00:00:00.000Folks, 8 million people just took to the streets to stop a king who does not exist.
00:00:05.000They say they are protesting tyranny, but if you look at who's actually holding the megaphone and more importantly, who's signing the checks, this grassroots movement starts looking a lot less grassroots and a lot more like a sophisticated and coordinated operation.
00:00:18.000From Hollywood elites having public meltdowns to radical activists calling for labor militancy, we've got it all.
00:00:24.000The real story isn't actually the useful idiots on the streets.
00:00:27.000It's the apparent $3 billion web of funding tied to a tech tycoon living in Shanghai and a wedding-turned mysterious summit in Jamaica.
00:00:58.000We know this because, you know, that time he was elected and then he was not elected and he left office, which doesn't happen with kings, and then he was elected again.
00:01:05.000Again, none of that happens with kings who are typically not elected.
00:01:09.000Also, he's not a king because he can't just do anything that he wants.
00:01:13.000So, for example, this is why DHS has still not been fully funded and yet to sign an executive order.
00:01:18.000And it's why the SAVE Act is not law yet.
00:01:20.000And why President Trump has been unable thus far, to my great consternation, to build a Trump hotel on the smoking ruins of the UN building, which I would love.
00:01:28.000But this weekend, according to the Wall Street Journal, hundreds of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets across the nation for a day of no kings rallies Saturday in opposition to President Trump, who organizers say is running the country more like a king than a president.
00:01:43.000The No Kings coalition estimates at least 8 million people nationwide participated in protests on Saturday.
00:01:48.000Now, again, I kind of doubt those numbers.
00:01:50.000Whenever organizers tell you a number, it's typically way more than the actual number.
00:01:55.000Organizers said 350,000 people showed up in New York City alone, which is indeed a lot of people.
00:02:03.000It's a pretty big turnout, and it's worth talking about why these people are turning out.
00:02:07.000So let's start with why they are clearly not turning out.
00:02:09.000They're not turning out because they oppose kings.
00:02:12.000I suppose I actually agree with the stupidest person in the United States Senate, Maisie Hirono, unchallengeable title, truly a dullard.
00:02:20.000She tweeted yesterday, quote, Donald Trump is not, never will be, and has never been a king.
00:02:50.000Do you remember when Barack Obama said, you know, if Congress ain't going to do what I want them to do, I got a pen and I got a phone.
00:02:57.000And you remember, he then used that pen and that phone to do things like, for example, saying that all childhood arrivals of kids who are illegally here would be deferred, right?
00:03:08.000That was the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which was not passed via Congress.
00:03:12.000It was signed by the president as an executive order.
00:03:15.000You also may remember that time that Joe Biden tried to use the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to cram down a vaccine mandate on 80 million Americans.
00:03:26.000Maybe you remember that time that Joe Biden decided that he was going to ignore the Supreme Court and simply get rid of student loan debt.
00:03:33.000They weren't protesting for any of that, right?
00:03:35.000Now, that was pretty significant centralization of power in the executive branch, but they didn't care.
00:03:41.000They're also not turning out in the streets because they oppose foreign interventions like what's going on in Iran.
00:03:46.000Certainly not because they oppose tyrants.
00:03:48.000They were fine with Barack Obama's interventions in Libya and in Syria and in the drone wars he was constantly fighting.
00:03:54.000They were totally fine with Joe Biden's funding of the war in Ukraine for that matter.
00:03:59.000And it's not as though they're anti-tyrant.
00:04:01.000Like right now, they are protesting that President Trump is fighting tyrants.
00:04:05.000Like, for example, Nicolas Maduro, an actual honest-to-God communist tyrant, or the Cuban communist regime, an actual honest-to-God tyranny, or the Iranian Moans, some of the worst tyrants on planet Earth.
00:04:16.000So they're not anti-tyranny, the No Kings people.
00:04:19.000They're perfectly pro-tyranny in foreign countries.
00:04:21.000And they're kind of pro-tyranny at home when they agree with the tyrants.
