It's a Numbers Game: Ask Me Anything: Trump Strategy, Immigration, Polling Myths & Ranked Choice Voting
2/16/202637 mincomplete
0:00This is an iHeart Podcast.
0:02Guaranteed human. Welcome back to A Numbers Game with Ryan Gruduski.
0:08Thank you guys for being here.
0:10I love the Ask Me Anything segment of this podcast.
0:13It was the idea that Buck Sexton gave me and to incorporate in the podcast
0:17and it's really taken off.
0:19So many things that I do for work are just very isolated because I work
0:23basically alone in my house alone and I'll send out emails or I have a
0:27producer who listens to me, but it's very one -on -one.
0:30So this is how I can connect with the tens of thousands of people who
0:35listen to every episode and I really appreciate it.
0:37I think it makes the podcast what it is and it lets me know that
0:40you guys are interested in anything I'm saying.
0:43So how I'm interested, by the way, in what you guys say and how I
0:46want to build a podcast episode around what you're talking about.
0:49Okay, so if you want to be part of future Ask Me Anythings, email me
0:53ryan at numbersgamepodcast .com. That's ryan at numberspluralnumbersgamepodcast .com.
0:59This episode is a whole Ask Me Anything episode.
1:01I'm going to go into a lot of your questions.
1:03I was very backed up.
1:04I actually started getting emails saying, why haven't you answered my question yet?
1:08So let's go through them.
1:09Let's get through this episode and give you guys everything you want to know.
1:13So first of all, this question comes from Michael.
1:16It says, you do a great job in your podcast.
1:18Why does the Trump administration not publicize the backgrounds of the illegal aliens they are
1:22deporting? There are hundreds of vicious criminals they have arrested, but they do not know
1:26their crimes, give details of their crimes.
1:28They should highlight the suffering of the victims.
1:31Same with closing the border or stopping the trafficking of women and children.
1:34How about the stories of all those girls and women who are raped as they
1:37travel across the border? I know some are hoaxes, but some are real.
1:41ICE has been framed as a moral issue, so the GOP should fight on moral
1:45terms. That's a great point about the moral terms, but they do actually publicize the
1:50crimes. You can go to dhs .gov slash wow, and you can see all the
1:55worst of the worst. You can see what they've done, their offenses.
1:58I know DHS will regularly tweet out the criminals that they've arrested, the postal on
2:03social media. So they do put them out there.
2:06It's not that they don't.
2:07It's that you have to look for them because the media doesn't really pick it
2:10up. There was a video just last week in Minnesota where a man was arrested
2:15carrying 50 pounds of drugs.
2:16I think it was methamphetamines on him.
2:19ICE arrested him at the mall, and you have all these dumb liberal women with
2:22fupas sitting there whistling around, sitting there and, you know, playing, pretending that they're freedom
2:26fighters. But you can see the worst of the worst.
2:29They are easily and readily available.
2:31The mainstream media does not cover it and does not pick it up.
2:35Okay, next question comes from Tommaso.
2:37Ryan, my man, don't worry about the speech dialect stuff.
2:40This is such a repeated email topic is my manner of speaking in my dialect.
2:47But he says, at least you ain't me.
2:49What you talking about? And two yuts.
2:51And as an Italian transplant to Brooklyn in the 70s, I learned a thing or
2:55two about being correct. And once I moved to L .A., remember the joke, what
2:58caused the Tower of Peace to start leaning?
3:00It got italicized. And one old Brooklyn one, heaven is Italian cook, British police, German
3:06administrator of the government. And hell is a British cook, German at the police, and
3:10Italians running the government. That's an old joke now because actually Italians have a good
3:14government, British have decent food, and the Germans can't run anything.
3:17Tommaso, thank you for that email.
3:19There wasn't a question. It was just about my accent.
3:22So I was born and raised in Queens, New York.
3:25My mother's family is completely Italian for multiple generations in America.
3:29She was raised in Brooklyn.
3:31My grandpa was raised in the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
3:33I have managed to make sure my accent is manageable to people and not too
3:40irritating. I have kicked terms like whatchamacallit out of my regular vocabulary.
3:46And I actually notice now when my friends from Queens born and raised say it
3:51very frequently, my family says it very frequently too.
3:54The funniest thing about being brought up Italian how I was, was that my maternal
3:57grandmother, my mother's mother, her family was like on the first boat to America.
4:02Not only was she born in America and her parents were born in America, but
4:06I think most of her grandparents were born in America.
