Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 1362 | VP JD Vance on Israel, Catholics vs. Evangelicals & Fatherhood

Episode Date: June 19, 2026

Vice President JD Vance sits down for a wide-ranging, candid interview covering faith, politics, family, and the future of conservatism. Vance directly addresses accusations of Israeli influence on U.S. politics, draws a clear line against anti-Semitism on the Right, and strongly defends President Trump’s foreign policy decisions. He also opens up about his personal journey from a depressed atheist in a broken family to a committed Christian, while discussing his conversion to Catholicism, the role of the pope, and pro-life priorities in the Trump administration. This conversation delivers thoughtful moments, theological exchange, and an inside look into a nuanced worldview that only Vance himself can articulate. Buy “Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith” by Vice President JD Vance here. Share the Arrows 2026 is on October 10 in Dallas, Texas! Tickets are on sale now at: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://sharethearrows.com⁠⁠⁠ Share the Arrows is sponsored by: A'del Natural Cosmetics: AdelNaturalCosmetics.com Range Leather: RangeLeather.com/ALLIE We Heart Nutrition: WeHeartNutrition.com Buy Allie's book "Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion": ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.toxicempathy.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ – Time Codes 0:00 Introduction 2:20 Christian Fatherhood 11:20 Faith & Politics 21:59 Vance’s Conversion to Catholicism 38:46 Disagreement with the Pope 42:46 Does Israel Influence America? 48:40 The Iran Strategy 52:52 Pro-Life Wins 1:03:22 In The End We Win – Today's Sponsors: Fellowship Home Loans | Start with a free consultation at FellowshipHomeLoans.com/Allie and receive a $500 credit at closing. Crowd Health | Join CrowdHealth to get started today for $99 for your first three months using code ALLIE at ⁠⁠⁠JoinCrowdHealth.com⁠⁠⁠⁠. CrowdHealth is not insurance. Opt out. Take your power back. This is how we win. A'del | Visit AdelNaturalCosmetics.com and enter promo code ALLIE for 25% off your first-time purchase. Seven Weeks Coffee | Experience the best coffee while supporting the pro-life movement with Seven Weeks Coffee; use code ALLIE at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.sevenweekscoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to get up to 25% off your first order, plus your free gift! Range Leather — highest-quality leather, age-old techniques, and all backed up with a “forever guarantee." Go to ⁠⁠rangeleather.com/allie⁠⁠ to receive 15% off. Episodes You May Like: Ep 519 | President Donald Trump on Witch Hunts, Family + Mean Tweets https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-519-president-donald-trump-on-witch-hunts-family/id1359249098?i=1000541152964 Ep 458 | J.D. Vance on Faith, White Privilege & The Big Things Worth Fighting For | Guest: J.D. Vance https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-458-j-d-vance-on-faith-white-privilege-the-big/id1359249098?i=1000529737977 --- ► Buy Allie's book "You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love": https://alliebethstuckey.com/book ► Subscribe to the podcast: iTunes: https://apple.co/2UVssnP Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2FwkXxj ► Connect with Allie on Social Media: https://twitter.com/conservmillen https://www.instagram.com/alliebstuckey/ https://facebook.com/allieBlazeTV/ ► "Relatable" merchandise — use promo code "ALLIE10" for a discount: https://shop.blazemedia.com/collections/allie-stuckey

Does Israel have too much influence in U.S. politics? Is the future of the conservative movement Catholic rather than evangelical? And is Vice President J.D. Vance a chicken farmer now? We've got the Vice President here today to talk about all of this and much more on today's episode of Relatable. Mr. Vice President, thanks so much for taking the time. Yeah, thanks for being here. Okay, I hear that you're a chicken farmer now?

Is that the right word you have a chicken coop? We do, we do. Yeah, no, I feel like a chicken farmer. And it's interesting. So I've wanted chickens for a very long time. And it actually took, you know, just because we live in this massive naval base, it took a while to figure out exactly how to do it. So we got like the Taj Mahal of chicken coops. And that was built as of a few weeks ago.

And then you normally get chickens in the spring. And so we had our chicken delivery about two weeks ago. Oh, wow. How many chickens? We have like 15, which somehow I got nine or 10 and we ended up with 15. So I'm not sure exactly how that worked out. But it's kind of crazy because the big question. is always whenever you get an animal, whether it's a dog, a cat, or chickens in this case.

It's like how much are the kids actually going to do? So we have a 9-year-old, 6-year-old, and 4-year-old. And it turns out they love chickens, like almost weirdly. Like I'm worried they're going to be like weird chicken people now because they obsessively want to go and just hang out with the chickens and sit in the chicken coop and it stinks and there's poop everywhere. So they're really into them, which I guess is better than the alternative. Chicken kids.

But they, it is like I'm a big believer that having kids connected into nature in some way is very profound and important. And this is a good way, even though they live in the middle of Washington, D.C. It's like a good way for them to have like some connection to nature. And of course, the chicks get big and they start laying eggs and that's cool too. Which is exciting. We have a chicken coop, but we don't have any chickens yet. Oh, really? We're not there. We started with a cat. Okay. And our seven-year-old is really good at taking care of the cat, actually. That's good. And then we also have a guinea pig named Travis. Okay. And Travis is kind of neglected because of the cat. Of course. But I agree with you. Maybe one day we'll get on.

on y'all's level, though. I highly recommend it. It's way less work and maintenance than I expected to be. Yeah. Now, part of that's because we have this very nice chicken coop, but it's very cool. So we're very into it. Yeah. Okay, y'all are expecting number four. We are. My husband and I are on the same tracks. Congratulations. Congratulations to you. You write about in your book that you all decided to add another little one to your family after Charlie was assassinated. That's right. Can you talk more about that? Yeah. So this has been a sort of an ongoing conversation as it probably is. with all families, with a lot of kids. And, you know, I remember when we, when we had our first kid and you go from zero to one, I was like, I'm never doing this again. It was such a shock to the

system. It was crazy. And I think we also, our oldest was just a little bit tougher of a baby. And then we had number two and number three. And now I'm just all like, I would have nine kids. But, you know, as you know, it takes two to tango. And, you know, Ushas now, she just turned 40. And so like, it gets a little bit harder, right? The older. that you get, the harder it is on the body. And so she was kind of like, you know, I don't really know that I want to be pregnant again. Like, I'd love to have a fourth baby. I don't know that to be pregnant again with all the spotlight.