00:04:24.000They're not even turning out because they're upset with corruption.
00:04:26.000You'll remember Joe Biden pardoning his entire family on the way out.
00:04:31.000So we all know the real reason here, right?
00:04:33.000The real reason is because a lot of people hate President Trump.
00:04:39.000They don't have any principled stand here.
00:04:42.000They're not protesting a specific issue.
00:04:43.000It's an agglomeration of various people who are mad about various things, but in the end, are just mad at, quote unquote, the system and President Trump.
00:04:51.000And also, a lot of these people are quite terrible.
00:04:53.000Julio Rosas over at Storyful, he was out there taking videos of the protesters.
00:04:59.000Apparently, protesters were throwing concrete bricks at a federal building.
00:05:21.000Got these significantly overweight protesters chucking concrete blocks at a federal building and a guy wearing a shirt that says the Second Amendment is for shooting ice.
00:06:08.000The handmaid's tail stuff, people walking around by making reference to a TV show that has not been relevant for, what, three, four years at this point, I believe.
00:06:17.000And they're all carrying signs like Prince Andrew, Elon Musk.
00:06:20.000Apparently, these are all Epstein-related, I guess.
00:06:24.000Josh Harris, and it's all dudes wearing handmaids.
00:06:27.000By the way, nothing to say from these folks about people who are actually stuffed into handmaid's tail-like outfits in the Middle East.
00:06:35.000But they're walking around Nashville free as a bird.
00:06:38.000Dudes wearing handmaid's tails outfit, just genius-level stuff.
00:06:42.000Some of the protesters in Washington, D.C., talk to our own Breca Stoll of Daily Wire.
00:06:47.000There was one protester, a black woman, who said that black women are being murdered when they seek medical care, which is, I feel like that'd be a bigger story if that were true.
00:06:55.000Black women are pretty much being murdered in medical professions when we go to seek medical care.
00:07:22.000Meanwhile, there were white ladies there too.
00:07:24.000And the white ladies were telling Brecca that there's nothing better they can do, literally nothing better they can do, than to show up on the streets of Washington, D.C., saying things as white women.
00:07:38.000As a white woman, this is the least I can be doing.
00:07:42.000There are so many marginalized voices in this country that need to have a safe space to be able to be who they are.
00:07:48.000And I have that privilege to be able to come out here and stand up for something that's right.
00:07:54.000As someone who looks the way that we do, there's nothing better we should be doing on a Saturday.
00:08:00.000Nothing, nothing better you can do on earth than stand on a street corner and hold a sign.
00:08:06.000Also, one white protester was out there saying it's not safe for black people to be out there, which is weird because we just saw a black lady who was out there talking to Brecca.
00:09:40.000An entirely bunch of people of color who work for ICE laughing at undoubtedly a white dude yelling at them for being fascist tools of tyranny.
00:11:01.000Robert De Niro is still wandering around, you know, with the same vim and vigor that he showed in the Irishman during that fight scene where he was de-aged but still looked like an 80-year-old man trying to kick somebody on the street.
00:11:12.000Anyway, he is still out there doing No Kings.
00:11:15.000By the way, the No Kings rally, he's doing this like from his, apparently from his basement.
00:11:57.000Again, one of the best things about the no kings rallies is the baseline assumption that there is no king because there is no king, which is why they can do what they're doing.
00:12:04.000So I'm not sure what they're protesting, but they know what they're protesting.
00:12:11.000We have to fight for the right to party.
00:12:14.000And I don't mean the political party because I don't really care which political party you believe in as long as you believe in the Constitution and the fundamental freedoms that the Constitution protects.
00:14:49.000It's like when you go to that worst job interview you've ever gone to.
00:14:52.000You know, if you ever interviewed anybody, sometimes you'll get somebody who comes in for an interview and you'll say, you know, tell me your shortcomings.
00:14:59.000What are the things that you have to fight?
00:15:01.000And they'll be like, you know, my biggest problem is I'm just too hardworking.
00:15:10.000Radicalized by compassion and by love.
