Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 1160 ｜ What Dismantling the Department of Education REALLY Means

00:00:00.700 The Department of Education might be going away forever, and you're probably hearing a lot of

00:00:07.320 scary things about that, but we are separating fact from fiction on that subject today,

00:00:12.340 as well as telling Cristiano Ronaldo's girlfriend to run for her life, and we will explain why.

00:00:19.400 Also, if you are a Severance fan, wait till the end. Brie and I have got some different

00:00:25.400 theories about the series and how it ended, and if you are not a Severance fan, I'm just going to

00:00:30.300 tell you, you probably don't want to stick around for that segment because it won't make any sense

00:00:35.680 to you. Anyway, this episode of Relatable is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers.

00:00:39.820 Go to GoodRanchers.com, use code Allie at checkout. That's GoodRanchers.com, code Allie.

00:00:43.840 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Tuesday. Hope everyone is having a wonderful week so far.

00:00:59.020 You guys are loving yesterday's conversation with Nicole Shanahan. If you have not watched that yet

00:01:04.820 on YouTube or Spotify or listened, wherever you listen to your podcast, I really encourage you

00:01:10.640 to do so. She's such a vulnerable, sweet, honest person. I personally was very edified by her story

00:01:20.840 and her admission that her mind has changed on really big things like abortion and like faith,

00:01:28.500 the most important thing, the gospel of Jesus. And testimonies always buoy my own faith, and I know

00:01:37.920 that her story will do the same for you. And, you know, as I was listening to her revelations about

00:01:45.380 different things, for example, when she tells that very meaningful, compelling story of going to a

00:01:51.280 pregnancy center and realizing while she had been helping fund Planned Parenthood, helping women have

00:01:57.000 access to abortions, she had never actually looked at the other side of that choice, which is keeping the 0.99

00:02:03.500 baby and she hadn't actually supported women in making that life-affirming choice, and how God,

00:02:11.040 through His grace, has just revealed this reality to her that was always right before her, but that she

00:02:18.060 just didn't have eyes to see. And God does that for all of us in different ways in our road of

00:02:25.020 sanctification. And it's so important for us to remember that, not only in the lives of other people when

00:02:30.880 we're listening to their testimonies, especially those of us who grew up in the church, you're a

00:02:35.100 lifelong Christian, seeing other people who are either new to the faith or who aren't Christians

00:02:40.300 yet and thinking, like, how can you not see that? How do you not know that? How do you not feel

00:02:45.140 convicted by that? And while I think it's okay to think, yeah, there's right and wrong, and everyone

00:02:50.560 should be able to see that, we have to understand also that the Holy Spirit is going to do His job.

00:02:57.720 He is going to bring the good work of faith to completion and that He is faithful to sanctify

00:03:06.640 and to make holy God's people. And I thought about this analogy the other day. I went into this

00:03:16.860 shop. I'm trying not to reveal, like, too much information about, like, what it is and where it is,

00:03:23.000 but I went into this shop. And I said, okay, this must be new. Like, when was this built? And they said,

00:03:31.900 2008. I was like, okay, so this is not new at all. This is the first time that I'm seeing this, and I

00:03:37.560 literally drive by this place every day. But this is the first time that I've needed to go into a place

00:03:45.680 like this. And so I simply did not have eyes to see it until I was in this stage of life, in this

00:03:51.160 stage of motherhood with my kids, in the stage that they're in. This was the first time that this

00:03:58.560 has been on my radar, but it's always been there. And it just reminded me that we don't have eyes to

00:04:04.440 see things until we are in a place where we actually need to see them. And there are so many

00:04:10.580 lessons, I think, that are applicable to that, whether we are talking about, like, our compassion

00:04:15.300 and understanding for other people and not being able to see their perspective because we haven't

00:04:24.240 been where they are. But also just, like, in our own spiritual journeys, I think sometimes we want

00:04:30.460 to be able to see everything right now and understand where God is taking us, what things mean

00:04:37.160 for all of our whys to be answered right there. But it's simply not time, or we haven't been given

00:04:44.860 eyes to see yet. So we have to have faith in the Holy Spirit in our own lives and also in the lives

00:04:51.120 of others and just pray earnestly for God to give us the wisdom to see the things He wants us to see,

00:04:57.720 but also to have patience and peace with where we are in a lot of different ways. And so anyway,

00:05:05.720 I was just thinking about all kinds of things as I was going back and watching yesterday's episode,

00:05:11.080 just so much packed into that conversation that was very revelatory. So again, check it out if you

00:05:17.080 haven't already. Okay. Today, we're going to try to get to a few stories and then Bree and I at the end

00:05:24.260 really want to talk about some TV, some lighthearted stuff. But first, I want to answer some questions

00:05:30.640 that you guys have been sending me about the executive order to end the Department of Education

00:05:38.140 because I know you guys have been seeing a lot of stuff out there, not even from like hard left

00:05:43.200 sources, saying that dismantling the Department of Education is going to be disastrous, especially for

00:05:49.560 poor kids, especially for kids with special needs. And I am here to tell you that that is simply not the

00:05:56.480 case that the Department of Education has become a very bloated entity that is largely corrupt and has

00:06:04.220 a relationship with teachers unions that has led to, yes, more money out there that is supposed to be

00:06:11.200 going to schools, but that money has not actually translated into any sort of student success since

00:06:19.420 the establishment of the Department of Education in 1979. So first, let's go through what this

00:06:25.020 executive order actually is because unsurprisingly, there's a lot of misinformation out there about

00:06:31.500 what it even says. So last Thursday, President Trump signed this executive order. He was surrounded

00:06:37.900 by school children at their little desks pretending to sign their own executive order. It's really cute.

00:06:43.420 It directs the Secretary of Education to take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure

00:06:48.440 of the department and return education authority to the states. So here he is, sought one.

00:06:55.020 Okay. Very sweet. Here's the language.

00:07:25.000 From the executive order, the Secretary of Education shall, to the maximum extent appropriate

00:07:30.100 and permitted by law, take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of Department of Education

00:07:34.560 and return authority over education to the states and local communities, while ensuring the effective

00:07:40.300 and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely. Consistent with

00:07:46.000 the Department of Education's authorities, the Secretary of Education shall ensure that the allocation of any

00:07:52.280 federal Department of Education funds is subject to rigorous compliance with federal law and administration

00:07:58.580 policy, including the requirement that any program or activity receiving federal assistance terminate

00:08:05.740 illegal discrimination obscured under the label, quote, diversity, equity, and inclusion, or similar terms

00:08:12.180 in programs promoting gender ideology. Okay. So your tax dollars, which are going to the federal government

00:08:18.600 and then are being channeled to the Department of Education currently, because of the progressive

00:08:25.180 policy that has been put in place by this bureaucracy over the past several decades, is funding programs

00:08:32.420 at public schools that tell students that white people are on the side of the oppressor. We'll get into those

00:08:40.760 specific programs that black and brown kids are always on the side of the oppressed, that they need to be social

00:08:47.240 racial justice activists, and are also promoting the idea that a boy or girl can be born in the wrong body. You might say

00:08:56.400 that's not happening at your public school. You might be right, although you might not be right. Chances are you don't

00:09:02.760 really know what's being taught to every student in every class at your public school. But even if it's not happening at your

00:09:10.100 particular school yet, it is happening at schools across the country. If you've been listening to this

00:09:15.340 podcast, or really any conservative podcast for the past several years, you know this to be provably true. And

00:09:22.500 again, we'll get into a couple examples of that in just a few minutes. Ultimately, the executive order reads the

00:09:28.460 Department of Education's main functions can and should return to the states. It also cites the increased

00:09:34.720 spending the unaccountable bureaucracy and the failing education scores as the reason for this policy

00:09:41.320 action. And we will get into the specifics of that as well. So really two main directives in this

00:09:47.240 executive order. Neither of them say the Department of Education is over. One, the Secretary of Education,

00:09:55.840 Lyndon McMahon, will work toward closing the department. She is the, she's a former wrestling executive,

00:10:04.200 wife to WWE founder, Vince McMahon. I watched the documentary on him. It was actually pretty sad

00:10:09.840 and kind of interesting, but they've been friends with Trump's for a while. She led the Small Business

00:10:15.140 Administration during Trump's first term, was co-chair of his 2024 transition team. Any remaining

00:10:22.080 Department of Education funds will not advance DEI or gender ideology. White House Press Secretary

00:10:28.440 Caroline Leavitt told reporters that the order wouldn't shutter the agency but would greatly

00:10:34.780 minimize it. Also, Secretary McMahon would ensure that, you know, the benefits continue, but the

00:10:46.020 student loans will no longer be managed by the Department of Education. Now, they're not going to be

00:10:52.380 canceled. Some people are saying student loans are going to be canceled altogether. That's not true.