4:09She knew virtually no Italian at all, like literally at all.
4:13And she used to make up Italian expressions, I guess, to fit in or what
4:18things that she heard that she thought that she knew what they meant.
4:20And she would put her own little rosy, let's just sort of spin on things.
4:25So, I mean, she at times spoke Italian like the Swedish chef on the Muppets
4:30spoke Swedish. Like it was very that.
4:32But I thought it was real growing up.
4:34So when I finally took Italian in college, I like confronted her.
4:38I was like, Grandma, everything you've been telling me all this time is not real.
4:41And she would say like things like, well, who are you going to believe?
4:43Me or some stranger you met at school referring to the professor.
4:47So thank you for your email.
4:49I think the dialect is manageable.
4:51It's never going to be fully gone.
4:54And I like people who have a little bit of an accent from wherever they're
4:57from. As long as it's not over the top.
5:00Ironically, you know, it's so funny.
5:01I mean, characters who on old TV shows who were from a place did not
5:07carry those dialects. Like if you think back like the Golden Girls, Rose was from
5:11very much from Minnesota, didn't sound like someone from Minnesota at all, never even pretended
5:15to have the accent. And like Dorothy was from New York, but like didn't have
5:19the accent. But her mother, who was from Italy, had a New York accent anyway.
5:22I don't know. Thinking about those things is really funny.
5:25Anyway, thank you for your email.
5:26Next question comes from Robert Diaz.
5:28He says, I have three questions.
5:29Don't worry about answering all of them.
5:30I'll answer all of them.
5:32First question, polling shows that a majority of Americans feel their personal financial situation has
5:37improved while other polls currently show economic confidence has dipped to the lowest point since
5:42COVID. I understand these are two technically separate questions, but I feel like those should
5:47generally move in the same direction.
5:49Is it just poll wording?
5:51What am I missing? It's about anxiety.
5:54That's like the really big thing.
5:56Honestly, there are a lot of indicators in the economy that has gotten better, right?
6:00Inflation is obviously down. Certain prices are actually declined.
6:04There is a little bit of stability when it comes to layoffs right now.
6:08Hiring is not where it should be, but there's overall anxiety.
6:12And that's really where the fever pitches.
6:15People are worried if their kid can get a job, if they can maintain a
6:17job, will AI take their job?
6:19There's a lot of conversations around AI and outsourcing.
6:23And Trump's decision to do the tariffs the way that he did really affected people's
6:29ability to think of the economy as stable.
6:33People do not like uncertainty.
6:35The markets don't like uncertainty.
6:37And what does Trump, for all the good things that he does, what's one of
6:41the bad things that he does?
6:41Because he makes people very uncertain.
6:44And so the way that he's handled tariffs have not ruined the economy in any
6:48shape or form. The media narrative would make you think otherwise.
6:53And the way he has been less than tactical with trying to release these tariffs
7:01has definitely brought out a lot of anxiety in people.
7:05Second question, I listened to Scott Rasmussen's podcast, who said that Trump's base is just
7:09as motivated as liberals and progressives are, and it's traditional Republicans and right -leaning independents
7:13who might likely stay home.
7:15However, we also hear how challenged to the Trump coalition is that the GOP traded
7:21high -frequency voters with low -frequency voters.
7:23I feel like the observation is true, but contradictory.
7:26How do you reconcile it?
7:27I don't know where Scott got that information from.
7:29I'd have to really listen to the whole episode and listen if he's talking about
7:33midterms or just the specials.
7:35But I will say this, and I respect Scott a lot of men and many
7:38times in agreement about Fox News when I was there.
7:41There's a lot of different Trump voters, right?
7:44There's the three -time Trump voter who goes to the rallies.
7:47There's the casual one who voted just in 2024 because they hated Biden or they
7:52had economic anxieties or they liked the vibes if they watched the Joe Rogan podcast.
7:56There's independents who are Trump -Biden Trump voters.
7:59There's people like that that exist.
8:01I imagine he's talking about the three -time Trump voter, and they are probably highly
8:06motivated, but that is not a capture of the entire Trump base.
8:13Okay, last question, Robert. He says, I live in Texas where new arrivals are the
8:17don't California, my Texas. Same for New Yorkers moving to Florida.
