Welcome to Is This Real Life, a Bravo podcast that relates our favorite shows to our own lives in the world around us.

I'm your host, Mandy Slutszer. Let's get to it.

Hi, everyone. I hope you had a good week. Mine was extra special because two things that I am deeply into cross paths for the first

and possibly the last time.

During a House Oversight Committee hearing, Representative Robert Garcia quoted

Heather Gay from the Real House of Salt Lake City finale.

So it was an oversight hearing, and he was talking about proof that Donald Trump had

taken money from, you know, foreign leaders, foreign entities, and he had said, you've got

the receipts, the proof, the timeline, the screenshots, everything.

It was fabulous, in my opinion, because, you know, Congress can't become any more of a circus,

and this hearing was one of the most ridiculous, over-the-top, crazy things, spectacles that I've ever seen. And so, you know, might as well

do it during that kind of a hearing. And I thought it was, it was hilarious. So the Housewives

and Congress crossover is something I really enjoy. And I am contemplating, reaching out to the congressman to see if he'd ever be interested

in coming on the podcast because it is very rare to find people that are that into Housewives

and into legislating. So we shall see. Well, this week's episode is a supersized episode. So you may have to listen to it in

multiple parts, but it's supersized because my guest, Louis Staples, was very generous with his time,

and we had so much ground to cover. There is so much thought put into this week's episode. I mean, Louis makes some really interesting

comparisons between Monica from Salt Lake and Erica Jane from Beverly Hills and questions

whether or not Monica could ever have a comeback the way that Erica has this season. It's really,

really interesting.

I think you guys will really enjoy.

But because it's such a long episode,

...