00:10:57.200 They will be improved. The handling of them, Trump says, will be improved by transferring this program

00:11:03.580 to the Small Business Administration, which is headed up by Kelly Loeffler from Georgia. So a day after he

00:11:12.900 signed this executive order, President Trump announced that he would be moving that system to SBA. They will

00:11:20.120 manage the student loan portfolio. So managing the loans, auditing for fraud, working with private

00:11:27.040 lenders, he says, Trump's reasoning says, basically that the SBA is just going to be able to handle this

00:11:34.920 process much better. He described it now as a mess. He suggested that their portfolio, with its lots of

00:11:41.800 loans, tens of thousands of loans, is pretty complicated. So this is just like anything that is

00:11:47.380 currently handled by federal bureaucracy. It is inefficient. It is ineffective. It is wrought with

00:11:55.420 at least vulnerabilities for fraud. And so everything that Trump is taking over right now and that Doge has

00:12:05.820 its hands on, they're trying to make it more efficient and more streamlined. So that's what's

00:12:12.140 happening there. The goal is absolutely to dismantle the Department of Education. And Trump has been very

00:12:18.720 clear about that since 2015. He tweeted about it. He said, you know, Common Core is terrible. This is

00:12:25.040 because of a federal takeover of education. And he has wanted to take this down for a long time. He's

00:12:33.360 already done multiple executive orders, ending radical indoctrination in K-12 schooling, expanding

00:12:40.560 educational freedom and opportunity for families that directs federal agencies to prioritize federal funds

00:12:47.700 to support school choice initiatives. And so this is part of why people voted for him to make sure that

00:12:55.220 our education system is actually teaching kids how to think and is not indoctrinating them with social 1.00

00:13:02.540 justice ideology that is making them very stupid. And I guarantee that is happening to some extent at 0.99

00:13:09.500 every public school across the country. All right. So how could this actually happen? Will it actually

00:13:15.420 happen? As I said, has to go through Congress? What would that process look like? What is the

00:13:20.360 likelihood of that happening? We'll get into that in a second. Let me pause and tell you about our first

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00:15:03.680 Okay, so according to Article 2 of the U.S. Constitution, the executive branch needs Congress

00:15:15.240 to sign off on eradicating an agency. The measure would require 60 votes to pass in the Senate.

00:15:22.520 There are only 53 Republicans, which means this is going to be very tough to do because I guarantee

00:15:27.860 you there will be zero Democrats, zero Democrats who want to get this done, even if they did agree

00:15:34.460 with it, which I guarantee you they don't because the Department of Education, along with the teachers'

00:15:39.720 unions, they are progressive. They are supporting Democrat politicians, largely using your tax dollars.

00:15:47.040 We'll get into this. Public unions should be illegal for that reason. But they don't want this.

00:15:52.920 They don't want this to close down. They don't want to even shave off a little bit of bureaucracy

00:15:58.200 because it helps them win elections. So it's going to be very hard for this to be completely

00:16:04.560 eradicated through Congress. Now Trump can continue to do what he's doing. He can use Doge. He can use

00:16:11.740 the leadership of Linda McMahon to try to delegate all of its current responsibilities to other agencies

00:16:20.700 so that it dwindles so small and basically has no power whatsoever while still technically being

00:16:26.500 there, like technically having a building. That's probably what he'll do because it's probably not

00:16:31.620 going to pass Congress. Thomas Massey, Republican from Kentucky, he said that the Senate should use

00:16:39.080 the budget reconciliation process to pass the measure, and that would only require 51 votes.

00:16:44.960 So if they have the gumption to do something like that, it could possibly get passed. I'm not sure

00:16:52.840 if Republicans in Congress have the motivation and the courage to do that because I guarantee you

00:16:58.520 there are Republicans. There are. There are Republicans and professing, you know, so-called

00:17:04.840 conservatives who think this is the wrong move, whatever interest they have. There are some Republicans,

00:17:10.840 unfortunately, who take money from the teachers unions, and they will be against this. But we'll see.

00:17:16.800 We'll see what Republicans in Congress can get done and if they take Representative Massey up on his

00:17:23.900 suggestion. So just separating some fact from fiction here, we'll go through some myths that we've been

00:17:33.080 seen from the media and we'll clarify them. We'll fact check them using a resource from our friends

00:17:41.660 at the Heritage Foundation. So one myth that we see is that programs helping students with disabilities

00:17:47.940 will end. And a lot of you have reached out to me about this, understandably upset because you have

00:17:54.900 a child with special needs or maybe you're a special needs teacher. And unfortunately, private schools

00:18:00.540 tend to not have the resources for special needs kids. Like I went to a Christian school growing up

00:18:08.740 and there was some support for kids who maybe had ADD or ADHD, but there wasn't a special education

00:18:15.660 department. That's just very rare. I can think of one Christian school I know that really had like

00:18:21.080 pretty robust support for kids with autism and different kinds of learning differences.

00:18:26.140 Most kids, most parents of kids with Down syndrome and other more serious learning differences have

00:18:34.700 to go to public school. And so you're hearing from outlets that all of those programs are going to end

00:18:41.320 and that's understandably scary. But the truth is, is that the Individuals with Disabilities Education

00:18:47.340 Act, which gives these kids a right to an education, will remain in place. But the management

00:18:54.900 of these programs will shift to the Department of Health and Human Services. Again, this is an effort

00:19:01.060 to get rid of the democratic bloat is what I accidentally said, but just bureaucratic bloat is

00:19:07.900 what I meant. But it's kind of the same thing. And to make this more efficient and to give more

00:19:13.940 responsibility, more oversight to the state and local communities, because that's, you know, really a

00:19:19.860 conservative tenant, that the closer you are to the people that you're serving, the better you will

00:19:26.140 do at actually serving them because you know their needs better. That's why we have the system that we

00:19:32.000 do with representatives and senators and an electoral college, why we don't just have a pure democracy 0.96

00:19:37.980 and one big federal government like people like AOC would want. Another myth is that access to Pell

00:19:44.960 Grants will end. So Pell Grants are federal financial aid awards given to undergraduate students

00:19:50.580 to help pay for higher education. They don't need to be repaid and eligibility hinges on a variety of

00:20:00.100 factors. Some people are saying this is going to be over now. Well, that's not true. The Pell Grant

00:20:04.660 program was created before the Department of Education. It's going to remain in place. But just like

00:20:10.580 the whole student loan process and program, it's going to be shifted to the small business

00:20:15.340 administration. Another myth that you're seeing is that school meal programs will end. While this

00:20:21.380 has nothing to do with the Department of Education, actually, this is already under the Department of

00:20:26.380 Agriculture. And I will take every opportunity to remind people that the administration that threatened

00:20:32.700 to take away school lunches from poor students at schools that received federal funding was the

00:20:39.720 Biden administration who said, if you do not comply with our rewrite of Title IX, which says that you

00:20:46.320 cannot discriminate in spaces according to so-called gender identity, meaning you have to allow boys into 1.00

00:20:55.140 girls' locker rooms and girls' bathrooms if they quote-unquote identify as a boy. If you do not

00:21:00.560 comply with that school, we will take away your SNAP program and we will not give you free lunches and

00:21:06.860 breakfast for your poor students. That's what the Biden administration did. That's what the Department

00:21:12.480 of Agriculture under the directive of the Biden administration did. If you don't allow boys

00:21:18.080 into girls' spaces, we will take away food from poor children. Okay? That's verifiable. You can look it up 1.00

00:21:25.080 yourself. We've talked about it many, many times. So I don't want to hear anything from Democrats,

00:21:29.600 oh, taking away school lunches. One, it's not true under this executive order. And two, I didn't

00:21:34.600 see a single one of you complaining about that when the Biden administration did it. Evil all around.

