone. And 2,000 federal lawsuits pending against Meta, TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube, name your platform, they're all being sued by thousands of users.

So, the outcome of this particular case, again, which is kicking off next week, will affect those cases. So, comparisons being drawn between lawsuits against big tobacco and big pharma companies that knowingly concealed the risks of, like, cigarettes and opioids.

And the question is, is it analogous to what social media companies are hiding about the design of their platforms? The question on the table. Yes. Regulate them the way that we regulate. Isn't the Section 230 argument is like, we're like a public utility.

So, we can't be responsible for what gets posted. So, it would be like the internet or something like that. It would be like going after internet providers for whatever content is on their platform. Well, it's specifically, you know, when you're talking about the Internet Decency Act, whatever, what I was getting at is that if we have a forum where everyone can exchange ideas and post whatever they want, recipes or this or that, and they post a picture and it happens to be copyrighted somewhere else, you can't sue AOL.

User, you know, AOL, because some user posted something. So, I get that. That is what they are trying to get at. They are creating this forum. But, so I find that very different, in a sense, from what we're talking about here. Like, Instagram and TikTok, they're trying to get people to come into their orbit, come to their app, come to their website or whatever, and they intentionally, you know, do this algorithm, they do these approaches, they try to keep people hooked and stay on.

Now, look, every business, every product is trying to get their people to, you know, continued use, like TVs, they want you to keep watching. So, we get that, but the question is, are they doing something? Intentionally, that is addictive and harmful, and they know it's harmful. That does open them up to a lot of lawsuits, and that's what we're seeing here. Also, should it be regulated? Absolutely. In fact, the documents in this case were unsealed back in November, and some of these depositions and unsealed email exchanges are crazy.

This was from Shiley Jimenez, who's a meta... Senior researcher over at the Facebook Instagram world, she said, IG, Instagram, is a drug. And she was referencing the comments, or the plaintiff in this case, and then someone responded to her, LOL, I mean, all social media, we're basically pushers. That was another Meta employee. Later on, Jimenez said in her deposition that those comments were made sarcastically, but they're still pretty damning. We had another internal email from Mark Zuckerberg himself to Meta, and he said, if we tell teens, parents, and teachers about their live videos.

That will probably ruin the product from the start, and then a little later on, he says, my guess is that we'll need to be very good about not notifying parents and teachers, so it's not looking great based on unsealed documents that somehow, you know, meta is just, you know, they're just trying to be an open forum where everyone can post, and there's no knowledge that this could be possibly damaging, so it's going to be a really interesting court case, and also what happens after, but basically, keep your kids off social media.

Because they're pushers. Yeah. There's no need. Yeah. Okay. We'll see how that one goes. Yep. Good news. Erika, what do you got? Good news. Okay, well, the school choice week, which is a new thing from Trump 2.0, a new thing, and we have some really cool initiatives and momentums that just, you know, I'm not going to be benefiting from them. You can see from the map here that the 23 states who have adopted some of the Trump administration's school choice benefits are all pretty red and mostly in the middle of the country, but there's some really amazing benefits that are being developed.

So, Linda McMahon, this week to celebrate, she announced a record $500 million expansion of the federal charter schools program in order to give students more mobility and not be stuck in the same schools. They want to expand charter school options. She also confirmed that those 23 states you see on the screen have opted into The Education Freedom Tax Credit, which is a new federal tax credit to fund scholarships and expand private school access, and this is a I think it is a better option than going for just more vouchers or ESAs, because in the case of the tax credit, that money now goes directly to the families.

It gets put into their pockets so they can decide how to spend it. And at a really cool press conference this morning, actually, Ron DeSantis in Florida announced they are the 24th state to adopt this, so that little Florida should also be read at this point. And their program is going to include homeschool families as well, which several other states are also doing. So, again, the idea that we are injecting some kind of choice with money that follows the students, not the schools, I just think is going to benefit everyone, and not just families who choose to take their kids out of the system and use this for educational choice, but also kids who remain in the public schools, because public schools, for so long, have had no incentive to improve their product because They are just given the money, like this endless funding from the state, from the federal government, with no accountability, right?

With no accountability, and this kind of movement, the critics will say, oh, it's draining money from the public schools. I think it's actually injecting some level of competition and demand for creativity from the public schools, which is what they need, not more money to sink into their failing programs.

