Analyzing the Trump Team

[00:00:16] Donald Trump won in part because he built a coalition of eclectic personalities like rfk, Elon Musk, Tulsi Gabbard. [00:00:25] From a Catholic perspective, though, what are the strengths and weaknesses of each of these figures? That's what we're talking about today on Crisis Point Home. Eric Samuel, host editor in chief of Crisis magazine. Before we get started, I just want to encourage people, I've been waiting to say this, by the way, smash that like button like Donald Trump. Smash Kamala Harris. You know you want to do it, so go ahead and do it. Also, subscribe to channel. Let other people know about what we're doing. Subscribe to our new email newsletter. Go to crisismagazine.com put in your email address and we will send you an email once a day with our articles for the day. And we promise not to spam you. You can also follow us on social media at Crisis Mag. [00:01:04] Okay, so my first solo podcast since the victory last week. Last week I did predict a Donald Trump victory. I had predicted that he gave about 300 electoral college votes. He actually got 312. He did better than I expected, although I did expect him to win. And so now he will be the next president of the United States unless Joe Biden decides is stepped aside and they make Kamala the first woman president in the last month or two. [00:01:31] What I thought was interesting, I talked about this a little bit last week in the podcast, was the coalition that Donald Trump built and how different the Trump team was from 2016 and even 2020. This was not the same campaign in 2016. It was definitely not this. In 2020. It was not. In fact, most of the people in this coalition, these front figures weren't even supportive of him in 2016 or even 2020 in a lot of cases. [00:02:02] And this coalition really coalesced around the COVID opposition to Covid regime. [00:02:09] People like RFK and Elon and Tucker Carlson, people like that, which is ironic. [00:02:17] And I feel like Donald Trump himself is a very, you know, he just is full of ironies. [00:02:24] Here he is, he's a rich New York businessman and yet the people who like him the most are often lower class, working class people. They like him the most. [00:02:39] Likewise, the people who congregate about Donald Trump, a lot of it had this time around, a lot of it had to do with like opposition to the totalitarianism that came out of COVID But of course, Donald Trump was not good on Covid while he was president and he's never really apologized for that. Yet these people coalesced around him Which I think says something. It's. It's ironic, but it says something about Donald Trump himself, actually, that he can embrace figures who. Who once opposed him, opposed his policies, yet they become part of his team. [00:03:11] I want to look at this, though, a little bit more as a Catholic, like, okay, because I've seen a lot of criticism from Catholics about figures like Elon Musk or rfk, rfk, Especially different figures, like reasons we shouldn't trust them, reasons that. That's not good. Catholics should not be happy that they're a part of Trump's team. [00:03:34] And so I wanted to address that and talk about, like, what is a perspective of a Catholic? I mean, at least this Catholic thinks about them. How should we approach our attitude towards them? [00:03:44] I think the first thing we have to recognize is, like, everybody is flawed. Everybody has their strengths and weaknesses. You know, Trump has them. [00:03:54] You know, Kamala Harris had them. You know, the flaws in spades. But I assume she had some strengths. I never really saw them, but I'm sure assume she did. And the same is true of people like rfk, people like Elon, people like Tucker, people like JD Vance. They all have their strengths and weaknesses. And I think that we need to make sure that we're clear about that, that we're not judging them by a standard that just simply they cannot meet. Nobody can meet. [00:04:23] And I think this really becomes a problem when we start to engage in the purity test, that this person, this politician, this figure, whatever, is not pure enough. They're not Catholic enough, they're not in line enough. [00:04:39] Obviously, there is a point in which somebody is so out of line that you do have to reject them as a public figure. You can't endorse him like Kamala Harris or Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, all These people, Mitch McConnell, people like that are bad enough that you do eventually say, no, I can't not support them in their work in office. [00:05:02] But I do think we have to be careful about not engaging in purity tests, where we're like, okay, this person is not good on this issue. An issue that they'll have nothing to do with, so I cannot support him. I think we particularly have to recognize the moment we're in. I think what's happened is older Catholics, especially, like, people like me, my age, or even so people in. In certain categories, like, oh, especially over the age of 40 or something like that, we have these categories we have set up in our political world. Red, blue, Republican, Democrat, conservative, liberal, pro life, pro abortion, things of that nature. And I think the Problem is, is a lot of them don't apply as well as they used to. Like for example, I saw, you know, the rumor