A Conversation with Matt Schlapp and special guests Father Frank Pavone and Amb. Robert E Lighthizer

Welcome, everybody, to another episode of CPAC Live. We have another great show for you today. We're going to have Ambassador Robert Lighthizer and Father Frank Pavone talking about two very different areas. First question, what are these global economic questions the president is facing and that we all have to face? And Father Frank Pavone is going to talk to us about what we're seeing in our streets with almost like the unraveling of our society and what is the moral case for what we all believe in, which is this beautiful country called America. But first of all, we have Ambassador Robert Lighthizer. Ambassador, thanks for joining us again on CPAC Live. Matt, thanks for having me. It's always a pleasure to be here. I enjoy talking to you and to your viewers. Well, you're part of our CPAC community, and we appreciate the fact that you know that this is a good vehicle to talk about what the president is trying to accomplish in the area of trade. And I can't talk to you without immediately saying, could you give everybody a status of the important trade agreement that you all reached, that the president reached with the government of China? So thank you. I'm happy to do that. I would say, first of all, we ought to put that agreement in some kind of context, and that is we've had a very lopsided and unfair trade relationship with China for many, many years through Republican and Democratic administrations. The last administration, of course, was a disaster. The president took that issue on. We raised tariffs. We did a variety of things that were unusual, but we had to change the paradigm. In January of this year, we signed a trade agreement that became effective in February and really more or less effective in March. And since then, I think it's fair to say the Chinese have done a pretty good job under the circumstances of trying to abide by the agreement. The agreement, let's remind ourselves, is not just about purchases. It's about bringing jobs back to America, manufacturing jobs, good jobs back to America. It's about fair treatment. So it has a bunch of structural changes that are required in the tech transfer and intellectual property and agriculture and financial services and currency, all of which are very important and we're pretty much on track for. All of which are written down and all of which are enforceable. And then in addition, we have the tariffs, which I mentioned. We have tariffs on $370 billion worth of products to ensure that we're going to have fair treatment. And finally, we have the purchase commitments. And on the purchase commitments, we've obviously had challenges. It's been a very bad economy, difficult economy there as well as here. But I think we're doing very well. Just to give you an idea, to pick out those who care about agriculture, we've had record sales of beef to China, pork to China, poultry to China, corn, biggest corn sales in history. We're on pace for the biggest soybeans sales in history. So if you go down the list, it's been very, very good for American farmers. And that's an important part. It's also been very good for working people because it brings jobs back to America, good high paying manufacturing jobs. So I feel good about it. There's still lots of challenges in the relationship. I don't want to suggest there aren't. There are many, many challenges and they're doing a lot of things that are not good. But on the specific question of this agreement, it's a really good agreement. It's a tough agreement. It's a written, enforceable agreement. And I think both sides are trying to abide by it. And you can see in the various stock markets in America, there seems to be a buoyancy to this idea we're going to get through these economic hardships. And even with those who are critical of the president's approach to China, the markets seem to be responding well. Do you think that we're actually seeing manufacturing job growth in this country as some of these jobs leave China? Oh, absolutely true. So you have to go back and see what we were doing in February, in the beginning of March. And there's just no question. It's not just China. It's this president's trade policy at that point had created more than half a million manufacturing jobs. When you multiply that out by families and by connected business, it's many, many millions of Americans have been really, really helped on this. And this is new, right? Do you remember the previous administration, nuclear position? Those jobs are gone forever. We have to remember, Matt, and everybody has to listen to this, half of the working people in America, people of working age, do not have a college degree. Those people need to be in the middle class. They need to raise their families. They need to have a happy life and have their kids do better than them. Manufacturing is one of the keys to that. And the president is focused like a laser on that manufacturing and agriculture. And so I think we've seen real, real improvement. And I've also I also think you can see that it's come back faster than we thought during the during this recovery from the pandemic. So I think we're in good shape, given where you're given the situation we know that we're facing. Well, I want to congratulate you, because I think it was President Obama who said they would need some kind of a magic wand to recreate these jobs. You and the president seem to have found that wand that congratulations on that. Well, I'm going to congratulate the president. I had a very small part of finding I held the flashlight. He he found one and he he stuck with it. Look at he did. He did. He took tough steps. And he that renegotiation of the USMCA, everybody, everybody talked about doing that. Republicans and Democrats, candidates for 20 years. No one ever did