Responding to Trump Defenders & Leo Critics

[00:00:01] We've recently published a number of articles critical of President Trump and praising Pope Leo. We've heard from many readers in disagreement. We want to address the most common objections today on the podcast. Hello, I'm Eric Sammons, and welcome to Crisis Point. [00:00:33] So I've been running Crisis magazine for a little over five years now, and there's one thing that I have found to be true, and that is I will not get a stronger reaction, negative reaction to anything more than criticizing Donald Trump. That has been true since the beginning. I also get a pretty strong negative reaction from our audience when we say something nice about the Pope, whether it's Pope Leo or Pope Francis. [00:01:04] And so part of our business here is getting criticized. So I don't really mind. I actually like it when people write in with comments, with emails criticizing, you know, critiquing what we're saying here. The whole point of Crisis magazine is to have a debate, have a discussion about these issues. [00:01:21] I will say, though, lately, the last month, since the Iran war started, we've gotten more negative pushback. [00:01:30] We've gotten the most since COVID We got a lot then because when I took over, it was beginning of 2021, and we went pretty hard in criticizing the COVID regime, as I call it, the mandates, the, the, the. The forced masking, the. The lies being told. Everything that had to do with COVID was mostly lies. And we got a lot of our readers pushed back at that time because they, they supported a lot of that. And, and ultimately, I mean, go ahead, I'll pat myself on the back. Ultimately, we were vindicated. Ultimately, we did have, you know, we were shown to be right in that. I'm not saying we're necessarily right all the time in, in kind of our editorial stance, but we were then, and we got a lot of pushback for it, and we're getting a lot of pushback here now. When I say a lot, actually, it's funny, I was just talking to the woman who does our fundraising campaigns. We're going to have another one next May, you know, next month in May. [00:02:29] And I was telling her about this, and she said, actually, you know, your numbers. I see that you do have a higher unsubscribe rate over the last month, she said, but it's still ridiculously small. It's not in compared to other places. She's a third party, and she works with a lot of different nonprofit organizations. And she said our unsubscribe rate is still very small, even though it's higher in the last month than it had been, you know, in quite some time. [00:02:52] So I wanted to take this podcast to kind of address some of the critics, because what ha. What I've noticed is a lot of the, the pushback, they're saying the same thing. They're. They're saying the same thing. And so I, I felt like, hey, let's go ahead and respond to this. [00:03:06] Because I will be the first to say a lot of these matters are prudential matters in which Catholics are free to disagree. Like, I feel very strongly that the Iran war is an unjust war. And I think it's clear as day. [00:03:20] I do think, though, we can have different prudential views on Donald Trump, on Pope Leo, like, the jobs they are doing, things like that. So I want to make sure that's clear. I'm not acting like, okay, my personal views of Donald Trump, my personal views of Pope Leo are infallible. [00:03:42] So let me go ahead and get into some. And these are basically, these are things from real emails, real comments. I might have reworded them a little bit, but they're basically real things I've gotten. One of the most common things I've heard is you have Trump Derangement Syndrome, because we've run a lot of articles criticizing Trump. We're going to continue to run some articles criticizing Trump in the last month or so since the Iran war started and even before that with the Epstein files and some other stuff. And so I, you know, you get this. You have tds. You have Trump Derangement Syndrome. Honestly, I have a hard time taking this one seriously because I know I don't. [00:04:17] There's no way to put it. Trump Derangement Syndrome is a real thing. It's the people who cried Russiagate for years. It's the people who call Trump a racist. It's the people, you know, who, the leftists who are just, if Trump sneezes, they find a way that it's a threat to the Republic. They never, ever praise him. [00:04:35] People with Trump Derangement Syndrome would never say, well, he did this, okay? [00:04:40] And the reality is, I voted for the guy twice. I did not vote for him in 2016. I voted third party that year because I didn't like him. But here's the thing. Proof that I didn't have TDS is I realized after he was president for a while, okay, actually, he's not what I thought he was. I changed my opinion based upon new information. [00:05:01] And so I, I, I voted for him in 2020, even though I was very upset with him about how he handled Covid. [00:05:08] I still thought, okay, this is, he's still so much better than, than Biden and Biden's a real threat and all that. But I voted for him in 2024 and I enthusiastically support him that year because I really felt like, okay, from his campaign, his promises, the people he was picking, you know, Vance, rfk, people like that. [00:05:26] I was like, okay, this guy has really got it now. After the assassination attempts, the lawfare against him, the, you know, the crazy lawsuits against him, I was like, okay, he's no longer, he's not even the same guy he was four or eight years before. [00:05:39] So in that sense, I was like, okay, this is, this is great. So it's hard to say I have Trump derangement syndrome when that's all the case. But here's the thing. I just, it's part of my personality and I, and I will continue to do is I will criticize people when I think they make a mistake, even if I support them in other things. And I'm talking about public figures. If you're a public figure, you are putting yourself out there for both praise and criticism. And Donald Trump is being the president. That's what, that's what he's up for. He's up for praise and criticism. And so we will praise him when he does something right, but we will criticize him. And that's not Trump derangement syndrome, honestly, that's kind of a cult like way of looking at it to say anybody who criticizes Trump has TDS because it's like our Dear Leader, he can't be criticized. If you criticize him, something's mentally wrong with you. [00:06:32] I, you know, Catholics, hello, we put our, not our trust in Princess, including Prince Trump. And so we will criticize him. I mean, let's not have it's cult like to have TDS to basically be like everything he does is wrong. But it's also cult like. I have an article coming out tomorrow from somebody on tds, Trump devotions and syndrome as well. To think that he's only does good things. [00:06:55] I vote when I vote. I don't vote for people. I vote for their policies, their principles, the promises they make. That's what I'm voting for. And so if a candidate that I vote for goes against that, I'm going to be happy to criticize him. [00:07:08] So that, that's the first thing I just, you know, the first thing I've got is the tedious. It's just a, honestly, this one's a dumb, this is dumb I'll just say it straight. Some of these criticisms I'm going to put up here are more are better