00:21:41.680 Another myth. American education will suffer. Look, American education is suffering. It's suffering.

00:21:48.880 Has American education gotten better or worse since 1979 when the department was established? It's

00:21:55.680 gotten worse by every metric. The Department of Education has not closed achievement gaps or made

00:22:01.560 education spending more efficient, according to Heritage. And I would agree. Students, teachers,

00:22:05.400 and taxpayers are better served by ending this failed experiment. So why was the Department of

00:22:11.300 Education even instituted? Congress created it in 1979 at the urging of President Jimmy Carter,

00:22:17.040 who received a first-ever presidential endorsement from the country's largest teachers' union shortly

00:22:21.900 after pledging to the union his support for a separate Department of Education. The department

00:22:27.340 now oversees education policy and administers funding for school programs and for individuals like,

00:22:35.560 you know, the loans. The Department of Education spent $268 billion in fiscal year 2024. And some fun

00:22:46.700 facts, taxpayers, that's you and me. We spent $200 billion extra at the federal level on schools

00:22:54.420 through the Department of Education during the COVID-19 pandemic. So this is combined allocations from

00:23:02.380 the CARES Act and from the CRRSA Act and the American Rescue Plan. All of these pieces of legislation

00:23:12.820 gave more funding to the education department, which is actually insane because as we'll talk about,

00:23:20.140 it was the education department along with the teachers' unions that were pushing for school

00:23:23.280 shutdowns. And yet they were saying, we need more money. We need more money, which is a pattern from

00:23:27.860 the DOE and these teachers' unions. So that is on top of the more than $60 billion that the institution

00:23:35.160 spends annually, that we spend annually on federal school funding. So has this translated into student

00:23:44.640 betterment, higher student aptitude? Just if we look at over the past few years, okay, we've spent

00:23:50.780 $260 billion over the past few years through the Department of Education on public schools. Well,

00:23:59.980 today, American reading and math scores are near historical lows. This year, this is mentioned

00:24:07.400 in Trump's executive order. This year's National Assessment of Educational Progress showed that

00:24:13.020 national scores are below pre-pandemic levels in all tested grades and subjects, okay? So that is

00:24:21.380 reading, that is math, that is science. When you look at every grade in public schools, they are doing

00:24:27.840 worse than they were in 2019. Okay, let's look at the bigger picture. Let's go back even further.

00:24:37.060 Stats show increase in spending while student aptitude has decreased. So federal spending growth in 1979,

00:24:46.080 when the DOE was established, its budget was approximately $14 billion. This equates to about

00:24:52.560 $57 billion in today's dollars. By fiscal year 2024, the DOE's net spending reached $267.9 billion.

00:25:01.660 Adjusted for inflation from 1980, this reflects a real increase of 371% since its inception. And maybe

00:25:09.220 you're thinking, okay, well, we've got more people here. We've got a lot more people. We've got more

00:25:13.600 public schools than we did. So we needed that increase in spending. Okay, well, how has it worked out?

00:25:19.040 Per-pupil federal spending has risen. So this is something that you hear a lot from the public

00:25:25.380 school advocates, from the teachers unions, that we need more money. We need more money. We're not

00:25:30.120 spending enough money. But per-pupil federal spending has risen since 1980. 1980, federal

00:25:38.320 contributions to K-12 education were about $300 per pupil. Okay, only $300 from our federal tax dollars.

00:25:45.540 By 2021 to 2022, federal funding per pupil hit approximately $3,171 per student. Okay,

00:25:57.820 so we're not just talking about an increase in population. And so we're spending about

00:26:01.560 the same amount even adjusted for inflation per student with more students. No, we are spending

00:26:07.640 a lot more per student on a lot more students. So how has it worked out for us as we have increased

00:26:14.700 our tax spending? The National Assessment of Educational Progress provides this kind of

00:26:19.520 long-term data for student performance. So we'll get into those stats to look at just exactly

00:26:25.040 how we are doing. Thanks to the Department of Education and our tax dollars in just a second.

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00:28:32.680 All right. For 17-year-olds, reading scores averaged about 285 in 1971, remained at 285 in 2019,

00:28:44.200 showing no improvement despite spending increases. Math scores for the same group actually fell

00:28:50.480 from 304 in 1973 to 300 in 2019. And also, like, I would say that it's probably worse than that,

00:28:59.420 that the standards and the testing and the questions have actually changed since 1979. The

00:29:05.460 standards just aren't as rigorous as they used to be. The 2022 NAEP results showed sharper declines. So

00:29:13.520 it kind of looked like it was a little bit steady in 2019. But man, we've taken a huge dip after COVID.

00:29:19.500 The 2022 results show that fourth-grade reading scores fell from 219 to 217. Only 31 percent of

00:29:30.260 fourth-graders were reading proficiently. Only 40 percent of fourth-graders were proficient in math

00:29:35.760 in the 2022 assessment. In lower-performing, fourth and eighth-graders posted the worst reading scores

00:29:44.480 in over 30 years. For 13-year-olds, 2023 NAEP scores dropped to 256 in reading, down four points since

00:29:55.080 1971, and 269 in math, down five points since 1973, reverting to levels last seen in the 1970s or earlier

00:30:04.720 per NCES 2023 reports. I'm not trying to be offensive, but 19.5 on the ACT is a very low score.

00:30:25.480 It's a very low score. For that to be the average score of the ACT right now means that we got

00:30:33.120 problems. We got problems. And it's not. I'm not trying to say that a student is inherently dumb

00:30:39.500 or does not have the capacity to be better. And I don't think that standardized tests are the end-all,

00:30:45.680 be-all for measuring someone's IQ or aptitude, but it is an indicator. And 19.5 is low for ACTs.

00:30:54.420 It means something is wrong. And the fact that we have not seen increases in all of these metrics,

00:31:00.680 but we've actually seen dips in these metrics, despite the fact that we are spending so much

00:31:07.440 more per pupil than we were in 1979, means that there's a big problem. I really encourage everyone

00:31:14.860 to go read, or sorry, listen to, I think you actually can read the transcripts, but listen to

00:31:20.980 sold a story. It's a podcast that I listened to a couple of years ago. The facts are actually a lot

00:31:27.000 worse than the ones that I just read. 80%, I believe, and you can go listen to it and fact check

00:31:34.480 me, but it's about 80% of Black fourth graders specifically right now cannot read. Can't. Did you 1.00

00:31:42.820 know that there are 8th graders, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th graders in this country who read at a

00:31:49.140 kindergarten level? It was, what was that stat, the Baltimore school from a couple years ago,

00:31:56.320 I remember Fox News reported on this, that it was something like 85% of the graduating class could

00:32:02.380 not read or do math at a middle school level. Okay, so our requirements have changed. Our rigor has

00:32:11.040 changed. Aptitude has lowered, and yet we are spending more and more money. So what in the world is

00:32:18.580 happening? Well, we are replacing time spent in math and reading, teaching the building blocks of

00:32:29.040 education and critical thinking with progressivism. Christopher Ruffo reported, he reports on a lot of this,

00:32:37.920 the Department of Education was caught funding a teacher training program implying that babies are

00:32:46.500 racist. And so this is a program, it looks like it was published in 2019, again, through the Department

00:32:53.300 of Education. Did you know racial awareness in the early years, talks about at three months, at nine

00:32:59.740 months, at two years, at three years, at five years, and talking about how basically at young ages,

00:33:06.380 kids show racial preferences, that they can actually be racist, and that that is something that needs to

00:33:14.080 be trained out at school. So this is a government funded, Department of Education funded program

00:33:20.580 for teachers that they are learning how to basically weed out or try to get out the so-called 0.99

00:33:28.100 supposed racial biases in the five-year-olds that they might be teaching in pre-K.