8:21However, I wonder if the reason part of the partially that Texas' state consistently read
8:25while California has trended even bluer is that the majority of people leaving California were
8:29Republican voters. I want to say I read somewhere that the 2018 Senate race, Beto
8:33O 'Rourke won a majority of people born in Texas, but Cruz won a majority
8:37of non -Texas -born voters.
8:38Okay, this is, thank you so much, Robert, for bringing up this.
8:42This is something that triggers me on a regular basis whenever it's brought up to
8:45me. No, and I really actually do appreciate you because I do know exactly what
8:50you're talking about, and this has driven me nuts since it was published, you know,
8:54six years ago or eight years ago, because I'm very healthy mentally that this would
8:58bother me for eight years, but it does.
9:00This was an exit poll that was done by CNN in the 2018 election.
9:05It was actually miswritten up.
9:07They said Georgia instead of Texas.
9:08But what they did was they looked at the Texas voting bloc in their exit
9:13polls, and they said that a majority of people who voted in Texas, was born
9:18in Texas, had voted for Beto O 'Rourke.
9:20Remember, exit polls have a lot of flaws in them.
9:23They don't go out to the rural areas, many often, most often, they seem to
9:27sometimes oversample certain demographics. This happened also in 2018, Florida, where they said one in
9:34five black women voted for Ron DeSantis.
9:36That is not true. That was never true.
9:38There were whole op -eds written about this, about like, this proves black people love
9:42school choice. It literally wasn't true.
9:44A lot of exit polls get it wrong quite often.
9:47So, one, I don't think this was actually accurate, this exit poll that CNN had.
9:51Secondly, if you look a map at the Texas election from 2018, look at places
9:57that have a higher percentage of native -born Texans in them, West Texas, East Texas,
10:03and you see huge numbers for Ted Cruz.
10:07I doubt, and where you see the highest percentage of transplants, you see them swinging
10:11towards Beto O 'Rourke. I don't believe it on its face.
10:15But the one interesting thing that CNN study did was they also broke it down
10:19with, were you born in Texas?
10:21Which they said, Beto won those people 51 -48.
10:24I kind of don't believe it.
10:25Whatever. It was by a three -point margin, though.
10:27Then they asked, have you lived in Texas for more than 10 years?
10:32And among people who have lived in Texas for more than 10 years, Cruz won
10:36them by 30 points, which the only way then you get to the number that
10:40he actually won by is that the recent migrants from California were very liberal.
10:46So it's not that the newest flock are all...
10:50Republican leaving. It's also the people who left 10 years ago were Republican.
10:55That's probably more accurate. I think that's probably the most accurate part of the study.
11:00But once again, it's changed a lot because that was published after COVID.
11:04COVID really changed everything. In 2024, the New York Times did a really fantastic job
11:09breaking down how people who move vote and where they end up.
11:14And obviously, Republican voters, no matter what the state is, tend to move to Republican
11:19areas. Democratic voters tend to move to Democratic areas.
11:22They found that people who moved to Texas since COVID are much more Republican than
11:27native Texans. Texas voted R plus 5 in the 2020 election.
11:32The people who moved to Texas during COVID, they vote on average R plus 20,
11:37according to the New York Times study on this.
11:39So anyway, that's a great, but that's great that you brought this up because it's
11:44something that lives in my head, kind of rent free.
11:46Lastly, I love your gossip segments whenever you're on Megan McCain's show and you shout
11:51allegedly every five seconds. I die of laughter.
11:54Thank you. Yeah, I know a lot of gossip and I hear a lot of
11:58gossip and I have to one, be very prudish and not sharing everything I hear
12:05because there's a lot of fake stuff out there and I have to sit there
12:07and be my own editor and say that sounds really like fake, whatever.
12:11But I hear a lot of stuff.
12:13So when I'm feeling it and I'm talking to Megan, who's a friend of mine,
12:16she's a sweetheart, I kind of get a little loose and I'm like, you know
12:19what, I'll say, I'll drop a few hints, but let me say allegedly to protect
12:22myself. But that's true. I don't ask for the gossip, by the way.
12:25They come to me, the streets talk and they talk to me.
12:27I don't ask for them.
12:28Anyway, we'll be back with more Ask Me Anything coming up next.
13:04Welcome back to the Ask Me Anything episode.
13:06This email comes from R.
13:07Shannon. She writes, can you please explain the negatives of the SAVE Act?
13:11Is it true? I think by R.
13:13Shannon may be a woman.
13:14I'm just guessing. R. Shannon, whoever you are, you may not be a woman.
13:17A Shannon could be a last name.