than others. This one's just an idiotic one to say I have Trump derangement syndrome, because it just is simply if he, if he turns around and all of a sudden starts doing the things he campaigned on in 2024, I will 100% support him again. [00:07:34] But of course, that would mean he'd have to pivot and he had to really change the way he's doing things right now. So I, in my opinion, I've said this before on the podcast, I'll say it again. I think Trump's second term, from the beginning, when he started presidency in January, until about the middle of April, was the best run for our president in my lifetime. And my lifetime's not short. [00:07:56] I think it's the best run. I mean, it was only a couple months. Was that three months or something like that? [00:08:01] But it was the best run. I mean, he was firing on all cylinders. He really got started with the immigration reform, you know, shutting down the border, which he, and I'll say it right now, I think he's done a good job with that. Even to this day, I think he's done a good job with that. [00:08:15] But, you know, pardoning Ross Ulbricht, doing, you know, doing all the different things he did, getting Elon on board with, you know, with, with trying to shut down the, the, you know, government, crazy government spending, you know, appointing people like rfk, people like that people, appoint people like Cash Patel, which I thought was a good thing at the time. You know, Pam Bondi, I thought was, you know, I kind of thought the other guy, Matt, Matt whatever his name was, but, like, you know, I thought that was great. And I just think that since then, he's not been good. He's been terrible. In fact, I think he's been a terrible president since about last May or so. And that's when all of a sudden he started saying the Epstein files were a Democratic hoax. He decided to bomb Iran in June. I mean, just all the things. And he just completely, I think, did a 180. And we have to be able to explain that. And just saying simply, no, he didn't do a 180, when literally thousands of people are saying he did a 180. He's changed. Something has change. [00:09:15] You can't just keep screaming, you have tds. You don't, you know, or whatever, when it's simply not true. When, when so many people who campaign for him and supported him, people like Tucker Carlson or Megyn Kelly or people like that, you know, Dave Smith, all these people who supported him are all of a sudden now not supporting him. You can't just say they're all, they all have tds. That just doesn't make any sense. [00:09:35] Obviously something has changed and it's more likely that Trump changed and we have documented evidence to show that. Then all these people decide to all of a sudden have tds. They didn't, they all campaign for and all supported them, but now all of a sudden they don't. And aftds somehow it's just, that's not the way it works. Okay, so the next one is a little bit of better criticism. It's like we shouldn't criticize Trump because we're fighting the left. And this is the idea that the left is the great threat to America. [00:10:04] And we, we can't do anything to support the left. You know, they're going to push their transgenderism, their, their open borders, their restriction of the Second Amendment, gay marriage, all that abortion, all that stuff. [00:10:18] And because that is such a great threat, and it is a great threat, we shouldn't criticize Trump because it undermines our ability to fight the left. [00:10:27] I, I, I've never been a big fan of this and I, this is one that I'm fully acknowledge. We can, we can disagree prudentially on this, but I just don't think this is, this doesn't hold weight with me because I personally think you keep your own side accountable because what's the point if you think your own side isn't doing what it, what you elected it to do? [00:10:49] Why should you shut up? Just simply because it will hurt the left, the problem, you know, hurt your side and it'll help the left. [00:10:57] Like the problem isn't with me or others criticizing Trump. [00:11:04] The problem is Trump violating his promises so that I have to criticize him. So I feel a desire to criticize him. Like I said, I wasn't criticizing him in January, February, March or April of last year. Why? Because he was following through with his campaign promises. What I elected him to do, I was praising him. I was, you know, basically dunking the left. I was dunking all the, the Chargers back then. [00:11:28] So if he changes, why shouldn't size him? And the, the him for doing differently also would say hard time thinking the left is actually greater threat than literally starting up Middle Eastern wars against major countries and threatening nukes and doing everything he's doing. I think that is one of the worst things a president can do is start a war of choice, a war of aggression. Yes. Trump started it. Iran did not start it. [00:12:05] Trump and Israel started it. [00:12:08] And so I think that's one of the worst things the president can do. Literally one of the worst. It's top five, at least. [00:12:15] And so if the guy on my side is doing one of the top five worst things, then, yeah, I, I don't see why I wouldn't criticize him. I just think it makes no sense not to. [00:12:27] Also, I do think we inflate the. The. The threat of the other side. They do that, too. They do it as much as we do it. We inflate the threat of the right. Like, I just was listening, heard. Who was it? Crowder? I don't listen to him. I was listening to another podcast, and he was playing Crowder, and he was basically saying, like, basically he supports Trump no matter what because of all the things left will do. And he was like, they'll go door to door and collect, you know, you know, confiscate our guns. They will, you know, force transgender them, stuff like that. [00:12:54] Here's the thing. We live in America, and he. And he's using, like, Europe and Canada as examples. We live in America. They're not going to go door to door and confiscate our guns. They just simply can't. [00:13:05] It wouldn't be allowed. And we actually saw something very interesting. [00:13:09] The left had their moment of their greatest power, both socially and politically and culturally a couple years ago, and what did they do? They overextended, and the country pushed back. [00:13:24] We didn't let them get away with it. Like the transgenderism thing, Remember how crazy that was? Well, guess what? [00:13:30] It's dead. I'm not saying there aren't people promoting transgenderism still, but the point is, America realized, no, we don't. We're not gonna put up with this crap. So this idea that if we don't elect, if somehow Democrats, if they win the midterms, and I do think it's likely they will win the House in the midterms. But never underestimate. Underestimate the ability for Democrats to screw their own chances up. So that's always possible. But the point is, is that Democrats winning the. The House in the fall doesn't mean they're going to be going door to door and getting, you know, collecting our guns or shoving transgenderism on us. Yeah, they'll make attempts and stuff like that, but the fact is, is they can't get away with this. This dystopian world that happens instantaneously if a Democrat is elected. Just isn't the case in America because we still do have some sense of common, some common sense that