going around right now is that Donald Trump is going to pick Marco Rubio for Secretary of State. Now this would be a terrible pick. It just would be terrible. Marco Rubio is a neocon. I mean, I think it was Rand Paul who said it. He's no different than Hillary Clinton when it comes to foreign policy. And this is exactly. The people who voted for Donald Trump don't want neocons, especially involved with foreign policy. [00:06:21] So this is a terrible pick. But I saw somebody was like defending, like, well, you know, he's pro life and stuff like that. That's not how we judge these things. He has said some good things about abortion. Fine. Has he ever actually done anything about it much? I doubt it. But the point is that's not how we then say, okay, because he said some nice words about abortion, therefore he can do any, you know, we'll let him, we'll support him in any position. Or he said some bad words about abortion, like, you know, for abortion, whatever. So therefore we're not going to let him touch anything. [00:06:53] That's just not realistic. That's not how it's going to work. Because the reality is we have a lot of Republicans, conservatives who say nice things against abortion, but have not really done anything, but they're terrible in other things. And frankly, we have some people who have said something supportive of abortion, for example, but they're actually very strong in other areas. We have to recognize that. [00:07:17] I'm not going to get into it in this podcast, but like our whole effort against abortion needs to really be. We need to recognize where we are. The fact is, a lot, most of our country supports abortion, at least legal, at least up to 15, 20 weeks, something like that, often even more than that. And when it's put to a vote, they will be easily swayed by the pro abortion forces who say, oh, if you allow this 15 week ban, then all of a sudden teenager rape will die or something like that. No, fall for it and they'll vote against it. [00:07:52] And so we have to recognize that. And so the fact is, Trump did not run, he did not win by being strongly pro life. That's just the reality. [00:08:05] He went to the left on this. [00:08:08] I mean, he gave us Roe v. Wade, people know that. And so that helped. But the point is that it wasn't like his winning strategy was not, okay, I'm going to make sure I am strongly pro life. And so we need to work on a lower level to really change people's opinions about abortion, make abortion unthinkable to those that we know and help that to spread. So eventually it goes up to the politicians. So it does matter. It doesn't matter right now. [00:08:37] So my point of all this is that I think we need to recognize the world we live in is not the same as it was in maybe the 1990s or 80s or something like that. There's new realignments of politicians, new political realignments. There are pressing issues that are very important that we can't ignore, like the fact that we could go to World War Three at some point if we're not careful, and so things of that nature. And also we have crises in our country like the health crisis, chronic disease, things like that, the immigration crisis. And so if we say, well, no, this person can't be the immigration czar because the bor. Because he might not be pro life enough or something like that, I just don't think that we can do that. There's just not enough people available to do that. [00:09:24] So that being said, let's kind of look at these people that we're. That we're talking about. [00:09:30] And you know, I listened the other day, but basically, you know, we have RFK Elon, Tucker Carlson, Tulsi Gabbard, Vivek Ramaswamy. Those are kind of the big. And J.D. vance. Those are the big figures that are kind of been promoted. Him that was that new coalition. And what thing is one thing is what is that is interesting, I think about them, the commonality, so to speak, between these different figures, because they're very diverse figures. They're not, they're not lockstep with each other. [00:10:04] But there's a couple things I think are common among them. [00:10:08] One is they are all thinkers, they're all readers. They're all people who really try to investigate issues and try to understand them. They're not always right. They don't come to always right conclusions, but they're trying to understand these things. They're not the brainless politicians. We've had so much in the past where they just basically they're regurgitating what they're told to say. And we saw that. Kamala Harris, I would argue Marco Rubio is like that too. [00:10:35] And I'm not even trying to pick on him, but just he came to mind because I was just talking about him. [00:10:40] The Mitch McConnells of the world, stuff like that. These are not thinkers. These are people who just regurgitate what they're told to get elected. But these people I just mentioned, Trump's coalition, none of them are like that. None of them are straight up politicians. They all think deeply about the issues. Like I said, they can come to wrong conclusions, but they're all intelligent and they actually read up on what they believe. And I think that's a great thing for all of them. The second commonality with all of them, which I also think is a great thing, is every single one of them has been willing to go against a dominant