00:33:35.040 Okay. The Department of Education granted a $25 million grant to the National Comprehensive

00:33:43.280 Center. This is a program under the DOE designed to enhance instruction quality and close achievement

00:33:48.140 gaps. The Comprehensive Center argues that teacher evaluations and standards are weaponized against

00:33:55.580 teachers of color because the standards use terms like professionalism and communicates in

00:34:01.660 appropriate ways, urging that appropriate only means white ways of expression. In one training,

00:34:10.660 the Comprehensive Center instructed teachers to flick that white man off your shoulder to resist

00:34:15.300 settler patriarchy and the white gaze. Here's top four. 0.51

00:34:19.620 Teacher evaluation tools are being weaponized, and they're in particular being weaponized against

00:34:25.580 teachers of color. And the way that they're being weaponized is through the language of professionalism.

00:34:33.920 For example, I'll give you a concrete example. The use of terminology such as communicates in

00:34:40.480 appropriate ways. Who gets to decide what is appropriate? And that's typically white ways of expression. 0.94

00:34:47.580 Okay. So this is a center, again, a program funded by the Department of Education that is supposed to be

00:34:55.780 training teachers. Of course, the Department of Education over the years has shown itself to be

00:35:00.200 very progressive. We've got this one post on formerly known as Twitter from the Department of Education,

00:35:07.920 a happy pride month. It's got the transgender flag on there. Everyone, no matter who they are,

00:35:13.600 whom they love has an equal place in our democracy. LGBTQI plus. Youth deserving education free from 0.96

00:35:20.820 discrimination and harassment. That means that you need to allow boys into girls' bathrooms. I mean, 1.00

00:35:30.380 there's no reason for a Department of Education to be promoting this kind of thing. Why would it have

00:35:36.880 any say whatsoever on a child's preference for a certain gender or their so-called sexual orientation

00:35:49.460 or their sexual desires or what they think about the validity of their genitalia? I mean, they shouldn't

00:35:55.940 have anything to do with this kind of backwards ideology, especially when you're talking about

00:35:59.780 minors. It's freaking weird and creepy. Also, they posted in 2023, we celebrate and honor the qualities 0.86

00:36:05.740 that make us unique, stronger, and richer education experience for all. Pride is about inclusivity and

00:36:12.080 diversity, they said. And then, of course, in COVID, you'll remember that we spent $200 billion

00:36:19.200 extra on COVID during that time period through various pieces of legislation.

00:36:26.960 And it was the DOE that said in 2021 that we could only seat one student per row, that we need to

00:36:36.580 maintain the correct use of masks. That also inhibited learning during COVID. They pushed the COVID

00:36:43.240 vaccine on kids in 2022. They pushed the booster for kids in 2022. And remember, all of those extra

00:36:55.240 billions of dollars sent to the Department of Education and they were pushing COVID propaganda.

00:37:02.820 Now, just a little bit about the teachers unions. I've talked about the teachers unions a lot. They

00:37:08.180 are corrupt entities and they contribute to the bureaucratic bloat that is in not just the Department

00:37:15.140 of Education, but also the public schools in general, individual public schools. Your school

00:37:22.640 probably gets, except if you're in some rural areas, probably gets a lot of money that is not

00:37:29.320 actually translating into student success, is also not translating into raising your salary as a

00:37:35.620 teacher. But you've probably noticed that there are a lot more administrators than there used to be.

00:37:41.640 This is called a bureaucracy and it gives the teachers unions more power. It gives the administrative

00:37:47.860 bloat more power, but it doesn't actually help a school run more efficiently or spend your tax

00:37:55.680 dollars more effectively. The National Education Association, the largest labor union, the American

00:38:03.720 Federation of Teachers, have lobbied the Department of Education to continuously increase federal spending

00:38:09.580 on education. The centralized nature of the DOE allows unions a central place where they can advocate

00:38:16.880 for programs that benefit themselves, hire more staff, increase their own membership. For example,

00:38:23.780 increasing federal two spending allows the unions to advocate for hiring more staff, giving them more

00:38:31.600 members, that gives them more money. They get paid. The union leaders get paid more because of that.

00:38:38.440 The DOE distributed $190 billion in COVID relief funds with unions like the NEA reportedly influencing

00:38:46.380 guidelines to favor hiring unionized staff over non-union contractors. Emails uncovered in 2022 showed

00:38:54.680 that the American Federation of Teachers leaders directly shaped CDC guidance through DOE contacts,

00:39:02.780 pushing to delay reopenings and therefore keeping teachers on paid leave longer rather than prioritizing

00:39:11.000 students. So the two big teachers unions. So the two big teachers unions are notorious for funding Democrats and

00:39:15.820 liberal causes. In the 2024 presidential election cycle, NEA gave $3.2 million to Democrats, $29.2 million to liberal

00:39:25.980 groups. The AFT gave $2.8 million to Democrats and $4.4 million to liberal groups. So they are donating to

00:39:36.620 Democrats using your tax dollars through programs, through support that they are getting through the

00:39:41.840 Department of Education. So your tax dollars are funding progressive groups and liberal campaigns

00:39:48.920 through the teachers unions and through the Department of Education. And that is true of all different kinds of

00:39:55.920 parts of the federal bureaucracy, which is exactly why Democrats do not like Elon Musk. That is why they are

00:40:05.500 saying nothing about the terrorism against Tesla owners and Tesla dealerships. They don't like Elon Musk because

00:40:13.820 they don't want the bloat and the corrupt racket that they've got going on to end. It is how their campaigns are

00:40:21.440 funded. It's how they stay in power. USAID and the Department of Education are two of the biggest perpetrators of this

00:40:29.440 very corrupt relationship that is going on that you are funding with your tax dollars. So I think that this is all

00:40:35.500 excellent. I'm glad this is happening. I want education to improve in the United States. I think a great

00:40:42.320 first step is for education to go to the states, to go to local communities. And honestly, I have not heard

00:40:47.880 a good argument against that. All right. So I hope that at least answered some of your questions about

00:40:55.320 that. There's a lot more we could discuss, but we got to get into a couple other things. Next sponsor for the

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00:42:11.180 Okay, let's talk about this video that I saw going around on X. And it's Cristiano Ronaldo,

00:42:18.700 the soccer player, if you don't know, and his girlfriend. So they have a Netflix documentary

00:42:24.920 right now on Cristiano Ronaldo. And there's a video that has gone viral of him being interviewed

00:42:33.020 with his longtime girlfriend. And the interviewer asks, like, when are you going to get married?

00:42:39.280 They've got kids together. They've been together forever. And here is his response, thought seven.

00:42:44.540 Okay, if you're listening to that, I have no idea what she said.

00:43:14.620 I'm not given anything about what she said. I don't know what she said. But he said,

00:43:21.320 I always tell her when we get that click, that is the answer that he has, that he has for the

00:43:29.740 reporter who asks, so like, when are you going to get married? Y'all have been committed to each other

00:43:33.660 for so long. He says, when we get that click, like everything in our life, and she knows what I'm

00:43:38.840 talking about. It could be in a year, it could be in six months, or it could be in a month. I'm a

00:43:43.640 thousand percent sure that it will happen. Let me break it to you. Spoiler alert, it's not going

00:43:48.760 to happen. Girl, why? He is getting the milk for free. He's getting the cheese. He's getting the

00:43:54.680 cream. He's getting the ice cream. He's getting everything that you can get for milk, from milk,

00:43:59.980 for absolutely free. There is no reason for him to buy the cow. And also, so this took us into kind

00:44:07.480 a rabbit hole of Ronaldo and who he is. And he's actually kind of just like a strange guy. He has

00:44:13.800 multiple kids from different women, but we don't know who the women are, because he used surrogates

00:44:20.640 to get these women, or to get these women, to get these children. And his current girlfriend is not

00:44:27.720 the mother of all of his children, even though they've been together for a long time, even through

00:44:33.020 the births of some of these children. Okay. So they've been together since 2017. I think I said

00:44:38.820 they've been together for 10 years, but I guess it's only been eight years. They met at a Gucci store

00:44:43.940 where she worked. Ronaldo had twins, Eva Murillo and Mateo, who were born on June 8th, 2017. Okay.

