Charlie Kirk and the Fracturing of MAGA

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. So this week we have two big anniversaries, tragic anniversaries. Both, of course, on Friday is the 25th anniversary of 911 and on Thursday though is the one year anniversary of the murder, the assassination of Charlie Kirk. And, and so I wanted to use that as somewhat of a jumping off point today because I feel like the conservative movement has fractured greatly, or I should say more accurately, the MAGA movement has fractured greatly since the, the, the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Now, it started before that. I'm not claiming it started on the day he died or something like that, it started before that, but I feel like, I don't know, there's something about his assassination that, that removed the unifying force because it seemed that like everybody associated with the conservative movement, from the neocons to the libertarian non interventionalists, they all like Charlie and they all respected Charlie. And now of course, he's gone. And so in one way I almost feel like he's, you know, the restrainer talked about the catacomb, talked about in the, in the Bible, not of course in the true biblical sense, but in a sense that he was the restrainer of all that happened, keeping the, the fracturing from happening. Now I want to talk about that fracturing a second, but I do want to note that I'm just going to kind of ignore the whole Candace Owens distractions about Charlie Kirk's assassination. And honestly, I do kind of feel I, I did a podcast on what I think about Candace's ideas about what happened with the Charlie Kirk assassination. And like I said, I just feel like it's a, a distraction more than anything. It's, it's an evil distraction, but it's a distraction. So I'm not going to talk about that. What I want to talk about though, first and foremost is of course, the unifying, the uniform, the, the, the, the center of the, the MAGA movement, which is of course Donald Trump. I mean it as he goes, so goes maga. I mean, the whole MAGA movement is obviously Donald Trump. Now there's talk about what will happen after Donald Trump either leaves office or dies or whatever one day. But for now, he is maga. And the truth is MAGA has always been on some level a cult of personality all around Donald Trump. And as somebody who voted for Donald Trump and supported him in 2024 particularly, I don't have a problem admitting that, that he was voted for it. More of his force of his personality than specific policies. I always knew I wasn't a big fan of some of his policies. But of course I was a fan of a lot of the policies they campaigned upon in 2024, he and his supporters did. But it is a cult of personality MAGA movement is, and I know that that comes across as a, as a dig at it. I mean, maybe it is on some, I mean it is on some level because the political movement should not be based simply on one sole personality. It should be based upon principles among policies, things like that. That being said, the reality is in a lot of politics, a lot of political movements are cults of personality. That, that's just the way we are as, as a, as a human race. So I want to talk about Donald Trump for just a moment. And I think, and I've done podcasts in the past, earlier this year where I criticized Trump for specific policies he did and things like that, but I honestly think that he is becoming increasingly unhinged. The problem is we can't judge Donald Trump objectively because everybody, including myself, I'll be the first to admit it, nobody can, can, can approach Donald Trump in an objective manner. Either you love him or you hate him, or at the very least you have strong feelings about him even if you don't. Like, I don't, I actually don't love him or hate him, but I do have strong feelings about him. I hate it when he does certain things and I do love it when he does certain things. But I will be honest, the things he does that I hate have been increasing greatly in the last year and the things he does that I love have not been, they've been decreasing. And so it just seems to me though, if you, if you look at as objectively as possible, kind of take your Trump rose colored glasses off, which a lot of the people who probably listen to this podcast of the crisis audience are, are very pro Trump. If you just kind of take a step back, you'll see he's become more and more unhinged. I mean, there's no other way to put it now. I know, I know Donald Trump has always been a troll. I mean, that has been his, he was a troll before we even had the term troll for, for what he does. And so he's always been a troll and he always posts things that are outlandish, crazy. We don't, you don't know if he really believes them, how much he believes them. It's like the, the saying goes, you should always take Donald Trump seriously, but not literally. Whereas the left always takes him literally, but not seriously. So none of this unhinged behavior am I saying I'm taking him literally, but I am taking him seriously. I am taking seriously the fact that the President of the United States of America is acting in. In a way that is frankly, just, objectively speaking, just insane and unhinged. And I'll get to some examples here in a moment. Also, I'll make it clear, I'm not saying that other presidents haven't been awful in other ways. I mean, Obama's a perfect example. He's almost the opposite of Trump in so many ways because he was smooth. He is. He just is oily. He's just so evil. I mean, Clinton in a little way. Clinton was more like Trump, though. But Obama is deeply evil and all that he did, yet he always put a good face on it. Trump doesn't care about the good face and he does do good things behind it. But just because he does some good things doesn't mean all of a sudden everything else he does just gets a pass. And when he does things that are just frankly crazy and just stupid. Stupid, frankly, that we should just be like, oh, that's just Trump being Trump. I mean, this idea that we just let Trump be Trump, that's just who he is. And, and like we excuse everything. It. It's. I just don't get it. I. I just don't understand. I mean, the latest thing he's been doing is. I mean, he's been doing this for a long time, but he seems to have upped his. His game a little bit. Is all the stupid memes and boomer AI slop that he's been posting on True social. It just is getting out of