00:01:52.000So that seems like fairly traditional Christian belief right there that you should not actually celebrate pride in what is considered a sin by the vast majority of the religious world.
00:02:04.000Well, the immediate response of the Chicago Bulls was to can him.
00:02:07.000They announced that they had waived him due to conduct detrimental to the team.
00:02:12.000Apparently, it was very, very bad for the team that he put out an Instagram video proclaiming the same thing that churches all over the country say all the time.
00:02:22.000The Chicago Bulls had coach Billy Donovan was asked about all of this.
00:02:26.000It was suggested that Ivy seems to be spiraling.
00:02:28.000Now, Ivy has reported depression in the past.
00:02:31.000It is unclear whether he's in the midst of some sort of mental issue or not.
00:02:37.000But if you're going to cite evidence of a mental issue, this is not the best evidence.
00:02:41.000And him just saying traditional religious belief that you shouldn't celebrate pride in what is considered a sin, that is not a spiral.
00:02:50.000Here was the Bulls head coach trying to explain.
00:02:53.000I know some of the things that were put out there.
00:02:57.000You know, I think it's a situation for him where, you know, it's on his own personal Instagram.
00:03:03.000I don't want to get into what he put out there, but certainly I hope for him, you know, he's okay.
00:03:10.000I don't know, you know, like I've had conversations with Jaden and stuff, and he's been always about who he has me and trying to bribe and want to play.
00:03:19.000But I think organizationally, there's certain standards I think we want to have as an organization to try to move up to those each and every day.
00:03:27.000So, again, not a ringing rebuke there from the coach.
00:03:32.000Nonetheless, the Bulls let him go because, of course, you cannot say anything that violates the precept of full-scale wokeness on these sorts of issues.
00:03:41.000So, Jaden Ivey then went to Instagram Live to defend himself.
00:05:08.000They just waived him, which is kind of incredible.
00:05:10.000Well, Ivy also went off on Steph Curry.
00:05:12.000And the reason he's going off on Steph Curry is because Steph Curry is frequently brought up by critics of traditional Christianity in the league, apparently, as sort of the example of what Christianity should look like.
00:05:22.000Meaning that you sort of cite the vaguest verses from the Bible while ignoring actual sort of traditional moral practice.
00:05:29.000So here is Ivy talking about Steph Curry.
00:05:33.000That's why you got Steph Curry and he not even surrendered.
00:06:22.000If he were saying the opposite, that Pride Night is the best.
00:06:24.000In fact, if he came out as gay today, he would be celebrated by the league.
00:06:27.000He'd be touted as one of the most important basketball players alive if that happened.
00:06:32.000The NBA has a political bent, without doubt, and they are putting at risk an entire Christian audience and traditionalist audience that look at this and say, hold up.
00:06:40.000You get waived for saying that you don't believe that Pride Night ought to be celebrated?
00:06:45.000Not even because you did anything wrong, just because you said that you don't agree with the league's stance on these issues.
00:06:52.000Back in January 2025, Ivy talked about how he had become a Christian.
00:06:58.000And again, here he was giving his testimony.
00:07:02.000My testimony is that, you know, when you're away from Jesus, when you're not, when you're not close to him, and when you have a relationship with him, you're going to, like, Satan is there.
00:07:19.000He wants to just steal, kill, and destroy.
00:07:42.000I have that joy that I've been searching for my entire life.
00:07:51.000Now, again, recall that the NBA had to have an entire controversy engulf it surrounding whether they should have a night honoring a strip club in Atlanta.
00:08:16.000That's an insane tactic from a league that wants to maximize its fan base, not minimize it.
00:08:21.000And again, during Holy Week for Christians, it's a kind of astonishing stance by the league.
00:08:26.000I'm hopeful that some other team will give Jaden Ivey another chance.
00:08:31.000Because man, the Chicago Bulls really screwed up here in a major, major way.
00:08:35.000In just a second, we'll get to a domestic terror attack as we now know that it was not only a terror attack, but a foreign-driven terror attack.
00:08:42.000And we'll get to the latest on the war in Iran.
00:08:44.000Plus, Bishop Barron will stop by to talk about the Pope and about Holy Week first.
00:10:12.000They're ready to commit acts of violence against Americans.
00:10:16.000There's new information that is now emerging about a terrorist named Ayman Khazali.
00:10:20.000That would be the radical Muslim who attacked the Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Michigan on March 12th.
00:10:25.000So according to 6 ABC, apparently, Ghazali 41 of Dearborn Heights sat in the parking lot for a few hours on March 12th before smashing his pickup through closed doors and into the hallway of an early childhood education area, striking a security guard.
00:10:40.000And then he exchanged gunfire with another guard and then he shot himself.
00:10:45.000That Ford F-150 was stocked with commercial-grade fireworks and jugs of gasoline.
00:10:49.000And of course, it caught fire during the confrontation.
00:10:52.000Well, here is the FBI's Jennifer Runyon, the head of the Detroit Bureau, describing the video that Ghazali left before the attack, in which he basically acknowledges full scale that he is a member of Hezbollah, or at least an adjunct member of Hezbollah.
00:11:08.000Approximately 10 minutes before the attack, he sends his sister two final videos.
00:11:13.000In Arabic, he records himself saying with this screenshot, this is the largest gathering of Israelis in the state of Michigan, in the United States.
00:11:24.000I will forcibly enter and start shooting them.
00:11:27.000God willing, I will kill as many of them as I possibly can.
00:11:32.000He sends a quick three-second video with the same screenshot shortly after and types the message, a special operation.
00:11:41.000Now, again, we know that his siblings in Lebanon were, in fact, members of Hezbollah.
00:11:47.000Remember, the entire media on the left and some people on the horseshoe right reported that he was only doing this because his family had somehow been victimized in Lebanon.
00:11:55.000His family were literal members of a terrorist group.
00:11:59.000James Gorgon, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, he says, listen, this was not some guy who was self-radicalized or something.