00:44:52.900 Via surrogacy in California. Again, we do not know who the mother is. It's not her. This is through

00:44:59.980 a surrogate. So he, maybe he actually was with the woman that he created these children with,

00:45:07.680 and they are her eggs, but it could also be just an egg seller. So he bought these eggs. He rented

00:45:13.040 this womb because he wanted children, even though he wasn't with anyone. Rodriguez, his current

00:45:19.940 girlfriend says that she has taken on the mom role for all of the kids. Because Bree, you said that he had

00:45:28.080 other kids before 2017 too. I don't see that on here. Yeah. It's, it's under the, uh, family

00:45:34.100 structure section. He only has one. He has one other kid from 2010, from 2010. He doesn't have any

00:45:43.660 kids with his current girlfriend. He does have one now, or actually they have two. They had a child

00:45:49.440 in 2017, right after they got together. And then they had twins and one of them passed away.

00:45:55.960 Okay. So he has twins and one other child with his current girlfriend, naturally, like she gave birth 0.67

00:46:03.580 to them, but through different surrogates, supposedly different surrogates, definitely at least one

00:46:08.380 surrogate. He had twins in 2017 as well. And he has a 15 year old son that he had via surrogate in 2010.

00:46:16.700 Yeah. If I'm understanding things correctly. Yes. And she says, his current girlfriend says,

00:46:22.840 yeah, I basically have become their mom, but he says that's not true.

00:46:26.780 Well, he hasn't said that's not true, but every time he talks about it, he calls himself a single

00:46:32.200 parent. So in effect, yeah, he's saying he's the parent, she's not. So yeah.

00:46:38.020 Okay. And he has said that he's not going to share the identity of his first son's mother. He might

00:46:46.560 when the time feels right. I guess it's got to click again. It's just got to click. And that

00:46:51.220 him being a single parent is not a problem. He said in the world, many kids don't have a mom,

00:46:57.280 don't have dads or dads die or moms die. Cristiano, that's his son's name, has a dad and

00:47:02.700 unbelievable. Wait, is he saying that? He's talking about himself?

00:47:06.660 Yeah. He's saying. An unbelievable dad? Yes.

00:47:10.400 Okay. I'm going to write myself a Mother's Day card this year to my kids. You have an unbelievable

00:47:17.940 mom from me. You're welcome. An unbelievable dad, a grandfather, a grandmother. I have the support of

00:47:26.480 my family. So when he calls himself a single dad, Bri, like, do you think that he was the one like

00:47:32.680 changing the diapers, taking him to play dates and things like that? When he's a single dad,

00:47:38.460 what do you think he means? Yeah. It's hard to imagine that he, a professional soccer player,

00:47:44.320 has time to be doing things like that for multiple kids. Yeah. So I think he loves taking the credit,

00:47:51.420 but it is kind of weird that he has like taken the initiative to have more kids seemingly without

00:47:57.600 a partner, just himself. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I'm sure he has tons of help and they're

00:48:05.120 raising kids, but. Right. And it's very strange to basically say, also, he doesn't need a mom.

00:48:12.020 Yeah. He doesn't need a mom. Well, that's just really sad. I guarantee you there are some serious

00:48:18.500 issues there. Everyone has a mom. It's just a matter of if you know your mom or not. And motherlessness 1.00

00:48:23.720 or fatherlessness is supposed to be a tragedy. It's not something that we should purposely contrive,

00:48:29.920 as you guys have heard me talk about many times when it comes to surrogacy. And just again, for

00:48:34.060 the record, I'm not just against surrogacy when it comes to same sex couples. I am against sperm 0.90

00:48:39.960 and egg selling and surrogacy for all different people because it creates a broken situation.

00:48:46.140 Adoption redeems a situation that already exists. It solves the problem. But surrogacy,

00:48:53.020 sperm, egg selling, all of this, it creates the broken situation. It creates the problem.

00:48:59.780 So he obviously he's got a he's he's got a history there. He's got some problematic sexual

00:49:07.420 ethics, reproductive ethics, but also when it comes to his relationships. And, you know,

00:49:12.680 this is kind of like a trend that's been talked about the forever girlfriends or the stay at home

00:49:16.880 girlfriends. We talked about it at the time when we saw this going on on TikTok. But here is a

00:49:22.320 here's a video that went viral on TikTok that shows that this is something I guess this is a subset of

00:49:28.760 social media where girls are bragging about being stay at home girlfriends. It's sodate.

00:49:34.220 This is my day in the life as a stay at home girlfriend. The first thing I do is take my

00:49:39.480 aloe shot. I love having this on an empty stomach. And I take my greens. Then I get straight to making

00:49:47.600 Luke's coffee because he's definitely a caffeine first thing in the morning kind of guy. I am adding

00:49:54.340 some honey and cream. And I made these cookies yesterday. So I'm going to give him a couple of

00:49:59.160 those to eat with his coffee. Then I love to open all the blinds in the house and get all the sunlight I

00:50:05.860 can and make the bed, of course, to keep the house tidy and looking its best.

00:50:13.720 OK, so he's got a maid. He's got a cook. He's got someone that will sleep with him. And he does not 0.62

00:50:21.300 have to commit. Marriage is more than just a piece of paper. It is not just a commitment. It's not just

00:50:27.640 a contract. It is supposed to be a covenant. It's supposed to be really difficult to get out of for a

00:50:33.800 reason. You're supposed to be bonded not only for your sake, but also for the sake of the children

00:50:39.200 that marriage is supposed to, in principle, create. This is disordered. And it leaves this

00:50:44.980 woman in particular, especially if she does not have a job, extremely vulnerable. Girl, what you are 1.00

00:50:51.000 doing is preparing him for his wife. And look, guys love to work hard for things. You give them a goal,

00:50:57.900 they want to go after it. They want to be able to sacrifice. They want to be able to prove

00:51:02.700 that they have endurance, they have perseverance, that they are strong, brave, courageous, all of

00:51:08.020 that. If you give them everything they want easily and they have nothing to pursue, they eventually

00:51:14.880 lose interest. I'm talking, of course, like pre-marriage. After that, he's still motivated by

00:51:22.280 the drive and the journey and the challenge of providing and protecting his family. But before

00:51:30.020 that, the pursuit is extremely important for a man. It's how God wired them. And if you are giving

00:51:36.500 them everything, then you are undermining his instinctive and inherent need to chase after

00:51:43.600 something in a healthy and respectful way, of course. Here's what I would tell someone if

00:51:49.340 they were in this position. I would tell them that you are worth committing to. And if he wanted to

00:52:00.100 commit to you, he would. And he would have already done it. Now, maybe there are some extenuating

00:52:05.380 situations and exceptions out there where you're not getting married or not getting engaged right away,

00:52:11.780 but there's never an excuse to live with a man like this. There is never an excuse to play house

00:52:17.820 and to play marriage and to be his stay-at-home girlfriend and take everything special away

00:52:25.680 from marriage before you even get there. And to dismiss the need for commitment and for sacrifice

00:52:35.020 by simply so easily and cheaply giving over your body and your time and your energy and your talent

00:52:41.460 to a man who does not love you enough to really commit. This is what I would say to Cristiano's girlfriend

00:52:49.320 too. And I think a lot of guys or a lot of girls rather think, well, if I leave him, I will never find

00:52:57.100 someone else. I can't do better than this. And what if I never do? What if I stay single forever? And I would

00:53:05.780 say, first of all, there probably is someone out there better. There just probably is. There probably

00:53:11.680 is a man out there who would pursue you and who would commit to you and would make sacrifices for

00:53:18.180 you and who would honor you. But even if there's not, it is better. It would be better to be single 0.53

00:53:25.840 than this. At least you would be single and be able to preserve some self-respect instead of

00:53:33.460 constantly worrying and thinking, is he ever going to see me as good enough? And just the anxiety that

00:53:42.960 comes with wondering if you are ever going to be what clicks for him. And what is it? What is it about

00:53:50.780 me? What is it that I'm not doing that is making him scared or not want to be exclusively committed

00:53:59.860 to me for life? And you don't deserve that kind of anxiety and that kind of worry and fear forever.