So this has been an ongoing conversation for a couple years. And, you know, when Charlie died, and so this is, you know, I'll never forget the dates because I was supposed to go to New York for the 9-11 Memorial. And so he dies on September the 10th, is killed on September the 10th. We fly out the morning of the 11th, pick up his body in Utah, and then fly him and Aaron. and some of the family back to, back to Arizona. And, you know, there's so many things I remember from that moment. And, you know, you see Erica and you want to say something profound,

but what can you possibly say? There's just, there's nothing to say. And, you know, I've found this a number of times with grieving people. It's, you know, you sort of oscillate between so sad you can't even speak to wanting to tell stories and wanting to remember. And almost, you know, having like, these extremely fond and intense memories of a person you just lost. And so we talked to Erica for a while, of course, about Charlie,

but then she sort of just makes this observation through her tears that she really wishes they had had more kids. They have two little kids who have actually stayed here a number of times since Charlie passed away. And for me, at least, that like really drove at home. I don't know that it had the same effect on Usha. I think Usha's just much more analytical about this stuff and had kind of been getting there in her own way. But for me, it was like, we have to have a fourth baby. And she got

pregnant like six weeks later. Yeah, do you remember the moment that you found out she was pregnant? I do, actually, because I came home. I want to say it was actually a pretty late night. And I came home and, you know, I go to the bathroom to take off my suit. And there's like one of the instant tests there with a positive. And that was how Usha told me. And so, yeah, I remember. And I was so, yeah, I remember. I was so excited. Yeah. It always comes as the biggest surprise, even though you know it's a possibility. Of course.

And it just like, it never gets home. Yeah. It's so exciting. Yeah. And, you know, it's the thing about this job is there are certainly sacrifices for the family, but it's also just in some ways the easiest possible situation in which to have a baby because there's so much support. Like we have amazing staff.

We have people who help us with everything. You know, this house, which is, I like it. to the nicest public housing anywhere in the world, but like, you know, is largely taken care of by the Navy and the people who work here. And so while having a baby is always a bit of a challenge, especially in a job like this, I actually think that, you know, knock on wood, this is going to be the best way or like the easiest way, at least, on the family to bring a new life into the world. Yeah. And interestingly, it feels like the more kids you have, the easier it is in some ways. Absolutely. I mean, harder in some ways, logistically and things like.

that but your kids are older. You know what you're doing. Your confidence is a mom and dad. It just kind of rises. That's been our experience. That's absolutely right. And they also just because, you know, it's not like the kids, unfortunately, in some ways, because I like, my favorite ages are like three to six. Yeah. I love those ages. But they get older. And so the nine year old is now pretty helpful. And the six year old is very helpful. And they become more self-sufficient. They also play with each other, right? They're like their own little kid crew. And so it's actually because, becomes certainly, you know, less work, I think, over time. And, you know, there's like some weird stuff. Like, you know, we'll be back in the diaper stage. We are firmly out of the diaper stage.

That's going to be, you know, a little unusual. But I just, I think it's, I think it's such a good thing. And absolutely, it's the easier the way, it's easier the further out you get. You write about your own dad in both of your books, Hillbilliology, and then your new book, Communion. Yep. And obviously he wasn't as present as a boy needed, but you do talk about how he brought you to church pretty consistently for a period of your life. Can you talk about that? What was your experience, not only with your dad, but really with Christianity when you were growing up? Yeah. So, you know, my dad, there was a period where my biological father was not in my life at all, six or seven years. And so, you know, when he and I reconnected when I was a teenager,

there's just like a little awkwardness there. But I loved him. I think he's fundamentally, was always a good guy. But I think his faith really inspired him to be a better person. And so by the time that he and I reconnected, he was very deeply involved in his church community, which was a Pentecostal church in Southwestern Ohio. And so the thing that I remember, because when we went to church, it was normally like a Southern Baptist church.

And this Pentecostal church, the music was amazing. The people were super welcoming. I'd never seen somebody speak in tongues before until I started going to church with that. So there are all these new and interesting things. But what it did do for me is it actually gave me a church community, which I hadn't had at any point in my life. So the woman who was certainly most important in my own faith was my grandmother, the woman I called

Mamma. And very devoutly Christian, read the Bible multiple times per day, was a very, was very intense about our faith, would talk about it with anybody, but also was very unchurched, right? So we would watch Billy Graham revivals on TV. We'd watch TBN or CBN, but like we didn't really have a church community. Occasionally, we'd go to church, but not that often. And so one of the things I realize in hindsight is that Mammal was my link to Christianity. And so even though I was still close to my dad and I would occasionally go to church with him, you know, when Mammal died, and this happened when I was 20 years old, I was in the Marine Corps, I was about to go to Iraq, like I was an atheist two years later. And you could always intellectualize this stuff or sort of come up with

reasons. But at some basic level, Christianity to me was Mammal. And when that was gone, the person I talked to about my faith, the person who sort of encouraged me in my faith, when that was gone, I just didn't really have any anchor to Christianity anymore. And I think there is an important lesson in this. I mean, one of the reasons I wrote this book is, you know, I wanted to obviously talk about my own faith journey, but I'm very interested, maybe even obsessed with this question of why do people who are raised in Christian households, why does it not take? Like, I get it if you're raised in an atheist household or a secular household, but why is it that so many of our young people?

Like, I take my kids to church every week, sometimes more often than that. We talk about it all the time. We, you know, do readings together, and we pray every day before dinner. And I am worried that, like a lot of Christian parents, this thing that is very meaningful to me will not take. And so a part of the reason why I wrote the book is to try to explain, at least for one kid, why it didn't take. and then why, of course, eventually it came back. Quick pause from that conversation to tell you about our first sponsor, Freedom Project Academy. So Freedom Project Academy has delivered a fully accredited, classical online education,

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the parent in the driver's seat too. With live anytime and homeschool options, every student at Freedom Project Academy learned with purpose at a pace that fits their calling. Go to freedom for school.com, use code Alley, save 10% on tuition. They were awarded the 2026 Christian School of the Year by Education Insider, Freedom for School.com Code Alley. You know, Mamma had a really good discernment from what I read in your book. One of the things that she noted is that she didn't like Benny Hinn. You know what? And a lot of people in her socioeconomic station loved those health and wealth, name it and claim it, televangelist. And I just love when I read that line that you were like, Mama, just nail from a mile away that he was a crook.

And she was right. No, and she, you know, there were people she loved, right? She loved Billy Graham. We would watch Pat Robertson on 700 Club all the time. But she really didn't like Benny Han. It was like this intense revulsion almost. Yeah, of course. And it's funny because looking back, I kind of liked it, right?