00:13:36.000Terrorist propaganda is designed to activate the so-called lone wolf to act on behalf of the terrorist organization.
00:13:46.000And it makes no legal difference if the current leader of Hezbollah himself, Naeem Qasem, called this man and told him to attack Temple Israel, or whether he simply heeded Hezbollah's call to kill Jews and, in his words, burn their world.
00:14:34.000And according to the Washington Free Beacon, he said they've discovered audio of him saying that he needed to stay silent about the killing of Ali Khamenei, who would be the leader of the Iranian regime.
00:14:46.000He literally told staffers he didn't want to say anything about it at all because there were too many people in Dearborn who were sad about it.
00:14:54.000In fact, here is the audio of Abdul El-Sayed admitting full scale that Dearborn, again, this is a major city in the United States, is distraught over the killing of the leader of a terrorist regime responsible for the death of hundreds, if not thousands of Americans over the last 47 years.
00:15:13.000Again, this guy is running for Senate.
00:15:36.000Well, my first amendment was 86 years old.
00:15:38.000He was going to be dead sometime soon anyway.
00:15:40.000Second, that doesn't justify the fact that he was a bad man does not justify our breaking of international law and unilateral action outside of wartime.
00:15:49.000Like, this is a bigger question about the United States' responsibility to international law, and we have been breaking it wantonly.
00:15:55.000This is the second leader that we've gone after in a matter of months.
00:15:59.000We are not the world's policeman, and that's not what he got elected to do with.
00:16:03.000Okay, but again, the key there is him saying that people in Dearborn are sad.
00:16:08.000Do you want in America who is literally sad over Khomeini's death, like truly sad over the killing of this terror master and murderer?
00:16:17.000And then, again, this tape is pretty astonishing, and kudos to the Free Beacon for uncovering it.
00:16:23.000Abdul El-Syed, who again is likely to be the Senate nominee in Michigan for the Democrats, he says that if somebody brings up Khomeini or if somebody brought up the sadness in Dearborn over Khomeini, that he would just misdirect over to pedophilia and claim that President Trump is a pedophile, basically.
00:16:42.000And the grievance party, meaning people from Abdul El-Syed to the Tucker Carlson right, who all wink hands in this sort of stuff, they are using exactly the same tactics.
00:16:50.000And those tactics, by the way, are being promoted by Iran directly.
00:16:53.000You have literally the foreign minister of Iran who is doing what Abdul El-Syed is doing, saying that the United States is violating international law.
00:17:01.000And by the way, Epstein, it is an op, meaning it is not a normal thing that normal people do.
00:17:06.000It is being driven top down by engagement whores and by actual dedicated anti-Americans, many of whom are inside America's borders.
00:17:15.000This guy is going to likely be the Michigan Senate Democrat candidate.
00:17:21.000They are going to go super hard on trying to get you to sympathize with the regime.
00:17:28.000Like, that's what the conservatives and even some of our moderate enemies are going to try to get you to do.
00:17:34.000And I can say, I've got no love lost for the ISO media, just like I've got no love lost for Donald Trump's best friend, Mohammed bin Sadaz.
00:17:42.000I've got no love lost for any of them.
00:18:15.000He is campaigning with sleazy limousine communist Hassan Piker.
00:18:19.000So, according to the New York Times, Abdul El-Syed is meeting with Piker and doing a rally with Piker.
00:18:27.000Well, Piker's huge young following has made him an appealing ally for progressive Democrats.
00:18:31.000Some have called Mr. Piker the Joe Rogan of the left.
00:18:34.000And people have pointed out that Hassan Piker is an insane radical who says the United States deserved 9-11, supports a wide variety of communist dictatorships, a wide variety of Islamic terror groups.
00:18:46.000The New York Times asked him about all of this, and he responded, why is it only now that people are getting very frustrated by it?
00:18:51.000I assume it's because there is a power center in the party that is worried about losing its grip, losing its relevancy.
00:18:57.000Well, I mean, listen, if Democrats want to keep embracing the radicalism and the stupid, and yes, the anti-Semitism, because Hassan Piker, all he does, he does a stupid game.
00:19:05.000His stupid game is he means to say Jew and he just says Zionist.
00:19:11.000In any case, podcaster Jonah Platt, he pointed this out on CNN, and he is not wrong.
00:19:17.000What Piker does that a lot of people of his ilk do is they try to inoculate themselves against claims of Jew hatred by pointing it out in places that aren't them.
00:19:28.000He's been very clear pointing things out on the right.
00:20:32.000Helix is an award-winning mattress brand reviewed by outlets like Forbes and Wired.
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00:21:04.000Well, according to Channel 14, in Israel, they have now obtained an exchange between the Iranian president Mahmoud Pazeshkian and the IRGC's Ahmed Vahidi.
00:21:14.000Pazeshkian would be the quote-unquote moderate in this scenario.
00:21:18.000He's the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.
00:21:20.000Those are the quote-unquote hardliners.
00:21:21.000So Pazeshkian apparently said, quote, I want to be involved in the negotiations with the U.S. Without a quick deal, our entire economy will collapse in three weeks.
00:21:44.000The IRGC chief, Vahidi, he said, that's exactly why you can't be involved.
00:21:48.000You'll give up everything for a deal, which shows you where the IRGC is.
00:21:52.000Apparently, according to Channel 14 in Israel, after the call ended, the report says the Iranian president told his companions he feels like a hostage, quote, I'm unable to resign.
00:22:16.000It shows 51% support for the airstrikes in Iran.
00:22:20.000In fact, it shows, according to this polling data, do you think it is in the U.S.'s interests or not to stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon?
00:22:29.00074%, yes, including 69% of independents.
00:22:34.000Is it important to restrain the global influence of China and Russia?
00:22:37.00066%, yes, including 63% of independents.
00:22:42.000Again, these are not numbers that suggest that the American people are desperate, desperate to stop this right now.