control. Let me just put up a few of these. So I have. These are just a few. These are not all of them. But we have here, which is a map of, for those who are listening, a map of the United States, Canada and Mexico. So North America. But it's all called the United States of America. It's all in the American flag, I. E. Let's just you and I. Actually, I didn't realize until I just saw it now. Greenland as well, and like, make it all United States, America. Of course, that would mean somebody like Donald Trump would never be elected President of the United States again if that was actually the case. But it's just this idea of this. Let's just conquer and not be faking out what we mean by American empire. I mean, past presidents wanted American empire and didn't admit it. He's just. I guess he's admitting it. Then he has this post here. The the famous Lake America, scratching out Ontario and calling it Lake America, which is just because of his spat with K. Canada. And I know he's playing a game here, although he did have it actually officially renamed. As much as the President can officially rename the lake Lake Ontario, he renamed it Lake America. But he's just, I know he's doing, he, he's trolling the Canada because he's, this is his way of negotiating with Canada. Yet at the same time he really did have Lake Ontario renamed to Lake America. And if you know anything about Ontario, the name, you know, it's not some Canadian name that just Canada gets. I mean there's a number of places in America called, called Ontario. So again, it's just kind of like you're, you're just slop, you're just throwing slop out there. And of course he, he doubled down on the Lake America by saying instead of New Mexico, let's rename it New America. And of course this is one of the states in the union. This is actually an American state. He's talking about just rename it Lake America. I'm sorry, New America. And he had like five or six or seven posts on this. I mean, he just, he kept posting about Lake America. I mean, I keep saying Lake America. That is one thing. New America, renaming New Mexico New America. And then he had this classic one recently we put this one up on the screen where he has a map of before Iran and then it's the after of Iran is basically the silhouette of Donald Trump. Like he's reshaped the country in this silhouette of Donald Trump. Which of course is comical because the fact is, as much as Trump says it, and the more he says it, the more it's not true. We didn't actually, we haven't actually won a war against Iran. Iran hasn't lost. The, the thing is, is we try, you know, the neocons, the, the, the, the MAGA people who are still maga, they try to act like we've defeated Iran because like for example, we've, we've sunk more of their ships than they sunk of ours or we've destroyed more bridges or whatever of theirs than we, they destroyed of ours. That's not how this war works. It's been asymmetric since the beginning. The reality is they didn't have to do Iran didn't have to do as much to us keep from losing. The only way they lose is literally if they have regime change there and the new administration of Iran declares signs something that says we'll never have nukes again. And opens the stray Hormuz and everything that Trump has asked for, the billion different things he's mentioned in the course of the war, if they give in to all of it, then America wins. Otherwise we don't win. Because remember, we are the superpower going against a country that's clearly not a superpower, and we have not been able to defeat them to achieve our goals. In fact, things are actually worse now in a lot of ways than they were before the war started. Remember, the Stria Hormuz was completely open before the war started in February. So things actually are worse. Iran actually has more power in some ways than it did before the war. So acting like Iran somehow has lost the war already is just silly. And of course, then he has this post here where he says oil prices will drop precipitously, like everything else is dropping. But more when we win the war with Iran, $3 a gallon, but ultimately below $2 a gallon, it will all happen quickly and Iran will never have a nuclear weapon. MAGA present djt I mean, the funny thing is this post, which he posted, hold on, let me just see if I can see. On September 7, so yesterday admits at least that they haven't won the war. I mean, that's the crazy thing is he has literally declared victory, I mean, countless times. But here he admits that we've, that we haven't won yet. Also, he's denied in early on at least that in a lot of the supporters denied that the war with Iran would somehow cause gas prices go up. And now he admits that gas prices are going up, and he admits it's because of the war, his war of choice in Iran, that he did not have to start. The gas prices are up. He's just saying, hey, when we win this thing, they'll go down. But he's been saying this for months, that, that, that we've already won. And now he's basically admitting here we haven't won. And you know, he's also got other posts he's done like the greatest, the presidential rankings where he lists himself as the greatest and he has these weird rankings of presidents. He has the post where he had the picture of the moon with the flag next to it said the moon is ours, even though we've, America's literally signed a treaty that says the opposite. He had to post about the space force uniforms that look like they're from the imperial forces in Star Wars. I mean, it's all slop, it's all trolling. I know all that. And so in a way, I guess I'm falling for it by even talking about it, but it doesn't mean it's okay just because we know that's what he does, because it's still just the activity of an unhinged person. And of course this one I thought was interesting. This one didn't get any press, but it just was crazy. He's talking about Debbie Dingle, who is the wife of. He's. She's congressman, but she's the wife of former congressman John Dingell. He writes, upon his death, I gave Congressman John Dingell the royal send off. Maxed out his wife Debbie Dingbat, because of course he can't call anybody by their name if they're, if they're an enemy. Called me and thanked me profusely while crying uncontrollably. She couldn't believe I would do such a nice thing. Since then she says nothing but bad about your favorite president. Me. This is. Now here's the money quote. Every time I see