I thought it was interesting. He was a very charismatic guy. Very dynamic. And yeah, you're exactly right. She had great discernment. Which is, I mean, one of the reasons why my life turned out okay is she had great discernment in matters of faith. But she was also like the person who would say, and I write about this, you know, if she found out I was hanging out with a kid who was doing drugs in the neighborhood, she'd say, if you don't stop hanging out with a kid, I'm going to run over with my car. And she was so out there that I was like worried she would actually do it.

So she definitely had this ability to keep me on the straight and arrow. Yeah. But yeah, she was a very devout but a very unconventional Christian. One of the things you write about, and this did kind of surprise me, you were talking about what the evangelical world was like for you growing up. And you talk about a preoccupation that a lot of Christians had in your area with culture war issues that seemed kind of distant. Terry Schiavo, Bill Clinton, the moral majority.

Now, I hear this critique from a lot of people who leave evangelicalism, typically from the progressive side saying, you know, evangelicals just care about power and the culture wars and things like that. They don't care about caring for the poor and all of that. I don't know if that's an accurate representation of what you're trying to say, but would you say that this kind of what you describe as an obsession with politics and stuff by evangelicals, did that repel you? So it did.

And I think in some ways I was being uncharitable. But again, part of the reason why I'm writing it so honestly is I'm trying to take people into the mind of a kid. and sometimes teenagers are uncharitable. So if we're asking ourselves, why do people fall away from the faith? Part of that is, you know, I certainly picked up on the, you know, evangelicals are too interested in the culture wars thing. And there was part of that. But to be a little bit more charitable to sort of what I was dealing with at the time,

you know, I was about to leave for Iraq. The most important person in my life had just died. My family was financially in a very tough spot, but also just, you know, mom was struggling with the worst part of her addiction. And I didn't even disagree with the Catholics and the evangelicals who are so worried about the Terry Shivo case. But it seemed like a very weird point of emphasis to me at the time. Like, why are we talking so much about this thing when I saw so much that was going wrong in my own community that it felt like the church wasn't speaking to?

And so I do think that one of the lessons here is not that Christians shouldn't care about politics, because obviously I think that they should. But I think that they have to appreciate that part of what a 21 or a 22-year-old is, old kid is going through is going to be so divorced from the day to day of public policy that if you don't speak to what kids are dealing with, then you're going to lose a lot of them. And I think that that's one thing that, you know, when I, again, think about my own falling away from the faith, there was this sense of almost betrayal that there was a total chaotic situation in my own life and the faith didn't speak to it in the same way. And again, was that totally.

fair? No, but it's certainly part of the story of why I lost my faith. Yeah, I was raised evangelicals still Southern Baptist to this day. And there was certainly an aspect of that. Maybe I didn't notice it quite as much because I had been going, you know, since the time that I was born. But something I really appreciate about evangelicals is not only, you know, doctrinal fidelity and being consistent on that, but the willingness to take that and take those doctrines into the culture and to say, look, if God is the creator and the authority of all things, then that has to dictate what we think about life. That has to dictate what we think about all of these other issues as well. And when Christians don't do that, especially if evangelicals didn't do that, we'd be in a really bad spot. No, I think that's

exactly right. And I also think that, you know, one of the subtexts of this argument that I'm making is I actually want us to have a more fulsome view of politics, not to withdraw from politics, but to actually engage on all of the issues because I remember my stepmom, who I'm still very close to, she's actually coming here in a week or two to help take care of our kids over July 4th, because we've got obviously a lot going on as a vice president. And, you know, one of the things she said to me, I'll never forget this, she was raised by a union man. And like a lot of people in my neck of the woods growing up, union Democrats, socially conservative,

very Christian, but felt deeply alienated from the cultural direction of the Democratic Party. And I remember talking to her about politics, like, why are you a Republican? This is the Bill Clinton era. I was a teenager. And she's like, well, you know, Republicans are for the rich, but at least they care about the unborn. And, you know, there was this idea that somehow Republicans like tricked evangelicals to voting against their economic interests because they cared about the cultural issues. The actual truth was much more interesting, which is that a lot of middle class, working class evangelicals, they didn't love the business elites of the Republican Party. They recognized they were making a choice between two imperfect options here.

So it was much more self-aware. And again, people are much smarter than I think the progressive movement was willing to give them credit for. But I do think that one of the takeaways, and frankly, you know, to be a little biased here and a little partisan, one of the things that happened with the Trump movement, even though, you know, obviously the president is, you know, is not a traditional evangelical Christian, is that he was actually willing to give voice, not just to the cultural concerns of the Christian base, but some of the economic concerns.

Like, why did you ship my job overseas? Like, I want a pro-life politician. I want somebody who's protecting the family. I also want somebody who's gonna protect my job. And that was, I think, always part of the power of the Trump movement is that a woman like my stepmother, who was one of the first people who was ever really, maga in my life, she was like, no, no, no, I actually want both of these things. And I kind of,

you know, one of the arguments I make here, and I really believe in is I think Christians should be more assertive about their politics. But I think we should be assertive about our political views, both when it comes to matters of economics and the dignity of work. We also have to be absurd of, of course, about our views when it comes to matters of life or matters of the family. Do you think your views on economics have changed from the time? you wrote Hillbilly Alligy to today? From the time I wrote Hillbilly Allege, not much. I mean, there's definitely, you know,

one of the things I struggle with as just a person who has come from struggle in a pretty chaotic background, a lower income background is you have to be able to hold two thoughts in your head at the same time. One of those thoughts is that objectively, my life was not as economically prosperous as, I think, frankly, it could have been if leaders hadn't made bad decisions back in the 80s, 90s, sometimes even before that.