00:22:49.000Three-quarters of all voters, according to this poll, say that winning the war is important and also that the United States is in fact winning.
00:23:00.000Two-thirds agree that Iran is the leading source of instability, terrorism, and that the Iranians do not support the Ayatollahs.
00:23:09.00067% of people believe, again, that Iran is the big source of instability and terrorism in the region.
00:23:16.000So this begs the question, why is President Trump lagging in the polls?
00:23:19.000Because his approval ratings are down.
00:23:20.000I mean, the answer really is because of the economy, as always.
00:23:23.000Right now, a lot of dyspepsia about the economy.
00:23:26.000And because of the war, the stock market is down and gas prices are up.
00:23:30.00046% of Americans, according to the same poll, think inflation is the most salient issue.
00:23:35.00053% say the economy is worse than it was under Joe Biden.
00:23:39.000Now, again, we keep hearing that MAGA Republicans are abandoning President Trump.
00:23:43.000What is happening is that Democrats and independents who jumped on the Trump bandwagon, largely because they didn't like Kamala Harris, some of those people are dropping off.
00:23:51.000Kristen Soltis-Anderson, who's an excellent pollster, writes in the New York Times, she says, my polling shows MAGA thinks Trump got it right when it comes to Iran.
00:23:58.000When I separate Republican respondents on whether they think of themselves as a Trump supporter or a Republican Party supporter first, I find more than nine in 10 Trump first Republicans support the Iran strikes compared with 72% of party first Republicans.
00:24:10.000So in other words, the Republican Party is on board and it is a fringe of the Republican Party who are not.
00:24:16.000Well, because they are more aligned, frankly, with sort of dispossessed Democrats.
00:24:20.000Again, these are the people who are upset with Trump.
00:24:22.000And this is why when you see columnists suggesting that like Joe Rogan or Theo Vaughan defines MAGA, kind of like saying that Kerry Prejond defines Catholicism.
00:24:33.000The late-breaking decider who jumps on a bandwagon to effectuate his or her own values rather than, you know, joining in order to facilitate the values of the central institutions, those are typically not the people who define the institution.
00:26:35.000The Secretary of State talked with Al Jazeera, which, again, man, what a waste Al Jazeera is.
00:26:40.000He talked about what will happen with the Strait.
00:26:44.000When this operation is over, it will be open and it'll be open one way or another.
00:26:48.000It will be open because Iran agrees to abide by international law and not block the commercial waterway, or a coalition of nations from around the world and the region with the participation of the United States will make sure that it's open.
00:27:02.000Okay, so we'll get more into that in a moment.
00:27:03.000First, Rubio says he's asked about negotiations.
00:27:06.000He says, listen, we're negotiating, but we're not going to tell you who we're negotiating with because, again, as we have seen, a lot of different opinions inside the Iranian government right now as their entire economy is in a state of collapse.
00:27:18.000Who is this new and more reasonable regime?
00:27:20.000Is the United States in direct contact with them?
00:27:23.000Well, I'm not going to disclose to you who those people are because it probably would get them in trouble with some other groups of people inside of Iran.
00:27:29.000Look, there's some fractures going on there internally.
00:27:32.000And at the end of the day, I think that if there are people in Iran who now, given everything that's happened, are willing to move in a different direction for their country, that would be great.
00:27:42.000Now, again, maybe negotiations are happening.
00:27:46.000But the bottom line is the president is still engaged in a very high level of strategic ambiguity, right?
00:28:20.000Reports are now suggesting that perhaps President Trump would be willing to end the war without actually opening the Strait of Hormuz and instead just leave it to the Europeans.
00:28:28.000According to the Wall Street Journal, President Trump told AIDS he's willing to end the U.S. military campaign against Iran, even if the strait remains largely closed, according to administration officials, likely extending Tehran's firm grip on the waterway and leaving a complex operation to reopen it for a later date.
00:28:43.000In recent days, according to the journal, Trump and his aides assessed a mission to probably open the choke point would push the conflict beyond his timeline of four to six weeks.
00:28:52.000He decided that the United States should achieve its main goals of hobbling Iran's Navy and missile stocks, wind down current hostilities, and pressure Tehran diplomatically.
00:28:59.000And if that failed, then Washington would press allies in Europe and the Gulf to take the lead on reopening the Strait.
00:29:04.000President Trump did put out a statement on Truth Social yesterday telling the Europeans, hey, you know, if you don't like what's going on, maybe you should go get your own oil.
00:29:12.000Quote, all of those countries that can't get jet fuel because of the Strait of Hormuz, like the U.K., which refused to get involved in the decapitation of Iran, I have a suggestion for you.
00:29:33.000Now, again, on principle, he's not wrong, but the reality is that's unlikely to happen.
00:29:38.000The president knows that the Strait of Hormuz, if left in Iranian control, would allow for the Iranian government to rebuild and strengthen.
00:29:45.000The whores of Europe, meaning the leadership class over there, would basically just try to bribe the Iranians.
00:29:51.000Hell, they might build them a nuclear facility just to allow the oil to move through.
00:29:55.000These are the same Europeans who are happy to use Russian oil while simultaneously claiming the United States ought to defend Ukraine.
00:30:02.000So what is the most likely scenario here?
00:30:04.000Probably major action to reopen the strait, to grab Kharg Island, to throttle the Iranian regime by cutting off its lifeline to the global economy.
00:30:47.000And the only last thing I'll say is, look, I'm in favor of U.S. controlling the Venezuela and the Iran oil, but let's give the money to the citizens of Iran.
00:30:57.000Let's give the money to the Venezuelans so that they have a future.
00:31:03.000Now, the president is suggesting that as far as the costs that we have incurred, our Arab allies will help defray that cost because, again, he's not wrong.
00:31:12.000The idea that we ought to actually get something from the Arab Gulf nations who have not yet dropped a single offensive bomb, makes some sense.
00:31:24.000Here's Caroline Levitt at the White House yesterday.