13:18Please explain the negatives of the SAVE Act.
13:20Is it true that if you change your last name, you can't pass?
13:23Is it true that if you can't find your birth certificate, you can't vote?
13:26Obviously, the DMV thing is asinine and completely racist.
13:30And honestly, if someone is too lazy to get an ID, should they be able
13:33to vote? Okay. So for those who don't know, the SAVE Act is a bill
13:38that's quickly making its way through Congress and requires proof of citizenship to register to
13:45vote. It also says a driver's license no longer counts as proof of citizenship.
13:53Why? 19 states hand out driver's licenses to illegal immigrants.
13:58So among the most notable parts of the bill is the requirement to prove citizenship
14:03before registering to vote. Documents accepted include birth certificates, U .S.
14:07passports, and certain versions of the real ID that indicate citizenship.
14:12Detractors of the SAVE Act, this is from NPR, detractors of the SAVE Act say
14:16that millions of people will be ineligible to vote because they either don't have a
14:19passport, nationalization papers, real ID, or their birth certificate.
14:23So here's what the law actually says.
14:27I actually pulled out the law.
14:28If it sounds a little legalese and you're like, Ryan, did you have a stroke?
14:31I didn't. I'm reading from a law, so it sounds like an official government document.
14:36The law says this when it comes to people who cannot find documents or change
14:40their name because of marriage or whatever.
14:42It says, the process for those without documentary proof, in general, subject to any relevant
14:47guidance adopted by the Election Assistance Commission, each state shall establish a process under which
14:54an applicant who cannot provide documentary proof of U .S.
14:58citizenship under paragraph, that's real ID in the passport, under paragraph one, may if applicant
15:04signs an attestation under penalty of perjury that the applicant is a U .S.
15:10citizen and eligible to vote in elections for federal office, submit such and other evidence
15:16to the appropriate state or local office demonstrating that their applicant is a citizen of
15:22the U .S. Such officials shall make a determination as to whether the applicant has
15:26officially established U .S. citizenship for the purpose of registering to vote in an election
15:31for federal office in the state.
15:32In other words, a woman who has changed her name because she got married, if
15:38she has to go register to vote, the states have and local governments have wiggle
15:44room to sit there and show that this is obviously if Mary Todd was Mary
15:49Smith and she brings her driver's license that has her old name in it or
15:54her new name in it and her and her marriage certificate and says, look, I
15:58am this person. I changed my name because I got married.
16:01The local government office would sit there and say, clearly, this is the same person
16:05she just got married and they would allow her to register to vote.
16:08The states are in charge of creating these parameters to sit there and say, okay,
16:14this is how you can prove maybe you don't have your birth certificate.
16:17You have a bunch of other stuff.
16:19The left is saying that this is a mass disenfranchisement of voters because they got
16:24married. But I mean, they're allowing other documents.
16:28The idea that this is saying, no, you only have to have these certain documents.
16:32It's very rigid is not true.
16:33States and localities have a lot of wiggle room to figure out if someone's actually
16:36a citizen. Honestly, if you only if you don't have any form of ID, if
16:41the only thing you have is a profile on TikTok, maybe you shouldn't be voting.
16:44There is a reason that they are making this is just because the states have
16:48gotten so so they've lost control of the whole driver's license system handing out to
16:53illegal aliens the way that they have.
16:54So that's why they're going this way.
16:57But no, it does not disenfranchise people like they're saying.
16:59States and localities will have the ability to figure out other methods if no one
17:04has ID. Here's the thing I want you to think about from the narrative from
17:08the media's perspective. If Republicans were so determined to disenfranchise groups from voting, why would
17:14it be married women who vote majority Republican?
17:17The answer to that question is obviously that that's not the case.
17:21I think there's a lot of anxiety over nothing.
17:24Next question comes from Tristan.
17:26He writes, what do you think of the UAE and how it does immigration or
17:30how the UAE does immigration?
17:32Essentially, a majority of the population is foreign born.
17:34However, basically none will ever obtain citizenship so long as they live and get zero
17:40government benefits. Would you support some version of this in the U .S.?
17:43Basically, that's that's basically the whole question.
17:45So thank you for the question.
17:47I don't think that immigration system is compatible with the United States.
17:52So I don't sit there and say like, oh, wouldn't it be great if we
17:54did X, Y or Z?
17:55I kind of try to live in the world as it is, not as I
17:58would like it to be all the time.