And you're not talking about kind of the false choice that people present, that either you vote for Republicans who hate poor people or you vote for Democrats with unconditional welfare. Because I think that's what a lot of people think when they're thinking about economics. But you're not necessarily saying progressive policy is better economically. No, not at all. In fact, I'd say that the basic bipartisan consensus, if you go back to the 1990s, the world that I grew up in, they were fundamentally asking, how much money do we give to the people who haven't done as well? That was the debate. And the Republicans would say a little bit less than the 90s,

and Democrats would say a little bit more. But what always bothered me, even going back then, was why isn't there less of a question, or why isn't there more of a question, why don't we have fewer people who have lost in this hyper-globalized economy in the first place? Like, people don't want welfare. They want jobs. And there were a lot of very hard working people who lost a lot of very good jobs because we decided that we didn't care whether our factories went to Mexico or China so long as it made a couple of additional points on the share price of this or that company or this or that investment bank. And so to go back to the core point, I actually think that there was an entire Christian concept of economics that was totally ignored in the 1990s. It's not

redistribute a bunch of money to the people who have lost in the global financial system, it's protect the dignity of work, protect the kind of wage that supports a family, protect the kind of communities that sustain good and virtuous people. That almost became a casualty of the fact that the debate was always about redistribution. How much do we redistribute to the losers? That was the way that these people formulated the debate. I hated that way of putting it. Next sponsor is seven weeks coffee. This is America's pro-life coffee company. We drink seven weeks in our home.

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It's not a Catholic church. I know that. It's from, I believe, Western North Carolina. Yeah, which I thought was interesting because you did ultimately become Catholic. And so I'm curious, my question is twofold. Tell me about that decision of kind of not only leaving evangelicalism, becoming atheist and becoming Catholic and why Catholicism. Sure. But then maybe also how Catholicism has shaped your view of what you just said, because the

Catholic Church has been very outspoken for a very long time about things like economic policy. Yep. Maybe in a more uniform way than say Protestants have. So two-part question. We'll start with why you decided Catholicism. Well, I think it's hard to say why Catholicism without why back to Christianity. Okay. And so in my call it early 20s, I leave the Marine Corps.

I go to Ohio State. I go to Yale Law School. And without even realizing it, maybe there was always this sort of. flaw in my character, but I had become a striver. Like I had become a person who was obsessed with getting ahead just for its own sake. I was obsessed with how much money I made. I was obsessed with what kind of credentials I had, where I went to school, the prestige of my job, where I lived. I just had completely discarded like all of the focus of my grandmother's faith and her in worldview. And I was way too worried about very, very worldly pursuits. Now, in my

defense there was a legitimate thing there which is being a provider wanting to provide your kids the things that you didn't have that's fine but I had taken it 10 levels too far into an obsession with getting ahead okay so I get to Yale law school and I'm like successful by every metric I've won all of these competitions of life and I think to myself am I actually a happy person am I actually a good person and I start having these like very deep questions about why did you start having those questions well a couple of reasons number one because I realized that I was, again, preoccupied with things that actually didn't really matter

that much. We all end up in the same place. We all start the same place. And fundamentally, like, was I the sort of person? Was I becoming the sort of person where the people who knew me best would say things that I cared about? You know, David Brooks has this famous formulation of resume virtues versus, I think he says eulogy virtues or obituary virtues. It's the idea that like, what really matters here is not whether you went to Yale School or not, but it matters what kind of a person you were. And so that was one thing. But at a deeper level, I mean, I'd fallen in love. And the woman who's now the second lady, she and I were dating. I was not a very good boyfriend. I had a terrible temper. I had in hindsight what people would have called attachment problems. And so we'd have an

argument and I'd be like, all right, see you later. You know, call me in a few days. And I sort of think of myself, well, wait a second, all of this success that I've geared my life towards is not making me good at the thing that I care the most about, which is marrying this girl, being a good husband, being a good father. And so you start asking those like bigger and deeper questions. And then I start saying, I said, oh, interesting. These like people that I dismissed as bumpkins as irrational, as superstitious, these Christians in my life, they're actually the ones who seem to have it figured out. Like they're much happy. they're much healthier, they're much more well adjusted. Now, I don't want to be like too critical of

my Yale law school classmates, most of whom were fundamentally decent people, but they were like me. They cared way too much about whether they were achieving by society's standards, and they weren't that interesting. Like, I remember having this sort of conversation with Usha when we were dating where I said, you know what? As much as this is like the most prestigious and the hardest to get into school, I had way more interesting conversations with my classmates at Ohio State or in high school than I do with my classmates at Yale. And she actually said, I agree with you. She said, she went to Yale undergrad. And she said, I was, Yale undergrad was way more interesting than Yale law school. And there was this sense that even on the thing that it was supposed to be really good at,

which is making people think interesting thoughts, we had this super narrow Overton window where everybody fundamentally thought the same things, said the same things, and geared their life towards the same things. And it was the Christians that I had dismissed as bumpkins who had things figured out. So that got me on the pathway of like, well, if they're right about virtue and they're right about character and they're right about the things that actually matter, maybe they're right about Jesus. Maybe this actually comes from some inner truth that radiates outward. And I talked to a priest friend of mine, the guy who actually eventually baptized me and he said, you know, the Christian faith doesn't require you to accept everything without doubt. In fact,

it almost encourages doubt or at least acknowledges doubt. You know, there's the famous idea of faith the size of a mustard seed. But what it does ask you to do is sort of accept that the good and true parts of Christianity come from a real witness, that if you believe the sort of the, you know, the consequences of the Christian faith, then maybe you have to accept that the other things that Christians say are true, like Jesus Christ is the son of God, that all sinners need grace, that that grace can be transformative at least over time. And that kind of got me down the path, okay, well, maybe I'm a Christian now, but how to be a Christian. And that's ultimately what led me to Catholicism. And like I can, again, because we're talking about a book

and you write down a book on paper, there's always this instinct to overthink things or to, you know, describe things as more rational than they actually are, there are two things that really appealed to me about Catholicism. The first is that a lot of the Christians that I was engaged with at the time that I was going to church with, they were Catholics, and they were really good people, and they were the people that I was talking to about my own doubts and skepticism. And so that was a big part of, you know, what just got me back into church was the Catholics in my life. My uncle, right, my mom's younger sister, the best husband, the best father, a guy I really modeled myself after, he was a devout Catholic.

Wasn't particularly curious about that for most of my life. But as I started becoming a husband and father, I was much more curious about that fact. But the second thing I'll say about Catholicism, and I think to be fair, it's also true of a lot of evangelical denominations is there was this sense that the entire world was changing too fast, that things were shifting, that, you know, the Christian church was sometimes too willing to try to fit itself with the times as opposed to try to influence the times itself. And what I really liked about Catholicism is that it felt very, very stable. You know, if you're critical, almost boring, but the doctrine just doesn't change.