00:31:27.000Who's paying for the cost of this war?
00:31:30.000Will those Arab countries step up to do this that?
00:31:33.000Well, I think it's something the president would be quite interested in calling them to do.
00:31:37.000I won't get ahead of him on that, but certainly it's an idea that I know that he has and something that I think you'll hear more from him on.
00:31:47.000Well, President Trump, again, is readying all potential tactics in the arsenal.
00:31:50.000He put out a statement on Truth Social yesterday.
00:31:52.000He said the United States is in serious discussions with a new and more reasonable regime to end military operations in Iran.
00:31:59.000But if for any reason a deal is not shortly reached, which it probably will be, if the Hormuz Strait is not immediately open for business, we will conclude our lovely stay in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their electric generating plans, oil wells, and Harg Island, and possibly all desalinization plans, which we have purposefully not yet touched.
00:32:17.000Now, of course, this is making all of the members of the legacy media very, very, very dyspeptic.
00:32:24.000Reporter from NBC said, why is Trump threatening a potential war crime?
00:32:30.000The president posted this morning about his threat that on leaving Iran, he said we might be blowing up and completely obliterating all of their electric generating plants, oil wells, Harg Island, and possibly all desalinization plans.
00:32:44.000Under international law, striking civilian infrastructure like that is generally prohibited.
00:32:48.000Why is the president threatening what would amount to potentially a war crime with the U.S. military?
00:32:54.000And how do you square that with the administration repeatedly saying that the U.S. does not target civilians?
00:32:58.000Look, the president has made it quite clear to the Iranian regime at this moment in time, as evidenced by the statement that you just read, that their best move is to make a deal, or else the United States Armed Forces has capabilities beyond their wildest imagination, and the president is not afraid to use them.
00:33:17.000Now, again, they keep saying war crime, war crime.
00:33:20.000It is not explicitly unlawful or automatically a war crime to attack an enemy's electrical grid, according to John Spencer, the executive director of the Urban Warfare Institute.
00:33:29.000Meaning it can be, but it isn't just by definition.
00:33:32.000Under the law of armed conflict, such targets can be lawful if they provide a military advantage, and every single strike has to be adjudicated under proportionality, distinction, and precaution.
00:33:44.000Well, distinction means that the target has to be a military objective, not directed predominantly at civilians.
00:33:49.000And again, it is not in the interest of the administration to target the civilian population of Iran, which we correctly believe to be on our side.
00:33:56.000Proportionality means that the expected damage can't be excessive in relation to concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.
00:34:04.000So in other words, you're not allowed to blow up an entire city block in order to take out one terrorist in general.
00:34:11.000And finally, precaution includes ensuring that civilian casualties actually be minimized.
00:34:15.000So it's not clear whether this would violate any of those prescriptions.
00:34:19.000The bottom line here is that the Iranians are living on borrowed time.
00:34:23.000And as always and forever, all they can rely upon is people to undermine the war effort and make President Trump stop short.
00:34:44.000First, Passover is almost here, a sacred time to remember God's deliverance.
00:34:48.000This year, many in Israel are going to mark the holiday under the shadow of war.
00:34:52.000Obviously, I'm talking to a lot of my friends in Israel.
00:34:54.000They're literally setting up their Seder in bomb shelters right now.
00:34:59.000This is why the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews is on the ground right now, delivering food, equipping shelters, caring for Israel's most vulnerable.
00:35:06.000IFCJ is doing great work for vulnerable people on the ground.
00:35:09.000People have been living in a state of war for a couple of years at this point.
00:35:12.000Your Passover gift declares that the story of deliverance lives on through faith, through action, and through you.
00:35:16.000Visit benforthefellowship.org to rush your life-saving gift.
00:35:20.000Again, that is one word, benforthefellowship.org.
00:35:26.000Now, again, Marco Rubio, he is pointing out that the people of Iran are incredible.
00:35:31.000Again, the goal is not to harm the people of Iran.
00:35:36.000The people of Iran are incredible people.
00:35:39.000The people who lead them, this clerical regime, that is the problem.
00:35:42.000And if there are new people now in charge who have a more reasonable vision of the future, that would be good news for us, for them, for the entire world.
00:35:49.000But we also have to be prepared for the possibility, maybe even the probability, that that is not the case.
00:35:56.000Okay, so we'll have to see what happens.
00:35:59.000Suffice it to say, I do not think that the president is going to give up the ghost right now, not while he has the Iranians on the ropes, contrary to all the legacy media trash coverage.
00:36:07.000Now, meanwhile, when it comes to Cuba, the Cuban regime is also on its last legs, deprived of Venezuelan oil.
00:36:12.000They're basically just bleeding along.
00:36:18.000Well, according to, again, the New York Times reporting on all of this, the United States Coast Guard is allowing a Russian tanker full of crude oil to reach Cuba, delivering a critical supply of energy to the island nation after months of an effective oil blockade by the Trump administration, according to a U.S. official briefed on the matter.
00:36:39.000Well, that is, it's weird that we would let the Russian ship through for sure.
00:36:42.000That is definitely a strange move by the Trump administration.
00:36:46.000Basically, President Trump is saying, you know what, it's temporary.
00:37:29.000Okay, again, I think the real thing here is that initiating some sort of full-scale blockade on Cuba in the middle of the conflict in the Middle East is probably a distraction.
00:37:38.000And as the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio says, Cuba's been having blackouts all of last year.
00:37:43.000They're having blackouts the year before.
00:37:47.000Cubans were having blackouts all of last year, all the year before.
00:37:52.000There isn't a naval blockade surrounding Cuba.
00:37:54.000The reason why Cuba doesn't have oil and fuel is because they want it for free.
00:37:59.000And people don't give away oil and fuel for free on a regular basis, unless it was the Soviet Union subsidizing them or Maduro subsidizing them.
00:38:09.000Well, meanwhile, more on the international front.