00:54:07.860 There's so much solace that comes with covenantal marriage. And that is why God, that's part of why

00:54:15.060 God created it. And just from a Christian perspective, it is only man, woman, and marriage that can reflect

00:54:22.900 the spiritual eternal reality of Christ in the church. Girlfriend, boyfriend, they don't do that.

00:54:27.780 God cares about your heart. He cares about your body. He cares about your soul. He cares about your mind.

00:54:33.500 He created marriage as a safe space for all of those things. That's how it's supposed to be.

00:54:39.180 And going outside of those parameters is always going to have consequences. Namely, it's going to break

00:54:44.600 your heart and hurt your body. So just keep that in mind. You need better than that, girl. Need better than that.

00:54:51.020 All right. Let me tell you about our next sponsor. And then Brie and I will do some quick severance talk.

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00:55:59.080 Okay, so our fellow severance watcher, Nate, is not here. We have a substitute for Nate. And is it because,

00:56:08.200 is it specifically because he didn't want to hear spoilers?

00:56:10.840 It might be.

00:56:11.860 Because I respect that.

00:56:12.940 I told him, I told him, please finish by Tuesday.

00:56:16.840 That was his homework assignment.

00:56:18.280 And he said, I'll try my best. And he may not have.

00:56:20.800 He may not have. So he's our wonderful camera operator. And he and his wife, I think, are behind

00:56:28.940 us. And I was sincerely worried when I knew we were going to talk about this, that we would spoil it

00:56:33.460 for him. We would have made him go out of the room or something because I don't like spoilers.

00:56:37.380 Okay, so I'm warning all of you out there. If you have not watched severance, we there will be

00:56:43.100 spoilers here. If you know, not everyone in here can go out of the room, because then we wouldn't be

00:56:48.460 able to do it. But some of you might if you want to avoid the spoilers. Let's do a disclaimer. Let's

00:56:54.300 do a disclaimer, just like you give your disclaimer when you listen to Taylor Swift. Yeah, we do not

00:56:59.360 endorse all of the themes or all of the content of severance. Of course, I'll just give a warning.

00:57:06.260 There are like there's one like gay relationship that you don't really even like see very much

00:57:13.900 of, but it's just there. It's part of the plot, which they could have definitely done

00:57:17.800 without could have been a woman. Yes. There is a couple sex scenes. But again, like for 0.99

00:57:25.780 TV these days, very mild. Yeah. And like I always fast forward through those. I just even

00:57:32.380 if I didn't wasn't morally against that, I find it really uncomfortable. And there's cussing.

00:57:39.440 There's yeah, and there's I would say some demonic themes. Would you say there are? Yeah.

00:57:44.700 Did you notice? I mean, this is kind of just like all over the place. We're just

00:57:48.240 shooting from the hip here. But there's like definitely Baphomet. Yes.

00:57:53.400 Symbolism. Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, there was so much speculation. And again, we're jumping

00:57:59.260 around. But you know, the goat scene in the last episode, there was so much speculation

00:58:04.220 about what the goats were for and people were coming up with all these theories. And I saw

00:58:08.200 a tweet after the finale that was like, oh, so it literally was just goat sacrifice. Yeah.

00:58:13.260 I think they were probably trying to implant one of those chips that had like a human mind

00:58:19.700 in it or something into a goat. There's probably some weird experiment, but it did look like

00:58:23.860 they were just sacrificing the goat for religious reasons. Well, yeah, because that's basically

00:58:29.020 what Mr. Drummond said. Yeah. When she said, you know, how many of these am I going to have

00:58:33.880 to sacrifice? And he said as many as I don't know if he said the board or the leadership as

00:58:38.860 many as they want. I thought she was going to shoot him right then. Yeah. By the way.

00:58:44.500 Yeah. And that's not actually what happened. Okay. Let's talk about the goat people for a 1.00

00:58:50.060 second. I didn't know what direction we were going to go. And we could talk about this for

00:58:53.900 probably hours and hours. Yeah. So the whole time we're trying to figure out what the goats

00:58:58.240 are. And I thought actually that this was just going to be a random thing that they never

00:59:04.400 followed up on just to like kind of make us wonder. Yeah. The goat people. Who do you think 1.00

00:59:12.020 the goat people are? Because they are strange and very different than macro data refinement?

00:59:18.740 Well, my thinking was always just that like these innies are essentially like born. They

00:59:26.680 have some knowledge of how to be an adult, I guess, but they're essentially born when they

00:59:31.140 are like created. And I feel like the goat people are weird because all they know is taking 1.00

00:59:36.960 care of goats. And probably some of them only like are hanging out with goats. So I never thought

00:59:42.840 that much about that. Yeah. Like why they're so weird other than maybe that's just how their innies

00:59:48.000 were like taught to be. Yeah. And they're all just kind of a product of their environment and

00:59:54.220 training and all of that. Okay. This is probably thinking too far. I don't know. Have you listened

00:59:58.660 to any of the Severance podcast? A little bit. Yeah. I've listened to some of the episodes and it

01:00:04.000 doesn't really like give anything away. So after I listened to it, I was like, oh, maybe we're

01:00:08.300 thinking too hard about this. But I do have a question about if any of these people were dead

01:00:16.920 and were revived. And because I would say some of the goat people look like they had been buried 1.00

01:00:23.560 for a long time and had been brought back to life and almost look like they were from a different era.

01:00:29.360 Now, I think your theory is could totally be it to kind of like Dwight and his brother. Like they

01:00:35.400 kind of look like that because they lived on a beet farm in the office. So like they it could just be

01:00:40.040 that. But I did think are these people basically like dug up from cemetery and revived to do this job?

01:00:52.920 I don't know what you think about that. But that also leads to my question about Gemma and who she

01:00:57.080 really is and what happened to her to get her inside. Yeah, because there were theories. There

01:01:02.160 were lots of theories that Gemma did die and they just took her body and created Miss Casey out of

01:01:08.780 her. And now we have more answers. What's the answer? What's more answer? Well, we have more

01:01:13.520 answers in that we know that the person hood of Gemma still exists because she recognizes Mark in the

01:01:19.600 finale. Yeah. But yeah, we don't know if that's, you know, the exact same person or if something

01:01:26.000 weird and nefarious was going on with her body, we still don't know that for certain. I guess I

01:01:31.000 think it's safe to assume they faked her death and just kidnapped her and had her down there.

01:01:37.900 But yeah, I guess we don't really know. No, we don't know. But there's one comment now. We don't

01:01:42.900 know how much she knows. So the lady, I forget her name, that was helping reintegrate Mark. 0.99

01:01:49.060 Oh, yeah. I forget her name, too. But yeah, she made a comment when they were like they were in

01:01:55.540 the basement and he's like looked at her remains, Gemma's remains or what he thought were Gemma's

01:01:59.980 remains. And he she said, is that her? And he was like, yeah, I think so. Or I thought so. And then

01:02:07.060 he was trying to ask, like, how would they have gotten Gemma? And she said they know people at the

01:02:13.820 morgue. Now, I don't know if she knows that for sure or if she's just saying that because that's

01:02:22.720 the interesting storyline to me. Are they reviving people? Are they reviving people, giving them new

01:02:28.500 consciences? Is that Cold Harbor? Like, is that the project of because I still haven't totally figured

01:02:33.800 out like what they were trying to accomplish and what they felt like was so new for humanity

01:02:39.880 right, Gemma. And what's weird also is when James Egan, the father, when he comes down and he sees

01:02:46.980 Heli sitting there and he weirdest interaction and he goes, I don't love my daughter, Helena,

01:02:54.520 but I don't see Kier in her, but I see Kier in you. And it makes me wonder if their whole goal

01:03:01.000 is to create Kier, the person, create his consciousness again and like implant him into an

01:03:08.140 actual person so he can live forever, essentially, if he's their religious figure. I don't know if

01:03:14.440 they'll go down that route, but I feel like it's clear that they're going to use Heli as like now the

01:03:20.800 test subject for things because they see Kier in her and she seems like the new person. I'm curious

01:03:28.140 what you think about the ending and what you think about Mark S making the decision that he made

01:03:34.640 because it's very contentious online. Okay. Can I tell you what I hated and I thought was so,

01:03:40.440 I loved this show and that the acting was so good. I just felt like just from amateur

01:03:46.160 perspective, like the directing was so good. Everything was amazing. And I thought it was

01:03:52.860 so sloppy and so rushed when they did the camcorder thing. I thought the camcorder thing was so cheesy

01:03:58.840 and lame. Like, I don't know how else they could have done that. And we did find out some important

01:04:02.360 information. Any Audi Marker, you know, communicating there. It went on too long.