narrative at risk to their own personal, like stature or advancement or things like that. I think that's very important to note. I mean, every one of these, you know, rfk, obviously, I mean, I literally saw where his sister was attacking him today on national television. I mean, just what kind of person are you that you attack your brother on national television over politics? That's just, that's awful. You know, Elon Musk, obviously, Tucker, I mean, all these people, they're willing to go against the dominant, dominant narrative to when they believe in something. I think it's also a great thing. I think it's great on all their parts. So I think this is, that's another commonality. And I think those two things are very important. I'd also say to bring it back. A commonality between all of them are they're not that big on social issues. [00:12:02] I mean, J.D. vance, Tucker, I think Ramaswamy are all pro life, but the others I don't think are. [00:12:09] And like, they don't, like, they don't like crusade against gay marriage or anything like that. And in fact, some of them support it. So we have to recognize that that's a commonality that's not so good, but it's just the reality. Again, I don't think we should engage in purity tests at this point. We understand the moment we're in that the Harris administration would've been so destructive for our country. If we continue what Biden did and continue on that path and Trump, there's a real chance of going in a better direction. Not a perfect direction, not where we want it, not Catholic monarchy, but at least to reverse some of the decline and maybe make a few advances that we can then build on. So eventually we do, we are able to have successes when it comes to, against gay marriage or abortion. And there were a couple successes. Florida passed that law last week and Nebraska and I think South Dakota as well. So it wasn't all. We're not defeated on the pro life front politically, but we just have to recognize where we are so those are some commonalities between them all, but let me kind of break down a few of them. Okay. First, I'll start with the Vice President, the Vice President elect, which is J.D. vance. J.D. vance is probably my favorite, the best of the bunch, because I think he is. He's a Catholic convert. He actually converted in a parish near. Near where I live. I know people who know him. I. I do believe he believes he's a true Catholic, practicing Catholic. I think he is. He's incredibly intelligent. He's got a very good personality, and you just saw that on all these podcasts, friendly podcast, but also like the hostile interviews on mainstream media, just his. His unflappable personality, how he kind of was laid back about all just allowed and didn't allow anybody to fluster him. And, you know, he. He just could recall so much stuff. He's just. Just a really highly intelligent person. The funny thing is how different he is from Donald Trump. That's not to say Donald Trump isn't highly intelligent. His intelligence is in a different way. He doesn't have the same type of intelligence that J.D. vance has. J.D. vance is much more bookish, academic, but yet, you know, just able to, you know, verbal intelligence, things of that nature. So I really like J.D. vance, and I think he would. He has a potential to be a great successor to Trump and be a great president. [00:14:35] All that being said, I am disturbed by the fact that he was weak. He weakened himself, the position on abortion, because I remember a year before this, in 2023, we had a big election here in Ohio to basically make abortion part of the enshrined to our state constitution. And it was a big issue. It was issue one, big issue. And JD Vance worked very hard against it. He wanted to keep abortion because we had a law in effect that I think it was like six weeks or eight weeks of heartbeat law or something like that. And so it would have saved babies. And he was very much against issue one, which would have made abortion enshrined in our Constitution, legalized abortion. So I do think he believes. I don't think that was just politically, because it wasn't politically helpful for him that much, but he had a number of interviews where he was very weak on the. On the. On the issue of abortion. And he kind of went along with the Trump team on that. And I. And I was disappointed. I'll be honest. I was disappointed in that. Now I understand some of it was just like what I was saying earlier. He recognizes where we are as a country, so he's not going to push it, but I felt like a few times he did more than just not push it. I felt like he kind of pushed the more pro abortion side, and so that was disappointing. I'm hoping he comes around on that and does better as the vice president. But J.D. vance, I think, is kind of the cream of the crop of these people when it comes to, from a Catholic perspective. As far as what, you know, where he's coming from, I think he's the best of the bunch. [00:16:04] I think he's also probably the least controversial of the bunch too, at least among Catholics. The next one's probably the most controversial, and that's RFK. RFK Jr. Bobby Kennedy. [00:16:14] I'll be honest, I'm just going to state it right now. I really like Bobby Kennedy Jr. I really do like him. [00:16:21] He's the one I'm most excited about. Whereas I