So, yay, education, school choice week. I am here for it. I would like to add to that. I think it is good for homeschoolers too, by the way. Not just in the states that allow homeschoolers to receive benefits, but when you have the proliferation of alternatives to public schools, when you have more Catholic schools, more Chesterton schools, stuff like that, there is a benefit to homeschoolers as well. We don't have a school choice in Michigan, but like... The Chesterton School that I'm affiliated with, we bring in homeschoolers for, you know, a couple classes, a couple days a week, whatever.

So, there are benefits, you know, like we need to break up this monolithic public school monopoly where the growth in employees is almost, in the last 25, 30 years, has been almost all administrative, and we've not seen performances go up at all. I prefer to call them cartels. Education cartels. Erika, I saw that you had a reading list here, and I always like to get your thoughts on books. So, Texas, God bless Texas, they just dropped their new state reading list for high school.

This is crazy, guys. I feel like I walked into a Chesterton Academy, speaking of Chesterton. So, we've got books that students will have to read in their entirety, and this is Jeremy Tate, good friend, shout out, talk about a missionary to education. Thank you, Jeremy, for all your work. But they're going to read in their entirety The Odyssey. We have Animal Farm. We've got Shakespeare, Beowulf. Who doesn't love Beowulf? The Great Gatsby. The Alchemist, Hamlet, David Thoreau. I mean, this is good stuff.

Are you an F. Scott Fitzgerald head? F. Scott Fitzgerald, you know, Great Gatsby. I read him in high school. I thought he was really deep. I have not gone back, so I wonder what I would think now, a 44-year-old Erika.

I'll have to look it back to you on F. Scott Fitzgerald. Okay. I just want to read that. It is a sad book. Yeah. It actually, yeah, it's kind of, yeah, it is a sad book. You know what? It gives me nihilistic penguin vibes when I think about F. Scott. No, the penguin's way better. Okay. The penguin is way better.

No, he's the idealist penguin. Do you have a favorite out of this list, out of curiosity? Oh, gosh. Well, okay, so this book in... particular, did not make it onto Jeremy's amazing graphic. I think it would be Thomas Sowell. They actually have one of Thomas Sowell's early works is now going to be required reading for high school economics, which is awesome. But of the list on the graphics, you know, I'm actually going to go with The Scarlet Letter. Wow, you're not going to do Pride and Prejudice?

You know, I love a good Pride and Prejudice, but it's so... Everyone picks Pride and Prejudice, right? No, I like the Scarlet Letter. I prefer the woman who's branded with the red A to Lizzie Bennet. So, it's funny. I was reading in the comments of this. Someone's like, why is this news? I read all these 25 years ago. Oh, my gosh. I can't stand it. If only I could tell you what my public school reading list was in Metro Detroit. I think Did I have anything?

Of Mice and Men, I think I read. There you go. And that was it. That was it of this list? No Shakespeare? We might have done Romeo and Juliet? Maybe. I don't know if we did. But it was until I switched to the classical model, all of a sudden I started reading Beowulf.

Was Animal Farm? The Odyssey, definitely read in high school. You know what we did? We did Jane Austen, but we did Emma, which was so boring. I can't believe they made me read that. Why do people like it? It was so boring. It was an entire book about nothing. It was a book about women talking. I was like, this is awesome. This is exactly what we need our high school young men to be reading, is women talking.

Is there anything else on here? Great Gatsby, I think I did. Yeah, but like, anyway, the point being, this is not the standard at public high schools across the country. No, this is not even close to standard. Maybe it was at one point, but yeah. Anyway, thank you for that, Erika. Josh, what do you have? Okay, this sounds more twilight zone than it is good news, but hear me out.

Former governor of Washington state, Jay Ainsley, tweeted out this. He said, in the midst of ICE horror, the Senate needs to prohibit Trump from using ICE. As a voter suppression tool, Senate Dems need to put in the appropriations bill a prohibition on ICE agents being near polling places.

This is a must have. Last chance to do this. I see where this is going. I think this is I think it's I think it's good news. Anytime someone creates, you know, a true. Political gaffe, which is where you accidentally tell the truth. You're telling me ICE agents at the polling place would be a voter suppression tool? Every voter is supposed to be a card-carrying United States citizen. So, why would it be, if I saw an ICE agent, I'm like, he can't arrest me.