18:00First of all, we have birthright citizenship.
18:02So their kids would get citizenship.
18:04They don't have that. Secondly, they don't have a multi -billion dollar apparatus of immigration
18:09lawyers and and a plethora of progressive judges who will say that they this is
18:14horrible, that they should get citizenship under any circumstances.
18:17And lastly, I think that American citizens expect more.
18:20I expect more of our country than to have it built on slave labor like
18:24the UAE does. It's I know people have worked in the UAE.
18:28Secondly, the conditions are not great for foreign workers.
18:32They truly treat them as subhuman.
18:35I would not want that for foreigners who work in America.
18:38And lastly, you know, we are going to have robots take a lot of these
18:42jobs the next few years.
18:44We need to look into the future.
18:46What is the point? What happens when we have 25 or 30 million people in
18:52this country who will never be able to find work?
18:56Why would we import more of those people?
19:00Like we have this huge problem coming out in the pipeline of American citizens not
19:05being able to find work.
19:06Why are you adding foreigners to it?
19:08It makes no sense. We need an immigration moratorium like yesterday.
19:13This is nuts. And the only reason we don't get this is because until they
19:17replace the workers or robots, the corporations are demanding we keep the cheap labor train.
19:22And then we're just going to be dumped with all these, you know, workers will
19:25have to take care of one day who won't be able to find jobs.
19:27And because the Democrats are just insistent on this diversity train that all immigration is
19:33always good. This moron on Morning Joe today was like asphyxiating, screaming about how the
19:40benefits of immigration telling half truths and lies and narratives because like they it's it's
19:46like the part of their DNA, like you're draining blood from their body.
19:49If they don't have mass immigration and mass immigration to vote for them and to
19:54change the democracy of the country, it's like they can't function.
19:56It's only holding them together.
19:58It's bizarre. Interesting idea, Tristan.
20:00I fundamentally reject it. Next question comes from Megan, who points out that she's a
20:05fellow millennial, Megan, the millennial.
20:07Megan, as a millennial like yourself, I have to ask you a question.
20:12Did they make you when you were in school play Oregon Trail?
20:17Because I have never met a millennial who did not play Oregon Trail in school.
20:21And I genuinely wonder why this an entire generation of millions of American children were
20:28going to get something out of a video game about moving from St.
20:33Louis to Oregon in like 1850 and trying to avoid several various diseases like scurvy
20:40or dysentery that we don't deal with on a daily basis.
20:44It is something that I've thought about for a year since it came to pass.
20:48I'm like, what was was the goal here?
20:50How was the generation going to that was going to be having, you know, a
20:55computer in every room going to learn a lot from a game about dysentery?
21:01It just boggles the mind.
21:03I get why we play Carmen San Diego.
21:04I learned geography from it.
21:05But Oregon Trail is some kind of experiment that never I want that.
21:09I want the Netflix show on that.
21:11Like, how did Oregon Trail get into every single school in the entire country?
21:15That's the question that sits there and boggles my mind.
21:18All right. She says, I love your show.
21:20It breaks everything down, makes me feel super knowledgeable about elections.
21:22I currently live up in Alaska.
21:24We use rank choice voting.
21:26It is the Alaskan voting system is so stupid.
21:30I'm wondering what the numbers say about the upcoming race between Senator Dan Sullivan and
21:34former representative Mary Patola. It feels like rank choice voting complicates everything.
21:39So I was wondering if you think Dan Sullivan maintains his seat or if enough
21:43independents and Democrats will vote for Mary.
21:45Great. question. Okay, Megan, this is a very important election.
21:49This is a ranked choice voting system that was created to save Lisa Murkowski from
21:54being ousted in a primary.
21:56Basically, the way it works, for those who don't know, is there's a jungle primary.
21:59Everybody runs, all the parties run in a primary together.
22:02The top four go to a general, where then it becomes ranked choice voting, right?
22:06If you don't get number one, then the votes are sorted out as it gets
22:09closer and closer towards the finish line, and whoever gets 50 % wins.
22:13So as far as I have seen thus far, there are five candidates running, two
22:17Democrats, one Republican, a Green Party, and an Independent.
22:21That means that most of the people who appear on the primary will be on
22:25the general election. In 2020, Sullivan won the election by 13 points with 54%, winning
22:32on the first ballot, basically.
22:34He didn't even need anything else.
22:36He just won the first time around.
22:38He will likely need to do that again, because most of the other people running
22:43in the top four will be of the left.