it. And this president took it on and spent the time and I think we have a we have a great result there. We have a lot more sales in both places than we had before. Much fairer treatment. Yeah. Nobody thought I really think that certainly the swamp was betting against you big time. There's no way you'll be able to do this. You also have this idea that there are these important strategic allies like with the United Kingdom that got up our game in terms of our bilateral trade relationships and agreements. Can you give us the status of the U.K. conversation? So so we've had three rounds. We're making good headway. I've got we have a commitment on their side to get a deal done, a commitment on our side at the highest levels of government. And that really is what you need to get a job done. So we're going through the process. It takes time. When you think of these agreements, they cover the whole economy. Right. I mean, they cover agriculture, manufacturing, but also services, financial services. They cover intellectual property. They cover so, so many parts of the economy. And you have to have rules that are fair that people can't get around. But but I feel very comfortable that we'll have a good agreement. It'll be in their interest. It's in our interest. And and it will lead to manufacturing jobs and more efficiency in manufacturing jobs in the United States. You know, should people be surprised that we didn't have an agreement like this a long time ago? Or is it just is it all is is it a result of this brand new approach to trade? Well, I would say, first of all, with respect to the U.K. itself, of course, we're part of the EU and thus couldn't have a deal. But I I think President Trump has a very different approach to trade. He wants trade. He's in favor of trade, but he wants it to be fair. He wants it to to to be America first. He wants us to benefit from each of the deals in the past. There's been a kind of a sense that, well, as long as you have trade and you have more efficient markets and T-shirts are a little bit cheaper, that it doesn't matter if we lose jobs. This president has the opposite view. His view is we have to take care of jobs. Our trade philosophy and I've written a little bit about this. Our trade philosophy is let's start with what kind of community we want. We want a community of hardworking Americans who have jobs, well-paying jobs, go to work, raise their families. That's what we start with. And then we work backwards from there to what kind of trade policy we want. In the past, it's been the opposite. We wanted free trade. We wanted lower barriers to trade. We wanted lower tariffs. And then we got the society that we got. And when when that society turned out to be unfair and unjust, they just did some kind of transfer of payments. And they more or less did that well or poorly, depending on the circumstances. But our approach is exactly the opposite. What kind of America do we want? And then let's have a trade policy that fits that, that leads to that. And if a T-shirt's a little more expensive, most Americans are happy to pay that price if their neighbors have a happier community. So it's just a totally different approach than we've seen in the past. And it's not just about Europe. It's not just like you brought up this whole question of responding to the historical achievement of Brexit, which people in our conservative community really cheered. But it's also the continent of Africa where you're making progress in every corner of the globe. Are there other countries that you're that you're pushing on as well? Well, first place, we we have what are called TIFAs. It's a technical term that we have sort of small agreements where we pursue irritants and we have 20 or 30 of those going on at any time with a whole variety of countries all over the place. But and that's a constant around here to make sure that our manufacturers and our services companies are treated fairly around the world. And we use market access as leverage or whatever else we can, but we insist we're enforcing our trade agreements. You mentioned Africa. Yes, Africa is a focus. I mean, in I think it's 25 years, we're going to have 2.5 billion people in sub-Saharan Africa. And it's it's in the interest of the United States to have better trade relations with those people, to have fair trade relations with those people, both economically, which I care about, but also geopolitically. So that is a focus of this administration. But if you look at what we've done, it's Mexico and Canada, it's it's the UK that we're talking about, it's Japan, where we have a fabulous deal, particularly great for for for farmers and ranchers, South Korea, we've we've renegotiated that deal. If you look at what we've done, we have reorganized most of American trade and there's still a lot more to do. I don't want to suggest the job's over and the challenges with China will go on and on and on. But it's remarkable what this president has managed to do in three and a half years. And then we have this pandemic that interrupted and we'll see. But before that, when you looked at that, the accomplishments were really stark. I mean, it was growth, it was jobs, it was wages going up. It was less income inequality, which is a matter of great concern to the president. He talks about it a lot, that we have these fabulously rich people and then we have a bunch of people who are just getting by and doesn't like that. And one of the solutions to that problem is having fair trade so that you have manufacturing and good, well-paying jobs in the United States. I love the idea of having a blue-collar recovery and I love when you bring up these important countries that you're either negotiating or renegotiating with. Many of them, specifically Japan and South Korea, are countries where we've made investments in CPAC and we've actually had CPAC