I'm a United States citizen. I have my voter ID. I have nothing to worry about. How could it possibly be? Voter suppression, Jay Ainsley. How? I think I know the answer, actually. Now, come to think of it, maybe it's because it would suppress illegal voters. Yeah, that's it. That's why Democrats don't want the ICE agents there. Yeah. Did you see the guy from California saying that after when Democrats get in power, they're going to hunt down ICE agents like Nazis?

Yeah. Crazy, dude. Like, I can't even just believe that people would say it out loud. I was a California representative. I have to look that up. It's not the guy who's running to replace Pelosi, is it? It could be. I can't just throw that out and not confirm that. Yeah, you got to get that. Yeah, I got to go confirm that.

All right, Selene, I need you on that. It's not Scott Wiener, is it? He's the guy. No, I don't think it's Scott Wiener. He's the state senator out of California who's running to replace Nancy Pelosi's seat. Yeah, anyway, we should be a little bit like, if we're going to bring that to the program. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. No, I saw it this morning.

Selene's looking for it. She'll get it. All right, my good news. So, we have the president of Dartmouth College, Sian Leah Belak. Interesting name. Basically, she wrote this article in Wall Street Journal Opinion about whether or not the four-year degree was worth it, and it's just the forever question. It's almost funny at this point.

I don't know if this is like stunning or brave at this point, but yeah, I mean, a lot of people are questioning. That's insane. It's way too expensive. The payoff doesn't seem to be worth it, but I do, and part of why we talked about the Newman Guide and how much we like it and all the people in our orbit, like I do think college isn't something to completely give up on and is truly like a public and personal good in its proper form, like education in its classical sense.

And it was nice to get it, I don't know if this is an admission, I mean, I appreciated the tone that she wrote in, because it came with a lot of humility of like, the first line in it, assuming that most Americans value our mission is a recipe for irrelevance and decline, we must demonstrate to students and families and to the broader public that we've heard their criticisms and will address them. I see five areas where we can build back trust.

The first one, make college more affordable. Yeah. Crazy thought. Yes. At Dartmouth, we have replaced loans with a combination of scholarships, grants, and work-study options in our financial aid packages and now offer free tuition for families earning $175,000 or less. This model is expensive, but it's worth every penny if we want lower and middle-class families to see a four-year degree as within reach. Dartmouth is fortunate to have generous alumni who provide funding that makes programs like this possible. Maybe some of these big endowment schools should take note.

Second, the return on investment matters. Fortebilla isn't enough. A college education is one of the largest investments a family will ever make, and there must be an undeniable return. Institutions should be held accountable for student outcomes. Are our graduates getting jobs, pursuing meaningful work, and contributing to their communities? A couple ideas. University of Tulsa commits to making sure that students who participate in their career development program either land a job or get accepted into graduate school. Curry College takes responsibility for its students' loans.

...for up to 12 months or provide a paid internship or free graduate school credits if graduates aren't employed. Third, recenter higher education on learning rather than political posturing. Too often, colleges and universities have participated in the culture wars. The result is an environment in which students and faculty feel they must toe an ideological line rather than explore ideas that fall outside of prevailing norms. Our institution must reclaim a narrower, firmer sense of our role. That means embracing institutional neutrality, or restraint, as we call it at Dartmouth, on issues that don't directly affect our mission or core functions.

When we, as institutions, rush to issue statements every time there's a national and global controversy, we signal that there is a right position and that opposing views are unwelcome. Promoting healthy debate isn't a partisan project. It's the precondition for any serious education. Wow.

Imagine that. Fourth. Emphasize equal opportunity, not equal outcomes. We must be willing to reintroduce differentiation. That could include policies like forced medians, distribution guidelines, or being transparent about grades given. Recently, our faculty voted to keep median grades on students' transcripts because they believe that more information is better than less. Ours is the only Ivy League school that does this. There is more on this section about addressing grade inflation, basically, like everyone gets A's. That makes sense. So, making sense there. And then fifth, testing is important.

Dartmouth is the first Ivy League university to reinstate an SAT or ACT requirement after a testing optional period was removed during the COVID pandemic. So, they're bringing back testing. Yeah. What's cool about this is they got love from Bishop Barron on this op-ed. So, there's a great piece in the Wall Street Journal today, written by C.M. Leah Bialak, president of Dartmouth College. She acknowledges what many of us have been saying for some time, namely that the university system has become corrupt, and she proposes common-sense solutions.