that third rate loser ripping me, I'm amazed because I'm a loyal person. I don't do things like that, but it's okay, it's politics. However, it shouldn't be that way. President Donald J. Trump. Let me just read that again. Donald Trump saying, every time I see that third rate loser ripping me, I'm amazed because I'm a loyal person. I don't do things like that. Anybody who knows the history of Donald Trump is, that's exactly what he does. He's always done that. He is absolutely not a loyal person. He, all he cares about is loyalty to him. If you're not loyal to him, he will just rip you to shreds. I mean Thomas Massey is the perfect example. Thomas Massie has always been a supporter of Trump, but he has at times voted against bills that Trump wanted passed the most. The most classic one was the one at Covid, tied where they just wanted to destroy the economy, you know, do terrible things, inflate the, the, the money supply, all that because they were freaking out about COVID which they shouldn't have been. And so he ripped one. He, I think he called him a third rate loser, a supporter of his. And he, and of course he's. Now it's gone completely further than that. And he does this all the time. Again, it's just something that he does. And yet he says, you know, that he's, he says, how dare somebody do that? Now the reality is, like I said, try to take a step back picture here. Do this Picture that this is your father, who is in his 80s, posting these things on Facebook. At the very least, you would be embarrassed. But you also would likely be concerned, would you not? You would be concerned about the mental state of your father. If he's posting these things I'm saying about himself and he's saying these megalomaniacal things about himself, you in fact might think he's having dementia, he might be getting dementia. You would definitely be concerned. And you would more than likely, if you're a loving son, loving daughter, you would try to take the phone away from him because, you know, it's just not healthy, not healthy what he's doing. Yet we have the president, United States doing it, and all the supporters, like, that's fine. In fact, they laugh at, they think it's great. I just think we have to recognize, I get that Trump has always been like this on one level, but I'm sorry, you can't gaslight me to think that it hasn't ratcheted up a certain degree in the last year or so, that it hasn't gotten worse. I mean, I just think that's pretty obvious. And there's also these weird things like his obsession with certain, with monuments like the ballroom, the arch in D.C. things like that, the ballroom. Particularly every, every, every insider account is that he is just obsessed with that. In fact, recently the army general Dan Driscoll resigned, retired, whatever. And the story is that this is a very high ranking military official. The story is that he actually went into Trump's, had a meeting with Trump in the Oval Office to talk about the Iran war, about what's going on, things like that. And all Trump talked about was the ballroom. And this isn't like the only person who's reported this. And actually Driscoll, by the way, did not report this, but insider accounts have basically revealed, you know, he's obsessed with this. This is something, if I was an army general, I would walk out of that meeting being concerned about the mental state of my commander in chief, that I would be concerned. I'd be like, hey, wait a minute, he didn't even want to talk to me about the military situation. All he talked about was this ballroom building, this ballroom. What's going on here? Something's going, going on here. Something is just odd. And so like he, he resigned, that military commander resigned. I could see doing that. But Trump seems to be obsessed about talking about his greatness, like the, the ranking of his, he's the greatest president. All this, I mean, always talks about how great he Is. And I know Trump's always been like that, but is it healthy, the extent he's been doing it? I mean, just the fact that the commander in chief is. Tweed is posting whatever, this much. And don't think this is other people. I think other people have. I think somebody, at least one or two other people do. Do have access to his post. I'm not saying every single post is typed by him, but, you know, a lot of them are. And this is what he's spending his time doing. And don't get me wrong, I don't think we should go back to, like, even the George W. Bush days of Republicanism. That was terrible as well. But this is clearly just not healthy behavior, even if it has been his brand for many years. And here's the thing, it's just not funny. It's just not, like, entertaining. It just doesn't work when he's been a terrible president for the past year or so, when he's just not done a good job. And that's objectively speaking. I'm not saying he hasn't done anything well. I think he's done pretty well in immigration, frankly, and there's a few other things he's done okay on. But in general, he's not been like, this great president. Like, the fact that he keeps calling himself the Greatest kind of reveals that he doesn't. He knows he's. Nobody thinks he's the greatest, except for the people right around him. I mean, it really does have some of a Hunger Games vibe. If you've ever read the series, there's, like, the. The capital, where people are just living it up. They're having. They're all dressed up, they're spending all this money, and the people out in the rest of the country are living in poverty. I mean, that's exactly what it almost sounds. I'm not saying it's that extreme, but it's very similar to that, because if you look at dc, The DC crowd, they're totally disengaged with actual reality. I mean, you literally had Ivanka Trump posting a post of her riding a horse on the beach the other day with, I think, a Coldplay song playing in the background, something like that. And they all do this. All the Trumps do this. And Trump, him. Donald Trump himself does this. We're like, they're living it up. I mean, Donald Trump was bragging about how much money he made on intel or something like that the other day, or the government has or whatever, but he's just making. He's like he's bragging about how much money he's made over the years, when at the same time, in part because of his policies, not only because of his policies, but in part because of policies, people are struggling, young people are struggling