no one knows the hard work it takes to reach gritty's level of fame better than his creator, dave raymond of the mascots in the nhl are a little jealous. >> reporter: are the rest of the mascots jealous of gritty? >> that's only going to level other people up. they're going to say, we need to be as good as. and gritty is one of the place-holders, the fanatic is one of the place-holders. >> reporter: dave raymond. >> i am the fanatic's best friend. >> the original phillie phanatic from 1978 to 1993, a pioneer who wrote the blueprint for the mascots who followed. >> the fanatic was the first team-created concept that they treated like the most important marketing decision they could make. >> reporter: since then at the forefront of shaping mascoting into a thriving career and business model. >> the first step always is, show me the backstory. where are they from? how did they get here? the only way you can get people to care is to tell a story that comes right from you. >> nice to see you. >> i hope that this experience is going to be really hardcore. >> reporter: creating that backstory is

raymond, charles of pakistan, dr. thomas forager of berkeley heights, jeffrey h. cast of springfield, linda kale of new providence, dr. ken kucher, james mccabe of west field, robert and dave mclaughlin, howard meyer of new providence, leon morrow of landing, mayor al morgan of new providence, mitchell morrison of sparta, barbara perkins of warren, dr. nancy polo of scotch plains, herb wydell of berkeley heights, ronald waylan of baskin ridge, dr. rudolph willis of warren, rita jordan of branchford, larry orleans, and riva of bevel deer. of belvedere. with that i yield five minutes to representative langworthy for five minutes. mr. langworthy: thank you very much, mr. speaker. i thank the gentleman from new jersey for yielding the time. this month the national debt hit a record $34 trillion. in fiscal year 2023 alone, the united states owed $659 billion in interest on this debt. and you can expect that number to be much higher this year. these numbers should alarm every american and make it clear that bidenomics is not working. but the american people already know this. the white house has repeatedly lied, publicly praising themselves for a healthy economy and taking credi