22:46But Patola will pick up most of those votes as the numbers wither, because another,
22:52a Democrat or a Green Party person is voting for the Democrat, right?
22:55That's just kind of the dynamic.
22:57So if we go on election night, and the first ballot comes out, and Dan
23:00Sullivan has 49 .88, he's very likely going to win.
23:04If he is 45, it's very unlikely he's going to win.
23:07That's my opinion. And then the second opinion is the polls have come out, and
23:11Patola has been leading by two points since January.
23:15Polling in Alaska is not great.
23:17It's a very hard state to poll, especially because it's so rural.
23:21In 2020, Sullivan never pulled over 48 % in most every poll, except for the
23:26New York Times -Santa poll, had him either losing or winning by three to four
23:30points. He won by 13.
23:32It was very, very off.
23:33I'm not going to trust pollsters right now, especially in that state.
23:37And my other opinion is voters just rejected Patola last year, like she, or two
23:42years ago. She ran for a House seat.
23:45She had $14 million, a lot of money, and voters in Alaska picked someone else
23:49for the job. So why would they pick her again right after kicking her out?
23:53Maybe they will. It's happened, obviously, John Ossoff, but that was one small House seat.
23:58This is a statewide seat.
23:59It's possible, but certainly the race is still total Republican.
24:03Okay, we will be back with Ask Me Anything.
24:08All right, we're back for the last segment of Ask Me Anything episode.
24:11This question comes from Jeff.
24:14He writes, Hi, I live in Scottsdale, Arizona.
24:16I might be called a swing voter in the Arizona Republican primary.
24:19I will vote for the Republican nominee for governor, but I'm undecided in a very
24:23interesting three -way race how it will go.
24:25There's Karen Taylor -Robeson, endorsed by Trump, and she's a Chamber of Commerce Republican, Andy
24:29Biggs, a House Freedom Caucus member, and David Schweiker, a libertarian -leaning congressman.
24:35So since writing this email to me, Karen Taylor -Robeson has decided to drop out
24:39of the race, which pretty much came as a shock to me.
24:41I mean, I've met her before.
24:42She's a very nice person.
24:43She's richer than God. She had enough money to fund this race all way to
24:47the end, but her internals must have been terrible because the public polling was awful,
24:52and I guess she just didn't want to spend any more money.
24:55According to the Emerson poll, Biggs is running away with this primary.
24:59He's at 50 percent. Robinson was at 17, and Schweiker was at 8.
25:03This is also, by the way, the first election in Arizona history.
25:07Well, the governor of Canada will also have a lieutenant governor on the ticket.
25:12I have heard from friends in Arizona that the Biggs camp has been allegedly talking
25:22about asking Erica Kirk to run with him.
25:25Now, I don't know if this means that she was actually asked, or they are
25:28just internally talking about it, or things were being whispered about, but it got back
25:32to me. So I've heard that this is a conversation that's happened.
25:37I don't know if there's an official offer or she's rejected.
25:39I don't think she would accept it, but I've heard that that has been whispered
25:43about among the Biggs camp.
25:45Who knows if it ends up being true or not.
25:47Anyway, as far as this election goes, it looks like Biggs has got it in
25:50the bag, and then in the general election, Hobbs has a slight lead in the
25:54polling, but Republicans can still win because Arizona's turned so far to the right since
25:59moving to the left in 2020.
26:01Okay, next question comes from Holly.
26:03She writes, Ryan, I am curious what you think about the recent murder rate stats
26:08that came out. I don't want to take anything away from Trump's policies or law
26:12enforcement, and it makes sense that when you remove criminals, either deporting them or using
26:17the National Guard in cities like D .C., that the murder rate will come down.
26:20But how much of the reduction is because of better medical care as opposed to
26:24fewer crimes being committed? Would a comparison of attempted murders or thefts be a better
26:30standard? That is a great, great point there.
26:33That is very, very smart, Holly.
26:35So the correct thing is that they are both going down, right?
26:39They do track shootings and attempted assaults and actual homicides.
26:46Shootings and gun assaults are down by 22 percent, and homicides are down by 21
26:50percent. Homicides are down, though, in part because there's better medical care.
26:55That has been true, by the way, for decades.
26:57Improvement in medical care has reduced homicide deaths, even while gun shootings were very, very
27:03high. And in some places, they're still high.
27:05I mean, they're down, but there's no reason why a city like St.
27:09Louis or New Orleans should be the way that it is.