I was very gratified to read all this from an Ivy League university president. Sign of hope. Very cool. And then, final shout-out before, Eric, I want your thoughts on this. It came to my attention that the provost at Dartmouth is, his name is Santiago Schnell. He is Dartmouth's new provost and a world-renowned biologist, and his Catholic faith is key to his vision of higher ed renewal. So, it seems like a lot of good things going on there. Again, not Newman Guide stamped, but I think it actually is good for the country to have educational institutions that serve the public.

And are not going to put people in crushing debt and turn them into a brainwash whatever, or like the admission that many people that go to college have to lie in a liberal direction to pass is the greatest indictment of what the university system.

...has become, essentially, and it's actually... That's why I'm like, I have lots of criticisms of the university system, but I don't think it should just be completely abolished or destroyed. I think maybe only a fourth of them should exist, because there's a lot that just basically are subsidized by the government via student loans. Yeah, and maybe just one of the Ivy League schools. No, this was really encouraging coming out of Dartmouth.

Fun fact, they have a fantastic Newman Center there run by the Dominicans of the province of St. Joseph. Shout out, boys. So, there are a lot of promising things coming out of there. Just to kind of pick up on, I mean, the affordability thing is fantastic. That looks great. It looks very Hillsdale-ian, actually, in terms of the different combinations that they use for students to make it more affordable, all the investment stuff.

But I did want to pick up on the testing thing at the end there. When we did the piece recently on why college kids can't do math for the deep, and I talked a lot about it as a deep dive into the effects of doing away with all standardized testing, and the effect that that had particularly on the California system, that when you do away with any kind of standardized test, all that's left to admissions departments are the high school transcripts and recommendations.

And those have become almost useless in terms of being able to tell... ...is ready for college-level work, or grade inflation, because of, you know, getting rid of pluses and minuses, even getting rid of grades altogether. Right. And so, getting back, and it also, it tends to favor kids who already have a leg up in life, because they have people who will write better recommendations for them, they're going to get, if there are grades in their transcripts, they're going to get better, because they can afford tutors, and all that stuff.

So, going back to the testing... For Dartmouth, I think is key to making the education more accessible to kids who are naturally talented in the ways of academia. So, yeah, all of this was really, really encouraging to see a little self-reflection, because like you said, Tom, I do think we need to build new institutions, because in many ways, it's a lost cause for a lot of these schools, but we do also want to take back the institutions. I mean, Dartmouth was founded as a Christian seminary, like many of the Ivy Leagues, and so it's great to see some kind of movement and breakup of the cartel, as it were, at the Ivy League level.

Because we have people, I think we have a lot of people that have raw talent and ability. I just have a supreme belief in the American DNA and work ethic and the mores of the people. But if there's no institution to basically refine them and basically groom them into being like...

An enlightened, or I guess like an aristocrat, not in a negative sense of the word, but like refine your tastes, refine your communication ability, put you in touch with mentors and people that can help you grow in the direction that we need them.

Hopefully, one day, you could be a Supreme Court justice or something. You could be a very important politician. You could be an attorney. You could be whatever, you know what I mean? Or you could build businesses that benefit the community. So, not to say you need college for all of them, but you actually do to create that.

The people that need to occupy those leadership roles of the future, and if we don't trust the institutions, then you kind of get a lot of raw talent, but not refined, and it's kind of sad to see missed potential in some ways in a lot of people.

So, anyway, Celine, thank you. It is Philadelphia's district attorney. It is not California, so sorry for slandering California, although they don't need much defense, but here he is. This is a small bunch. Of wannabe Nazis, that's what they are. In a country of 350 million, we outnumber them.

If we have to hunt you down the way they hunted down Nazis for decades, we will find your identities, we will find you, we will achieve justice. Wait, did you say that's a DA? That's a DA. That's a DA. Affiliate, yeah.

I have no words. District attorney. Wow. I bet he got money from Soros. Oh, he did. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No doubt. Josh, your twilight zone. Well, today is the 40th anniversary of... Pretty interesting event. There are some historical events that the people who experienced them, they never really forget it, right? So, for older generations, it was, where were you when Kennedy was assassinated? I remember exactly where I was, you know, on 9-11. I was fleeing Washington, D.C. It was pretty frightening.

