In this episode of War Room, Stephen K. Bannon and I discuss the release of the Watergate tapes by the Senate Judiciary Committee, the implications of the ruling by the Colorado Supreme Court in favor of releasing the documents, and the implications for the Trump administration.
00:01:33.000And it just begs the question, if it reinforced what was in the committee's report, as you know, it had been released.
00:01:40.000Just like they would have given all the details, all the facts, all the mathematics to back up the big steal, they would have put that out.
00:01:50.000You would have seen that in enormous detail.
00:01:56.000And so now you've had the court ruling in Denver yesterday.
00:01:59.000And the court ruling in Denver, and this is why the importance of putting in a committee report.
00:02:05.000Putting in a committee report when this question is about the committee itself, not having a ranking member, not having minority counsel to do the traditional, whether it was Watergate or whether it was Iran-Contra.
00:02:17.000Just a normal course of how Congress actually functions.
00:02:22.000That report now is also going to be put forward because the judge in Denver made it such a central part.
00:02:38.000Also, I think they've opened a Pandora's box because of what her ruling saying that you can submit a congressional report.
00:02:46.000Then why can't you submit a congressional report on the Hunter Biden situation and that and put it in and have, you know, attorneys generals in certain states start to put forward that they want to take Biden off the ballot.
00:03:01.000All of a sudden, you're into you're into a frick for frack.
00:03:03.000But that's, you know, maybe what's going to take place here.
00:03:06.000I do agree with and I do agree with Mike Davis.
00:03:10.000This is going to, I think, quickly go to the Colorado Supreme Court.
00:03:13.000And I think we'll get a ruling on this in a couple of weeks.
00:03:16.000And this is going to go to the Supreme Court.
00:03:18.000But in the Supreme Court to remember the issue here about the pressure that's going to come on the Trump appointees, Comey Barrett and Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, to recuse themselves.
00:03:37.000People also, I think it would be helpful to keep in mind this concept of opportunity cost.
00:03:42.000Something doesn't cost you just what the out of pocket or what the investment cost is.
00:03:48.000You have to think about this when you're making investments.
00:03:50.000It's the opportunity cost of either what the company is not doing that they could be pursuing during that time or the opportunity cost of what your capital could do at the time.
00:04:00.000Remember, one of the things about President Trump is that they're trying to just take his mind, his resources, his time.
00:04:09.000Because remember, the time is the most precious thing you have.
00:04:12.000And your focus just to have everything, to have everything from the trial in New York, which is a stripping of his assets to these burgeoning.
00:04:21.000I think there's nine or ten of these 14th Amendment cases.
00:04:25.000And listen, this is the reason that as soon as that paper came out from the Federalist Society, I go, wow, Leonard Leo's Federalist Society did this with two, quote unquote, constitutional lawyers.
00:05:07.000Bishop, we have obviously a very large traditional Catholic audience that is active members of what we call the War on Posse.
00:05:17.000But we also have – we have a lot of evangelical Christians.
00:05:21.000And I want to make sure that people fully understand this issue about why you got relieved or terminated as Bishop of Tyler, Texas.
00:05:32.000First off, something's just happened in the church, and I don't think it's been explained to people, this synod and synodality – I can't even pronounce it – this conference that took place.
00:05:44.000And look, we don't believe in coincidences here in the horror room.
00:05:47.000You know, you were relieved right after that finished, and reports are starting to come out.
00:05:55.000Can you just explain to our audience of traditional Catholics and evangelical Christians, what is a synod – and it looked like many of the things coming out of there were not what I would call the traditional Catholic teachings I learned as a young altar boy.
00:06:17.000It's an ancient gathering for the church.
00:06:22.000Primarily – I mean, they speak of a bishop's synod.
00:06:26.000Technically, in reality, because there were bishops present, but there were laity present also, as from what I understand, fully equally voting members.
00:06:41.000That's a synod with bishops participating, which really is a whole different entity.
00:06:47.000But a synod in history is a coming together of leaders of the church, bishops, to discuss various issues.
00:06:57.000We've had several synods in recent years.
00:07:00.000The synod on the Amazon, the synod on youth, the synod on Africa.
00:07:05.000I think there was one with Pope Benedict.
00:07:08.000So a synod is simply a coming together to discuss issues in the church.
00:07:15.000I would say, honestly, I don't know the finer points of the real distinction between a council, like the Second Vatican Council, which is a higher level, more significant, more structured.
00:07:29.000So councils, there have been about 20 in the history of the church.
00:07:34.000Synod, there have been many more than that.