we would resist that. [00:14:28] So it really is like a marketing strategy that each side uses to say the other side, if they win, it's Armageddon, it's Apocalypse now, it's whatever the. Everything will fall. Everything will fall apart immediately. And that's just simply not. That's not what would happen. [00:14:44] And so, honestly, if I don't. Okay, I want to make something clear. [00:14:48] I'm not rooting for the Democrats to win the House in the fall. [00:14:52] I will say this, though. If they win it and they keep Trump from doing some of the dumb things he's been doing lately, I will be happy with that part of it. I won't be happy with other parts of it, but I would be happy with that part of it. I mean, Trump keeps doing dumb things. I want people to stop him from doing this dumb thing. I wish Republicans would stand up and up to him a little better. [00:15:14] So we can still, you know, we can criticize Trump and still be against the left and realize that they're not good for the country, but let's not overinflate their abilities. So, okay, next. Oh, I want to get in some criticisms. These are more directly towards the war that I've been hearing a lot. This is probably the most common one. Iran has killed 42,000 of its own citizens. We had to act. [00:15:37] I've heard this over and over again because we haven't been. [00:15:40] We haven't been pushing that narrative at crisis. In fact, we had an article that kind of went more in depth. I thought it was the best article out there that I've seen explaining the history of US And Iran relations over the past century, because they do go back before 1979. They even go back before 1953, although 1953 is a major date. [00:15:59] But all you hear now is the talking point is a talk. It's a propaganda talking point. Iran has killed 42,000 of its own citizens. We had to act. [00:16:07] First of all, this is not verified. And honestly, I don't believe this number. To be clear, I think Iran has an evil government. I think most countries have evil governments, and Iran is one of the most evil of the governments. I also think Iran has done some really nasty stuff to their citizens, including kill a lot of them. [00:16:25] But the idea that in January they just killed 42,000 of their citizens and we have no real verification of that, that's hard to do. It's hard to kill that many people without some type of information coming out about it. And all of a sudden it just gets thrown out there right before we decide to start bombing them and go to war with them. [00:16:47] I'm sorry, but I've been around long enough to know how convenient this is, how convenience this to the propaganda talking points of America of having to go to war with them, because it just makes people think we had to act, we had to do something. [00:16:59] I remember the build up to the Iraq war when the same type of things that were happening, all the terrible things they do. And so we have to act. We have. And it's like, and it always is an urgency. Like all of a sudden they killed 42,000 in January. So we have to, we have to bomb, start bombing them in February. We just have to. [00:17:16] I'm sorry, but that is classic propaganda methods that there's no chance to sit back and think about something for a moment. And it's the same thing with the lie about like, and I think I'll get this in a minute about the, they were about to nuke us or something like that. [00:17:31] But here's the thing, not only, I mean, I don't believe it, but this is actually more important. I do think that they killed their, some of their citizens, by the way, probably thousands of them, but I think that number got greatly inflated. But here's the thing. [00:17:46] Countries do terrible countries, governments do terrible things to their citizens all the time. Why aren't we bombing all them? [00:17:54] Case in point, North Korea. [00:17:57] North Korea treats their citizens, it's the North Korean government treats the citizens awfully. But nobody's saying we need to bomb them. You know why? [00:18:06] Because they have a nuke. [00:18:08] And in fact, that's why countries want a nuke, because they know outside countries can't stop them from doing what they want to do. [00:18:18] And so it's actually in every country's best interest to own a nuke if you are reasonable, if you're a rational person running a country that does not have a nuke, you actually want it to get a nuke because, you know, it gives you the ability to withstand certain pressures in certain countries coming after you and deciding they want to attack you or whatever. [00:18:39] And so the point though here is we don't, we don't go to war with a country simply because they're treating their citizens terribly. Because if we did that, we go to war with most countries in the world and in fact, at times we go to country war with ourselves. [00:18:54] And also remember, Trump threatened to Literally kill them all. [00:18:58] He threatened to destroy the whole country. How is that somehow the right thing to do? If they kill 42,000 of our citizens, so we'll kill the rest of them? [00:19:10] That doesn't make any sense. That's not rational yet. That's exactly what he's threatened to do. So their government's terrible, and so we're going to get rid of all of them. [00:19:21] I don't get that. [00:19:23] It doesn't make logical sense because it's not logical. [00:19:27] Okay, next criticism also related to war. We don't have all the intelligence information to declare the war unjust. We don't have all the intelligence information to declare the war unjust. I've heard this from a number of people that we've come out very strongly at crisis. I have just saying that the war is not just war. And they're saying, you just don't know everything. You don't know what Trump knows. And I wrote, I did respond to this directly in an article where I said, how, you know, I believed it was an unjust war, and this is just not how it works for two reasons. First, it might be true. There's some things we don't know. It might be true. There's some things we don't know. But we do know that the government has lied to us about these type of things for years. We were told there was weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. [00:20:10] We've been told for 40 years about that. Iran is a couple years away from having a nuke. Well, obviously that hasn't been true for most of that time, because if it was, they'd have a nuke by now. So that's the first thing is the things we have been told, we know. We know they've been lies in the past. [00:20:29] And so. And we do know the claims they are making that Trump is making about Iran and about things like that. And from those alone, we know it's not a just war. So what they're using to justify it, even if it were true, and a lot of it isn't true, it wouldn't justify this war. [00:20:47] And we go by the information we have. Secondly, are you American or not? [00:20:54] We live in supposedly this transparent democratic republic in which our leaders answer to us, and they do things that we want them to do and not the things we don't want them. [00:21:07] We're not supposed to be ruled by tyrants who just make unilateral decisions without our consent. On some level. That's the theory at least. [00:21:15] And that's why, by the way, Our founders gave the power to declare war to the Congress because it's the Congress that