27:13I mean, it is. it is comically corrupt and how it's done its policing.
27:18Anyway, the numbers actually fell below 2014 numbers, which is considered the safest year on
27:23record in modern history since the rise of BLM.
27:26There are only two categories of crime that the government tracks as serious crimes that
27:31actually went up nationwide in 2025.
27:33Those were drug crimes and sexual assaults.
27:36But aside from that, crime nationwide has gone down and pretty substantially.
27:40Okay, last question of the podcast on the Ask Me Anything episode comes from Chris
27:45from Cincinnati. He said, I listened to your Friday podcast on the Texas special election
27:50on my morning drive. Well done.
27:52Thank you. I really enjoy that you weave your Catholic faith journey into the podcast
27:56as it helps listeners engage with your values and how it frames your interpretation of
28:01data. One issue that's been weighing on me heavily as a practicing Catholic is immigration
28:06policy. I don't want to put you in an awkward spot.
28:09My whole life is an awkward spot.
28:11That's actually going to be either my autobiography or what you put on the coffin,
28:16on the tombstone. I lived in an awkward spot.
28:19So you're not putting me in an awkward spot.
28:21I don't want to put you in an awkward spot by criticizing the Pope.
28:23So I will ask you instead of looking at the stunning amount of money that
28:26Catholic Charities has taken as the U .S.
28:28government's refugee resettlement program for the past few years.
28:31I live in suburban Cincinnati.
28:33In 2020, the Department of HHS contributed $750 ,000 and the State Department $100 ,000.
28:39But by 2024, that number dropped to $2 .5 million and $900 ,000.
28:43At what point does the institution take on so much money it becomes intellectually captured
28:48and dependent upon Washington, D .C.
28:50bureaucrats rather than parishioners and local dioceses?
28:54I don't mean to sound cynical, but we are criticizing ICE because we are called
28:57to be compassionate Christians, sorry, Christians, or are we criticizing ICE because it's bad for
29:02business? Wow, that's a great question.
29:04So there are multiple things.
29:07One, Catholic Charities, a majority of Catholic Charities' money from the latest numbers I've seen,
29:13which was during the Biden administration, a majority comes from the government.
29:17So if you never gave another dollar to Catholic Charities, if not just you, but
29:21if anybody, it doesn't matter.
29:23And it didn't matter under the Biden administration because they were making money hand over
29:27foot in refugee resettlement. I went to the border and Catholic Charities was there.
29:32And I mean, I saw migrants from Indonesia, from India, from Europe.
29:39And every time I'd ask the Catholic Charities person, where are they coming from?
29:42He says, oh, they're fleeing the cartel.
29:44I'm like, this guy's Ukrainian.
29:45What cartel? And he would always say, the cartels in India, the cartels in Bangladesh,
29:52the cartels in Japan, like everything was always a lie.
29:55Like it was clearly a lie, but this man wasn't, it was a lay person.
29:58It wasn't a priest. I understand the Pope and the Catholic teaching from the bishops,
30:03especially around why they support open borders in general.
30:09It's something that I understand, but I do not agree with.
30:14And I will say this, and this is, and I don't really care if I
30:17offend anybody. As a Catholic, as a practicing Catholic who goes to church on Sunday
30:23and puts money in my church basket every single Sunday, and very much believes in
30:30the institution and the fabric of Catholic education, the Catholic church, and what Catholics have
30:34done to help this country.
30:37The bishops are spineless. The bishops are 100 % spineless.
30:42The Pope, especially the last Pope, absolutely spineless.
30:46They love to sit there and play footsie with the media and get nice coverage.
30:52Listen, we can understand how, why the Catholic church has gotten a ton of bad
30:57press over the last two decades.
30:59I don't want to spell it out.
31:00We don't have to go into it.
31:01You know what I'm talking about.
31:02However, there are things that Catholics do that are very popular, that are very, you
31:08know, the Catholic schools educated the best and the brightest in this country.
31:13Catholic charities, like, you know, have done so much, not the institution, but the Catholic
31:18charities, small C charities, has done so much to feed the poor and clothe them.
31:24And during the AIDS crisis and what they did for AIDS patients, I mean, the
31:28Catholic hospitals have done so much.
31:30I don't have to read the whole list of things that we have done as
31:33an institution, not me necessarily, but every, every Catholic who sat there and made sure
31:38that the church had money to do those things did for them.
31:42They are struggling with decades of bad publicity.