00:38:13.000Yesterday, Pope Leo gave a Palm Sunday homily in which he made some comments about war.
00:38:21.000It seemed to be a veiled reference to the United States' war in Iran, although he was, I say, somewhat unclear about what exactly he was saying.
00:38:33.000And he did not arm himself or defend himself or fight any war.
00:38:37.000Speaking of Jesus, he revealed the gentle face of God who always rejects violence.
00:38:41.000Rather than saving himself, he allowed himself to be nailed to the cross, embracing every crossborn in every time and place throughout human history.
00:38:47.000Brothers and sisters, this is our God, Jesus, King of peace, who rejects war, whom no one can use to justify war.
00:38:53.000He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them, saying, Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen.
00:39:12.000And I got to be honest, I'm not sure what the Pope means by this.
00:39:14.000Obviously, the notion that God does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, I assume here that he's talking about unjust war, because otherwise it makes no sense.
00:39:23.000I mean, otherwise, there are some problems just historically and also textually here.
00:39:28.000Obviously, the Old Testament is filled with figures who both prayed to God and went to war.
00:39:32.000Moses, Joshua, Barack and Deborah, Gideon, Samuel, King David, who wrote entire psalms to God while at war, Hezekiah.
00:39:40.000And there are lots of popes, it turns out, historically, who have initiated full-scale crusades or blessed them.
00:39:45.000For example, Pope Urban II, who initiated the first crusade with these words, quote, this land our Savior made illustrious by his birth, beautiful with his life, and sacred with his suffering, he redeemed it with his death and glorified it with his tomb.
00:39:57.000This royal city is now held captive by her enemies and made pagan by those who know not God.
00:40:04.000And an incomplete list of other popes who blessed crusades or other forms of war, that would include, obviously, everyone from Eugenius III to Gregory VIII to Innocent III to Boniface IX to Nicholas V to Clement V. So, I mean, again, this is why I don't think that the Pope means what people think he means there.
00:40:24.000I would assume that he means unjust war, not all war, because otherwise we sort of have to ignore the entirety of the Old Testament and pretty much all of Catholic history.
00:40:31.000And just to clarify that, I did talk to my friend Matt Fratt of Pines with Aquinas, who knows way more about this than I do in terms of Catholic doctrine.
00:40:37.000And he pointed me to the works of both Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, who point out when war is justified.
00:40:43.000So, again, if Pope Leo wants to make the case that the war in Iran is unjustifiable, he should make that case.
00:40:49.000I'm not a fan in general of when leaders use inartful and broad language that can be deliberately misinterpreted by members of the legacy media.
00:40:57.000Joining me on the line to discuss this, the rest of current events, and of course, it's Holy Week, is Bishop Robert Barron.
00:41:02.000He, of course, is the bishop of the Diocese of Winona, Rochester, and is one of the most prominent Catholic voices in modern media.
00:41:08.000And he, of course, is the head of Word on Fire Catholic Ministries.
00:41:10.000Bishop Baron, thanks so much for taking the time.
00:42:13.000He held to a critique of Rome that was predicated upon the constant use of violence.
00:42:18.000So Augustine is no war monger, but he also recognized in a finite, fallen, conflictual world, sometimes the only way to oppose deep injustice is through the violence of warfare.
00:42:31.000Thomas Aquinas amplified them and so on.
00:42:34.000So I think that's the right distinction.
00:42:36.000The Pope is certainly critiquing an unjust war or someone who's invoking God to support an unjust war.
00:42:43.000And I furthermore agree with you that he's not referring specifically or precisely to the Iran war.
00:42:50.000And if you want to look at a situation, look at it in light of the seven criteria that determine whether war is just or unjust.
00:42:58.000And, you know, right, if you say simply God does not hear the prayers of warriors, well, then Abraham Lincoln and George Washington and Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill.
00:43:08.000So I think what he meant, I think you're making the right distinction.
00:43:11.000It's the prayers of those who are seeking his sanction for an unjust war.
00:43:18.000You know, Bishop Baron, one of the things that I think is driving me a little crazy about the current sort of online dynamic is the unwillingness to grant any sort of favor or credibility to the most obvious explanations of things and the leap to the sort of most extreme interpretation of events.
00:43:34.000I think that's happening here where people are immediately jumping to he must mean a condemnation of President Trump or the Secretary of Defense.
00:43:40.000I think that's also what happened on Sunday, on Palm Sunday, in Jerusalem, where it seems fairly obvious to me that there was a pretty terrible misunderstanding between Cardinal Hisabella over in Jerusalem, where he wanted to go to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
00:43:56.000And he goes to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and the Israeli authorities, the home front authorities, have basically shut down the entirety of the old city.
00:44:04.000I mean, they shut down the Western Wall.
00:44:07.000That is because they have rules there that basically, in the middle of missile attacks, if you have a site that is, in fact, not protected from missile assault and it is not within walking distance or quick access to what's called the mamad in Hebrew or a safe room or a bomb shelter.
00:44:23.000And again, the old city, you've been there.
00:44:26.000I mean, all the streets are extremely narrow.
00:44:28.000And so you can't get emergency vehicles in there.
00:44:30.000And so that is why there have been significant restrictions on not only large-scale gatherings, but even small religious services in kind of historic sites that are not protected.
00:44:39.000My guess is what happened is that there was an Israeli police officer stationed outside the church.
00:44:43.000And the cardinal showed up and he said, I want to go in and perform Mass.
00:44:46.000And the Israeli police officer said, my superior says no one is allowed to come in here.
00:44:50.000And that turned into an international incident.
00:44:53.000And quickly, everybody in a position of authority in Israel, from the prime minister to the president, immediately sounded off, said, We need to make some sort of provision so this doesn't happen again.
00:45:00.000And yet this turned into some sort of gigantic critique of, I suppose, Jewish anti-Catholicism or something.
00:45:08.000And that seems to me like the least likely scenario of what actually was happening there.
00:46:04.000But for Christians, obviously, this is one of the most critical times of the calendar.