think, you know, J.D. vance is the best of the bunch. I think RFK is what I'm most excited about. [00:16:29] Now, I know as soon as I say that, I get the house from people saying, oh, but he's an old school liberal. He's big government, he's, he's pro abortion. He's likely, you know, kind of embraces a sexual revolution, lies and things like that. I know his last name is Kennedy. I know where he is on all that stuff. [00:16:48] However, I've been following him for quite some time now and I think it's unfair to him to just put him in that box, to act like he's his uncle Teddy Kennedy or something like that. He's not. He has been willing to go against the Kennedys and in many ways, I mean, obviously he left the Democratic Party. His whole family hates him now. The Kennedy family, you know, they hate him because he's gone away from them. I think if you see he really has come to a better understanding of a lot of things, including the role of government. I still think he's, he thinks government is, is too much of the solution. Okay, I get that. [00:17:24] But like, he recognizes the totalitarian shift that happened over the past decade or so, but particularly after Covid, and he's very much opposed to it. He's opposed to the forever wars, particularly in Ukraine. He's not going to Israel. None of these people, except for maybe Tucker, are good on Israel. But I think he's very, I think when he's good, he's very good. When he's bad, he's pretty bad. And I think in the right positions, like head of hhs, something like that, I Think he could really help in concrete and practical ways help our country. I mean, the fact is we now are talking about the dangers of processed foods, the dangers of vaccines that have no vaccine companies have no liability. [00:18:18] They're not liable for anything, even if they do something wrong. I think these things, he's brought them to the forefront, and I think that already has helped people against chronic diseases to ask the questions. And he's very. I just feel like he has the potential to really do probably the most good of anybody. I mean, get him in there to slash, you know, the fda, to take on big pharma. I mean, to do all the things that really need to be done. These are important issues. We can't act like they're not. These are killing our kids. I mean, our autism rate is like through the roof over the past few decades. Chronic disease among young people is through the roof. Chronic disease, overall obesity is just ridiculous in this country. [00:19:05] And yet for. Until Bobby Kennedy showed up, not one politician was willing to say anything about it. Was willing to say, yeah, maybe we should do something about this. [00:19:16] And I'm a big believer that physical health and spiritual health are connected. That if you are living a modern life, a modern diet and lifestyle, it almost definitely will have a negative spiritual impact on you because you will be lethargic, you will be just have lack energy, you will. You will have brain fog. Things that will not allow you to focus, for example, in reading the sacred scriptures, in praying each day, in being disciplined in your lifestyle, making sure you're not just sitting online all day, things of that nature. It matters what you eat and your lifestyle, things like that. And so I think the fact is Bobby Kennedy's own spiritual life is a bit odd, Eclectic. I mean, grew Catholic, obviously. He still says he prays the rosary. He talks about how important, you know, obviously his mom was an awesome Catholic and all, and who just recently passed away, in fact. And I think these things are important. [00:20:11] Yeah, you know, I think they're important to him, I should say. But at the same time, he's weird in his spiritual beliefs. Yet that doesn't mean if he does these things for our physical health to help, to assist them, they can't help us spiritually as well. Even if he does, that's not his intention. I think they really can. [00:20:30] So I think so. I am very pro RFK Jr acknowledging his flaws, acknowledging things he's wrong about, and recognizing all those things. So I really think that we have to. We have to recognize those things and understand that he can be an Ally in a lot of things that are important to us. He's also against the Forever Wars. Like I said, the word is he's very much against Rubio being Secretary of State because he doesn't want Neocon in there. So these are all good things. [00:20:59] Okay, let me, let me move on to Elon. Elon Musk. He's probably the biggest wild card of the group. [00:21:06] He's the one who I think is the most, he's the most brilliant, clearly, and the most eccentric. And this is an eccentric group. He's probably the most eccentric. He's also probably the most dangerous because he's very, I mean, he just, he's very smart, he's very powerful and very influential. But he's got some troubling ideas. He's got some good ones. I mean, I love what he's done at X. The free. The commitment to free speech is awesome. I love SpaceX. I think SpaceX is great. I mean, I'm a total SpaceX fanboy. I honestly think his, him getting that, that rocket booster caught back in October helped Trump win the election. I mean, not obviously a lot of things. I think that was a factor because people say, wait a minute, America can do great things again, but look who's doing