00:15:14.000Meanwhile, Mayor Brandon Johnson, who has continued to preside over the downfall of his own city, says that it's time to end the assaults against immigrants over on MS Now.
00:15:29.000We have to end the assaults against working people.
00:15:32.000We have to end the assaults against immigrants.
00:15:39.000You have to end the assaults against immigrants.
00:15:41.000Now, I will point out at this point that Loyola University is in Chicago, and it was an illegal immigrant who shot to death a woman in his city pretty famously in the last two weeks.
00:15:54.000Well, you know, these sorts of protests do have some truck outside the United States.
00:16:00.000America's enemies are counting on the No Kings useful idiots to do their dirty work for them.
00:16:05.000So the Iranians are super happy about this.
00:16:07.000Ayatollah Khomeini was tweeting from the grave.
00:16:55.000If there is one, if there's one government that says there must not be a centralized tyranny that dominates all aspects of life, it is the Iranian government.
00:17:03.000And of course, you have Ilhan Omar, who, again, you want to talk about immigration mistakes, letting her family in, gigantic immigration mistake.
00:17:12.000Here's Ilhan Omar suggesting that the real problem with America is that Trump is bombing schoolgirls.
00:17:17.000Again, what's so disgusting about this particular slur, this particular calumny, is that the notion that the American military is deliberately bombing schoolgirls, while Ilhan Omar is supportive of actual terrorist groups that actually deliberately bomb schoolgirls is pretty astonishing stuff from the sitting Congress person in Minnesota.
00:17:57.000A little more vocal grind on top of that would make it even more annoying.
00:18:00.000So let's be clear about this no kings thing.
00:18:02.000We're not looking at a bunch of well-meaning, freedom-loving people who are upset because Big Brother is watching.
00:18:08.000We're looking mostly at an agglomeration of a lot of people who are misinformed, who've been told things that are not true by the legacy media, and their leadership who are malign.
00:18:16.000But the big question remains, how are they getting these kinds of numbers?
00:18:19.000And the answer, at least in part, is a lot of organizing, and that organizing costs a lot of money.
00:18:28.000Quote, a network of about 500 groups with an estimated $3 billion in combined annual revenues is behind the coordinated nationwide No Kings protest on Saturday, including communist groups who are using the day to call for a revolution, according to a Fox digital news investigation.
00:18:44.000So where exactly is that money coming from?
00:18:47.000Well, apparently, some of these groups are Soros funded, but Fox News Digital has identified key participation by a network of radical socialist and communist organizations funded by Neville Roy Singham, an American tech tycoon and avowed communist who lives in China.
00:19:01.000So you literally have a communist living in China who is funneling hundreds of millions of dollars into various protest groups.
00:19:09.000According to Fox News, Singham has financed a constellation of activist institutions that promote revolutionary socialist policies and frequently collaborate in protest campaigns.
00:19:18.000That includes the Answer Coalition, Code Pink, the co-founder of Code Pink, by the way, Jodi Evans, is married to Singham.
00:19:24.000What a delightful, what a delightful couple.
00:19:27.000By the way, Fox News has a deep dive on their marriage today, and it's a pretty great report.
00:19:32.000Quote, as far-left American activists flood Cuba to support its flailing communist regime, U.S. officials have opened a sprawling investigation into an anti-American pro-China nonprofit network forged during a wedding celebration in late February 2017 off Runaway Bay on Jamaica's northern coast.
00:19:49.000There beneath a canopy of palm trees, an elite cadre of activist intellectuals, celebrities, political organizers, and comrades in a global Marxist-Leninist Maoist movement assembled to celebrate the revolutionary love of two luminaries, both 62 at the time, Neville Roy Singham, American-born tech tycoon living in Shanghai, and Jodi Evans, a red-haired veteran, activist, and co-founder of CodePink Women for Peace.
00:20:11.000Over four days of dancing, lectures, and late-night conversations in venues from the Flavor Beach Bar to Sharky Seafood, celebrating the bond of Roy and Jodi, alliances were formed that would shape protests, unrest, and political agitation over the next decade.