But then, one that was a very big event 40 years ago today. A lot of high school and grade school students were watching in class on their television sets with a lot of excitement as the seven astronauts boarded the Challenger space shuttle, including a teacher, to go up into space.

Everyone was so excited. Here is a teacher. She is one of the seven astronauts. She is going up there to see it. From New Hampshire. Yeah, Christine McAuliffe, and unfortunately, within a minute or two, as you're watching the launch, all the kids all across the country are watching this, and the space shuttle explodes. Yeah. And it was a pretty traumatic event for a second grader. We didn't actually watch it in my class, but a lot of kids were watching it live, and they were completely shocked.

They couldn't believe it. And President Ronald Reagan was supposed to give the State of the Union an address later that night, but instead decided to speak to the country and give a really good, I mean, the whole thing is five minutes long. You can watch it, but, you know, right here, you can watch a little bit of it here, the ending. We can say of the Challenger crew, their dedication was, like Drake's, complete.

The crew of the Space Shuttle Challenger honored us for the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye, and slipped the surly bonds of Earth to touch the face of God. Thank you.

It was just amazing, and he actually, during the course of that five minutes, talked about, like, I want to address you school children that were watching this, and everything about it was just a very moving and powerful speech, and it was just, I mean, again, he had speechwriters that were at the top of their class, but Reagan knew how to deliver it. It was a masterful way to try to, you know, show true empathy and all that kind of stuff, and I just wanted to also use this as an opportunity to...

Provide a little insight into my own family, and people wonder about my sense of humor, you know, kind of goofiness. My father, three days after the tragic event, he says, hey, son. I go, oh, yeah? I say, do you know what NASA stands for? I'm like, what? Yeah. Need another seven astronauts. Oh, no. Yeah!

And that explains a lot about Jocelyn. And there we go. I was absolutely shocked. Again, the gallows humor. That's some gallows humor. Someone saying in the chat that the engineers knew the O-rings would not hold, according to a book by Peggy Noonan about the Challenger. There are so many conspiracy theories about this one, Tom. I haven't gotten enough on the Challenger. They need to be discovered.

But see, the thing is, one of the reasons why I think some conspiracy theories don't hold up is because people are not as nefarious. Well, are people evil? There are people that are evil. There are people that are evil. Don't always ascribe to, you know, nefarious conspiracy. But have you looked into it? Hold on a second. When sometimes it's literally just bureaucratic incompetence. Like, honestly, that is sometimes the answer. And, again, getting the lowest bid from the lowest contractor and all this other kind of stuff.

There wasn't, you know, this. One of the things that we needed more in our bureaucracy is, like, the naval admiral who was in charge of. The nuclear subs. He was a hard ass. He made sure every single part, every single thing, you know, we would never allow anything bad. And the contractors and the senators and all these people were giving him the riot act. He's like, no, I'm going to make sure that our vessels, because if we have one mistake.

If we have a nuclear fallout submarine, it will never work, and he stood by it and made sure that we had the very best nuclear fleet ever, and so that was Rickover, Admiral Rickover. Okay, but this book... The lawyer's saying it's by Higginbotham. I haven't looked into it. I didn't look into any of the information about it. I'm not saying no against it. I'm just saying, like, sometimes... Because that's what you sound like, by the way, when you're like, all of these conspiracy theories, you know, people always say they're whatever, and it's like, well, did you look into the challenges?

I'm not making a case one way or another for it. I'm just saying that sometimes it's too easy in the internet age. To kind of ascribe to a vast conspiracy, sometimes that the answer might just be petty greed or incompetency. You know what I'm saying? I know what you're saying, but I'm saying how this sounds to someone that's read up on the Challenger and knows. You know what I'm saying? It's an obtuse answer that frustrates people that actually did go through and went on one side of the story.

So, I understand why you're saying what you're saying, and I guess largely agree, but when you meet people that actually... Like, research or heard someone's point of view with that answer, it just makes it sound like, okay, so, like, you're just not going to look into it, like, you're not going to, and then it makes those people even more mad.

But I'm not going to, I'm not going to draw the line on the challenge. I haven't looked into it. I got no dog in the hunt. No dog in the hunt, but as, you know, I like, you know, I like my, I like my theories. But as the person in the chat said, it wasn't Pig and Nuna who wrote that book. She wrote the speech. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Higginbottom. Yeah, I haven't looked into that one. I feel like that one's ripe for me to look into. I'll have to go look at the challenger. Yeah, we need a new one. He's moving on from the moon landing, people. Well.