conferences in those countries. And I think that those types of relationships, non-government relationships, also help bring these important countries together. I agree with that. I mean, in many ways, what we're facing is two different systems. And the United States is the leader of the free market democratic system, and then there's another system. And all the things that you do are very much consistent with what we're trying to do to have our system prevail, which we're all completely concerned is the best system, not only for America, but really for mankind. You know, I'm just at that age where I was educated by a lot of people on the beautiful aspects of globalism and the idea that the world, all these enlightened people around the world, would come together and create more harmony and better lives for people. And as you put up the hood of globalism, you get to see some stark examples. And we've seen this with the pandemic and information coming out of the WHO. When you pull up the hood and look at the trade world and you see the ramifications of the WTO, it leaves a lot of Americans wondering if America is getting a good deal in an organization like the WTO. What's your approach to what America should do with this institution? Well, first of all, let me join your skepticism about globalization. I'm not against it in all cases. And certainly there are benefits if it's used, but it's just a tool. It certainly is not the end, which it is for a lot of people who espouse it. I'm a cynic on the subject. And I think we have to think about things in the same solid way that you think about not just economics, but other issues. And we have to apply the same rules, that is to say, trying to get to a proper end for the people in our society. So globalization has a role, but it's not the only role. We really have to focus more on helping Americans. And I think that then is another model that will help the rest of the world. But you talk about the WTO. The WTO is seriously flawed. And I have an op-ed that will be coming out here in the next day or so on this subject. So what do you say? What are the problems? And I'll be brief because I know you don't have an enormous amount of time. One, we have wildly variant tariffs. Tariffs, products that we charge a 2% or 3% tariff on, some people charge 100% tariff on. And that's gone on for 70 years. And that might have made sense when we were fighting the Soviets after the Second World War, right, when there was this Cold War thing. But it does not make sense now for us to give up our economic power for no reason or to fight a battle that was won many years ago. So one, the tariffs are crazy different. Two, the rules don't apply to everyone the same. Some countries declare themselves, including some of the richest countries in the world, as developing. And then they get lesser rules. And then finally, I would say there's a court there, which I think all conservatives should be just very, very skeptical of. So they call it the appellate body. It's a dispute settlement process. And then you have these seven essentially unaccountable people who create jurisprudence. It never intended to be that. But that's what's happened. And they create new rules for the United States that we have to follow and get rid of some of the benefits that we got from past negotiations. And it's a crazy system. Literally, these seven people create new rules, not only citing back to the agreement, but citing back to their own opinions. It's a crazy system. Americans look at the WTO and things like it like a contract. Here's our contract. What does the contract say? We'll do what it says. Europe and some others look upon it as like an evolving common law of trade, where our objective is free trade and open markets, and these unaccountable people take the steps necessary to get us there. Well, it's a very different concept. And it has not worked well for the president. He's completely right about that. And our objective is really, at least my objective, is to have real reform. I think we need real reform there. And we need to do a restart on the tariffs. We need to get the rules applied to everyone in a fair way. And we need to get rid of this notion of jurisprudence. Clearly, you want to be able to arbitrate your differences. But we don't want a court with people with powdered wigs and robes somewhere in Europe deciding whether Americans work or not, right? That's what it really comes down to. And it's a crazy idea. And for conservatives, you think about one of the lists of things that you really like the least are activist judges. I know that, right? That's to the heart of us, people who are just doing what they want to do. And this is very much akin to that, except it's in the economic sphere. So in many ways, it's even worse. So you would think of it as a bunch, as seven unelected activist judges who make up their mind what they think the rules should be and fill in the gaps where there was negotiating, where there was failure to negotiate rules. So in any event, that's one of the things we've done. The president has basically neutered it by not allowing anybody to be appointed to that body. It now doesn't function. And hopefully we'll move forward in a new direction that's more in the interest of American workers and ranchers and businesses. You know, Ambassador, I think we're all reminded that we fought a revolution over the idea that people in powdered wigs could indiscriminately tell us what to do. I seem to remember a tea party over the question of American sovereignty generally. This is really a wake up call for everybody across the country. When your political leaders say, well, yeah, we're going to surrender American sovereignty to people, as you said, in a type of a star chamber, which can then dictate domestic legal jurisprudence. That's almost like surrendering the victory