to get, you know, to have to hold a job. A job, a wages that can actually pay for their, their, their groceries and their gas and their housing and things like that. I mean, he's showing, the Trumps are showing off their wealth while people, while young people in particular are struggling. I mean, frankly, the, the, the politics, his policies aren't working very well. So if you have his policies are just nailing it and doing great, then obviously all the craziness, you can kind of excuse a lot easier. I mean, still, again, I want to take a step back, and I know Catholics don't conserve, Catholics don't hear this anymore, but Catholics should support people acting, even presidents acting in a rational, sane, charitable manner, which Trump never does. So, I mean, I do think, doesn't do publicly. So I do think that's important. But even beside that, you can kind of excuse the wackiness on Truth social, if his policies were working, but they're not. I mean, let's just go through a few of them. The most obvious ones, the Iran war, this is a war of choice. He did not have to start. There is, there is no way you can, you can say with a straight face, without, I don't know, just lying to yourself, that the Iran war, he had to get started. This idea, oh, we've been at war for 47 years is such a joke. It's such a joke. Well, why didn't you do anything when you were president the first time? Why hasn't any other president said this? And what about the fact that we've been at war with them since the 1950s, that we've been doing things like overthrow their government, control them, things like that. I'm not defending Iran. I'm just simply saying we did not have to go to war with them. Israel is what want what is. Who wanted us to go to war with them. And essentially Trump caved and it's been the disaster. Those of us who were against it from the beginning have predicted it would be. I'm sorry, I might sound arrogant, but it's true. It's been the disaster we predicted it would be. People. Gaslight you. The defender. Gaslight you. But they were saying early on that this would be over weeks or a month, that the, there would be a regime change, that we would, you know, all these, that I mean people, they were, they acted shocked when the straight her moose was closed. I mean all these different things are just, you know, they simply didn't have to happen. And, and like I said, it's been six months in, six plus months in. And he's just, you know, it's not any better. It's actually worse off than it was before he started. And it has harmed our economy, it's hard harmed the worldwide economy. It's risen our gas prices, which Trump himself, like I said just admitted it rose our gas prices for no reason whatsoever. I would say Iran's more likely to get a nuke today than it was six months ago before the war started. So I mean that, and so that's one thing obviously the Epstein files is a huge thing. Not because it's a huge thing. What do I mean by that? I actually don't think that the Epstein files themselves would have revealed some or it would have, I don't think if they truly revealed the totality of the Epstein files, I don't think it would have been the world shattering event that some people think it would have been. What would have happened is a few people would have been picked out as scapegoats, they would have gone to jail, you know, and then we just continue on as we've continued on yet the reality is it represents the entire drain, the swamp mantra which Trump doesn't talk about anymore. The whole drain, the swamp mantra of Trump's first term and his second term. It represents that if anything represents the drain, the swamp mantra more than anything it is the Epstein files and what happened. Not only did Trump refuse to release them, he attacked anybody who talked about releasing them. He just completely switched 180 overnight and gaslight everybody to say okay, it's a democratic thing when of course it wasn't then. I mean another policy thing is obviously, and this is related to the Iran war is the Israel First Lobby, the Ben Shapiro, the Mark Levines, people like that that has led us into these problems and led us into the Iran war and, and other things. And there's just nothing about it that you know that, that we're not doing anything to stop that. And in fact you're just calling anti Semite if you even say maybe we shouldn't have them as the, the, the, the driver of our policies. Another thing I, I noticed like just happened recently was the jobs report that Trump was Trump trumpeting saying how great it was from August, it showed that the vast majority of jobs were women. I think it was like 98%, maybe not that high, but it was like, the point is, is most of the new jobs were going to women, not men. Young men were not getting jobs. And Trump was bragging about that, saying, oh, no wonder they all like me, meaning women. This is not good. This is not a healthy civilization, not a healthy society where most of the jobs are going to women. I mean, frankly, it just, that's a sign of a degenerating society civilization. And yet Trump, of course, is completely clueless to it. And most of the conservative movement doesn't care about stuff like that. Now, I will say they tried to throw us a bone this week with the whole, okay, we're going to give subsidies, we're going to give cash to stay at home moms. Now, obviously, my wife has been a stay at home mom almost their entire, ever since we had kids. So for almost 30 years now. I think stay at home moms have the most important job in the world. I am a huge defender and supporter of stay at home moms and I encourage all moms to stay at home with their kids when they're young and when they're in the house as much as possible. That being said, I mean, this is not like some, it just, it's. The fact that we've gotten here shows how much concern conservatives have lost over the years. The fact that conservatives consider this a win shows how far conservatives have fallen. Now, I want to make it clear this money was being spent anyway. There is no way you can stop that train of, of money being spent, government money being spent and printed and your tax dollars being wasted. So you might as well throw it to something decent rather than something crappy. I'm so, I'm not even against this, this subsidy because it's taking from existing, because I understand it's an existing subsidy that has to be spent and it would, it normally