Or not. Well, you know, we'll see. I like to remain somewhat ambiguous on my beliefs. Thanks for the recommendation, Laurie. Erika, your try zone. All right, so. Remember back when September 10th, Charlie Kirk was shot? Nobody can forget. It's another moment in American history. Remember when Jimmy Kimmel went on and joked about it? We talked about how the shooter was a MAGA dude, and maybe Charlie deserved it because he was horrible, too. And remember when Next Star came out, and we suspended Jimmy Kimmel, and people were like, aha, at last, there will be retribution and accountability.

Next star said, Mr. Kimmel's comments about the death of Mr. Kirk are offensive and insensitive at a critical time in our national political discourse, and we do not believe they reflect the spectrum of opinions, views, or values of the local communities in which we are located, so they canceled the show on the number. And then he was back. He was back just nine days later, I believe, with a quick turnaround. So, he's still back, and now he's saying this.

All right, we roll to this one? Sure, yep, chief nerd. Okay. Sorry, we're glitching a little bit. Every day is a nightmare now. My wife and I have family in Minneapolis. They're afraid to take their kids to school. They're afraid to go to work. And I can only imagine how people who aren't white feel about this. How does this end? What's the plan here? Is the plan to just keep doing this in every city that didn't vote for Donald Trump? Does anyone on any side believe this is good leadership?

We keep saying we need to find subjects that we can agree on. Can we agree that peaceful protesters, including moms driving SUVs on their way back after dropping their six-year-old off at school, and a nurse who stepped in to protect a woman from harm, don't deserve to be shot dead in the street by the people we are paying to protect us? Can we agree on that? I mean, can it- Yeah. We can cut him off there. No one needs to listen to this.

He goes on. When they stop clapping, he's weeping and crying about the death. But again, he should not even be up there. Nexstar completely caved. They completely caved to get him back on there and give him this kind of a platform. I don't know. We have Stephen Colbert yesterday also saying things like ICE is worse than the Nazis because at least the Nazis didn't cover their faces. I mean, this is just vile, vile garbage. They didn't cover their faces. They'd be doxxed.

Exactly. We all know that. The thing is, by the way, I'm a Vikings fan, and so in Minnesota, there's a big controversy because Paul Allen, the voice, he's phenomenal. He calls the game for the Vikings on the radio.

Someone made some comment about the protesters, and he said, I wonder if they're getting hazard paid. Because it is so cold outside. Kind of a funny little... And, like, the left is going up in arms, and they want him off the radio. So, it is like, okay. Now, is the left going to be so in favor of free speech like they were for Jimmy Kimmel, or are they going to come for Paul Allen? So, again, all this stuff is, you know, whatever.

I mean, it is almost like if they had any standards at all, right? Yeah, it is all theatrics. I think, if I think back to the Jimmy Kimmel thing, it is like... I don't, like, he can say what he wants, but the FCC does have laws about what you can say, and I don't think he's, like, entitled by law to be broadcasted on Sinclair or whatever, you know. That was my main frustration with it. If he wants to be, you know.

Sorry, I got to choose my language carefully. If he wants to be, you know, Tomfoolery, if he wants to do Tomfoolery on the air and say stupid stuff, like, yeah, everyone kind of has the right to do that. So, I'm almost like with Jimmy, it's almost. First off, who's listening to him to begin with? And so, it's almost like, yeah, he's going to say stupid stuff because he's stupid, and he gets all of his stuff written by speechwriters that also have megaliberal points of view.

So, it's almost like so irrelevant. They're on the way down. I feel like independent media is on its way up, and I don't think they can survive at where they are now. Yeah, crass. I'm sort of amazed by how late night is just a shell of what it once was. I mean, Johnny Carson, Letterman, Leno, all these guys, they had so many eyeballs, and these guys now, like Fallon, Kimmel, it's a joke.

Yeah. Okay, mine, well, I guess first, I saw this morning, I don't know if I formed a full opinion. Ilhan Omar, I guess, Scott? Josh attacked. Did you see this, Josh? Yeah, someone came by and sprayed something towards her face. I mean, probably got her a little bit. No, it didn't. It didn't get her in the face at all. It got her, like, midsection. There's a lot that was really bizarre about it. Like, she kind of looked up right at the guy before he came up.