represents the people most directly. Now I, trust me, I, I'm not saying they do that, a great job of that, but I'm just saying that that is the, the case that the Congress is supposed to represent. And the reason though war goes to Congress is because then Congress can have a public debate about it so we can find out, okay, what are the reasons for go war. And it's not like this even needs to be a long debate. And it's not like Congress can't act quickly. When Pearl harbor was bombed, how long do you think Congress took to go to war? It was like instantaneous. If there's an actual real threat to this country, I guarantee you Congress would vote for that war lickety split. Why? Because the people would want it. [00:22:03] Why is it that our country has not gone to Congress for its wars over the past, since World War II? [00:22:09] Because they know that people oppose it. The people oppose the Vietnam War, they oppose the Korean War, they opposed the Iraq wars. I mean, you know, they oppose war in Afghanistan, all this stuff. [00:22:19] And so they know that. And so they just decide, they, they say, oh, we have information you don't know. [00:22:25] I'm sorry, but that just, that's not how it works in this country. Also, I want to reference, I think it was just today in First Things, Ed Fesser has an article about that. [00:22:39] His argument is that you have to be morally certain in order to declare to go to war. And that the war is just. I'm sorry, you have to be morally certain that the war is just before you can go to war. [00:22:52] What he means by that is the default is you don't go to war. [00:22:56] Because he noticed that a number of people who are saying we don't really know everything or like, I don't know for sure, but I'm going to support the President on this, that it's a just war. No, that's not how it works. And he goes through the Catholic tradition, the scholastic tradition, the Catholic tradition. This is not a post Vatican II modernism thing. This has been for centuries that St Barbara Bellarmine and others have always stated that basically you have to be morally certain that the war is just before you engage in it. And I think, I don't know how anybody can claim that this war is morally certain, that it's just. I know when I said this online, people just said, actually, let's go move to the next one, which is Iran was on the brink of having nuclear weapons I've heard this a lot. And so therefore, it's obviously just. And this is the response I got today on X when I posted, hey, you have to be morally certain. You know, Ed Fester shows that you have to be morally certain before you declare a war, before you go to war. That's just. [00:23:52] And they're like, you know, like, well, you know, was more morally certain than we were going to get nuked by Iran. Let me tell you a lot of things. [00:24:01] This is a lie. Iran was on the brink of having nuclear weapons. And this idea that, oh, if you don't oppose this war, that means you want Iran to have nuclear weapons, that's what Trump says over and over again says about Pope Leo and others. It's simply a lie. [00:24:14] Iran was not on the brink of having nuclear weapons. This is Netanyahu's lie. In particular, this is Netanyahu's lie that he has been telling for decades. And it's simply not true. If you look at the actual history. And again, I am not defending the Iran government. It's run by, you know, it's done evil things to its people. [00:24:35] But the reality is they were not about to get nuclear weapons. I mean, their, their Ayatollah, the Supreme Leader, actually issued a fatwa a while back against nuclear weapons. They signed on the treaty with Obama. [00:24:47] I always forget the, the initials, like, jcpoa, I can't remember. But, you know, the Joint Treaty one, and they were following it, by all indications. [00:24:59] I'm sorry, you might have this hatred of Iran, you might have hatred of Muslims, and I am no fan of Islam, but I'm sorry, the data just shows they were not about to have nuclear weapons. This is simply Netanyahu's lie. And this honestly is going back to a previous thing I said before. [00:25:18] This is the classic. This is the classic tactic of tyrants that you get people emotionally upset about vague threats. [00:25:27] You get people emotionally upset about vague threats that only he can protect you against. I mean, that's what Trump's doing. Every time you say, like, anything critical, like, oh, you wanted to be nuke, be nuked by Iran tomorrow, it wasn't going to happen. [00:25:41] It just simply wasn't. [00:25:44] And so the threat is just. It's Orwellian. I'm sorry, but it's Orwelling. You know, we've always been at war with Iran. [00:25:53] I mean, this is just Norwell, if you look back far enough, we actually haven't. We've had, we had good relations with Iran for, you know, before the 1950s and even we had after 9 11, Iran actually reached out and condemned the attacks and were willing to work to help us. And then Bush decided, no, they're part of the axis of evil. Why did he put them in the axis of evil? Because they're part of the seven countries that the neocons in the 90s decide they wanted to make sure they, they went to war with. I mean that's, you know, Wesley Clark admitted that. [00:26:25] So here's the thing. Here's what. Honestly, it bugs me. It bugs me more from a lot of conservative Catholics I see. [00:26:33] And that is their attitude towards Iran, that Iran is just a bunch of irrational, evil thugs who are the worst people on earth. [00:26:43] Here's the thing. [00:26:44] Islam is a false religion. [00:26:47] Islam is evil. Objectively, I'm not. And much evil has been done in the name of Islam over its history. [00:26:55] I'm not doubting any of that and I'm agreeing with that. However, the reality is in the modern world, these countries are still acting in their own self interest and we are actually allies with a number of Muslim run countries. I know there's some differences in the different types of, of Muslim and you know, the religious beliefs and stuff like that. [00:27:18] But the truth is we're at, we act like that the people running Iran are subhuman and that they're just una. They're just completely irrational. But I'm sorry, this is what warmongers do when they want to gin up a war. They do everything they can to, to demean and treat the other, the other side like they're just, they're just the craziest people on earth who will literally hit the, the second the nuke is, is ready. They're getting it ready, it'll be ready tomorrow and then they'll hit that button immediately to hit to bomb to nuke Washington and New York. That's just simply not how it would have worked. Even if they gotten a nuke, they act in their self interest because they know they would have gotten nuked. I mean, look at North Korea. Are you telling me North Korea isn't run by crazy people yet they've had a nuke for how long and they haven't used it? [00:28:06] So if North Korea, which is run by crazy people, haven't used a nuke, why is it the assumption that definitely Iran is not only pushing get a nuke even though all the evidence is that they're not, and then they would use it immediately? [00:28:19] I, I just, I think that's, we're getting, we're getting to the point of irrationality and, and just denying some of the evidence in front of us. [00:28:27] Okay, let me. Now I want to