There's this very almost bureaucratic process for changing even like a word in the catechism. And I liked that stability a lot. I liked the hierarchy of it. I liked the sense that there was a consistency across generations and, places. Like if we were on vacation somewhere and I walked into a Catholic church, it'd be the same readings, the same gospel. And the homily might change a little bit, but fundamentally it felt stable to me when I was very, very much craving stability. Yeah, I understand that. And that's something that, you know, a lot of my Catholic friends will tell me is that they love the uniformity of it and the

unity of it. And I totally understand why that's appealing. I'm going to ask you a question that I ask my Catholic friends. And it's a true curiosity. When you look at the statistics of what people who profess to be Catholics believe about things like abortion, things like sexuality and gender, they're much more likely to be progressive than, say, the average evangelicals are kind of in some ways the lone will work on these things, much less likely to support those progressive causes. And so I do wonder if the Catholic Church has been so consistent on all of these issues, and I hear a lot that Protestants have been inconsistent, I do wonder why evangelicals are so much more united on what the Bible says about these issues and Catholics generally are. Yeah, I've thought about

this question, and I don't know if this is going to be a satisfactory answer, but I think part of it is that cultural Catholicism is much more powerful than cultural Protestantism. What I mean is that if you are a Protestant and you fall away from your faith, you're much more likely to just say you're not a Protestant anymore or you're not a Christian anymore. Whereas if you're a Catholic and you largely fall away from your faith, there still is this sense of sort of identification with the Catholic faith, even if you yourself are not going to church regularly. But I think if you look at evangelicals who go to church regularly and Catholics who go to church regularly, you see a remarkable amount of harmony and synthesis about the core issues that matter. Yeah. There is a growing divide.

It seems to me on the rights between evangelicals and Catholics, and maybe it just lives online. Maybe it's not so much in real life. But there's certainly this feeling, it seems to me, as an evangelicals are the reason that we're in a bunch of problems. So we haven't won as many wars or culture wars as we need to. The future of America and the future of conservatism is Catholic. It's trad-Cath, as the people say online. What is your take on that? So my take on it is fundamentally, like America was founded as a Protestant nation. Yeah. And, you know, that said, there are definitely like, like seeds of Catholicism in the original American founding as well. Of course, Maryland was named

Maryland and had deep connections to the Catholic Church. A lot of what was going on in the original Western conquest, the original European founding in the West, was very rooted in Catholicism. And so I guess I see these debates as a sort of very good continuation of something that's kind of always been true and always been in the background of American Christianity. I'm a big believer, and maybe this is too optimistic, but like I believe that, you know, I'm a Catholic. I believe in the core teachings of my faith. But I also think that there is a reason why there was a reformation. There was a reason why the church kind of scattered. And ultimately, I just have a certain optimism, faith, a hope that God's going to figure all this out in the end.

That the reason why we're having these arguments is because one of the ways that we come to know God, is by trying to understand them. And one of the ways that we understand them is by debating between evangelicals and Catholics and Trad Caths and Southern Baptists about all these issues. And so, like, I do think that there are things to learn. Like, I think that one of the things

that Catholics sort of have to learn from evangelicals is why is it that if, you know, one of the experiences I've had a number of friends who will walk into a Catholic church, they're extremely interested in it, they'll hear a beautiful homily, they'll be amazed by the sort of, you know, magnificence of the mass and the music, but then nobody will talk to them afterwards.

Everybody leaves and disappears and goes back to their own homes. Now, if you're part of the parish community, you very much are like part of the church community. But if you show up to like an evangelical church in southwestern Ohio and nobody knows who you are, like nine of them will ask you for donuts or coffee or to hang out afterwards, there is a spirit of welcoming there in the evangelical church. that I think Catholics can learn a lot from. I'm not saying Catholics don't ever do that,

but it's so much more, it's so much more part of the evangelical church tradition, the United States of America. At the same time, like, what can evangelicals learn from Catholics? I do think that there is something to be said about the stability of doctrine. Even if it doesn't necessarily take with every single member, there's something to be said about the stability of doctrine

and the stability of the institution. And my sense is that, again, God's going to figure all this out in the end, and we'll all get to heaven. He'll tell us who was right and who was wrong about specific issues. But I think there's a purpose to this. There has to be.

Because we've been arguing about this stuff for 500 years, maybe even longer. And I think those arguments are fundamentally good, even if sometimes they're absurd. Yeah, I love the debates. I think they're super fun. And when you get with someone who's okay with that and you can still be friends after,

it's just the best. Exactly. It's the best. Exactly. You know, Mamma once said to me about this, all that matters is Jesus. And I think that if that's the anchor, And you recognize that when we have these theological arguments, the anchor is Jesus Christ,

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Because there are certainly things that I see as that from the evangelical perspective when I'm reading, say, Aquinas or Chesterton. Yeah, well, I mean, yes, I mean, so many things. But the point that you made is a point that Charlie has made to me in the past, which is, you know, one of my favorite Bible verses. And indeed, one of the things that kind of got me back on the pathway of faith is, by your fruits, you shall know them. And what are the fruits of a given person's faith? The Bible makes a couple of, like simultaneously absurd, but very compelling arguments to me about human nature, which is that God chooses to reveal himself through people described in the Bible as rapists, murderers, sinners of the very worst kind, but who find redemption through grace.

Now again, if you're a skeptic, you might say, well, if this faith is true, why doesn't it just automatically transform people. But if you're, I think, a student of human nature who is also Christian, you would say, well, this is actually kind of like weirdly how it works, is the transformation is bumpy. You take two steps forward and one step back. And I think that one of the things that Protestants, particularly evangelicals have said to me that I find quite compelling is that for all of my, I think, true arguments about this institutional stability, it's exactly what you said, that there is this way in which the American Catholic Church has become quite assimilated into secular culture, and is that the best fruit? And my argument would be, my counter argument to that would be no,

but that what we're really seeing is, you know, in some ways a purification of both the Protestant and the Catholic churches, which is that the people who are participating in the rich community life of each church are getting closer and closer to God. And unfortunately, we just have a culture that has moved in a very secular direction. Catholicism is not immune to that, but I do think that it is very much, it is a ship in a very troubled water. Yeah.

You know, I have no problem with disagreeing with the Pope publicly. We have been doing that for 500 years. Most of my Catholic friends, they might privately disagree, but they won't publicly. But you did on X. You kind of called out the Pope, and you just said, hey, stay in your lane when he's talking about things like immigration.

So what went into that decision to say something? Well, I don't know. So I would actually, I got to push back a little bit because I would never say to the Pope's stay in your lane. Okay. I definitely don't. Is that a wrong paraphrasing? What I have said is that we each have different roles. The Vice President, the President, and the Holy Father, we each have three very distinctive roles. But what I was pushing back against is, you know, some people will say the Pope should stay out of politics. I don't believe that, actually. I think it's very important for Christian leaders, whether they're Southern Baptist ministers or the Pope in Rome, have an obligation to speak. speak about the moral issues of the day. I understand the temptation, but you can't be totally disengaged from politics if you're actually honestly preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ.