00:46:08.000For my listeners who may not follow the Christian calendar, the Catholic calendar, why don't you explain what goes on during Holy Week?
00:46:15.000We recall the events just prior to the crucifixion of Jesus and then his resurrection on Sunday.
00:46:20.000So beginning really with Holy Thursday, so when Jesus gathers with his disciples for the Last Supper, the Garden of Gethsemane that night, then Friday, the day of the crucifixion, Saturday, we call it Holy Saturday when Jesus spends the day in the tomb and then Easter Sunday.
00:46:38.000So the Passover mystery, Jesus passing from death to life.
00:46:43.000It's the event by which we are saved from our sins.
00:46:46.000And I'd say this too, Ben, in light of Jerusalem and such a focus now on Judaism, it's the fulfillment of Israel.
00:46:53.000Christians are those who say that the great story of Israel, including temple and covenant and prophecy and promise, all of it is fulfilled in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.
00:47:04.000That's what St. Paul or Rabbi Shaul, who studied the feet of Gamaliel and knew the Hebrew scriptures intimately, after he met the risen Jesus, he rethought his Judaism in light of the resurrection.
00:47:18.000And it's also why when Paul went to these towns in the Eastern Mediterranean, he first went to synagogues because the Jews would understand his message, that the story of Israel has come to its fulfillment.
00:47:30.000That's why, see, we are tied to Israel.
00:47:32.000That's, you know, the recent popes have made that claim.
00:47:34.000It's up and down the Christian centuries, despite a terrible history of anti-Semitism that pops up, you know.
00:47:40.000But the great Christian truth is we're tied to Israel.
00:47:43.000You cannot understand Jesus without reference to Israel because we see him as the fulfillment, as Paul said, yes to all the promises made to Israel.
00:47:52.000So that's why anything like anti-Semitism from a Christian standpoint is intellectually incoherent.
00:48:01.000It does seem like there has been a resurgence of the Marcion heresy that is making new inroads at this moment.
00:48:06.000And Marcion heresy being the idea that the Old Testament was actually nothing to do with the New Testament, that actually it's completely irrelevant.
00:48:13.000Why do you think that's making such a comeback right now?
00:48:15.000Because it does feel like it's making a comeback.
00:48:54.000There's something that's intellectually repugnant about it and something morally repugnant too, because it gave rise to this deep rift between Christians and Jews.
00:49:02.000Read Paul to the Romans chapters 9 through 11 is his great treatment of this problem.
00:49:07.000And in a way, we've never improved upon Paul, Romans 9 to 11, as he's tried to tease out.
00:49:19.000I was zealous for the traditions of my fathers.
00:49:21.000And now I've met the risen Jesus and I'm trying to rethink it all in light of that.
00:49:27.000So we've been wrestling with this problem from the very beginning, but Paul represents a very beautiful appropriation and retention of Judaism.
00:49:38.000Well, Bishop Barron, I really appreciate the time.
00:49:51.000Well, in other news, shifting from things that are really worth talking about to things that are not worth talking about, but we have to talk about them anyway because we cover the news.
00:49:59.000There is a brand new garbage conspiracy theory making the rounds.
00:50:03.000This is regarding the trial of Charlie Kirk's alleged assassin, Tyler Robinson, whom all, I repeat, all evidence points to.
00:50:11.000So the defense is now predictably throwing spaghetti at the wall and waiting to see what sticks.
00:50:17.000What they're really doing is they are chumming the waters with irresponsible media, hoping that the jury pool will end up being tainted.
00:50:25.000That is the goal, to get somebody in the jury pool who is a conspiracist.
00:50:29.000So there is a piece that was printed, and it never should have been printed in the UK Daily Mail because it's trash.
00:50:34.000And the piece is headline, quote, bullet used to kill Charlie Kirk did not match rifle allegedly used by suspect Tyler Robinson, new court filing claims.
00:50:42.000Now, if you just read that headline, if you just read that headline, what you would assume is that there is a bullet that is identifiable and did not match the rifle, which would be groundbreaking stuff, right?
00:50:54.000Bullet used to kill Charlie Kirk did not match rifle.
00:50:58.000Okay, that is missing a key piece of context.
00:51:01.000A key piece of context here is that the bullet fragmented.
00:51:05.000There is no whole bullet to match up with the rifle.
00:51:09.000And when a bullet fragments the way this bullet apparently fragmented, it makes it unidentifiable because all of the striations that you'd normally see on the bullet that match it up with the chain, with the barrel of the rifle, those are not present.
00:51:26.000It's not evidence that Tyler Robinson is innocent because the bullet fragmented.
00:51:31.000And now you can't directly link the bullet to that rifle because you can't link that bullet to any rifle.
00:51:36.000It's not like there's another rifle you can link it to.
00:51:39.000But that's not how the Daily Mail wrote the story, which is trash.
00:51:41.000And the Daily Mail should be ashamed of itself.
00:51:44.000Again, bullet fragments are difficult to match to the original rifle.
00:51:50.000This is sort of like making the case that if OJ's knife had somehow been discovered after the crimes and it had been tossed in a vat of hydrochloric acid and all identifying marks and DNA had been dissolved, that somehow the inability to connect that knife to OJ's DNA would not just not link OJ to the crime.
00:52:14.000So just to dispense with that idiotic conspiracy theory, because of course your usual suspects, the Candace Owens of the world, are still trying to apparently get Tyler Robinson off on the basis of their own smooth-brained nonsense.
00:52:26.000Before we move on to what's going on with Gen Z and our very own Isabel Brown, who was taken to task by the ladies of the view, let's take a question from a caller.
00:52:34.000This segment is sponsored by PeerTalk.
00:52:40.000Do you think that within the remaining years of the Trump administration, it may be prudent to shift our battles with our foreign enemies to the enemy within our borders?