move on to. I see lots of good comments. I can't wait to jump in and, and talk to everybody about, you know, get, get some of the comments up here and address them as well. [00:28:39] Now I want to shift a little bit. This is my, you know, defending my criticism of Trump, but now I want to defend my praise or complementarity towards Pope Leo, because that's the other thing that gets crisis readers sometimes upset is when you say something nice about the Pope, which I think is kind of sad. I don't blame the readers for that because today is actually the anniversary of the death of the one year anniversary of the death of Pope Francis, and that was 12 years of a disastrous pontificate, as a certain book would have it. So I get that people are not, are quick to be suspicious of a Pope after that long of time, but does this mean I become a Pope slainer? Am I now Pope? I mean, I was one of the leading voices against Pope Slainer, Pope splaners during the Francis pontificate. So have I turned, I mean, again, I supported Donald Trump. Am I now, Do I now have tds? I was against Pope splainers. Am I now a Pope splainer? Have I changed everything? [00:29:33] Is Eric Sammons just become a different person than he was? I would say no. I would say things have changed. [00:29:41] Information, you know, new information has come in. Different things have happened since then. And so I have, I think, been completely consistent in my views. One is I've supported Trump's policies. The things I support, I voted for. And he's not doing anymore. So now I'm criticizing him. Likewise, Pope Leo is not Pope Francis. They're not the same people. I know people like to call him Francis 2.0, but I think that's lazy and dumb to say that. [00:30:04] And I, oh, and I, to this point, again, it's about principles and policies, in this case, theology. It's not about people. If Pope Leo does something good, yay. If he does something bad, boo. It's as simple as that. Same with Trump as it is with Leo. [00:30:19] And so I know we've been traumatized by Pope Francis, but I do think we need to be fair to the, to Pope Leo. [00:30:28] And I think, honestly, I, I thought this during Francis's pontificate. I think it now, I think we have too high expectations for the Pope. [00:30:35] I think people, I, I've noticed people get upset when I'm not super critical of, of Leo when he does certain things, but it's because I'm not expecting him to be like the Messiah who, who changes our church to make it great again tomorrow. I just don't think that's what we, we should expect. I don't think that's what a pope is, is. Is meant to be. [00:30:55] And so, like, there's an article today in crisis by John Horvat where he talked about how all the new conversions to Catholicism and people don't really understand where it's coming from, but it's kind of like it's the Holy Spirit working and it's, it's not directed by people always. And I kind of feel like that with how we'll get out of the mess in the church, it's not necessarily going to be a, a great pope that's going to do it. [00:31:17] It's going to just be the working of the Holy Spirit at lots of different levels. And so I'm not a pope explainer now. I've criticized Pope Leo. I will criticize him later in this podcast. I am just simply, I'm just not going to jump into the, let's find everything wrong with the Pope and, like, blame everything on him. I just don't think that's fair. So let me get a couple of specific things I've heard. The first is Trump started the feud. I'm sorry, Pope Leo started a few with Trump. I mean, by the way, all these, like I said, are real. [00:31:46] I really got this. People saying to me, a few people saying, like, oh, Leo started it. First of all, are we in third grade? [00:31:54] I mean, what is this? Leo started it. Like, that's some type of argument that, that holds any weight. Even if he did start it, who cares? But the reality is he didn't start it. [00:32:07] That's just a lie. I mean, this is what's crazy. Drives me crazy. Trump said this, and there, all of a sudden, everybody just believes it. All his Trump, all the Trump fans just believe that he started. But then I look at, I remembered I lived through it. It only lasted. It's only been going on for a couple weeks. And I'm like, wait a minute, that's not true. That's not what happened. I know Trump said that, but Trump says a billion things that are that are not true, and he says a lot of things that are true as well. [00:32:29] So just because he said it, doesn't make it true. Here's what actually happened. When the war started, Pope Leo said some very generic things for peace and against the War. This is what popes always do. And I, and I, I, I mentioned. I'll mention this in a moment, but that's what popes do. But it wasn't like, it was not directed at Trump directly. It was just like, hey, let's have peace. I mean, that's not starting anything. [00:32:53] Then Trump did his, you know, famous let's end the civilization tweet that people took seriously, and I think they should. [00:33:05] And Pope Leo basically then said, without saying Trump's name, he said, we shouldn't be ending civilizations. [00:33:13] Something to that effect. [00:33:18] That's not starting anything either. It's simply making a statement that any Catholic Pope worth his salt would say, like, yeah, we don't, we don't support wars that are. The effect is to end the civilization. That's not what, we can't do that as Catholics. And then Trump took it personally, as he always does with every criticism of him. He takes it personally. And then he named Pope Leo and he attacked Pope Leo directly by name. [00:33:43] In the diplomatic world, it's okay to criticize people without saying their name. And you say it in certain ways. Pope Leo was doing that. And before that, you know, the American government was kind of doing that as well. They weren't saying anything against Pope Leo either. But then it's Trump who elevated it to a personal feud. And so the idea that Leo started this is just, it's just silly. And I'll be honest, I have criticisms, which I'll get to in a moment, about Pope Leo, about this, about how he talks about this war. But I think his actual dynamics in this feud with Trump have been perfect. I honestly think he's done a perfect job on this in not going. And I said this in my last podcast. I think it was not diving into the mud with Trump and keeping. And keeping the moral high ground. He's. I think he's done excellent job in this, in that, specifically in how he's interacted with Trump through the media. I think he's done a very, very good job. And, and, you know, but then I get. People say the Pope should stay out of politics. I've heard this people saying, oh, he's being a political. Too much of a political activist. [00:34:46] Okay. This is just stupid. I'm sorry. This one's a dumb one as well. The Pope started, and the Pope should say, politics are both dumb. We always like it when popes get into politics, when we agree with the politics. We're constantly saying that the Pope should be condemning pro abortion Catholic politicians. That's getting into politics. [00:35:05] But we want that. [00:35:06] We want the Pope involved with politics. Now. We wanted to do it in a way that is becoming of the office. We want to do it in a way that is consistent with Catholic morality and Catholic priorities. Of course we want