What I would say is that the question of how to apply pragmatic, the question of how to apply moral judgments, Christian principles in the messy real world context of American politics is fundamentally something that God gives to the president and not to the Pope. And so I wouldn't say the Pope should never talk about politics, but I do think they have different roles. Bishop Robert Barrett actually had a very good ex post about this, where he said, while the Pope absolutely should and must speak about how you apply moral issues to politics, the catechism of the church also very says that the president

is ultimately the one who has to make these decisions. And again, I think so long as the debate is, isn't in bad faith, the administration can learn a lot from the Pope, and that debate and that conversation is quite valuable. Like conservative Catholics, you know, really, let me give you another example, really disliked Pope Francis, or I'm overstating it. Some segments of conservative Catholics had very strong disagreements with Pope Francis. I found that even when I was frustrated by something that Pope Francis would say, I would learn something from it. And the debate that it kicked off would actually lead to greater understanding. And I think that was actually part of what he was doing.

This is my charitable spin on this, is that Pope Francis really liked to create these debates in the church because he thought they were valuable. And so sometimes people would say, I can't believe he said that to some Italian newspaper. And I would always say, well, the fact that we're talking about what the gospel means in this very present day context, isn't that a good thing? Yeah. Well, Protestants certainly agree with that, that debates and divisions can actually be clarifying and are sometimes worth it if it leads us to the truth. And I'm glad you did distinguish that because certainly I'm sure that you would say the Pope should be speaking up about the sanctity of life and things like that.

Of course. And so it's just the civic versus church authority that God has ordained that you were kind of delineating there. Yeah, that's exactly right. And also that, you know, the Pope is going to have an opinion on, like, how do you balance a nation's duty to secure its own borders with the Christian duty of charity to all people. Yeah. Okay? Like that's not an easy question.

I don't want the Pope to be silent on that matter, but fundamentally the person who's charged with enforcing the laws is allowed to have a different opinion from the ecclesiastical authorities. If you go to the 2000 years of America's Church, whether it's Protestant or Catholic, there is a rich tradition of political leaders disagreeing with religious leaders on these matters. I think the wrong way to do it is to say, you know, I'm going to ignore him because he's a preacher or he's the Pope and I'm a politician. I don't think that's the right way. But I think so long if it's done in the spirit of dialogue and understanding, it actually can illuminate things even when there is disagreement.

Yeah. Another disagreement that we have on the right that's especially erupted after Charlie was assassinated is about Israel's rule and American politics and the argument over whether or not they have an outside. influence here in the U.S. And so what is your take on that? Do you believe that Israel has an outsized influence in the U.S.? Well, I certainly think that Israel, like a lot of other countries, tries to influence American politics. I sort of take that as a given.

And what I think is that American leaders have to be very careful that when we pursue something, we're doing it for America's best interest and not for any other country's best interest. And if you go back, let's say, to World War II, there were these extraordinarily strong disagreements between General Eisenhower and General Montgomery about military strategy. Those disagreements are a natural part of having a partner. And I do think that sometimes, like, the opinion that I disagree with is, on the one hand, people will say that America's interests are always aligned with Israel's interests. It's just not true. And I see this every day in the

conversations that we have in the back and forth. And obviously, you know, the president has been very clear. He's got some disagreements with BB Netanyahu about how precisely to bring the Iran war to a close. And then I think there are some people who will say that Israel's interests are never aligned with Americas. And I think that's also not true. I think the reality is they're a good partner in the same way that the United Kingdom or France are good partners. That doesn't mean that we're always going to have aligned interests. And another thing I think is that there is, look, sometimes criticism of Israel bleeds into Jew hate. It just doesn't. Charlie was very aware of this. By the way, Charlie was very worried about Israeli influence in American politics. He also really disliked anti-Semitism. But in the same way that sometimes criticism of the Israeli government can be expressed in a way that's anti-Semitic, it's just not the case that every criticism of Bibi Netanyahu's policy decisions leads to anti-Semitism or is anti-Semitic. And so I do think that sometimes, you know, advocates of Israel, or pro-zero people in the United States make two critical mistakes. One, on the one hand, is not delineating between America's interests and Israeli interests, because they're not always the same. But the second is always conflating criticism of a particular government with Jew hatred.

Because if everything is Jew hatred, then nothing is Jew hatred. I actually think Jew hatred is very bad, which is why I think we have to be very careful about not calling every, it's kind of like how progresses for 20 years, called everything racist. And if everything is racism, nothing is racism. And we have to be very careful not to, you know, in order to serve a certain foreign policy objective, try to criticize somebody is anti-Semitic when they're just not. Yeah. I completely agree with all that. And I think that distinction is important. However, from my vantage point, it seems to me like the bigger problem is I won't even, I don't know exactly how I would describe it in a way that would be charitable, but

almost like Israel derangement syndrome going beyond, okay, yeah, we don't like Israeli policies. We don't think that we should put the priorities of any country first, completely agree with that. That's fine. But the obsession that some people have, I would say on the right, with blaming all of their problems on Israel, all of their disagreements with Trump on some secret Israeli influence. And I'm not saying all of those people hate every Jewish person, but it seems to get there really fast. I see that more prominently on the right than I see true Israel first kind of obsession that you seem to be describing. So I see both, and I think both are bad. And, you know, I'm probably

particularly sensitive to the first thing because of the last two days I've been defending the president's decision to end the Iran deal. And I find often the arguments are, well, Israel doesn't think this is good, therefore it's bad. And my reaction is Israel's opinions matter, but fundamentally they are separate. But you're right. I mean, there are certainly people who take every frustration with the Trump administration, every policy disagreement becomes because of Israel. And that is absolutely wrong. And again, I think that that is one of those things that can bleed into some very dark places. Yeah. So I think that it's upon us, as leaders, as public commentators, just try to be very rational about this, to try to distinguish what is legitimate disagreement from ethnic hatred.