of our victory in the Revolutionary War. And that's something we ought to be awfully careful about doing. And it seems like what you're saying is both parties are complicit with this idea that surrendering our sovereignty was OK. Absolutely true. It's basically the high altar of globalism. This is where they go to worship you. And it's evolving into a court, or it was before the president came along, and it will again if he doesn't stay. It's evolving into a court which makes decisions based not on what was negotiated, but based on what certain people think is the way it ought to be. And it is it's a completely crazy idea. And it's clearly a violation of our sovereignty. You're absolutely right. Ambassador Robert Lighthizer, we appreciate you joining us again on CPAC Live. Thanks, man. It's a pleasure to be here. And thanks for all the great stuff you do for our country. I'm just one American who's grateful. Well, I'm going to do with a big smile on my face because I'm feeling really good about my travels around the country. We've got so many people across this country that understand America is a great place, a place of opportunity. And I think they're rooting you on, too. So we'll look forward to talking to you again soon. Good. Thank you very much. Good luck to you. God bless. We're going to show everybody a short video. And here's the question for all of us. Is China actually a threat? Watch this and we'll be right back on the other side with Fr. Frank for votes. The Chinese had always planned to replace the United States as the dominant world power by mid-century. They thought they would be the strongest economy, the strongest military, the strongest technological leader, and they thought they would get there by mid-century, that they would push us out of the South China Sea, push us out of the Pacific. But the pandemic has speeded up their timeline. They think they can do this within the next three or four years. They've already shown that they can recover from the coronavirus, and the rest of the world is having trouble with it. Number two, their economy is back and working in order again. Number three, their military has taken over the South China Sea, even this week. They're doing more and more things to push other countries and other countries' militaries out of the most important maritime trade route in the world. Number four, the Chinese are stealing American technology, Western technology. They're not very good innovators themselves, but they're terrific at buying or stealing. Well, we are now joined by Father Frank Pavone, a wonderful Christian witness on the importance of protecting the rights of the unborn and other human dignity issues. Father Pavone, great to have you on CPAC Live. Hey, Matt, it's a real pleasure to be with you again. Thank you so much. We've been spending a lot of time digitally, it seems like, talking about these important issues. Are we getting used to this yet? Yeah, I think ever since the pandemic broke out, I mean, we've been together more than we were in person when we were on the road. But it's been very effective, actually. I think we have been able to really galvanize a lot of people across this country that are believing in the same things that we are and fighting the same battles. Now, one of the things you're doing digitally is offering mass online each day. Is that correct? That's right, Matt. Ever since the middle of March, we've had online masses. So many people who couldn't get into their churches were so grateful for this opportunity, and we've kept it up ever since. And a large audience throughout the states and also from different parts of the world. And we're still doing a rosary nightly at 9 p.m. Eastern Standard Time with many of our board members. So if anybody wants information on that, they can join. I know that there's so many believers across the country who are coming together, whether on teleconferences or whatever means to come together, because we need each other. This idea that everybody can be a contemplative father is not accurate. We need each other, and we need each other across denominational lines. And you know, as I'm sure is true for you, I've always found one of the greatest joys of this pro-life, pro-family, conservative values movement is that it is bringing the body of Christ together. The differences now are more horizontal than vertical. It used to be that, well, if this person is in that denomination, the Baptists, the Presbyterians, and so forth, they don't have that much in common with them. But now these cultural battles have made it so that I have more in common with a pro-life Baptist than I have with some of my brother priests. And because there are some that it's like they don't believe that what the Bible actually says is really true or what the teachings have always been about family and marriage and life. So we're coming together in the name of these key values. Well, when you see all of this going on across the country, obviously we've had this big racial kind of explosion, this animosity, this violence, these race riots across the country. And obviously, Jesus was very clear on us loving our neighbor and treating them as we want to be treated. So this whole idea of racism is really a repugnant sin. By the same token, you see groups like Black Lives Matter Incorporated and other groups that have in their very kind of manifesto, their mission statement, the destruction of the family because it's kind of a Western civilization appendage. We've seen the desecration of churches, statues of Mary and Jesus burned, destroyed, cemeteries, Jewish cemeteries desecrated. Are we falling into a bit of chaos here? You know, this is total chaos. Matt, isn't it interesting that we who stand up for the right to express our religious beliefs without people attacking it either verbally or physically, or we who stand