pay off for daycare expenses, stuff like that. And they're saying, no, let's redirect some of it for stay at home moms. Okay? I mean, obviously that's better than the alternative, but let's not like dilute ourselves and act like this is some great win for conservatism because it's still, it's still spending money like crazy. I mean, remember, Trump very much ran on conservation cutting expenses. I mean, the whole doge thing was cutting expenses. And they just dropped that after a couple months when they realized there'd be a few, there's a little bit of a push back to it. They just dropped it. And so this idea that like you know, we're going to cut spending has just been forgotten about. This idea that we're going to ever since the big beautiful bill that we're going to try to limit government spending is just, it's just not even talked about. It's not even on the radar now. We're just talking about, okay, we're going to, we're going to continue to spin like drunken sailors. Let's try to have a little tiny piece of it go to something we like and remember what we're talking about. The amount of money that would go to the stay at home moms is like a rounding error when it comes to the entire federal budget. And the federal budget, what is it, like 4 trillion a year or something like that? That's how much we make. It's more than that anyway. And we're $40 trillion in debt. And so it's just kind of a joke. I mean, the $40 trillion in debt thing Trump likes and his supporters like talk about we're in a golden age. We're in this golden age. I don't think a golden age includes $40 trillion in debt. I mean, call me crazy, I just don't think it does. Now to be clear, this isn't a Trump or MAGA only problem. This is all the Republicans have been terrible in this and all the Democrats are even worse. I mean the government spending, it just, we're, we're having, we're going to have a sovereign debt crisis. We're just going to be. The inflation is just crazy, ridiculous. It's not what they say it is. Everybody who actually shops for anything knows that, knows the inflation has been far worse than they've said. And so Trump's policies have done nothing to help with any of the out of control government spending, the inflation, the debt, anything like that. And supposedly conservatives are fiscally conservative. That's a joke and we all know that's a joke. So his policies really have been such that it's difficult to really defend him too much. And so it really has caused a fractioning of the MAGA base. However, now I want to talk a little bit about the kind of the quote unquote opposition within conservatism, so to speak. I remember to get fill up my water today because I lost my voice last time. It's kind of, you could say MAGA has split between MAGA and what you could kind of call America first, represented by maybe Thomas Massie, Dave Smith, Tucker Carlson, people like that. And so you could probably tell the way I talk about Trump That I'm more in line with the America first, whatever you want to call it group. However, I got problems with them too. This is like Festivus, by the way. I got problems with all you people. And now you're gonna hear about them. Just call me George Costanza's father. What was his first name? I can't remember. Mr. Costanzas. Anyway, there is definitely some issues there too, but I want to play a video that went viral the other day and it kind of represents the criticism against the MAGA movement and it really did capture it pretty perfectly. I also want to talk about the reaction, the mega reaction to it in a second, but let me just pull up the video. [00:29:56] Speaker B: You're scared of flock cameras. You carry a cell phone with GPS all day. What's the difference? It's not a war. [00:30:03] Speaker A: We're just bombing Iran. [00:30:05] Speaker B: We need the data centers. We have to win the AI race. Oh, my God. Shut the hell up about Epstein already. Gas costs more. So what? It's worth it if Iran doesn't get a nuke. If you've got nothing to hide, why do you care if they track you? America's finally great again. [00:30:35] Speaker A: Okay, so that was a video went very viral, had like 7,8 million views last time I saw it. And it really does encapsulate kind of the view of the America first crowd, so to speak, against maga, that they're all just basically zombies who whatever Trump says or talking points he puts out that day, that's what they're going to say. No matter how stupid it is, no matter how brainless it is, no matter how much it contradicts what they said the day before, they're just going to say it. And it really did go pretty viral and it was a pretty impressive in. In how it represented a lot of people's views. That being said, I will say MAGA people kind of embraced it because that's what MAGA does, that's so politically a genius. Anytime they get insulted, they embrace the insult and that kind of neuters it from of its power. So I want to give very much credit to MAGA for doing that. But I still think though, this one hurt more than they want to admit because they are admitting, yes, we are brain dead cultists who just do whatever our dear leader says and it doesn't really matter what he says. We're just going to support it. And so it's kind of like you got to recognize it. It's you're kind of self owning yourself by saying, this is great now Some people made videos with that character. I've heard different names for him, but that character, they try to make it more like, likable and more like sincere, like patriotic, things like that. But the reality is it was showing kind of revealing the. The idiocy of many MAGA followers. Now, again, though, when it comes to the people who are the. The critics from the right, I'll call them, I don't really like the America first tag either, because that has certain connotations. But let's just say the critics on the right against maga, it's got some serious problems, too. I mean, I would definitely say, you know, like I said, I'm more in line with them than I am with maga, but. But, like, okay, so I like Thomas Massey. I don't really have any real criticism to him. I. I'm not saying he's perfect, but I mean, he's. I, like, I haven't seen anything there. I'm like, oh, my gosh, that's crazy. I like Dave Smith as well. Again, sometimes he does some things I'm not. I don't agree with, but it's not like. I think he's pretty much okay. But then you have some of the other people. I mean, Candace