And you just got to be careful about it. But I think, I actually think both the Trump administration, but the right generally is in a place of figuring this stuff out. Any debate, every debate, has excesses on either side, but that's part of the process of figuring this stuff out together. Next sponsor is Adele Natural Cosmetics. This is a family-owned Christian-owned natural skincare and cosmetic line that I have been using for years. Arlene, who started this company and her family are the real deal. They're salt of the earth people. They make every product by hand in Texas. And it's all packaged so beautifully with a Bible verse on it. They're pro-life. They donate their

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You'll get 25% off your first time purchase. Adelnaturalcosmetics.com code Alley. Geopolitics is not my main beat. So I think I have a very normal mom perspective of what's going on in Iran. And that is I don't like war. I don't like casualties. I don't want conflict.

If it is not absolutely necessary, I also know that sometimes it is necessary. There is good versus evil in the world and America has a role in that battle. And then at the same time, I don't want my kids to have to worry about a terroristic regime in Iran. And so I've seen a lot of anger about the deal that's going on and you're kind of right in the center of that. And so tell us what you think is maybe the biggest misconception of this deal that you're seeing online and what would you want the average mom to know? I think the biggest misconception by far is this idea that the deal has a lot of

all these benefits to Iran. And the underlying way that it's structured is that they don't get any of the benefits, not a single thing unless they perform a change in behavior. Right. If you step back before the deal, Iran's military is destroyed. Their ability to threaten their neighbors has largely been decimated. Their nuclear program is gone. Like their ability to enrich uranium, their ability to rebuild that nuclear program is gone. And we would see it if they tried to rebuild. And their economies and shambles. That is true, regardless of whether this deal is signed or not. Okay. So now you get to the deal and you say, given that the Iranians are in a tough spot and given that many people within the regime are saying, well, maybe we'd like to change our relationship

with the United States compared to what has been for 47 years. And you do still have terrorist elements within the regime, but you also have pragmatic elements within the regime who are actually affirmatively trying to have a better relationship with the United States. What the deal does is, on the one hand, open the Strait of Hormuz and lock in some of our wins on the nuclear program, but on the other hand, create this option for the Iranians. Option A is you continue to behave like a terrorist regime, in which case you get quite literally nothing. Option B is you behave like a normal regime and the United States would actually, for example, let the Qataris or the Emirates invest in your country if that's what they wanted to do. So the biggest misconception is that

the investment is going to happen without any of the changes in behavior. By the way, it's not our money. So like the idea that the Emirates are going to invest a billion dollars to build a power plant in Iran if the Iranians haven't changed their behavior, it's just absurd. They're not going to do it. We're not. We're not. going to allow it, but that's what I think that that is the misconception that all these benefits flow to Iran when quite literally nothing flows to Iran unless they change what they're doing. And for those who don't know, opening the street of Hormuz is important to us because. So opening the street of Hormuz is why oil prices are went from a high of $126 down to about

$75 today. And they're also why the price of gas as we speak for the first time is under $4 since March, despite going up to an average of about $4.60. Because the one leverage point the Iranians tried to play was to close down, it's like a choke point for oil. And so oil couldn't get out of the Gulf that raised the price of oil, which raised the price of a lot of energy. And what the United States has been able to do successfully, which is why those prices have started to come down, is get a lot of oil out of the Gulf by protecting the ships that were moving. But long term, We don't want to have a military presence that protects all of these ships that are moving. We just want the Iranians to behave like a normal country and stop shooting at those ships.

By the way, there were critics of the deal who said the Iranians would never allow the straits to be open toll-free. For the past two days, the Iranians have shot at zero ships. Yesterday, we got more oil out of the Strait of Hormuz than we have at any point since the beginning of the conflict and not a single one of those ships paid a toll. So already the critics of the deal are being proven wrong. in some of what they're saying that the Iranians have gotten, but also what the United States has gotten. Yeah.

One thing I love about the Trump administration and the reason that I voted for him three times is that even if he is not as strong as I am personally when it comes to the issue of abortion, policy-wise, he has been very good. There have been some really big wins even recently. I saw the administration. I think it was designated embryos as people,

which they are made in the image of God, and therefore their rights matter. And I thought that was a really, really cool and important step. A lot of pro-lifers, myself included, are concerned about Miphyprestone continuing to circulate. Most abortions now are done via abortion pill. The FDA under Trump hasn't reversed the Biden policy about mail order abortions and Miphaepristone circulating. So can you tell us the latest on that front and if that's going to change? So the FDA has put this under review and we're well under review. I think the Wall Street Journal reported that it had just

started. It's actually been under review for a little while. And of course, I'm not going to prejudge the investigation. And I'm not going to tell anybody exactly what it will find, because I don't know what it will find. We're trying to be led by the science. And that's also how you make sure this stuff is defensible once it will inevitably be challenged in court. And number two, that, you know, there are so many wins, not just in designating embryos as worthy of protection, but all of the foreign funding of abortion that grew up in the wake of the Biden administration, that was completely stopped. We expanded the Mexico City policy, which cut down on the amount of foreign funding going to abortion services overseas. Why are American tax dollars funding abortions in other countries?

It's crazy. But also, the one big beautiful bill mostly was a tax cut legislation for working families. We're obviously very proud of it. But it also meant that abortion providers would not get tax money in the United States of America either. So I think that there are a lot of wins to hang our hat on. But I would say generally to the pro-life community, because I am very pro-life. I care a lot about this issue is I learned a lot about the politics of it. And I believe it was the 2023 Ohio referendum on the abortion issue, which became, I think, one of the biggest defeats for the pro-life community in the last few years. And so the basic setup was you had a very, what I would call a radical pro-abortion amendment set against the state of Ohio's heartbeat law. And in

which is right of center. It's not Alabama, but it's certainly right of center. We lost that debate 6040. And I learned a lot in that process. I think the number one thing that I learned is that we in the pro-life community, we just have to get better at politics and better at persuading people. I was talking to a priest friend of mine who put it to me in a very interesting way, and this is kind of how I think about it. And he said, so if you had an opportunity to pass a really pro-life piece of legislation, this is when I was in the Senate, but it would mean the end of the of your political career, what would you do? And I said, well, I think the answer is you got to do that, right? That's the sort of thing you have to do. He said, okay, that's the right answer. He said,

what if you got an opportunity to pass a really pro-life piece of legislation? And it was the end of your political career. And one week later, it was overturned in a more radical piece of legislation in the wrong direction became the law of the land. And I was like, well, that would be a bad idea, right? And that was sort of his counsel to me was, we cannot be immune. You know, I hear from sort of the abortion abolition movement all the time. And my response to them is we can't be immune to the realities of modern politics. And I worry sometimes that we have lost the persuasion battle, and that's what really has to change for the pro-life community to win big in the future.