31:45And so they do anything to be popular to a liberal consensus.
31:49And also the church is broke.
31:51The church is bankrupt functionally.
31:54So the Pope is very much understanding and Rome is very much understanding.
31:59There are a lot of Catholics of Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi's age range who
32:05are very liberal and are preparing their wills.
32:09And so they want to be part of it.
32:11Like they're not playing dumb.
32:13They understand the, the, the seventies and 19, the people who are 70 and 80
32:17and 90 plus are more liberal.
32:20If they are church going and 20 year olds who are church going, who are
32:23much more conservative, the priests are much more conservative.
32:26They, they understand it when it comes to immigration, I take cues from, and I
32:30understand what, what the background of the church is that, you know, we are a
32:33global, we are a global church.
32:35We're a global nation and we should embrace whatever.
32:37Okay. That's all good, great, and fine.
32:39That is not the world we live in.
32:41And there is a man, if you're not Catholic, or you don't even, or you
32:45may be, but you're not, you're definitely in a different level of Catholicism than maybe
32:49I am as far as participation goes.
32:51There's a cardinal named Cardinal Sarah.
32:53He's from Africa. Wonderful, very, very, very smart man who has beautiful writings on a
32:59lot of things, including immigration.
33:01And in 2019 and 2020, Cardinal Sarah wrote, he wrote this during the entire mass
33:06wave of refugees moving to Europe.
33:09He said this. He said this.
33:39The ideology of liberal individualism promotes a mixing that is designed to erode the natural
33:45borders of homelands and cultures and leads to a post -national and one -dimensional world
33:51where the only thing that matters is consumption and production.
33:54I fully believe that. That is a lot of my moral compass as to why
34:01to reject immigration. There's a lot of economic things.
34:04There's a lot of, you know, identity issues.
34:06There's a lot of electoral issues.
34:07At the end of the day, if we are a nation that has no identity,
34:11if Europe is a continent with no identity, if we are just as the last
34:17immigrant who walked through our doors, we cease as a people.
34:22And they are robbed of their national identity and culture.
34:26That doesn't mean we can't have any immigrants.
34:27That means people can never move.
34:28But the culture and the identity that a nation is built around is unique and
34:34is special. And as much as we as Americans embrace the idea of rugged individualism,
34:40we are extremely unique as a people, as a block.
34:43There is no one else like an American.
34:46There is no one else.
34:47Actually, it's very funny. I took part in a poll in the UK, a panel
34:51in the UK of Americans' feelings towards Brits.
34:55And they went down the list and they asked every American, where would you move
34:59if you could move anywhere?
35:00And when they came to me, I said, I would always live in America.
35:03There is no place like this on the planet, nowhere even close.
35:08I would vacation in Italy.
35:10I would go on a cruise somewhere.
35:13I would, you know, I would do that.
35:15That's great. Where would I live?
35:17No, I would have them all back in Argentina.
35:19But where would I live?
35:20I would only live in America.
35:22This is my people and this is my place.
35:25And we are unique and we are special.
35:27And I don't want to be some other people in some other place.
35:30And maybe I am bigoted or whatever or nativist for saying that.
35:35But it is how I feel.
35:37And I am a voter.
35:38And I elect a government to reflect my interests.
35:40And so do you. And I believe in and when it comes to some faith,
35:45I believe in the words of Carl Sarah, that this is very important because we
35:50are robbing in the name of rugged individualism and endless capitalism, where the only thing
35:55that matters is growth for the sake of growth.
35:56It's the ideology of libertarians and cancer cells that we are robbing culture and identity
36:03and that it's becoming a very, very valued thing.
36:06That is my point. Thank you for that question.
36:09Thank you for all these questions.
36:10We'll be back on Wednesday with another episode.
36:13We'll talk about an issue.
36:14We won't do all ask me any things.
36:15But I love this part of the show.
36:17So thank you, everyone, for emailing.
36:18I still have more emails to go.
36:19I will get to them all.
36:20I promise you. If I skipped your email, it's just because either I don't have
36:24the research for it yet or the data isn't in for it yet.
36:27But I will get to you.
36:28I promise. Thank you all for listening.
36:29If you like this podcast, please like and subscribe to the iHeartRadio app.
36:32Apple Podcasts, YouTube, please subscribe to my YouTube channel, and I will see you guys
36:36on Wednesday. Thank you. This is an iHeart Podcast.
36:42Guaranteed human.