00:20:25.000That weekend, Vijay Prashad, an academic described in the official wedding itinerary as a Marxist intellectual, spoke on a panel called The Future of the Left.
00:20:34.000By the way, you want to talk about like a horrible wedding weekend, horrible wedding weekend.
00:20:38.000You get invited to somebody's wedding and they break out Das Capital and decide to do a panel called The Future of the Left.
00:20:49.000Well, from that beginning of Godfather One Wedding, apparently springs, a magical nexus of wild left organizations that now numbers an estimated 2,000 parroting propaganda from China, Russia, Iran, Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela, and Gaza.
00:21:07.000Within activist circles, according to Fox News, far-left critics refer to leftists who align with authoritarian regimes as tankies.
00:21:14.000Many groups and leaders from Singam's network, including Evans and Benjamin, are part of the pro-communist convoy.
00:21:19.000Now, in Cuba, apparently, Singham has pushed some $278 million from him into organizations that sow discord in the United States.
00:21:32.000No, it's not just all happening by accident.
00:21:34.000Yes, it takes an awful lot of money to make this magic happen.
00:21:39.000I mean, who is Neville Roy Singham, by the way?
00:21:42.000Well, here he was at a conference in November 2025.
00:21:47.000If we want to therefore have a new world order that is based on multilateralism that President Xi and CPC and China have proposed, we have to undo the ideological damage that has been done by the narrative of World War II.
00:22:02.000And I'm real proud, of course, that it was first in Guancha here in China because I will tell you, the majority of my friends in the global south do not know that 35 million Chinese perished.
00:22:13.000It's not a known fact in the majority of the world.
00:22:15.000It's very important that this story is told to the whole world because my friends in Latin America were shocked when they find this out.
00:22:23.000So China has a very important role, and we in this forum have a very important role that to envision a new multi-order polarity order requires the, quite frankly, the deconstruction, a restorationist history.
00:22:54.000So, I mean, again, you might be hearing this message over and over from the entire grievance party, from the left and from the horseshoe right.
00:23:01.000Again, what he said there is multipolar world order with China and Russia as leading forces.
00:23:07.000And we need to rewrite the history of World War II in order to achieve this new world order.
00:23:14.000Man, I wonder where I've heard something like that before.
00:23:21.000Here was the president over the weekend.
00:23:23.000For the radical left Democrats in Congress to immediately end their dangerous shutdown of our Department of Homeland Security, you know, they want to play games.
00:23:35.000They sort of remind me of, they remind me actually a little bit of Iran.
00:23:41.000The deranged, the deranged, the deranged Democrats.
00:23:48.000Well, I mean, the No Kings protesters are certainly the leadership are deranged.
00:23:54.000The leadership are absolutely deranged for sure.
00:23:56.000But deranged, not in the sense that they're just crazy, but politically deranged.
00:24:02.000They're literally not on the normal range.
00:24:05.000Well, in just a second, we're going to jump into what's happening in Iran, which, of course, is a flashpoint in American and international politics.
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00:25:26.000Right now, things are very rough in Israel.
00:25:28.000People have been out of school for a month.
00:25:30.000Enormous number of people in Israel are still living under the sirens from the north, firing rockets from Iran every single day.
00:25:37.000Passover reminds us that God still hears the cries of his people and answers with love and compassion, which is why the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews is on the ground right now, delivering food, equipping shelters, and caring for Israel's most vulnerable.
00:25:49.000IFCJ is doing tremendous work over there, making sure, particularly that people who are old and vulnerable, actually have resources.
00:26:25.000Now, that might include special operations ranging from attempts to take Kharg Island, that, of course, is the source of 90 to 95% of all Iranian oil, to operations against areas on the shores of the Strait of Hormuz to make sure that the Iranians don't have a source from which to fire their drones at shipping, to an operation on the ground to seize enriched uranium.
00:26:43.000CBS News reports that the Pentagon is preparing for weeks of ground operations in Iran as thousands of American soldiers and Marines arrive in the Middle East for what could become a dangerous new phase of the war should President Tronel Trump choose to escalate.