00:52:53.000That is the growing anti-American radical leftists, seditious politicians, and the non-assimilating anti-American naturalized citizens who are abusing our bloated social welfare programs.
00:53:11.000So, I mean, I think that we have to chew gum and walk at the same time.
00:53:46.000And so if you quote unquote, draw within so that you can focus on immigration.
00:53:49.000And meanwhile, Iran spreads its tentacles all over the Middle East, threatens all of our allies, threatens all of the shipping lanes, and basically grinds our economy under its boot heel, that's a problem too.
00:54:14.000According to Fox News, the Trump administration is launching a new effort to make a government cool again by hiring Gen Z workers to rebuild the federal talent pipeline after a year of Doge cuts and to compete more aggressively with the private sector.
00:54:26.000Now, again, part of this is probably related to the downturn in job expectations for Gen Zers.
00:54:32.000Now, see if you can provide some jobs for the youngsters.
00:54:37.000But when you talk about Gen Zers and the big problems with Gen Z, you got to say that there is a bigger problem with Gen Z than mere unemployment concerns.
00:54:46.000So, for example, we should be somewhat concerned about the fact that there is a complete degradation of things like family formation with Gen Z, that the entire pathway from childhood to adulthood is being ignored or blocked off by members of Gen Z. According to a lot of the studies, more than one third of Americans, 15 up, have never married as of 2022.
00:55:10.000In the U.S., nearly 1.5 million more adults under 35 live with their parents than one decade ago.
00:55:16.000And most importantly, there was a 2023 Pew survey of 18 to 34-year-olds, and it found that 57% of men said they definitely want children one day.
00:55:24.000Only 45% of women in the same age range do.
00:55:47.000If you're not encouraging your children to grow up and have the courage to get married and have kids, more kids than they can afford before they think they're ready, it is high time to start.
00:55:57.000It is these choices like deleting our dating apps and putting birth control pills and saying I do at the altar that ultimately trickle down into the political policies that we will see save our country.
00:56:10.000So again, I'm wondering what's so controversial about that, telling people it is good to have kids and that you should get married and that you should have kids.
00:56:16.000All thriving societies rely upon this, but of course, the ladies at the View are very upset, very upset.
00:57:45.000This notion that you can't choose to do many things all at once or that you decide that you want to stay at home with your kids for a while and then work part-time.
00:57:55.000But to pretend that a society ought to be utterly indifferent about the choices you make, that it makes no difference to society whether you want to have kids or don't want to have kids, that to me is nuts.
00:58:08.000How can any sort of society survive along that basis?
00:58:11.000Of course we ought to have a preference for a morality that pushes childbearing and rearing.
00:58:16.000But it is incredible how many people on the left seem to believe that if you say it's good for women to have kids, that this is somehow an order, like it's somehow a mandate.
00:58:30.000Ana Navarro says, don't tell me what to do with my uterus.
00:58:32.000I'm not telling you what you must do with your uterus.
00:58:34.000I'm telling you that it is better for society when women have children than when they do not.
00:58:38.000And it is better for women, as a general rule, when they want to have children than when they do not.
00:58:44.000I don't know why that's remotely controversial, but I guess that's where we are.
00:58:47.000Again, no one is denying anybody a choice.
00:58:49.000We're just saying that some choices are better than other choices.
00:58:53.000There is the call to responsibility for the men who make who help make these children, right?
00:58:59.000I am, I don't know why it's always people lecturing women what they have to do or not to do.
00:59:07.000Bottom line, if you're not paying my bills, you don't get to tell me what I do with my uterus.
00:59:15.000No one's telling you what you must do with your uterus, but again, we teach our kids all the time what our values should be, what our values should be.
00:59:24.000It makes no sense to me to treat Isabel's statement that we ought to teach our kids that it's good to want kids as some sort of assault, as some sort of offensive.
00:59:32.000Sonny Hawson, of course, says that children are too expensive.
00:59:35.000That's the real reason why people aren't having them.
01:00:01.000So she's advocating for people to be born into poverty, people not being able to feed those children, people not being able to educate those children, and people not being able to house those children at the same time when this government is cutting all of the services that would allow people to have families and big families.
01:00:19.000And none of that, by the way, none of these women, if services were to massively expand for women, none of them would be saying anything different about what Isabel said.
01:00:26.000If the government had broader services, no one on that panel would be saying, she's right, we should encourage women to have more kids.
01:01:07.000Well, you know, we just talked to Bishop Barron a little while ago about Holy Week.
01:01:11.000Obviously, a lot of people finding spiritual meaning this week.
01:01:14.000Your book is about how people find meaning in life.
01:01:16.000And, you know, I was just talking a moment ago about Isabel Brown at CPAC saying that we should encourage young women to get married, to have children, and then women on the view being very upset about this.
01:01:25.000Why are so many people upset about the idea that we ought to promote values that themselves provide meaning in life rather than, I suppose, indifference to those values?
01:01:37.000And, you know, this is a research project I've been working on in this book for the last five years.
01:01:41.000We in our society, which is sadly a decline, have lost the ability to find meaning through the institutions that bring it.
01:01:48.000And there's a lot of explanations for it.
01:01:49.000I mean, we can talk about ideology and polarization, but fundamentally, this is about how we have used technology largely after 2008, somewhat before that.
01:01:58.000But to the extent that everybody has a cell phone attached to their hand and they're scrolling their hours away, the average person looks at the cell phone 205 times per day, which literally makes us use our brains in the wrong way to find the meaning of life.
01:02:12.000I mean, you go back a couple of generations and the things that you were talking about were not controversial.
01:02:17.000And the reason is because everybody knew that an ordinary life filled with relationships and faith and friendship and love and family, these were the secrets to the meaning of life.
01:02:26.000And we have lost that, not just because of ideological polarization, but because of technology, which has changed our brains.
01:02:34.000So let's talk about that technology changing our brains.
01:02:37.000So it is absolutely true that it's almost as though a hack has been performed on the human mind by a lot of the tech companies that have programmed for virality and by content providers who, of course, are attempting to maximize their exposure.