them. People who are aligned with Trump, not people who are aligned with Harris. They're too busy twerking in concerts and talking about we need to let girls boys play girls sports. Whereas here's Elon catching a freaking booster rocket. [00:22:09] So I'm, I, I, I love Elon in a lot of ways. I'm even, I even like, I'm fine with Tesla. I'm not like one of these anti electric car people. I think Tesla's cool. You know, I mean, I, I, I'm, I'm, I think it's a free market. I'm not against, I don't think we should outlaw gas cars or anything like that, obviously. But I'm totally fine if, if they're developing a market for electric cars and he dominates it, good for him. That means there's a market for it, people want it. [00:22:35] But he also has like neuralink, which is that we had an article in Christ about this last week where, you know, embedding chips in the brains of humans. No, no, no, no. That's awful. That's a terrible idea. [00:22:47] And so like Elon's a wild card. I honestly, I think there's a very good chance, a greater than 50% chance there's going to be a falling out between Elon and Trump because Elon is used to getting his way in business. I don't know if you read his biography about Walter Isaacson. I think that's how you pronounce his last name. [00:23:06] I would hate to work for Elon Musk. The guy is just ruthless and relentless and just incredibly demanding like Steve Jobs was. [00:23:15] And he gets his way. He can just fire people. He can just take care of it. You can't do that in federal government. I mean, I hope they slash it a lot, but he's not going to get his way with the federal government as much as he does in private industry. [00:23:28] Now, he's used to working fairground in some ways because he works with NASA all the time. But we'll see. I hope that doesn't happen, but I do think it is possible. Okay, so that's Elon. Next, Tucker Carlson. Now, Tucker Carlson is not going to be probably involved directly with the government. He has a lot of influence over it. I, you know, he's great. He's a great influence. I think a lot of things about him, not going to talk about him a whole bunch because a lot of his, I mean, his political views, I'm probably almost 100% aligned with probably like 95%. He's great on Ukraine. He's one of the few who's very good on Israel. You know, he's pro life. He's, you know, all. He's against, you know, federal government overreach, all this stuff. I mean, he's just very good. He's a bit odd when it comes to, like, spiritual matters. I mean, he's Episcopalian. He's not Catholic. I can't expect him to be completely, you know, orthodox in his beliefs. [00:24:15] But ultimately, Tucker will be a good, I think, a good influence. Okay, so the next one, I got two more. I got Tulsi and then Ramaswamy. Tulsi Gabbard. Now, okay, I'm not so sure about her. Let me just be honest. She comes from the, you know, she's kind of like rfk. She's a former Democrat, liberal. She's word Bernie. I don't think people like, here's where the political realignment people aren't understanding. There's a lot of people who went from Bernie Sanders to Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders in 16 to Donald Trump in 24. If you are paying attention, that actually makes sense. [00:24:49] The people who think it doesn't make sense don't understand our world today, our political world particularly. I really do think that. Because what people are really saying is I am against the system because the system is screwing me over, and so I'm against it. Bernie Sanders, he very much campaigned in 2016 on being against the system. Bernie Sanders is the perfect example of recognizing the problems very well and then proposing solutions that were actually worse. I mean, that's a socialist for you. He recognized the problems, but then he would propose solutions that actually would make things worse. But people liked him because he. He hit. He was right on what the problems were. He understood the system was bad. Now he ended up caving and completely being subservient to a Democratic Party. And he's just kind of a joke now. [00:25:38] But a lot of those, Bernie, people like Tulsi Gabbard, like Joe Rogan, have come on to Donald Trump because it's the same idea. The system is screwing people over. I am against the system. Tulsi Gabbard's one of those people. That being said, I met her. [00:25:54] It's a big deal, that book signing. I talked to her briefly, but then I saw her speak at a rally back in June, and I just wasn't that impressed with her. She came across two politiciany, like, of these people on this list. I mean, Ramaswamy does that a little bit, but, like, she just came across a little bit too, like, perfect as far as, like, what, you know, being safe and what she said. But I give her credit. She's made the journey from being completely wrong on a lot of things to being in. In the Democratic Party, to being pro Trump and pro, you know, conservative in a lot of things. So I. I think she could be good on, like, some things like foreign policy. Get her maybe Secretary of Defense or something like that. [00:26:36] But I'm just not as sure about her as I am about some of these other people. Maybe because she's a woman. Right. I'm just a misogynist or something like that. But seriously, I hope she ends up being a real asset to the Trump