up for the equality of every human being, born and unborn, that we are the ones being called divisive? Or when the president stands up and defends these values in his speeches or in his policies, that he's called divisive. And meanwhile, we're the ones that are uniting the country on the very values on which it was founded. These folks that are doing this chaos, doing this violence, are the ones who are needlessly dividing people from one another and abandoning the very principles that both the gospel and the country are founded on. And specifically, they also are clamoring for nine months of legal abortions, taxpayer funded abortions. You know, this is a clear threat to diverse communities, specifically the African American community, where abortion is a great tragic result of, I would say, you know, the destruction of family and the failure to understand what a precious life God gives us through the unborn child. Well, you know, as you know, Alveda King is a member of our team here at Priests for Life, and she's been saying this constantly. She says, first of all, don't slap the word racism on everything that you disagree with or that you hate, because then you're going to render yourself incapable of dealing with real racism when it raises its ugly head. But then secondly, you know, looking at why is racism wrong in the first place? You know, anything that looks down on a whole group of human beings as being less valuable simply because they belong to that group is a fundamental error. But that's the very error that is at the basis of legal abortion. We're taking the unborn. We're taking a whole group of human beings in the first months of their existence. And we're saying, because you belong to that group, you're not a person, which is exactly what Roe v. Wade said. They are not persons. You're less valuable. You can be disposed of. So if a person is against racism, they've got to be, in order to be logically consistent and morally consistent, they've got to be against abortion, too, because it's oppressing this entire group of people. And this is the message Alveda gives all over the country, that the civil rights movement of today is the pro-life movement. Same principles that her uncle Martin Luther King Jr. was fighting for, the equality of every human being. And we all have gotten a crash course because the media likes to gloss over it. And the eugenics and racism of Margaret Sanger, found for Planned Parenthood, that people need to realize that one of the main reasons to push for legal abortion was to get rid of people they thought were less than. They didn't think were equal to white Americans. And this kind of disgusting racist ideology went global. And we should go back and look at that history. And we should call it out. When people see what Margaret Sanger said and the philosophy that is at the root of Planned Parenthood, they are astonished. You know, this documentary has been out for some time now, Maafa 21, Maafa being the Swahili word for devastation, and 21 for the 21st century. Maafa 21 has documented irrefutably the racist foundations of the abortion industry and of Planned Parenthood in particular. And it's really waking up the black community, whether through Alveda's work or a number of other black leaders in what they call the National Black Coalition for Life. They're saying, you know, we never realized this. But here's a dilemma then that occurs. The black pastors and black citizens who are so pro-life and they're so much valuing their families, they see this. They realize that this is another form of oppression for them and really genocide. And they rise up in anger against that. But then they come up against their political supporters and they find a party, the Democrat Party, being so allied and just joined at the hip with the abortion industry. They feel torn. They don't know what to do. They say abortion is an outrage. It's an outrage against our community. Why don't our political leaders see that? And that's the stage at which that many in the black community are right now. And they're wrestling with that tension. Well, and a Gallup poll came out last week showing that 25 percent of African-Americans in this country would label themselves as conservative. Now, there's a lot of different stripes of conservatism. That could be limited government, lower taxes. It could be the fact that they go to church and they have more traditional views on cultural questions like life. My interaction with people in this community is that they view abortion to be a great tragedy. And it might be one of the reasons why there's a rethinking about whether or not the Republican Party is the right place to express themselves politically, because it's where they express themselves, obviously, at the creation of the Republican Party, which was interwoven with this idea of being an abolitionist movement. The Republican Party is the party that's an abolitionist movement when it comes to the question of abortion and equal rights for the unborn, but also equal rights for all people, as you said, this idea of human dignity. Do you think they're looking at these pro-life policies from the Trump administration and being voiced by the president in ways that we haven't heard the president's voice? I mean, very clear language. Do you think that's actually having a good effect as these communities face the trauma of abortion? Oh, a very good effect. You know, I've seen this rethinking all over the place as I travel with Alveda and as we bring people online and we talk with pastors and other leaders. There really is a political rethinking going on. You know, as they face that tension that I described, they realize, hey, wait a minute, there is an alternative here. And, you know, a lot of them are feeling like the Democrat Party has really abandoned their core values. And when you add on top of