00:07:37.000A synod is a lower level, similar kind of coming together, not so much legislative as discussing issues and looking at how the church addresses those issues.
00:07:52.000So the popes and many of the leaders in the 19th century warned us about this issue of modernity, and it's kind of been an issue ever since then, particularly in the 20th century, which was so bloody and so barbaric.
00:08:10.000But is the synod, you know, you're called by many, many people here in this country America's bishop.
00:08:17.000And one of the reasons you've always stood up for the traditional faith and precepts of the church is this concept of modernity.
00:08:31.000Is it synod, which is coming out with kind of reports or people or traditional Catholics going, we don't know what's going on here.
00:08:40.000Is this an issue between the traditional beliefs of the Catholic Church and modernity?
00:08:47.000I do think that that is really a significant part of it.
00:08:52.000I have to say I've talked to many in this past week.
00:08:59.000And I guess as I keep talking, maybe I come to a better understanding of things.
00:09:06.000I think the synod is, at least for many, an instrument to try to change traditional teachings of the church that they believe need to be changed.
00:09:22.000Certainly, there is a development of the understanding of these truths.
00:09:27.000But because I focus on Jesus Christ, truth incarnate, as the person, a real human being, always fully the son of God, God and man, walking this earth, teaching.
00:10:14.000I mean, we talk about growing with the wisdom of years.
00:10:17.000So Jesus Christ, as a really incarnate human being, change from an infant to a fully grown man, strong and able to do his work of his public ministry.
00:10:33.000That, to me, is the best way I keep going back to clarity, that these changes of basic truth, he is truth incarnate.
00:11:10.000The truth, whether we believe it or not, I believe, and what God has revealed to us, is that he, as Lord, holds it all together.
00:11:21.000And he is truth, his son, truth incarnate, truth that came to walk among us and to teach us and to heal us and to guide us from that time until now in our Catholic faith.
00:11:34.000He's still with us, especially in the Eucharist, but in all the sacraments and in the power of his word.
00:11:40.000And I guess what I've learned, and I really believe I have been removed because I'm not with the program of this change that the Synod is very much promoting.
00:11:56.000And it's ironic, I was just talking to someone else this morning.
00:12:02.000I just finished publishing with a lot of help that I received, but, and through a lot of prayer, I wrote a letter with, basically with my concern about this coming Senate.
00:12:16.000It was written August 22nd, the Queenship of Merit.
00:12:21.000I wrote a letter and highlighted seven areas that are up for question that I say, no, this is truth revealed by truth incarnate, Jesus Christ.
00:12:34.000And it's not going to change, no matter how much we may write new documents that say it's changed.
00:12:46.000And ironically, a month ago, October 17th, the last of those letters was published.
00:12:54.000Here I am, almost to the day, a month later, I'm removed.
00:13:01.000Because I think those letters, along with hopefully, I've tried to be really focused on teaching the truth for the past five or six years, because that really came to me as my mission, as a successor of the apostles.
00:13:34.000But they are, I believe, a clear statement in these areas of what the Catholic Church believes.
00:13:43.000Truth through the ages that is deepened.
00:13:46.000But the truth about marriage, a man and a woman committed for life, open to children, that is marriage.
00:13:55.000And that is the only place in Catholic teaching where living out a sexual relationship is moral and according to God.
00:14:06.000So, all the discussion at the Senate and beyond and since, and we'll continue, I'm sure, all the push to say, whatever you call it, but these unions, sexual unions of people that are not a man and a woman, married for life, open to children, they're immoral, according to what the Catholic Church teaches.
00:16:53.000And frankly, that's why I believe I'm no longer Bishop of Tyler.
00:17:00.000Could you talk about, you said seven areas.
00:17:03.000Could you mention two or three others or a couple of others that are pressing concern for you in those areas that you're concerned about, about this moving away from traditional teachings?
00:17:17.000Certainly the question of marriage, the question of the sanctity of life, the question of who are we, the question of who is God.
00:17:28.000You know, the Senate, and I don't claim to have read everything that came from the Senate, but from what I have seen in the whole tone, it's like very little mention of Jesus Christ.
00:17:42.000We believe in a week or so, we will celebrate Jesus Christ, King of the universe, as a feast, both in the old calendar and in the Novus Ordo calendar.
00:17:57.000They changed dates, but that feast has been there.
00:18:00.000So, celebrating Christ as King of the universe, if we believe that, then saying that He's one among many, which is one of the tones, at least, of the Senate, that, you know, we need to welcome everyone and all the faiths, we're sort of on equal level.