01:04:08.240 I thought it was so lame. And of course, I'm mad at any Mark at the end of it because Audi Mark made

01:04:15.320 his like home run argument when he was like, whatever you feel for Heli, multiply that by thousands.

01:04:20.880 And that's what I feel for Gemma. So you can see why I have to get her out. And like any Mark is like,

01:04:27.420 no, I don't get that. I totally disagree. What? You love your feeling about it? Yes. I disagree

01:04:36.620 about that. And I disagree. I'm not mad at what he did at the end. I know. I know. Okay. So the

01:04:43.600 camcorder scene I thought was really interesting just artistically. Yeah. If I may, because blue,

01:04:50.220 the blue coloring on, on Audi Mark and the red coloring on any Mark, I just thought was really

01:04:56.320 interesting. The fact that it's on a camcorder because everything in Cure Town or whatever it's

01:05:00.820 called is like old, old, everything. Yeah. Even the outside world, which we don't have answers for

01:05:06.980 yet as to why. That's a very, that's like, I feel like you see that a lot. You even see that a little

01:05:12.860 bit in like stranger things. And like, there are different shows that do that. I feel like it's

01:05:17.860 just creepy. Yeah. But those shows, most of those shows are like, are actually shot in the eighties,

01:05:23.840 but I feel like, and maybe someone out there can remember. I feel like there are shows that have

01:05:28.080 done this kind of thing before where it's hard to tell what era they're in. Oh yeah. True. True.

01:05:33.860 I think this is one though, where they very intentionally are dating it. They're not trying

01:05:38.400 to leave it ambiguous. They're like, this is not in 2024 where we're setting it. Yeah. All the cars

01:05:44.240 are old. All of the technology within Lumen is like old. But they don't match decades. Like they've,

01:05:49.960 some people have smartphones. Some people have flip phones. The cars are from the 1950s, the 1970s,

01:05:56.380 the 1980s. Um, yeah. The hair, the styles, huh? Have we seen a smartphone? Yeah. You've seen a

01:06:02.980 smartphone. Um, Mark and his sister are going back and forth on a smartphone, but they also have flip

01:06:09.760 phones that are work phones. Um, and all of the style is you could see it as seventies, but you could

01:06:16.360 also see it as current. Like Helly's clothes are current. Sure. And their suits are current.

01:06:22.320 Mark's hair might be seventies. I think it is purposely very ambiguous. Ambiguous. See,

01:06:27.400 I felt like that on the, on the inside that they purposely made it ambiguous. Maybe it's on both

01:06:32.180 though. But, um, I forgot what I was saying now. Sorry. Why we brought that up to begin with.

01:06:38.280 Um, well the end, like you like. Oh yeah. Okay. I like the camcorder scene just because I thought

01:06:44.380 it gave a good, it was such good tension with him himself and him realizing, oh, maybe I can't trust

01:06:51.420 this person who has enslaved me, even though he is apologizing. I thought it was great. Um,

01:06:57.480 but the ending, um, I get it. I get it. I thought it was like a really romantic ending because a lot

01:07:04.720 of people are saying, well, he should have just sacrificed himself for his Audi. Why would he do

01:07:10.560 that? He has this idea of his own personhood that is separate from this person. He knows nothing about

01:07:16.800 other than that. They share a body on the outside. And he's, he went to all the trouble of saving his

01:07:22.240 wife. And then he chooses to spend as much time as he can with the person that he loves because he

01:07:29.180 doesn't see himself as Audi Mark. He sees himself as any Mark. So I don't think he's doing something.

01:07:33.960 I mean, he's doing something selfish and that he's doing something for himself,

01:07:36.940 but he doesn't have any obligation in my mind to sacrifice himself for his Audi.

01:07:44.620 Okay. It's not, I, I just, I, I don't think that artistically it was the wrong choice. It makes it

01:07:51.840 interesting because now I think Gemma is going to want to rescue Mark real Mark because real Mark,

01:07:59.040 it's not just any Audi Mark. It's real Mark versus not real Mark because any Mark is, it doesn't have a

01:08:05.720 real life. He doesn't have a real life. It is not real. Like his, like his memory spanned back to

01:08:11.840 being on the conference room table. Like he, anything that is real about Mark is borrowed from

01:08:17.260 his Audi and the Audi is real and is in like covenant of marriage with like a real person who

01:08:24.680 was actually born. And I understand that Mark doesn't know, any Mark doesn't know that and can't

01:08:32.180 comprehend that. But there was a moment that Heli said, cause I understood this and I sympathize

01:08:37.780 with this when he was like, I don't even want to finish cold Harbor because I know what we have to

01:08:41.720 do. And he's like, I don't want to go out there. I want to stay here with you, which I thought was

01:08:47.140 sweet. And I understood. And Heli said, but I'm her. She understood that she said, but I'm her.

01:08:54.160 I'm Helena Egan. Okay. Yeah. And he got it. He was like, okay, this is hard for me to understand,

01:09:01.000 but I get it because that is true. That's the whole thing. She understood in that moment. I'm

01:09:05.660 her. I'm an Egan. I'm not just anyone. Like I am an Egan and you can't love me and we can't love

01:09:11.860 each other and we can't be together and we have no meaning. He understood it then. Now, what I didn't

01:09:16.820 understand is after the marching band came, why they stood around like for five minutes, y'all just had a

01:09:23.600 whole plan of how you had to sprint to go get Gemma. And so you finally did him and Gemma,

01:09:30.280 they get together. It's beautiful. She, as her innie is trusting enough to be like, okay,

01:09:36.040 I don't fully get this. Cause I have this conscious, uh, conscious over here, but I'm going to like

01:09:41.240 go to Mark. They're so excited. They're so together. He gets there, even knowing that Heli is Helena.

01:09:48.640 He still is like, he knows it. He does know it. He might not be able to feel it, but he knows it.

01:09:54.620 He's still like, and he knows any, cause he's integrated. So he knows that that is his wife.

01:10:00.800 He at least has a, some understanding that like, wow, they had a real marriage and a real relationship

01:10:07.120 and all of these things. And he still says, no, he still says no to that. Knowing what he knows.

01:10:16.480 And he goes to Heli, where the heck are they running? No one knows. Where are you running?

01:10:23.260 Are you running back to Mr. Milchick? Are you running back to Dylan? Where, where are you going?