that. [00:35:19] But the Catholic hierarchy, the bishops and the pope are always going to at times intersect with politics. The question isn't whether or not they will be in politics. The question is how will they do it and will they do a good job of that. I mean, we have the famous example of St. Ambrose who spoke up against the Christian emperor Theodosius and basically would not let him come in the church until he had repented of his evil act of massacring or in the massacre of thousands of his citizens. [00:35:46] And we all look to that and we say, wow, St. Ambrose, that's one of the things that made him a saint. How great is that? [00:35:53] Yet if we have a pope tell the president, United States that we like, hey, you shouldn't be massacre, threatening to massacre millions of citizens in a country all of a sudden. That's politics that we don't want them to get involved in. [00:36:06] No, we do want to get involved in. We like it. We when, when, when popes get involved with politics, when we agree with those politics, when politicians advocate moral or immoral things, popes should say something. Now here's the thing. [00:36:21] We all know that the Vatican, particularly since 2013, has been very selective in what it is said when it comes to politics. It does not seem to be very strong. It does not issue strongly worded documents or statements when it comes to pro abortion politicians, in fact, it cozies up to them. [00:36:40] And that was a perfect example of the three stooges, the three cardinals that were on 60 minutes a while back. [00:36:47] They won't say a word about Biden. They won't say a word about Nancy Pelosi. They won't say a word about any of that. But oh boy, when Trump does something they don't like, they jump on it as quickly as possible. Now, I will say, I don't think you can apply that to Pope Leo at this point. Remember, he was not pope when Biden was president. [00:37:04] He has not been pope when there's been a pro abortion president. Now, should he say more potentially against abortion supporting politicians? Yes, I think that's probably likely to be true. I have not been following everything he said about politicians in Europe or abortion politics or anything like that. The point is though, I get that problem. The answer though, isn't okay. Pope should say, I have Politics, it's that they should be consistent in defending Catholic moral teaching throughout politics. And I will say this. I actually don't think Pope Leo is particularly political. I think Pope Francis was extremely political. I think Pope John Paul II was pretty political. [00:37:42] I don't think Pope Benedict was too much. And I don't think Pope Leo is. And by that I just simply mean that I don't think he's consumed with, okay, I want to affect these political changes. I mean, Francis was 100% about that. That's all. I mean, he was a very political animal. I just actually don't think Leo is. Another thing I've heard is Popolio is a tool of leftist globalist. [00:38:04] He's just a tool the left disclose. I mean people. [00:38:08] And mostly because he's opposing this war. I mean, I. [00:38:11] Here's the thing. I posted this on X. If you know the history of the papacy, the modern papacy, particularly like, I mean, the last 100, 150 years, popes won't support your war. I'm sorry, they just won't. If you look at what Pope Benedict XV said during World War I, Pius XI leading up to World War II, Pius XII during World War II, John Paul II during both Iraq wars and now Leo, the fact is, is that popes have been, have been opposing these wars time in and time out and calling for peace. And actually Ed Fester's point about, he, he kind of defends this as well in his article about saying the moral certainty you morally certain it's just before you support it and that there are some, including, oh, what's the cardinal's name? He's conservative cardinal from before Vatican II who's like a traditionalist hero, Adavani, who basically argued that perhaps no modern world can be, no modern war could be just now Fester thinks that goes too far. Perhaps it does, perhaps it doesn't. [00:39:12] But the point is, is that you're not a tool of leftist globalist if you, if you oppose this war. I'm sorry, that's just not the case now also, I, I think people are just looking for reasons to call him Francis 2.0. I mean, he met with David Axelrod and people freaked out about that. Now should he meet with people like that? Probably not. I mean, post me with lots of people and I think a lot of people they shouldn't meet with. But literally after he met with him, I saw somebody on X post and this was somebody that is actually kind of well known that, you know, David Axelrod was Pope Leo's mentor. [00:39:47] So we went from he had a meeting with somebody to saying that now he's the. That guy's his mentor. I mean, come on, we're just getting crazy here and just looking for conspiracies, looking for ways to, to attack him. Here's the thing. Pope Leo is more progressive than the typical conservative American Catholic, the typical reader of Crisis, for example, particularly in something immigration. [00:40:12] But he's not the globalist, leftist, progressive tool that people make him out to be. I mean, he was a registered Republican. I mean, that's on record. He's a registered Republican in the state of Illinois. [00:40:26] I mean, that's not really a. The calling card of a progressive a Lestis. [00:40:32] And he's more conservative than Trump in a lot of things, like on abortion and gay marriage and things like that. I mean, Trump supports those things basically. [00:40:43] And so it's like, you know, don't, don't. I'm not. [00:40:46] He has politics I don't agree with, I'll put that way. Especially immigration. I think he's terrible in immigration and I think Trump is much better on immigration than he is. But he's just a typical bishop. He's not like some crazy leftist or something like that. So, okay, last one I'm going to put up here is the Vatican hasn't spoken against pro abortion Democrats. You know, kind of like they basically like, you know, how dare he speak against this war when they haven't spoken against pro Russian Democrats. That's not how it works. I mean, I've kind of already addressed this, but here's the thing. If one of my friends commits murder and I say nothing, but someone I don't like commits rape and I speak out and I turn them in, was I wrong in the second instance to call out the rape? [00:41:32] Of course not. I was wrong not to say something about the murder by the person I liked, but I wasn't wrong to turn in the guy who I didn't like. [00:41:43] And so even if it's true, and I think it is true, that the Vatican doesn't speak out enough against pro abortion politicians, that doesn't mean they're wrong when they speak out against an unjust war. [00:41:55] Now, maybe even their motives, maybe you can argue their motives aren't the greatest. I mean, I think the motives of the Three Stooges isn't great. [00:42:03] You know, Tobin Cupich and McElroy, I think they're terrible. Doesn't mean they're wrong. If they say this war is unjust, though, it just means their motives are wrong. [00:42:13] I don't Think Leo, by the way, is, is just like those three. [00:42:16] I just don't think that's, that's the case. [00:42:18] So. Okay, so I just, I'm gonna wrap it up here soon, get to the live chat. But I think