00:18:55.000And in our Catholic faith, and a lot of people say, oh, arrogance or whatever, but it's our belief that it is the religion.
00:19:03.000Catholicism is the church that the Son of God, the creator of all, established to guide us to what it's all about, eternal salvation.
00:19:16.000So, those are some of the basic issues that are up for discussion.
00:19:26.000And the emphasis on the Catholic Church, certainly, I mean, I don't, and the church doesn't say, if you're not Catholic, you're not going to heaven.
00:19:38.000But it does say, the vehicle that God has given us is the Catholic Church.
00:21:01.000Get to know the sacred heart of Christ more deeply.
00:21:06.000Bishop, one of the powers of your message is the simplicity of it and going back to original church teachings, which are immutable and, you know, over 2,000 years old.
00:21:21.000So, particularly to our Protestant audience and evangelical audience, how can you make the case that the Catholic Church, maybe we have to define what the church is, if it appears not Francis, let's say not Francis himself.
00:21:35.000But certainly, the leadership, the bureaucratic and administrative leadership of the church today, just doesn't simply believe, they think you're a troglodyte.
00:21:46.000They think what you put forward is from a time and place of millennia ago, and it doesn't set – it's not appropriate in the modern world with modern values and modern mores.
00:21:58.720It's exactly what the popes in the 19th century warned about, that modernity would finally overtake the church itself.
00:22:07.120So how do you – for the rest of our audience and maybe even some of the Catholics out there are not traditional Catholics, how is it that the leadership of what most people look at as a Catholic church – I mean, you're a bishop, but Tyler, Texas is a relatively – it's a robust and vibrant diocese under you, but it's relatively small.
00:22:28.560The leaders of the church, the leaders of the church, the leaders of the church, the people that get all the media attention, I hate to be so brutally frank, simply don't believe what you believe and simply don't believe that's actually true, sir.
00:23:01.080We believe that every believing Christian, which is one who believes that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior, I believe that they are woven into the mystical body of Christ.
00:23:15.340I believe in the structures that are the church, the papacy, the episcopacy, that I remain a bishop.
00:23:23.880I'm not a local ordinary of a diocese any longer, but I am a bishop.
00:23:56.760And there is administration implied in that.
00:23:59.300But what the church is, is in the year 2023, the people of God who are connected to the apostles and to the saints and martyrs through the ages who have lived.
00:24:19.160And many, the martyrs, been willing to die because they knew Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, as God's son, and he is real to them.
00:24:33.080You can't tell me that a 20th century martyr or a 1st century martyr or any in between died because of some bureaucratic administrative commitment.
00:24:46.180They died because they knew Jesus Christ as who he is.
00:24:52.120We believe, I was just in this morning, blessed with the opportunity to pray with him in Eucharistic adoration.
00:25:00.580And when I say pray with him, I mean that quite literally.
00:25:04.920As Catholics, that's the beauty of the Eucharist.
00:25:08.740He's really there, what we call the real presence.
00:25:11.360And frankly, it's this kid from East Texas, because God has guided me to a deeper relationship with his son, with his sacred heart and Eucharistic adoration.
00:25:28.220That's why I'm talking to you this morning.
00:25:30.440That's why I find myself in this strange and interesting moment in my life, because I am so deeply committed to my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
00:25:42.820I know I prayed with him this morning.
00:25:46.140He is not a distant Lord somewhere in the dim past.
00:25:58.320Bishop, you were the only, I think, bishop.
00:26:07.760There were some priests that went to stand with the Hispanic Catholic community and the traditional Catholic community at Dodger Stadium, Chavez Ravine, during that travesty of the mockery of the nuns.
00:26:24.820In addition, you went the other day and prayed the rosary because you weren't allowed into the conference of bishops, so you prayed the rosary outside.
00:26:33.520In both cases, has any other American bishop either supported your efforts in standing up to the travesty and mockery of sanctified nuns?
00:26:46.640And if any of the bishops, and we know Viganot and some others overseas, but if any American bishops come forward and backed your interpretation or the content and substance of your letters and your themes about the current crisis in the church?
00:27:05.680A few have privately expressed their, I guess I would express it as brotherhood and support with me, telling me that they're praying for me and indicating that they are sorry that things have resulted this way.
00:27:24.940But really, Steve, I mean, like with the Dodger Stadium, people speculated, oh, well, that's reason Bishop Strickland is having this apostolic visitation.
00:27:38.500That was planned long before I visited Dodger Stadium.
00:27:43.440I went there because I was asked to go.
00:27:47.660I did let Archbishop Gomez know that I'd been asked, and he said, well, I'm not really supporting this, but, you know, he didn't say I couldn't go or shouldn't go.