Owens is on this group, and I honestly think she's awful. I mean, I think. I don't. I. Yeah, I just. I'll just say it. I'll say without qualification. She's just awful. What she has done with the whole Charlie Kirk thing is. Is horrible. It's horrific. It's uncharit, it's uncatholic. It's. It's evil. It's terrible. Yet she's in this kind of coalition. The critics of. Of MAGA on the right. I also think Nick Fuentes, who's kind of part of this coalition too, I mean, Fuentes doesn't like Candace and whatever. I don't care. I don't like him either. I think he's awful in a lot of ways. When I say this, by the way, I'm not saying everything Candace says is wrong or everything Nick Fuentes says is wrong. Actually, I think Nick Fuentes, when he criticizes Candace, he's got. He's pretty. He's right there. I mean, I've seen some of his critiques of Candace, and I think he's right on. So. And of course, you got. Milo has gone rogue. I mean, what the heck is he even doing? He's, like, claiming to be Muslim. I think now. Now he's been deported. He's whining. About his treatment and stuff like that. I don't think he should have been deported, by the way. But he's whining about it and. And, like, so that. That guy's gone is crazy. I mean, he's always been crazy, but, like, that guy isn't exactly somebody that you want to look to as a political leader. And then Tucker. I've always liked Tucker. Okay, I haven't always liked him, but, like, since he's kind of left Fox, I've liked a lot of his stuff, but, like, boy, he is getting increasingly just over the top in some of the things. I mean, I like, I've criticized him when he was saying that, like, we don't know how nuclear weapons were made. He just makes stuff up like that. And he makes. Like, that's a fact. That's a fact. We just don't know. Well, no, we do know exactly how nuclear weapons were made. I'm not saying demonic forces might not have influenced certain people in making them. I'm just simply saying that wasn't. He makes it sound like. He has made it sound like basically demons just gave us the. The way to make them. And he's. He's. Some other things are crazy. And then just this week, he had this guy on, and I saw some clips of it, and they were talking about, like, how algebra isn't real or something. Like, the guy was like, have you ever seen anybody ever use algebra in real life? And Tucker was like, what do you mean? He's like. It's like, you know, this. Why do they replace letters with numbers? I mean, numbers with letters. And the, The. The guest was like, oh, it's just the F with you. And he's like, railing on algebra. And it was like the most bizarre thing. And Tucker just kind of laughs and goes along with it. I mean, what, what are we even doing here, Tucker? What are we even doing here? I mean, do you really think you. You kind of made it sound like you're building a political movement. A couple months ago, they had a lot of great points, I think, a lot of very good points. Now you're talking about how algebra isn't real. And some people are like, oh, it's just a joke. You don't get the joke. Okay, tell me what the joke is about acting like there isn't algebra. I mean, it just. It's. It's crazy. You know Marjorie Taylor Greene? I didn't mention her. She's always been a little bit crazy. Although I kind of liked her more after she went against Trump a little bit, but not exactly. Somebody's going to lead the charge. And here's the reality that I don't necessarily like to say, but I am going to say because it's true. There is no real political support in this country for that movement. I mean, I do think it has the, the breakaway of the America first, where you want to call them away from maga, has that coalition because it also includes people like Joe Rogan and, and Theo Vaughn who aren't actually politically aligned exactly with some of these people. They're not America first or anything like that, but they did a lot. They, they were part of the MAGA coalition and, and Trump's lost all of them. I do think it's, it's clear Trump's lost a lot of his political support they had in 2024, a lot of it. And it's, it's remains to be seen if Mary's talking about, oh, everybody, he endorsed one of the primaries. Okay, fine. Nobody ever claimed that the primaries weren't dominated by MAGA donors. What's going to happen in November? We'll see if the Republicans win easily in November. They do. Great. Then maybe it's true that it's not, maybe it's the fact that we don't have a big split in MAGA now also they have redistrict to support them and the Democrats are always incompetent and terrible, so that helps them. And 2028, if there's a big coalition movement again, that supports Vance or whoever the Republican is, okay, maybe something else is different there, but the, the fact is, is that there is no real political movement in this America first thing. As much as like the Fuentes fans, the Groipers and stuff act like they have all this power, they don't actually have any. I mean, Fuentes himself acts like he has this ability to like, change elections, but they haven't. They caused lots of stink online, but in real life they've not switched elections, they've not shifted elections in any meaningful way. And I think it's true also of like so far of like Tucker and Massey and, and Dave Smith and, and, and Candace whoever people, some of whom I like, I don't think they have a real political weight because first of all, they don't have any big donors behind them. And let's be honest, that is, that is the way just the reality is you need the big money behind something towards succeed, succeed and they don't have that. So I don't, I don't. It's not Good is what I'm trying to say. Maga, I think, has gone off the deep end, but then the, the kind of. The alternative, the. The conservative alternative MAGA is talking about algebra might not exist and talking about, like, oh, but did you know that Tyler Robinson actually was at this steakhouse? And he signed, but he wasn't. And then he did. It's like, what are we even doing here? People, They've, They've. The alternative, the conservative alternative to MAGA has just become a swamp of conspiracy madness and just like, you know, trying to get the most clicks on, on in those views on X. It's not a political movement in real way. So I guess the question is, what are Catholics supposed to do? I mean, what am I going to do? I mean, first of all, I would say it's a good lesson for