it's very possible that we should. Chris, there are times to criticize Pope Leo. We don't have to criticize him every time he does something. But you know, I'm like, don't get me wrong, I'm not getting carried away and saying Pope Leo is like a Pius X. He's some great Pope or even a JP2. I mean, I, I saw somebody call him mid and I thought that was actually a pretty good description. He's not horrible, he's not awesome. I just think our expectations are what's wrong. I think, for example, I think he talks too much about dialogue. He trusts in dialogue too much. I'm sorry, but dialogue is not the answer. Dialogue is not the answer to, to anything honestly. I mean, there's times that you can dialogue, yes, but that's not like some magical formula that everything solves everything. I also think he praises, he talks too highly of Islam. [00:43:10] Now. I actually don't agree with everybody who thinks he should be condemning Islam all over the place because I think there are real world consequences. Just like the Popes were criticized for not in hindsight, for not criticizing Hitler more explicitly and Nazism more explicitly. But the fact is they had political reasons for that because they realize it might lead to the death of a lot of Catholics, a lot of people if they did do that. And I think it's a prudential decision. [00:43:34] I think the same is true with Islam. On what the Pope would say about Islam. That doesn't mean, no, he has to praise it or act like we're in communion with them or whatever crazy words he uses or even go to the, go to the mosque. I think it's silly when the Popes go to the mosque, when they visit, when they go to a mosque. I think that's dumb. In fact, I don't even see why Popes are going to these Islam Muslim dominated countries. I think it should be focused mostly on the Catholic countries in Christian countries to get them more Catholic. [00:44:01] So yeah, don't get me wrong, I'm not like acting like that's. I, I think the whole way, Pope's Pope these days in modern times, starting with JP2, I think is not, you know, way they go out and do their trips. I, I don't like it at all. I, I think it leads to Deadly Indifference as a book I wrote tells you. [00:44:19] I also think. And this was an article that Ed Penton wrote. No, he published. And it was from a priest. Now I can't remember the priest's name. I apologize. [00:44:27] Where he said. One of the problems that Leo is having and a lot, in a lot of the bishops, Catholic churches, when they talk about peace, they talk about in very secular terms that peace is something that comes about through dialogue, through talking to each other. No, peace comes about through Jesus Christ. And that's what the Pope. The Pope should be out there promoting peace, he should be out there condemning war, but he should be telling us in preaching what is the source of true peace. Where does peace come from? It comes from Jesus Christ. And I don't see that. That happening with Pope Leo. Frankly. I don't think he's doing. I think that's somewhere. I think he's really lacking. So I agree with Pope Leo completely on the unjustness of this war, but I do think he has been imprecise in his language about, about war and peace. And I also think he hasn't been really hammering home the most important thing, which is peace comes from Jesus Christ and him alone. So I don't feel like I have to spend all day, every day criticizing him. [00:45:22] I realized that. [00:45:24] I realized with Francis after a while that that's just not healthy to do that. And so I'm not going to do that. But we can criticize when it's an important point. And I think like the point of him not talking enough about Christ as the, the source of peace, I think is. Is a good example of that. So. Okay, let me get to the live chat. Thank you. I saw we had a lively live chat. I always love that on Tuesday afternoons. [00:45:47] Okay, McGirl, I think, or something like that. By the way, Pope Leo Robert Prevost is a registered Republican and voting last year election. Yes, and I mentioned that just now. You're right, exactly. He's not the. The stereotype we want to make him out to be. It doesn't mean he's like the greatest, but I'm just saying he's not the stereotype. [00:46:03] I got a applaud and rose from Ms. Martin Muses. Thank you. [00:46:08] Mark Canal says American politics has been increasingly a matter of deifying our guy or demonizing the other guy. And in my humble opinion, it correlates to a decline of organized religion. I agree completely with that first statement. I'm not sure what it correlates to, but it is true. It's deifying. Our guy and demonizing the other guy. And, and we're doing that. We do it on a national level too. Like, you know, that's like we're demonizing literally Iran. And I think Iran has lots of problems, but I think, I think we've gone. We act like they're subhuman and they, they're just the most irrational country in the world because we want to attack them. I think the same that we do in politics, too. You can't say anything wrong with your guy and you have to say only bad things about the other guy. I, I'm just not going to do it. [00:46:49] Okay. Timothy Williams. Hey, Timothy. How are you doing? I think you've written for us before. Criticism. Your. When your comments so big, it like takes my head away from the screen. That's okay. I'm not that pretty. Criticism Trump is not the problem. Accusing people who voted against the lunacy of the Democrats of being MAGA cultists is the problem. Claiming falsely that Trump is hiding Epstein files is the problem. Claiming falsely that the US has never been attacked by Iran is the problem. Claiming falsely that Israel dictates U. S. Foreign policy is the problem. And frankly, claiming some kind of wisdom that benevolence from pope Leo is a big red flag. Okay, Timothy, you got a lot there and I just, obviously I disagree with you completely. [00:47:25] I want to say this. Accusing people who vote against the lunacy of Democrats of being MAGA cultists is a problem. I'm not doing that. I want to make sure that's clear. [00:47:32] I voted for, I voted for. I voted against the lunacy of Democrats. And obviously I don't think I'm a MAGA cultist. I think there are MAGA cultists, but I don't think everybody who voted for Trump is a MAGA cultist. I think if you refuse to say that Trump is wrong about something and you defend every single thing he does and everything he says, then yes, you're a MAGA cultist. [00:47:52] I do think that there's a distinction there. We have to be very clear. And so I'm not saying if you vote for Trump, you're a MAGA cultist, but there are MAGA cultists within that group claiming falsely that Trump is hiding Epstein files is the problem. [00:48:04] I don't think that's a false claim. I think that Trump, when. When it looked like they. I think Trump attempted to do it. I think he has. I mean, there's 6 million files, only 3 million have been. Have been released and they're heavily redacted. And all of a sudden, when it looked like they were going to be released, he started fighting against it. I don't think that's a false claim. [00:48:20] Claiming falsely if the US has never been attacked by Iran is the problem. I didn't say they've never been attacked by Iran. I mean. Well, actually it's true they've never been attacked by Iran. If you mean the government of Iran organized