the whole abortion question and the promotion of abortion without restrictions among the Democrat camp, then they see the question of the freedom of the church. Because for the black community, I mean, the church is a key element of their life and of their community. And to see efforts to restrict the freedom of the church or to force believers to have to choose between following the law and following their faith, as we saw with that HHS mandate under the Obama administration, which, of course, now President Trump has changed in order to more generously accommodate believers. But when they look at that, they can't believe it. They say, this is not a country where we're supposed to be forced to choose between following our faith and following the law. And they're going to say they're going to say, I think, more and more of them as they as they as they go forward in their political choices, they're going to say, well, who really respects my freedom? We talk about freedom. Who respects my freedom to worship God in the way I choose as an American citizen? Father, I know that kind of legal jurisprudence is not what you spent your life studying, but you have to deal with the consequences of a lot of bad judicial decisions. And it makes us all kind of take a crash course in legal scholarship. When you see these people, including John Roberts, unfortunately, a lot of Catholics who have been picked to serve on the court have disappointed us on really key questions. And so you have this this whole idea. We also have other Catholics who have just been fantastic. Other Christians who have been fantastic on the bench. You know, what's the right strategy? I've now said and I said it again this week, I think I'm done with plucking these lawyers out of obscurity and putting them on the bench. I wonder if if the courts are going to act so political, almost like a Congress, maybe we ought to just pick really good legislators like Ted Cruz and Mike Lee and elevate them to serve on the Supreme Court. Do you do you share my frustration? Yes. I think there would be wisdom in in that approach that you just described. I know a lot of people who who like that idea very much. But, you know, if we keep going back to the core, the core point that I mean, the president has made it over and over again. It's like, look, we do have a Constitution and the Constitution quite clearly lays out what the courts are and aren't supposed to do. We need judges who are going to take that Constitution as it's written and as it's originally intended and apply it to the cases that come before them to the cases that come before them, not in this. You know, one of the things that bothers me so much, too, are these these nationwide injunctions that these judges think that they can slap on the entire country. It's like you weren't put on the bench to decide questions for the whole nation. You were put on the bench to decide cases and controversies that come before you in your courtroom, period. And I think we need a lot more restraint. We need we need people to understand that, you know, these these judges and these courts are meant to take the Constitution and the laws as they're written. Now, I think that if we apply that principle, that we're in the overall balance going to come out fine. In other words, we're going to have we're always going to have disappointments, even betrayals. Matt, I think we can characterize a lot of these situations as betrayals. But but but but in the overall balance, you know, if you've got a I think we've got to look at what our senators are saying and what our what our president is saying about, you know, they're the ones who are going to determine what kind of men and women get on these these courts. And if they're saying, yes, I want someone who's going to be faithful to the text and meaning of the Constitution and the laws, then overall, we're going to come out great. But as you're saying, a little bit more thinking about, you know, who's being selected in that process. And hey, let's let them have a clear record. Let's let them be. They could be as much of an advocate as they want to be before they get onto the to the bench. Yeah, let's look for the ones that we know have been laboring with us right side by side in all these battles. Those are the kind of men and women we want on the courts. And even when people of faith are picked to serve on the court, when believers are picked to serve on the court, they can't make up out of whole cloth this idea of a law that would reflect maybe what we want to see happen if it's not there in the wording of the text. And so we're actually not looking for conservative activism. We're actually looking for just a strict constitutional interpretation. And when I saw what Amy Comey Barrett had to go through, this former Notre Dame law professor who now serves on the federal bench, when I saw what she had to go through with her hearing with them scrutinizing the fact, could you actually be a believing Catholic and civilly serve our government? It really harkened back to anti-Catholic bigotry of old. And then I've been digging into it a little more and looking at these questions that Senator Kamala Harris sent in to Catholic nominees, especially those that had the audacity, Father, of being in the Knights of Columbus, an organization, a fraternal organization that encourages men to be good fathers and good husbands and stay close to the church and do works of charity. The idea that she would equate a group like the Knights of Columbus, which has members in parishes all over this country and probably all over the world, the idea that that could be equated to a hate group because this organization, the Knights, stays very close and accepts the teachings of our church. What's your reaction to that? It's very disturbing, Matt. It really is, because when you look at carefully