us. Don't support any human political movement. Unreservedly, always be willing to change to what, Withdrawal, support. I mean, that's what I've done did with Trump in 2024. I gave him my support. I publicly was like, hey, yeah, I'm voting for him. You should, too. But I was never like, okay, no matter what he does in the future, I'm going to support him. Just like, you know, you shouldn't say never Trump and think you're never going to vote for him. And something like that. You should also. You should also never be like, I'm never going to stop my support of a human being because human beings are fallen. They do bad things. And I think this is what's happening here. And so, like, with feel, don't be alarmed. To withhold your support from things that are not good. It's okay to withhold support from things that are not good, like what Trump is becoming and, you know, pretending that. Excusing hand, waving away Trump's behavior as that's just Trump. There's a certain level that I can understand that at, but, like, what are we even doing here, guys? Because what happens is we end up doing the same thing for other people. Then we just allow. We just. We basically just say it's okay, it's okay to act like this. There's nothing wrong with it. That's not true. People shouldn't act like that. You want to just dismiss his politics? Well, guess, guess who is involved in politics. Human beings. You think God doesn't care how Trump acts? Do you think God doesn't care how we act when we support Trump or go against something like that? He does care. Your salvation is more important than who wins the Next election. And so if you're doing things to support, you know, bad things or. Or yourself are doing bad things. That's not good. That's not good. The reality is these elections. I'm sorry, I'm just gonna say these elections don't matter that much. The national elections in particular. Yes, bad things will happen when candidate X is elected, but so will happen if candidate Y is elected. It'll just be different. Bad things. Yes, If Kamala was elected, there'd be bad things going on. But the truth is, Kamala was so weak as a person, as a politician, as a candidate, as a leader, I honestly think that it wouldn't have been as bad as people say, because she couldn't accomplish. She was so incompetent. She couldn't accomplish anything. There'd be such a resistance against her. That MAGA coalition would have stayed intact if Kamala was elected, and they would have made sure that she couldn't get anything done. And it would have been glorious because she would just been. Four years of getting nothing done, which is actually, frankly, one of the best things that can ever happen out of Washington is nothing being done. Now, I'm not saying nothing bad would. Would have happened. Some things would have. But bad things have happened under Trump. I mean, the Iran war, case in point. So I just think we. We make it like it's an existential threat. I just saw the other day, here in Ohio, we have. The governor's race is between Vivek Ramaswamy and Amy Acton. For those who don't know, Amy Acton is. She was our Dr. Fauci in Ohio. Basically, she was Dr. Fauci to our governor at the time. Obviously, Vivek is better than Amy Acton, but he's got serious issues. But, like, I saw somebody say that, like, if Amy Acton was elected, Ohio is destroyed forever. I'm sorry, are we doing. Are we always going to do this? Are we doing this again where it's like every single election, it's like it's. Our existence will no longer be the same. I'm sorry. If Amy Acton gets elected to Ohio, it won't be good for Ohio, but it's not like Ohio is going to all of a sudden just crumble under another incompetent lady Democrat. It just is going to be bad, but it's not. You know what happens? Every sealter where she is in a Republican will get elected the next time. I mean, that's. It's not. It's not that big a deal. I do think local elections can be More meaningful to yourself, you know, to your own life. But I think really it's a matter of you try to save your soul. You try to save the souls of your family, of the members of your community. You focus on that more than anything. And all the energy, if you can imagine all the energy Catholics spend on politics, if even like 10 of that was focused on saving souls, I think we'd have a true revival. You know, last week I said the conversion explosion. That wasn't. We'd have a true, actual conversion explosion if we spent even a tenth of the time on evangelization trying to save souls as we do on politics. I mean, frankly. So I'm not saying completely get out of politics, but the idea is, I mean, you can. I'm not saying don't do that. I'm just saying it's not anywhere near as important as we make it. I'm sorry, in our system, it just simply isn't. That's just the way it is. Okay, so let me go ahead and jump to the live chat. Thank you for everybody who, who tuned in live. Let me see what some people have to say. Dave, or hard. I can't really read that one. Username. Sorry. I vote for Trump. I'm tired of his routine. Everything is about him. I like some of the things he has done, but he's giving the mild. I'm sorry, but he's giving the midterm elections to the Democrats by what he's doing recently. I can't disagree with you. I think you're, you're right, Dave, that I'm tired of his routine too. I mean, that's, that's, that puts it in a nutshell. I'm just tired of, of the. This. It's just stupid. It's a, it's a carnival act. And when everything's going fine, you like going to the carnival. But when it's not going fine, it's not fine. Wayne says, I disagree with you regarding Candace Owens. Her investigations are serious, fact based and point to a larger story behind the assassination other than the prevailing narrative. I just, I disagree. I think that she's got nothing. I think, I think her investigations are not serious. They're not fact based and they don't point to a larger story. Now, to be clear, I'm not against conspiracy theories that, that challenge the narrative. I very much, during COVID supported most of those conspiracy theories because they end up being facts. I just think that that doesn't mean every conspiracy theory, doesn't mean every narrative is wrong. And in the Case of Candace Owens. I think I. Okay, I. I'm not going to get into whole cancelling thing. I just would recommend you we. We post an article last week by Clement Harold, kind of debunking just a few of the things Candace is doing. Just. I suggest you read that. And I know most Candace supporters. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what you say. They're just going to be so. I'm not saying that's true of you, Wayne, but they're not exactly fact based. Okay. Phoenix says I didn't even know who he or TP USA was before his assignation. Barely heard of them, never watched him or anything. TP usa. He was a big deal though, Phoenix. I mean, he was a big deal. I wasn't a big turning point fan before. I'm still not a big turning point fan. I don't really care that much about him. But in the political world, he was a big deal. He was a big deal. Charlie, that is. Nathan says owning the libs is fun. When you're winning, it's enjoying victory. It's lame. When his presidency is just disappointing. Is not just disappointing, but a near total disaster. You know, you could wrap up my entire podcast today in what Nathan just said. I'll read it again. Owning the libs is fun. When you're winning, it's enjoying victory. Great. Way to put it. It's lame. Yes, it's lame. When his presidency is not just disappointing, but a near total disaster. Absolutely, Nathan. I agree completely. Dave says again, I think there should be an upper age limit for President, Senators and House Representatives. Yeah, I do too. I mean, it's obviously just ridiculous. I do not get why these people stay in power for so long. I mean, I don't know about you. I'm getting old enough where I'm like, I can't wait till I'm retired. I don't want to be doing this rest of my life if I'm still doing this when I'm 70 years old. Please, somebody just put me in a home or something. I don't know. And these people want to just cling on to their power, what they're doing forever. Sub Rosa says CIA, Mossad killed Kirk, period. I would say, no, that is not true. Well, okay, I'll put this way. Here's what I'm willing to admit. I. I do think that Tyler Robinson killed him. And he shot, he fired the rifle, and he was the one who killed Kirk. Charlie Kirk. I'm not ruling out the possibility that some type of forces Were let it happen made, you know, basically pushed Tyler Robinson along to make it happen. I'm not denying that. I don't think that's what happened. I think it's what the narrative says. In this case, I think he was like a kind of went crazy liberal in the trans world, all that stuff, and he just snapped. And I think that's because I think the language. Here's what's. I. Here's what I think is the worst thing about Candace's narrative that she's spinning is it totally under my. It totally undermines our ability to. To really fight against a true bad force in our. In our country, which is leftism. I'm not saying it's the only one. I, I totally think CIA is awful. I think CIA should be disbanded. It's evil. Mossad, whatever, all that. I'm not saying that they don't do terrible things. I mean, I think CIA killed John F. Kennedy. So I'm not, I'm like some pro CIA guy. But the reality is we were seeing a number of assassinations from leftists. We continue to see, you know, violence from leftists and supported by leftists. And I think all of a sudden, once Candace started weaving her narrative, people just didn't talk about that anymore, and he let them off the hook. Drew Black says today he wants to rename New Mexico to New America. It's a bridge too far. Yeah, that is just. Now you're just. I mean, it's just. They're all bridge too far in my mind. That's just stupid. Rush says what's horrible about her Charlie Kirk investigations. I'm not going to go into it here. I mean, literally, I've been going 48 minutes and it would take forever. Like I said, I recommend the, the, the article we posted. There's plenty of. Here's the thing. You want to know why I'm not going to get into it? Because it's a waste of time. It's a waste of time. I have had, tried to have conversations with people who support her narratives, and it's like talking to a zombie. I'm sorry, I'm just going to say it's like talking to somebody who just is brainwashed. No matter what you say, no matter what evidence you give, they just, they often what they do is they just in shift to something else. Like if they say Candice said this and I say, no, actually this is the reality and it contradicts what Candace said. They'll say, but Joe. But then what about this? And what about this and they never say, okay, Candace was wrong in this. I would love to see a camp or say, well, okay, she's wrong on this, this, and this, but I think she's got something over here. Fine. They never do that. So there's no point in having a conversation at this point, frankly. Drew Black says politics changes people. Yes, it does. Almost always for the worse. With the exception of Ron Paul, Phoenix's politics is dead. Save your soul. Yeah, it's kind of my point at the end there. Save your soul. True. Black says Trump is the commander in chief. Keep praying for him. Yeah, and I do thank you for mentioning that, Drew. As critical as I am, as unhinged I think Trump is, it is our duty to pray for our leaders. And Trump is our leader. He is the president, United States of America. As much as we might not want to be involved in politics, as much as we don't like what our government is doing, as opposed we are of many of the actions of our government, we are required to pray for them. So definitely pray for Donald Trump. I mean, no question about that. And then finally, this is a great way to end it. Tom says pray the rosary. That's the best thing. In fact, I would just encourage people, and I'll do this myself. I'll put this on my calendar. Deal. Pray a rosary or at least a decade of the rosary for Donald Trump. I think that's the right thing. That's the best response. And pray for the upcoming elections, that God's will would be done, that our country would be saved. I think these are all noble things, and this is what we're required to do. We're not required to be totally involved in the political spectrum, but we are required to pray for our leaders. So I would just encourage everybody to do that. Okay, everybody, thank you very much. I appreciate the lively live chat. I do like all the people who will push back on things. Who might you be more support of, Candace than I am, for example? I, I, I appreciate you watching. I, I really do. I don't want everybody to be just drones or anything like that. So, okay, everybody, until next time, God love you. And remember the poor.