an attack on America, the country of America, that's never happened. [00:48:39] And tell me one example. It has now. Proxies of Iran have attacked Americans in the Middle east at times. [00:48:46] But I'm not claiming that. I'm simply claiming that there's not a justification for this war. Claiming falsely that Israel dictates US Foreign policy is a problem. [00:48:54] I wouldn't say Israel dictates it, but I think Israel heavily influences it. And I think if you think that's not true, you are being blind. [00:49:02] And frankly, claiming that some kind of wisdom or benevolence from Pope Leo is a big red flag. And I think that's a terrible attitude. Timothy, Honestly, for to just act like there's no chance that, that Leo has any wisdom or benevolence, I reject that. [00:49:15] Okay, Brian o', Toole, but thank you for your comment. I like, I like I said, I like the criticisms. [00:49:21] The problem with Trump is he's term limited. I'm convinced at this point he doesn't even care if vance wins in 2028 or if the Republicans win the midterms. I think there's a, there's some truth to that. Trump has always been about himself. Even when I like him, he's always by himself. And when I like him, it's because what he, what he thinks is for his own self interest is also in the interest of what I think is for the country. So I don't think he cares if Vance wins. I think, in fact, he might even like it if Vance didn't advance. Rand didn't win. A Democrat won because he'd say, look, it's all me. Look, I can win, but these guys can't. [00:49:52] Josh Bolin Leo displays a breathtaking ignorance of the history pertaining to Islam and Western civilization. Hopefully someone has pointed out to him that absent the leadership of some of his predecessors, Europe would not, would not exist as it does today. Though its prospects for the future are diminishing. At least he now appears to understand how damaging his recent pronouncements are to the defense of Western civilization in the face of Islamic aggression, both culturally as well as violence of proxy and I don't. It's kind of cut off at that point. Okay, so your point is that Leo is ignorant of history pertaining to Islam and Western civilization? He might be. I don't know. I would say this, though. [00:50:27] I don't think the history of Islam is as cookie cutter as some people make it out to be. We have this idea that, okay, Islam started with violence and it did. It. It spread through violence and it did. [00:50:38] It, you know, expanded into. It tried to take over Europe, which it did, and now we have Iran, and there's like a whole gap there. We just ignore. The reality is after Europe pushed back, which it should have, and after we had a situation in which, you know, if you look at, like the 19th century, in the early 20th century, we don't see a jihadist, Islamic, you know, Islamist governments trying to take over the world. [00:51:07] And so why did that change? And I do think we have to look somewhat to ourself, to the west and what we did. I do think, by the way, Pope Leo and Pope Francis are showing incredible. They showed incredible. [00:51:22] I don't know if it's ignorance. I don't know what it is, but their support for the massive immigration into Europe and America is awful. And a lot of that is driven by Muslims. But here's. I want to note something. [00:51:34] Why are they all coming to Europe? [00:51:36] Because they're fleeing the Middle east because of stuff we've done. That's a primary reason. [00:51:41] We wouldn't have an immigration crisis, I believe, if we hadn't had these massive attacks. [00:51:46] All our. Not massive attacks, but all our intervention in the Middle east over the past few decades has led to the immigration crisis, the Islamic immigration crisis, in my mind, okay, Islam isn't a religion. On the sense that Christianity is a religion. I mean, I think it depends on how you define religion. I'd say Islam's a religion. It's a false religion, but it's a religion. Because religion, to me is just. I think everybody has a religion. I think an atheist has a religion because it really is the practices and beliefs you have that are structured around a certain core belief. And they have that. [00:52:21] Okay, David Said, Dave Earhart says. But the polls say the majority of people support this immoral war. I don't like the war myself. Why do you say that? The people don't support it. They don't. No. This is the most unpopular war ever. Literally, it's the most unpopular war going into it, particularly that we've ever had. [00:52:37] Now, Republicans support the war, but not Independents are very much against It, I'm not sure what poll you would say. Every poll I've seen. I'm not a big poll watcher looking at them all, but I've seen a number of them. Definitely the countries against this war. [00:52:52] Now Trump supporters are for it, but the country's against it. [00:52:57] Paul von der Hyde says we can both like, we can like both Pope Leo XIV and President Trump. We don't have to be dying to camps by YouTube talking heads. I assume that is directed towards me and others. I mean, the reality is there is a, there is a, there's a divide between them. It's not a YouTube talking head that makes it a divide. I mean, literally, Trump is posting things on True Social, attacking Pope Leo. Pope Leo, saying things to criticize Pope President Trump. I mean, are you, are you telling me there's not a divide? I'm not saying you can't like both of them. I'm just saying don't act like there's not a divide. We're not making it up. YouTube talking heads aren't making it up. We're just commenting on it. [00:53:36] Nicholas. [00:53:38] I think it's a Nikolai. I think Costello says North Korea is run by atheists, so they think life ends definitively with death. But the Iranian regime thinks that they're all, they all have 72 virgins awaying them in their paradise, so they prefer to die. I think that's simplistic and just, it doesn't really know. Everybody wants, people want to live. I know there's certain Mara complex certain people, but I think that's simplistic. [00:53:58] Or we can dislike everybody. Oh, amen to that. Now that I down, that's something I can support. We can dislike everybody. I, I that now. Now we're coming to it now we got the, the good comments. [00:54:10] Either way, we should use Linux. Okay, I, I get that joke. Okay. Patrick Dean says every Muslim majority country was once Christian. [00:54:19] True. And they were once something else before they were Christian. That's just a reality. So. [00:54:24] Okay, that I think I'm gonna call it off there. I appreciate, by the way, everybody in the comments seeing people who are disagreeing with me, calling me a YouTube talking head or saying I was making false claims. I like you all and you're not gonna make it. So I don't. But I wanted to respond because we have gotten a decent amount of pushback. Again, we don't have like, we have more of unsubscribes to our mailing list over the past month or so, two months than we've had for a long time since I've been in charge, I think since COVID days. But again, it's very small. So I appreciate everybody's support and that a lot of people are. A lot of crisis audience are supporting and, you know, opposing this unjust war as well. So. Okay, I'm going to wrap it up there. Until next time, everybody. God love you. And remember the po.