at what people like Senator Harris and Senator Feinstein and Senator Durbin, a number of them in some of these Judiciary Committee hearings, the line of questioning to Catholic nominees, what you see there is the mindset that the dogmas we hold in the church in regard to things like abortion, the nature of marriage as being between one man and one woman, the nature of the family, and so on, they take a view of those things as if you would think somebody is talking about racism, like we were talking about before. And followed to its logical conclusion, not only are they, I mean, constitutionally, they're in the wrong because they are trying to do what the Constitution says exactly we cannot do, which is impose a religious test for any office in the United States. There is no room for a religious test one way or the other in public office. But then aside from that, what followed to its logical conclusion, this is all part of like what, remember back in 2015, Hillary Clinton gave a speech in which she said, you know, the fundamental religious beliefs have to be changed. Structures and beliefs have to be changed if we're going to go forward with our agenda. Or when Beto O'Rourke said that maybe churches that believe marriage is one man and one woman shouldn't be tax-exempt anymore. This is the direction that this whole mindset goes. It leads to nothing less than the persecution of the church. And we've got to really be looking at that and taking those concerns into account. Last question, Father Pavone, as people of faith look at how they determine who to vote for, and we've talked about this radical embrace of the abortion culture by the Democratic Party, what is a person of faith to do? There are lots of Catholics, for instance, who are Democrats. A lot of people in my family who go to church and believe in the church, but are also liberal. They're in a terrible position. If you believe in bigger government, but you believe in the sanctity of life, the Democratic Party is putting them in a very interesting position. You know, the bishops have spoken about this, and if I could give people a resource, you know, the United States bishops issued a document called Living the Gospel of Life. And I want to encourage especially Catholic voters, but any American citizen will find a great guidance in that document to look it up. Gospeloflife.net is where folks can go to find it. And here's the point that the bishops make. There's a lot of issues. They're all interconnected in one way or another. And they use the analogy, Matt, of a house. And they said, you know, all these human rights issues interconnect. But what's the foundation of the house? The foundation of the house is the right to life. Nobody says abortion is the only issue. But if you attack the right to life directly, like abortion does, you can't have any other issue. If life isn't valuable, if on the other hand it's disposable, then why care for the poor? Why care about health care? Why protect people from crime or terrorism? Why be concerned about racism? Why be concerned about any of these things if the person doesn't matter? If life is disposable, well, then not much problem with poverty and terrorism. So it's the heart and soul of every issue. And this is the moral guidance. It's not political advocacy. It's moral guidance that the church gives to voters and says, look, we heard where we begin, the bishops say. We begin with the intention never to kill the innocent. You can't do it. And any state that does it, here's where John Paul II comes in. He wrote that tremendous encyclical, The Gospel of Life. What John Paul said is actually very dramatic. He says, when a state legalizes abortion, and now these are his words, it becomes a tyrant state. He said the disintegration, I'm quoting him exactly once again, the disintegration of the state itself has begun. That doesn't sound like just one issue to me. That sounds like the foundation itself. And again, this is the guidance that the Holy Father and the bishops have given. And again, not only the Catholics, but it's something all Americans should do. Yeah, for sure. And also, just to put a final point on that, it's a grave moral sin, obviously, this question of killing an unborn child. And then it's so tragic to see them take the next step. And people like Joe Biden, who now, who for decades supported not using taxpayer funds to pay for these abortions, now believes that his parishioners, I'm told he goes to a church, St. Joseph Church in Delaware. He wants all his fellow parishioners and his pastor to help pay, to be forced to pay for these abortions, which even if you buy the pro-choice ideology, once you start being financially complicit in this grave sin, you talk about a tyrant state. That's the worst form of big government that could possibly be, to use your taxpayer money to pay for something you think is actually going to be destructive of society. You know, isn't it interesting, Matt, they say the woman has a right to do what she wants with her body, but we don't have the right to do what we want with our money. Right. No, that's very well said. Father Pavone, please keep all of our work and your prayers as you offer up during the Holy Sacrifice at the Mass today. Thanks for all your important words as the country faces these really unfortunately controversial questions, moral questions in our society. But we really appreciate your work and say hello to Alveda. Sure will. And Matt, thank you for all your great work as well. We'll talk to you soon. Thank you, Father. Thanks, everybody, for tuning in to another great episode of CPAC Live, where we're always going to talk about the issues that matter to you. And I've been on the road for a long period of time. It's great to be back at the home. The kids are coming back from Florida in a few days, and we'll be talking to you on Friday.