Yeah. A couple of things about abolitionism, you know, just to steal man their argument, it's that look, if people are people no matter how small, if embryos are made in the image of God, then their rights matter. And they should have equal rights to people outside of the womb. That should be manifested in the law. I imagine you agree with that in principle, but maybe the how to get there is what you maybe differ on.

And then when it comes to, yes, the politics of abortion and legislation and all of that, but specifically when it comes to the circulation of the abortion pill, and I know you say that it's under review, but this is a big concern. Of course. You know, women are dying. And of course, thousands and thousands of babies are dying. And I think a lot of pro-lifers are like, okay, come on, we voted for y'all.

What's the hold up? This was a Biden-era terrible decision to allow these mail order abortions. Why is this not happening more quickly? Yeah, and I guess my response, again, is twofold. Well, first of all, threefold, because I want to respond to the steel man on the abortion abolition abolition argument. You know, who ultimately freed the slaves was it William Lloyd-Garrow. was it Abraham Lincoln. It was the pragmatic guy who was working within the confines of the system. And I think that's fundamentally how we have to think about this, is that we have to be pragmatic,

we have to win the argument, and then we can save the lives of many unborn kids. But we've already saved the lives, in my view, of many unborn kids, both here at home and also internationally, by a number of policies that we've made. And that's the second point, is that, you know, even if you're frustrated, I'm not saying we're going to get everything right or that I'm going to persuade everybody on every point. But I think it's important to sort of bank the wins and to ask ourselves as pro-lifers, are these wins valuable and meaningful? I think the answer is yes. That doesn't mean you're not going to push for more. And that leads me to the third point, which is, you know, we have to be driven by the legal and regulatory process here. And so what we've done is we have

started the review. That review is underway. And it would actually be very bad for that process for me to prejudge it based on scientific or moral or any other grounds, we got to let that review take shape in order for it to lead to the right outcome. And I will say just to kind of pat pro-lifers on the back is that it took half a century, but it was a lot of effective persuasion. A lot of it unseen and unsung, a lot of it happening in the private realm, but that ultimately overturned Roe v. Wade and allowed for the laws that can protect those unborn children. That's right. And so, but we do live in a different era that may require different kinds of politics. different kinds of persuasion.

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code Alley. You know, I go back to this because I was a big fan of Justice Anton Scalia. And he obviously thought that, you know, the Roe versus Way, the original decision was awful. And if you read the arguments that we were making

and arguments that ultimately were very effective, they were very legal arguments. They were very rational arguments. They were, even if you are, personally pro-choice or even if you are personally pro-abortion, here are all of the legal things that are wrong with this particular opinion. And again, that was the argument that had to be made. But there's a totally different argument that is much more intuitive. And I'm sure you know women,

I certainly know, especially when I was younger, a lot of women who had abortions. And I think one of the things that I really disagree with the pro-abortion community on, obviously I disagree with them a lot on, but is this idea that abortion is this decision that is like liberating or is made in the context of maximal freedom. And in reality, most of the women that I know who had abortions, they chose it because they feel like there was no other option, right? There is this sense of like, oh, if I have a baby, I'm, you know, I'm going to be destitute. My family's going to disown me.

My boyfriend or my husband's going to leave me. And I, you know, I just, I think there's like a totally different type of persuasion we have to make for the democratic political argument than for the legal argument, which was ultimately very effective. Yeah. And it will. Just again, to shout out, gosh, Christian pro-lifers do such a good job through pregnancy centers.

Yes, they do. And offering that support and the alternatives to those women. The Trump administration has supported those pregnancy centers. Democrats have not. That's another thing we're very proud of. Yes. And I'm sure I've been to a lot of these Christian pregnancy centers in Ohio, they are amazing people. And I really do think that that heart, while it's there in the communities, and it's something that young women see and they're providing diapers and food and counseling and all these support services, it's unbelievable.

I don't know that that message, and partially this is on people like me, I don't know that that message about the heart of the pro-life community reaches the national political discourse as much as it should, because that is how we ultimately win the persuasion argument. people have to see the heart and women have to think that choosing life is not the end, but it's the beginning of something very profound. Yeah, and it's an uphill climb, as you know, to get any kind of pro-life or non-progressive argument out there. And that's why it actually is really incredible that we have people in the White House to represent that. And it's incredible that you guys won, considering how strong the pro-abortion lobby is.

It does go to show that this is a very important issue and a big, coalition on the rights that we're like we're going to get people in there who are not as rabidly pro-abortion as Kamala here is. Of course. There's a lot of chaos going on in the world. You're in the center of some of that and some people are scared to have children. They're worried about the future. But you just wrote a book about your faith and hope.

So why should people have hope? Well, because Jesus Christ is the son of God. He came down from heaven and is ultimately the author of history. And one of the things that I just think that if you actually believe that, if you actually believe that God himself became man and died to give grace to human beings, you just have to have hope. You don't always have to be happy, right? Sometimes you can be very depressed and still be hopeful.

But I do think that I just fundamentally, because I believe that God is the author of history, things are going to work out. By the way, they may work out long after I'm gone. And I think about this all the time. I mean, Charlie, I probably watch this video a dozen times, and it's heartbreaking, but it's the night of the election. He's live on air, and you see this sort of reaction in his face when we won, right? And then eight months later, nine months later, he's dead.

And I try to remind myself that for every pro-life activist who, phone banked for Republicans and called and worked largely her butt off because it was the moms more than the dads, a lot of them never lived to see some of the big pro-life victories of the last 10 years. And a lot of the people who worked for anything never saw the outcome. I write about this in the book that I try to put myself in the perspective of, you know, obviously Catholics think that St. Peter is the founder of the church, but everybody agrees he's one of the most important apostles in the early church. Everything that we believe historically is that he was crucified upside down. So he's the leader of a fledgling church in a city with a hostile emperor. He is literally tortured to death,

and with his dying breath, I think that he had to have known that God will triumph in the end. And ultimately, if you go to anywhere in Europe right now, you see the signs of that triumph. Anywhere in the United States, anywhere in South America, you see the signs of that triumph, that the church that God created is still preaching the gospel, despite the fact that many of its early members were quite literally tortured to death. So how can you not have hope if that's the story? It's not the hope that you're going to see temporal victory in this life. it's the hope that God is in control. You have a role to play, work as hard as you can in that role and trust in God.

And that's the way that I try to do it. Amen. Mr. Vice President, thank you so much. Good, see, Ali.