administration. [00:26:51] Now, Vivek Ramaswamy is the last one of this group I want to talk about, and I like him, too. And I know some people. I know Catholics. I wouldn't vote for him because he's Hindu. Okay? I just. We live in America in 2024. I don't see how you do that. I honestly don't see how you do that. I mean, the fact is, is that I'm not. I'm going to be like, who's going to be best for America, for the interest of the Catholic Church in America, no matter what their religion happens to be like. I thought Donald Trump was best for the interest of Catholic church of the presidential candidates, even though clearly he's not Catholic. And you know, there was a Catholic candidate running in the American Solidarity Party who was a far better Catholic, I'm sure, than Trump would ever be. [00:27:37] Yet I just felt like he, his because of chance for victory and what he could do actually for the church was best. I think the same thing about Ramaswamy. [00:27:46] I, I think where he shines let him be in charge of cutting the size of federal government. He was just on Tucker Carlson the other day interview and he was talking about this and I, and I, and I think he is the guy you want to put there. Also, he is pro life. You know, he talked about giving on that interview. He's talking about giving to a crisis pregnancy center, which was great. Giving a lot of money to that in Springfield, Ohio. I think there's a lot of promise there. He, he's an Ohioan and so there's a, there's a chance he's going to run for governor until 26, which would be great for me as an Ohioan. There's a chance the current governor will select him to be the replacement for J.D. vance as a, as a senator from Ohio. I don't think that's likely, but it is a possibility. [00:28:28] So I, you know, those would be good things. But I would love to see him spend some time in the Trump administration just slashing and burning, you know, as much of the federal government as he can because he understands the administrative state is our enemy. We have, our country is not run by the people we vote for. The country is run by appointed officials and people, you know, people like that. [00:28:50] It shouldn't be. And so we need to cut most of them. I mean, I think thorough government should be slashed by 80%, if not more. And that's just me because I'm feeling socialist today. I say 80% really should probably be more than that. So I like him a lot. [00:29:04] Yeah, he, he's got, he's kind of got some of that vibe that Elon gives off that makes me a little nervous. You know, the techno, the tech million billionaire types. [00:29:14] There's some problems. But I mean, he's very libertarian in the ways the ways I think are good at least. And like I say, he's pro life. So I hope for, I hope he rises and keeps kind of what he has now. [00:29:27] Now that's the ones I mainly wanted to talk about. But I want to bring up a sleeper. So my, I think will be influenced, could be influential in the Trump administration. He will not be part of the Trump administration. But I think you'll be influential. You may or may not have heard of him. He is a comedian, a libertarian comedian named Dave Smith. [00:29:44] Now, who is Dave Smith? It's somebody I have followed for years now. And in fact, I would say he's probably my number one guy I have followed on political matters for probably since before COVID I know that, probably like six years or something like that. [00:30:00] And like I said, he's a comedian. I mean, it's a funny thing that I, a kind of middle aged, boring Catholic family man, something like that, follow a guy who grew up basically a Jew in Brooklyn, was a kind of a raunchy comedian, has been a raunchy comedian. And yet that's the guy I listen to a lot. And I think people should. In fact, if you want to know how influential he is, the day after the election, who did Joe Rogan, the largest podcast in the world, who did he have on, on last Wednesday to talk about the election? Dave Smith. That's who he picked to be like, okay, who's the guy who can talk about the election? Dave Smith. You probably might have seen clips of him. Also when, when Dave Smith was saying last week, we got to like, keep the neocons out, we got to keep the warmongers out on. He said this on x. Donald Trump Jr. Retweeted him, said 100%, I'm with you now. That hasn't worked out so far with some of these appointments Trump might be making his dad. But the fact is clearly Dave Smith has the ear of people in the administration or people influential in the administration. And so I think it's very, I think that's a good thing. By the way, he was actually thinking about running for the Libertarian Party presidential nomination. And I was very much open to voting for him. This is maybe, you know, two years ago before kind of things shook out like they did, and, but then he decided not to for, for various reasons. But I just feel like he's a great political commentary commentator. He will not hold back against Trump when he thinks Trump's wrong on something. And I think that's good. You know, he's not going to carry. That's why it's good he's not in the administration. We need somebody like that. I think, though, he could be a very good influence, I mean, as far as, like from the outside. And so I think that's another person that I think, you