00:28:26.560It is frustrating to me that, I mean, and I've had many say, oh, please, just quit talking so much about that.
00:28:32.800But to me, it's the root cause of the wars we see, of the violence, of everything that is falling apart in society and in the church.
00:28:43.680It's because, as some people have said, when we lost the truth of the reality of a newly conceived child in the womb, who they are and how valuable they are,
00:28:58.060and we allow this program of ongoing slaughter of them, as long as we're allowing that culture of death, as Pope St. John Paul II spoke of it,
00:29:11.600as long as that is sort of the law of the land and the tone of our society, that unborn children are so devalued,
00:29:20.920they can be slaughtered at will, then any right to life, any sanctity of any person is tenuous, at least.
00:29:31.300And I think we tragically see that all over the place.
00:29:34.760That's why I tirelessly speak up for the sanctity of the life of the unborn, because that is a cornerstone of society.
00:29:44.360And when we pull that cornerstone out, things start to crumble.
00:31:00.140I want to go to the removal, to your beliefs that this ties to.
00:31:07.680Your core beliefs are essentially the traditional teachings of the church that have been handed down in an unbroken chain for over 2,000 years.
00:31:18.420It is extraordinary to remove a bishop.
00:31:22.380Normally, if there's a removal, it's for some sort of incompetence in managing the diocese or some sort of ministry.
00:31:30.840I think you've got to go back to the 80s with Lefebvre in France.
00:31:34.920To remove a bishop, I mean, it's almost mind-boggling.
00:31:40.400To remove a bishop who is preaching or preaching a teaching and living a teaching, as you showed at Dodger Stadium, that is the absolute immutable truth of the church from its very beginning.
00:31:59.100I mean, what does it tell us about the modern church?
00:32:01.120How can you process the fact that an individual who preaches a very traditional message about immutable truths of the church could possibly be removed when everything else in your diocese, the administration, it's a vibrant diocese.
00:32:17.960You've got seminarians, I think 22 seminarians.
00:32:24.580Your teaching is traditional, and you're removed for your teaching.
00:32:27.460How are people supposed to process that?
00:32:31.120Well, Steve, I think people need to pay attention to that.
00:32:36.080And again, hold strong to their faith.
00:32:40.140As I said the morning, the first interview I did, the morning that I was removed, I said, please, please don't let this pull you away from the church.
00:32:54.020Like I said, the church is the mystical body of Christ.
00:33:19.360And I guess the thing that I would say to people that are unsure is, and I've said this to many people that have asked me, how do we navigate this?
00:33:30.660Well, I've navigated it by turning to Christ and knowing he is the truth, the way, the truth, and the life.
00:33:38.380Look to him in the Gospels and all of Scripture and listen to his words.
00:34:19.880Learn the truth of our Catholic faith.
00:34:22.900What does the church teach about marriage, about life, about the sacraments, about the word of God, about the structures of the church, about everything.
00:34:31.960Learn it more deeply and hold more tightly to this ancient truth that is ever ancient, ever new.
00:34:43.060So I would urge people to know that ultimately God is truth.
00:34:49.600If the universe is held together, our beautiful world, and there is so much beauty, there's so much good and true and beautiful reality with all that we're facing.
00:35:01.360There's so many good, faithful people in the Catholic Church and beyond.
00:35:06.640We need to see that goodness, be full of hope and joy and light in knowing Jesus Christ.
00:35:39.300I mean, but they're patron saints of that because they had struggles that echoed some of the struggles that people have in the world today.
00:38:03.260When Cardinal Ratzinger became Pope, he took the name Benedict.
00:38:12.600And part of that, it was talked about at the time that he believed that the church, I'm not saying get smaller,
00:38:21.040but you needed, just like Benedict during the Dark Ages, you had to have communities of lived Christianity.
00:38:26.700And it was more important, it wasn't so important the scale of that and the size of that, whether it was a billion people or two billion people.
00:38:34.240The point was, you had to live the eternal truths of the church.
00:38:39.120Do you think that that's what the traditional Catholic faith here in the United States, that not followers of yours,
00:38:46.780but people that call you America's bishop and adhere to or are drawn to your more traditional interpretation of our faith,
00:38:55.960do you think that that is what is the way forward?
00:38:59.000Because your opponents in the bureaucracy and the administration, their concern is a schism, right?
00:39:09.620Where there would be some sort of cleavage in the church.
00:39:14.080Do you believe that your followers or the followers of this more traditional Catholicism will go forward like Benedict had predicted?