01:02:48.000I mean, we do that here on the show in order to get more people to watch, to get more eyeballs.
01:02:52.000But the reality is that it is as though we have found the most lizard-brained parts of ourselves and then maximized those and poisoned ourselves in the process.
01:03:03.000I mean, humans are unbelievably ingenious and we will wipe out small problems and in the process create major crises.
01:03:10.000It's just amazing when you think about it.
01:03:12.000Let's see if we can wipe out a little bit of physical pain, which will turn into analgesics that become so incredibly dependency provoking that we have 100,000 deaths a year overdoses.
01:03:23.000And again, I'm not a techno doomsayer.
01:03:26.000On the contrary, I'm a techno optimist, but we have not learned how to use our technology appropriately.
01:03:32.000And the result of it is that our brains, which are hemispheric, there's two sides to each brain.
01:03:37.000This is all in my book, How This Works.
01:03:39.000The right side is dedicated to mystery and meaning and love and happiness, and the left side is dedicated to solving technological and analytical problems.
01:03:48.000And we've stopped using the right side of our brains, which is why people are depressed and anxious and lonely, and they'll lash out for all sorts of dumb activist reasons.
01:03:57.000I mean, all of the activism and conspiracy theories, this are nothing more than a cry for meaning, a sense of coherence in life.
01:04:04.000And the way to actually get that is to put down your device and go love your friends and family.
01:04:11.000Of course, it isn't because that's not ordinary anymore.
01:04:13.000So this book is a six-part plan in real life with real hacks and real techniques to find the meaning of your life, just like the old days in the next six months.
01:04:24.000So I don't want to spoil your book, The Meaning of Your Life.
01:04:27.000Why don't you give us a couple of the hacks that people ought to be using in order to break all of this dependency?
01:04:33.000Well, to begin with, you got to get clean.
01:04:35.000You know, if we were talking about dependency on drugs and alcohol, I would say you actually can't go live a new, brand new, squeaky, clean, wonderful life if you don't actually get clean from the substances.
01:04:43.000And so I have a whole chapter on actually how to break your neurochemical addiction to devices with all the latest research on how to do that.
01:04:52.000And by the way, Ben, it's not that hard.
01:04:54.000You just have to have a little bit of will, commitment, and discipline, and you can do it in about three weeks.
01:04:59.000Then after that, there's a bunch of ways that people haven't thought about maybe in a long time.
01:05:05.000I give a list of the kinds of questions that you could ask and talk about with your friends that will literally illuminate the right hemisphere of your brain where questions of meaning will actually find you.
01:05:16.000I also talk about the importance of giving your heart away, falling in love, having kids.
01:05:21.000I talk about how incredibly important it is to look upward to the divine, to actually practice a faith, practice it, notwithstanding your beliefs, and certainly notwithstanding your feelings.
01:05:30.000I mean, you and I as traditionally religious people, me as a Catholic and you as an Orthodox Jew, I mean, we feel it sometimes, man, but we practice it every day.
01:05:40.000And that turns out to be the secret to the meaning of life, right, Ben?
01:05:46.000And again, you know, we were talking with Bishop Barron about Holy Week.
01:05:48.000I mean, the fact that you practice in the world is the thing that makes you a religious person.
01:05:52.000And it is living a religious life, not believing.
01:05:55.000I think that we've also become very abstract in the way that we view life, way too abstract in some sense.
01:06:01.000The idea that religious people sit around all day contemplating their navel and the existence of God is not correct.
01:06:06.000I mean, people who are religious typically spend most of their day doing the same kinds of things everybody else does, but orienting themselves toward the idea that they're doing it for a godly reason.
01:06:16.000It's just you're doing it for an actual bigger reason.
01:06:18.000And in other people's lives who are not religious, they do it with their kids.
01:06:22.000I mean, you can do it with your kids or with your spouse.
01:06:24.000If you're doing things for a better, bigger reason, you're going to feel more fulfilled in your life than if you're doing it because your phone told you that it's important to be more famous or because some people were responding to you in your mentions on X or something.
01:06:37.000And there's one more thing that a lot of young people have been taught that's quite incorrect.
01:06:41.000Now, I actually think that young people have been quite victimized by our culture because they, you know, you and I, I mean, you're a lot younger than I am.
01:06:46.000You're 20 years younger than I am, but you still remember the before times, as do I, you know, before we were attached to our phones to this particular extent.
01:06:53.000But one of the things that the lies that has been perpetrated with a lot of young people today, leading to the kind of conversation that you just illustrated about this non-controversial idea that family makes you happy is because people are uncomfortable and they've been told that if they're depressed or anxious, that's evidence that they're broken and that their suffering must be eliminated.
01:07:13.000The truth of the matter is, and I have a whole chapter on how never to waste your suffering.
01:07:17.000I have the latest scientific techniques on how to use your inevitable suffering in life to find the meaning of your life, which is what, by the way, our religions have taught and our grandmothers have taught.
01:07:26.000And I talk about the fact that when you believe that I'm sad and I'm anxious, I need to fix this thing.
01:07:35.000Sadness and anxiety in life is evidence that you're alive and have a normally functioning limbic system, that your emotions are working the way that they're supposed to.
01:07:43.000I tell my students at Harvard, by the way, when I've been working on this book, I say, look, if you study at Harvard, if you're not sad and anxious, you need therapy.
01:07:52.000Because the truth is you're doing a hard thing and you're doing it on purpose.
01:07:57.000And that's how you find the meaning of your life.
01:07:59.000So this is six ways to find the meaning of your life.
01:08:16.000All righty, folks, the show continues for our members right now.
01:08:18.000We're going to answer your questions about free speech in the NBA, how to prevent your loved ones from being blackpilled, so to speak, and the straight of hormones.
01:08:25.000Remember, in order to watch, you have to be a member.
01:08:27.000If you're not a member, become a member.