know, I'm, I'm very happy to see that the Trump team seems to at least be listening to on some level. [00:31:58] I think ultimately, though, what we have to remember is we will be disappointed in the Trump administration. I don't care how pro Trump you are, unless you're a complete, like zombie or cult member of the cult of Trump, you're going to be disappointed. I mean, I already am disappointed by the potential picks. Some of the potential picks, like, like Rubio, I can't remember the lady's name, he picked for some position who was not good. And okay, so that's going to happen. The question is, is it moving the needle? Is it moving the needle in the right direction? And that's what we should be thinking as Catholics of, okay, is this helping the cause of the Catholic Church in the, in America? I mean, that's ultimately, that's what our goal should be. And I'm still hopeful even, you know, only been a week since the election. I'm not going to lose my hope in a week. I'm very hopeful that we, it will go in the right direction. So I think that's important. I forgot to bring up at the beginning for people in the live chat who are, listen, who are watching live. Thank you by, by the way, for doing that, that you could comment and I'll, you know, I'll talk about at the end and I'm going to do that. And sometimes I'll do it during the show and I forgot to do that this time. You know, we're getting this all worked out. Give me a break. It's not like I've been podcasting for three or four years. [00:33:12] I guess I have, haven't I? Okay, so let me just look at a few of these comments then. K. Bear says Rubio is pretty rough on China, Iran, Russia and Ukraine. Not a bad choice in my humble opinion. I gotta disagree with you. I don't think we want somebody who's really rough on China, Iran, Russia and Ukraine. I mean, it's great. You know, I'm glad he's not like, just super like Ukrainian flag guy. [00:33:34] I think that honestly, we have to break away from the foreign policy, the Neocom foreign policy of the last 50 years. Both parties have done it. I don't see any reason why we have to be rough on like Russia or Iran or even China. I think what we need to do is just simply be America first. Think about the interest in America. Not, I mean, like, here's, here's why I don't like the idea of being rough on China. There's this idea that America, our sphere of influence, is the Entire Western Hemisphere. You don't. Like we would freak out if, when Russia or China by would start to influence countries in Latin America, South America, I mean, they have somewhat. But we freak out when that happens. Like, no, this is our area. Yet at the same time, if China starts to express, you know, its influence on areas in Asia, we freak out about that as well. I don't think we should care about that. I think this whole. There's a myth that like, China is basically one step away from invading America. That's simply a myth. It's not going to happen. So I don't think, I don't want to be rough on anybody. I want those countries, I want those countries to succeed if they're going to succeed, fail if they're going to fail. But we have nothing to do with it. In a sense, yes, it sounds isolationist and I lean isolationists. I admit that. But I do know what's happened is the interventionalist, interventionists, interventionals, whatever of the past 50 years have been a disaster. I mean, we just have, you know, defeat after defeat after defeat. And there's a reason we're so hated in so many parts of the world. And it's our fault in a lot of ways. Not in every case, but in a lot of ways. So I, I just, I'm not a fan of Rubio. Maybe he'll be better if he. I don't know. We'll see. [00:35:25] FEMALE Casey, Royals fan from Nebraska, who actually Florida defeated an abortion amendment that would have allowed abortion until birth requires 6% of vote. It got 57. That scary. Actually, that. That reiterates my point. In Florida, which we were, we should be very thankful, of course, that defeated the abortion amendment. That's a good thing. Praise God. Thank you, Lord. And thank you, Ron DeSantis and the Catholic bishops in Florida for helping make that happen. But the reality is a majority of the people voted for abortion. It just needed 60% to pass. It only got 57%. [00:36:02] And it is scary, but it's actually just reality. Even in a pro life, quote unquote, pro life state that has a very pro life governor, it's still. Most people will vote for abortion. And that's just what we have to recognize. We have to change that first before we start complaining about a politician not having, you know, being completely pure on what he says about abortion or acting like what he. If he says something good about abortion, then he's okay on everything else. [00:36:31] Okay, Gus. TV 123 A heritage score isn't everything, but Tulsi is so far to the left, even AOC has double the Heritage score for her congressional votes compared to Tulsi. I think that's funny. I didn't know that. Now I also will say Tulsi has changed since she was in Congress. She's not the same person that she was when she was in Congress. If you look at her term in Congress, remember she. She ran for Democratic nomination for president, you know, just four years ago. She was a demon. She voted with the Dems on a lot of things, so no question. But I do think