She went at the guy. The spray got her, like, midsection, didn't hit her face, and then she just kind of continued on afterwards. Really bizarre. I mean... Do I have to say it? Like, no one should be attacking public officials? That's obviously wrong and shouldn't be done. Really bizarre. Everything about it was so bizarre, I think. Is that fair to say? It was really weird. It seems like odd timing. So, I don't know, like, conspiracy theory on that one. I really do not know what's going on, but that happened this morning, so I guess I'll throw that out there.

That was weird. I don't know what everyone thinks about that. Mine actually is about This article that was written, which, Josh, I'm kind of curious your thoughts on this. So, it's an opinion. I wouldn't say the Democrats are in good shape. It's by Tom Edsel from the New York Times. His thesis is essentially, you know, as you kind of brought up earlier in the episode, the ICE tactics and the media surrounding it is not good for Trump. Clearly, he made a pivot.

But, you know, lawfully deporting people, most Americans voted for that. So, it seems like this would be the opportunity for Democrats, and like you just said, Frey made the mistake again of making this about enforcing immigration law, period, should be like skyrocketing in the polls. You know, like there should be this kind of boost of support to Democrats. It's like, oh, well, I don't want this, so I'm going to go over there. And it just hasn't really materialized in any significant way.

And so, people are kind of... Curious now, like, why are Democrats so in the doldrums and don't have, like, a really unified figure, like, rising among them to come up? And so, the article brought up a lot of... Because they've been deporting so many other voters.

That's one way to think about it. One section from the article was, the authors tracked keyword usage in the Democratic platforms from 2012 to 2024, and found the frequency of the word hate increasing by 1,323%. White, black, Latino, Latina by 1,137%, LGBT, LGBTQI by 1,044%, and equity by 766%. Over the same period, usage of father, fathers fell 100%. 100%. Crime criminal by 30%, responsibility by 83%, middle class by 79%, and veteran by 31%. Thank you.

I think you have your diagnosis. Well, I mean, not that anyone actually reads party platforms, you know, but it is indicative of their messaging and what they are going to be communicating with the people, for sure. So, we are going to go into actually a little bit more detail about some of these consequences on our show on Friday, by the way. Yes, yes, consequences, but I think that, so the main thesis was they went way too hard on even like now the pundits that were all for it now get to come around and be like.

Well, these are excesses of liberalism that are strangely illiberal, namely, like, the DEI regime, pronouns, transgender stuff, you know, I almost hate to use the word because it almost has no meaning, but woke, essentially. Everything that was just pretty much destroyed the first day of the Trump administration, and the problem is, is because they went so crazy on that, and it was so unpopular, many of them, like, 80-20 issues, that...

Trump is now seen as the opposition to that, to the crazy stuff that no one liked. And so, if you were to attack Trump now, you're kind of pitted in a corner because you're now defending the stuff that everyone hated. So, they're at kind of an impasse where...

They're like, we need to kind of moderate, get back to the middle, maybe more of like the Rahm Emanuel approach. Yeah, that's like Ezra Klein's argument, right? But people are so scarred, and if Democrats actually do move towards the middle, they get punished by their most critical, loudest parts of the base that are saying, well, you've given up, and you're acquiescing to Trump at the same time, because Trump now gets to take credit for moving away from the craziness. So, that's the main thesis that I took away.

So, to win back power, to try to win back... The House or the Senate, the Democrats should moderate both their tone and also their policies to be less psycho. Right? Because they had nominated somebody, you know, in Campbell Harris for president, who wanted to make sure that people who were in the country illegally and were apprehended, and they were in custody, that we, as taxpayers, had to pay for their gender-transitioning surgery. It's like, wait a minute, these are people in the country illegally, we have them in custody, but they're demanding that you mutilate their genitals through surgery, and we have to pay for it?

Yeah. No, like, how about we just... The portum, like, instead. So, again, yes, there's a common refrain amongst people on the left. All we have to do is not be crazy, you know, and then we can win. And the thing is, they're crazy, and they're probably going to lose. I kind of feel like, I've been saying this from the get-go, Republicans have the opportunity to do that one out of eight chance.