01:10:27.780 Where are you even running to? I don't think that's the point though. Cause I, I think what

01:10:32.960 you said artistically, I think it's really beautiful because this, what he's communicating

01:10:39.280 is I don't care if it's 10 minutes and then they shoved me in an elevator and I become outing

01:10:44.080 Mark again. Why don't they just stand there? Yeah. Well, I don't know. I don't know why they

01:10:48.460 went and run, ran down the hallway. I don't know where they're going, but I think he probably

01:10:52.460 understands I'm not going to stay down here forever because obviously somehow my, someone's

01:10:58.420 going to put me in an elevator and I'm going to become outing Mark and my, and he will choose

01:11:02.500 to never come back here. So I think it's just. But you don't think he knows they were never

01:11:05.860 going to let him out again? They're never going to let him out. You don't think they're ever

01:11:09.880 going to let him out again? No. I mean, Drummond was about to kill him. Exactly. And I think

01:11:17.000 it's just like, they're going to let her out because she's an Egan. They're not going to

01:11:22.300 let him out. Maybe not. Because he's going to become like Miss Casey now. Oh, and be

01:11:29.040 tested. Yeah. Because they never finished Cold Harbor. Maybe. That's what I think. I

01:11:35.360 don't know. And she looked back at Miss Casey and I thought it was a glare. I did too at

01:11:43.240 first. The actress who plays her was like, oh no, she had empathy for her for the first

01:11:47.940 time. And I'm like, you didn't convey that at all. I thought that too. And when I saw

01:11:53.620 her make that face, I was like, oh, is she Helena right now? Me too. Maybe you're supposed

01:11:57.840 to. And Ben Stiller immediately was like, oh, there could be different interpretations

01:12:01.520 for that on the podcast because I don't even know. It's funny how like the actors don't

01:12:06.360 even necessarily know for sure what is being conveyed. Yeah. Okay. One more thing. This

01:12:15.100 could go on and on. This kept me up. Irving. What do you think happened to Irving? I have

01:12:22.940 my own theory. And what do you think was going on with him?

01:12:26.720 Like why he actually knew some of the stuff that was going on with Lumen? Yeah. I have

01:12:33.220 no idea. I have no idea. I guess we'll figure that out in the next seasons because he's not

01:12:38.660 gone forever. I do not think he's gone forever. People love him too much. Really? Yeah. I

01:12:44.180 don't think that they would do that. I don't know. I mean, I don't I don't know what your

01:12:49.340 theory is. I took it pretty much as like he he got away for a while, but he's probably

01:12:54.300 going to come back. And I think Bert was probably being generous in allowing him to escape.

01:13:01.240 That's that's your theory. Yeah. Okay. I love that. We like land in totally different places.

01:13:06.080 My theory is that he was a goon. Yeah. And because that's what Audi Irving thought. Yeah.

01:13:15.600 And knew somehow. We don't totally know how. I think that

01:13:21.160 that Lumen knew that Irving knew things and that Bert, the interaction between O and D,

01:13:33.740 their romance all along was planted and that they knew from the very beginning that this is how they

01:13:39.880 were going to coax him into this basically being taken out to pasture because you'll remember Irving,

01:13:47.760 he kept on falling asleep. And when he would fall asleep, he would see really scary stuff like

01:13:52.860 black lava. And obviously his Audi was painting this thing. So they knew that he knew things.

01:13:59.380 So they had to take him out somehow. And I think that he was 100 percent right when he knew that Bert

01:14:06.780 was a goon, a henchman for Lumen and would because he's like what he had written down that Bert read was

01:14:15.040 like he drives them places, but like we don't know. And then he literally says, OK, will you take

01:14:22.480 a ride with me? And Irving is like, oh, sure. I know that none of that stuff is true about you

01:14:28.820 anymore. I'll take a ride with you. Completely unrelated. Right. Yeah. So they take a ride.

01:14:33.320 He doesn't know where they're going. They go to this mysterious train station. He gets in a train

01:14:37.400 all by himself, goes away and is like la-di-da. He is convinced by Bert until the very end. It's kind of

01:14:43.980 like when you're putting your dog to sleep and you're like, oh, you're just taking a nap. It's

01:14:47.620 really sad. And Bert is like, wow, you're being so generous and kind. You're sending me off somewhere

01:14:52.120 because we can't ever be in love. And Bert is like, no, this is my job. I'm paid by Lumen to make

01:14:58.460 their problems go away. And he was a problem that went away. OK, but hear me out if they had already

01:15:04.240 known because we see that scene when he's at Bert's house for dinner. Yeah. I think it's Drummond goes into

01:15:10.000 Irving's apartment and he. Oh, I don't think it's Drummond. Oh, so then some Lumen guy. Yeah. I was

01:15:15.680 assuming it was someone from Lumen. The guy who is behind Mark's computer. Yeah. Oh, yes. Yeah. Yeah.

01:15:21.640 Yeah. Yeah. He goes in and he sees all the stuff. I don't know if they knew before that, but if they

01:15:27.620 didn't know before that, it'd be pretty easy to take someone out like that. You would fire him and then

01:15:32.040 just kill him. So I don't know that they would have to go through all of that. That's like so much to go 0.99

01:15:37.120 through to set all of that up to like catch him. And I feel like Bert saying let's go for a drive

01:15:43.920 was a misdirect. I feel like they wanted the audience to be like, oh, that he's about to take

01:15:49.640 him out. And then he decides not to. That's what that's what I think, because I don't think they

01:15:54.600 can get rid of him. I also don't think they would write the only gay characters to be evil. I just don't 1.00

01:16:01.280 think that they would do that from a TV writing strategy. I think they would. I think that I mean

01:16:07.180 they made Mr. Milchick likable but evil. Yes. They made women likable but evil. I think they I don't 0.99

01:16:15.380 think they really care about that. I don't think Irving is evil. No. Irving is the likable one. I

01:16:20.700 think that they can make Bert evil. I mean, Bert literally says in the ride to the train station,

01:16:27.120 we're very boring people by now. Like the ride to the train station. Yeah, I would drive people

01:16:32.620 places, but I never hurt them. I didn't know what happened when I drove them places. And then he does

01:16:37.980 that for Irving. I don't mean necessarily Irving is gone forever. But Irving didn't become a really

01:16:45.620 big problem till he tried to drown Helena. Right. And that could have been when they were like, OK,

01:16:51.000 we thought we could tolerate it. But now got to get him out. That's true, because that is when they fired him.

01:16:57.120 And when Bert showed up. Right. Well, in Audi, Audi world. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know. Maybe

01:17:04.700 that's true. I just people love them and people like really loved their relationship. And so I

01:17:11.760 yeah, I know people really liked it, though. And they were shipping them. And so I have a feeling

01:17:17.420 that the intention was to make that like a oh, I don't really know what happened, but this is going

01:17:22.720 to be romantic anyway kind of situation. And I'm not saying that I love that for the narrative.

01:17:28.180 I think your theory is probably better for the narrative and more interesting. But I feel like

01:17:33.040 maybe that's what they were going for. I don't know. I don't know. And some people also think

01:17:39.260 that Heli at the end was Helena. And I don't. I think she was Heli. Yep. She was Heli, I think. And

01:17:44.960 yeah, I don't know. There's still so many questions. So much that was not answered. So

01:17:52.080 we'll see. I guess in a year. Yeah. Thankfully, not. Hopefully not like three years if there's

01:17:57.460 not another writer's strike. Yeah. All right. We got to close out. We got to close out. I know

01:18:01.180 that y'all want to hear us go all the way back to the very beginning one day. Maybe we'll put it

01:18:06.300 behind the paywall just for our own fun. Okay. Last thing I want to tell you about is

01:18:12.440 Blaze's Frontier Magazine. It is a beautiful, very compelling, profound magazine. It's like art and

01:18:20.360 both in word and in picture. And you got to subscribe. If you go to blazeunlimited.com slash

01:18:25.820 Allie, use promo code blaze500. You'll get $40 off your subscription. This is journalism like you are

01:18:33.080 not seeing anywhere else. And I will be writing at some point for this. I just don't know when.

01:18:38.200 Go to blazeunlimited.com slash Allie, use code blaze500. Also, I will be announcing these speakers.

01:18:45.600 Some of the speakers will share the arrows very soon. Go to sharethearrows.com for more info.

01:18:49.840 All right. We will be back here tomorrow.

01:19:03.080 Bye-bye.

01:19:08.200 Bye-bye.

01:19:10.800 Bye-bye.

01:19:12.080 Bye-bye.

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01:19:26.380 Bye-bye.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - March 25, 2025

Ep 1160 ｜ What Dismantling the Department of Education REALLY Means

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