that she's gotten better on a lot of things. Again, she's the one I'm probably the most worried about not being very good. But I don't think that's fair to just say her Heritage score wasn't as good as AOC's. For example. [00:37:15] Okay, last. Oh, no. Got more confidence. This is great. I read his book. RFK's book on Dr. Fauci is. Was excellent. I have that book as well. It was excellent. See, that's what we have to recognize. [00:37:26] RFK is excellent on certain things. I know he's bad on other things, but he is excellent on certain things. Let's encourage him. Let's hope that he will be in those areas where he can be excellent in. I would just actually love it. I wish Fauci was still in office just so RFK could come in and just fire him and just publicly humiliate him. To be honest, because Fauci is one of the great evil men of our generation. I mean, we have to recognize that when history looks back and objective history looks back at the evil men of our generation, Fauci will be near the top. I mean, there's no question about that. [00:38:00] Okay. Paul says, I agree about Rubio. I think Eric disagrees with his support of Israel, but I think Rubio could be good. That's from Paul. I do obviously disagree with his support of Israel. I also, though, think. I don't think we need the bellicose neocons anymore when it comes to Russia, when it comes to China, which comes to Iran, all these things. I. Here's the thing. [00:38:20] Most of these guys are not good on Israel, so I understand that. I'm just going to accept it. [00:38:25] But, like, I don't think Rubio is going to be. I don't think Ruby would be that great on other things like, like Russia, the Russia, Ukraine. Let's just get to nicotine table. Get this over with. Russia's won that war. We knew they would win that war. From the beginning, thousands of people have died for no reason. I mean, because ultimately the end result is going to be what it would have been. If we negotiate at the beginning. All the only difference is millions of people. Not millions, thousands of people have died. And our country sent hundreds of billions of dollars, like $100 billion to basically a corrupt regime. That. And it just, basically, all it does, it's enriched the military industrial complex in Arlington, West Virginia. I mean, I'm sorry, Arlington, Virginia, as well as enrich certain corrupt people in Ukraine. But I don't think, I don't think Rubio sees it like that. And I think that's, that's troubling. And like I said with China, I don't think we should be as bellicose towards China as something. I mean, just to be clear, China's got an evil government. I mean, I'm not pro communist here. I think they're evil. I just think we don't like, pick a fight with them, which is what a lot of these neocons want to do, because they want to pick a fight with everybody. [00:39:35] Is Rubio a practicing Catholic? Can't find a straight answer online? I'm not going to give you a straight answer either because I do not know. I've heard both, you know, pro and, you know, yes he is or no, he isn't. [00:39:47] I just assume most of these guys are not practicing Catholics. I do believe J.D. vance is. But in general, honestly, it's a sad state of affairs. But it's reality. [00:39:58] That's not, that's not a qualifier in my mind if they're a practicing Catholic or not. I mean, technically, in some ways, Joe Biden was a practicing Catholic in the sense that he went to Mass regularly. I mean, I think he went to Mass every week, but of course we know he wasn't. Actually he didn't believe what the Church teaches. And I think that's probably true for a lot of these politicians. Even if they are quote, unquote Catholics. They're not, you know, it doesn't really mean much to them. It doesn't mean necessarily they have good policy ideas or, you know, what they want for the country. [00:40:29] Okay, I'm going to wrap it up there. I, you know, continue to pray for our country, pray that Trump picks some good people. I'm not one to freak out about bad appointments right now. Like, you know, Rubio being Secretary of State, I'm opposed to it. I think it's a bad idea. But I'm not like freaking out like, oh my gosh, Trump's breaking all his promises. This is going to be a disaster. No, let's just wait. Give the guy a little bit. I mean, he's literally not even in office yet. It hasn't even been announced officially yet. Let's just kind of wait and see. Let's see what the cabinet is he that he appoints. Let's see what he does his first hundred days of office. Those things will tell us if things have changed from the first term, because obviously Trump did some good things in the first term. The appointment of the Supreme Court justices is frankly the number one thing by far. Not starting new wars. That was good things of that nature. But it wasn't that successful of a term, in my opinion, in a lot of ways, and mostly because of his appointments. And he's the first to say that he's actually admitted that he didn't know all the players. He didn't know exactly what was going on. He trusted people. He shouldn't. We'll find out. I think we'll find within the first hundred days of his administration, if he learned a lesson. [00:41:33] There's some signs that maybe he didn't. So we're going to have to wait and see. Okay, so until next time, everybody. God love.