To actually pull the inside straight, not even inside straight, but to win in these 2026 elections, because the left is really shooting themselves in the foot. Yeah, and even the moderates that they run, like Abigail Spanbagger, she ran as a moderate. She was sort of showcasing her moderate in Virginia, and what happens, day one, she gets in, and she starts signing all these executive orders, and the Senate of the most insane extreme leftist policies. And so, even the ones they run as moderates, they govern.

Crazy, and things just go to pot, and people are pushed back towards the center slash right. Yeah, and as Josh likes to say, what if Trump's the moderate here? Well, I remember when everyone was like, no, Trump should... Like, don't get involved in the culture war issues. Don't touch the transgender stuff too hard. Like, don't go into any of that. Don't go into abortion. Don't go into all these things. Paul Ryan, Mitch Daniels. Exactly, right. And ironically, it feels like that strategy is kind of being deployed now on the left, like for maybe institutional Democrats.

Like, they're like, They can't touch it now because it's so unpopular because Trump did touch it and was so decisive. They could. Actually, I want to slightly disagree with you. The Democrats could talk about culture war issues. They just can't pick ones where they're on the 28% side of an 80-20 issue. So, if they're going to pick culture war issues and they want to talk about making sure taxpayers pay for transgender surgeries, please do that because then you're going to get your butt whooped.

But, unfortunately, on the question of abortion, that's one where, right now, The American people are, unfortunately, too sympathetic towards the pro-abortion side of things. So, the left would focus less on gender mutilation of kids and focus more on actually aborting kids, unfortunately. It is sad. It is sad. We got to work harder. We all have more work to do. The thing is, on the pro-life issue, when people talk about this, like sometimes we go, oh, well, when the Roe v. Wade was overturned, the pro-life movement should have been ready.

Well, what do you mean exactly? Like, we're just sitting on, like, half a billion dollars, and we're like, oh, what should we do now? We're ready to go. We're all grandmas and grandpas and moms and dads. We're saving our nickels and dimes to try to advance a cause for which we have no self-interest, you know? So, I get very annoyed by that.

Oh, you weren't ready. Like, as if we're sitting on a Fort Knox stack of gold. Like, now it's time to deploy all this resources. Yeah. We're just trying to stop murder, people. Yeah. So, next one. Next show, Friday, we're going to have tinfoil Tom on, and we have a little bit more hard political insights from Josh and from Tom, too. I mean, Tom's been totally in the trenches on a lot of the pro-life push within the administration, so it'll be interesting to get his two cents.

I will be probably very cold in Minnesota, so pray for me. I'm excited for that. Hopefully, I catch something. It would be terrible. Tom loves us. He runs towards danger. If I don't catch a fish, that's going to be so embarrassing, and maybe that'll be a funny part of it, but I think as a man, I'd be embarrassed to go all the way there and not catch a fish on the competition, which is a possibility.

So, good at beginner's luck. I hardly ever fish, and I went with my brother and my dad one time, and I ended up catching like 18. He's like, my brother's like, what is with all right. All right, good to know, but yeah, exciting things coming, and of course, we actually have daily prayer opportunities on Zeal, so if you guys have been exploring the website, you can pray with us daily. We're all Praying together on zeal. There is a prayer wall. You can put up your intentions.

It is very cool, but we are going to pray here. We are going to pray to the Trinity. So, we are going to start in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. I adore and glorify you, O blessed Trinity, God Almighty, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

I offer myself to your divine majesty, humbly asking you to take from me and from all the faithful whatever displeases you, and to give us that which is grateful in your sight. Grant that we may do here what you command, and hereafter receive what you promise. To you, O Lord, I commend my soul and body, all my relations, benefactors, friends, and acquaintances, all who have injured or offended me. And all whom I have in any way scandalized, injured, or offended, all who have asked for my prayers, or for whom I am accustomed or bound to pray, supply all their necessities, comfort and support them in their trials and afflictions, deliver them from all temptations, make them in this world truly to know, love, and serve you, and to enjoy you hereafter in heaven.

Lastly, I commend all universally to your divine protection that you may grant to the living forgiveness of their sins, and to the souls departed, rest in peace. Amen. St. Thomas, St. Fidelis, Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us. Great show, gang. We'll catch you deep on Thursday and live show on Friday. And St. Thomas Aquinas, pray for us. Pray for us. Peace.