00:26:56.000Any potential ground operation would fall short of a full-scale invasion and could instead involve raids by a mixture of special operations forces and conventional infantry troops, which, again, is what we have been talking about.
00:27:07.000That if there are going to be any sort of American boots on the ground, we're not talking about tens of thousands or 100,000 American troops on the ground in Iran, a rock style.
00:27:18.000According to CBS News, discussions within the administration over the past month have touched on the possible seizure of Kharg Island, also raids into other coastal areas near the Strait of Hormuz.
00:27:29.000The Wall Street Journal reports alongside all of this that the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit has now arrived in the Middle East, bringing a range of capabilities into theater, giving President Trump more options in the war against Iran.
00:27:44.000You want all options at your disposal, particularly because if the idea is to ratchet up the pressure in order to ensure some sort of negotiation, right?
00:27:52.000Keep that pressure up, you want more resources available.
00:27:55.000Well, the president put out a statement to that effect on Monday morning via Truth Social.
00:27:59.000He said, United States of America is in serious discussions with a new and more reasonable regime to end our military operations in Iran.
00:28:06.000Great progress has been made, but if for any reason a deal is not shortly reached, which it probably will be, and 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 plants, oil wells, and Kharg Island, and possibly all desalinization plants, which we have purposefully not yet touched.
00:28:25.000This will be in retribution for our many soldiers and others that Iran has butchered and killed over the old regime's 47-year reign of terror.
00:28:32.000Thank you for your attention to this matter, President Trump.
00:28:34.000Now, the question there, of course, is whether the president sticks with those threats.
00:28:40.000Obviously, we have seen a couple of those sorts of threats that have not fully materialized in the past.
00:28:45.000The president, for example, absolutely gave the go-ahead to the Israelis to bomb the South Pars gas field.
00:28:53.000And then, when Qatar got upset and the president said that Israel had kind of gone off the leash and they'd done it themselves, and then he said that he would not be bombing any more energy fields to allow time for negotiation.
00:29:04.000You know, is he actually going to go ahead and bomb desalinization plants, for example, which basically shuts down all resources in the country?
00:29:20.000Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araki put out a tweet: quote: Nisanya, who gambled with American taxpayer dollars and American lives, having badly lost that gamble, is now single-handedly making sure that ordinary Americans, particularly retirees and those retiring in the next few years, will pick up the tab.
00:29:34.000Again, it is incredible how open, like truly open, the appeal from the Iranian government directly to the grievance party right is.
00:29:43.000He is absolutely like the Iranian government is counting on the grievance party right to shout in President Trump's ear and get him to stop.
00:29:49.000That is their last available opportunity.
00:29:51.000They know Trump doesn't care what the Democrats have to say.
00:29:53.000They know President Trump doesn't care what the legacy media have to say.
00:29:56.000So they're just trying to ratchet up pressure from the grievance party right.
00:30:00.000Mohamed Khalibaf, their terrorist parliament leader, again, he was IRGC, who may or may not be negotiating with the U.S., said this: quote, heads up, pre-market so-called news or truth is often just a setup for profit taking.
00:31:06.000They damaged an American E-3 sentry, which is an airborne warning and control system aircraft.
00:31:10.000Those are the airplanes that look like they have a big radar dish on top of them.
00:31:14.000The United States has approximately 30 of those aircraft in operation.
00:31:17.000Again, the goal here would be to scare the Gulf allies into begging the United States to call it all off.
00:31:23.000Iranian President Mahmoud Pezezkian is trying to plead with our Gulf allies to tell the U.S. to stop.
00:31:28.000He put out a tweet quote: They've said many times that Iran doesn't carry out preemptive attacks, but we will retaliate strongly if our infrastructure or economic centers are targeted.
00:31:36.000Well, I mean, they have literally carried out preemptive attacks on all of the Gulf allies, none of whom have actually participated in offensive action.
00:31:44.000He says to the countries of the region: if you want development and security, don't let our enemies run the war from your lands.
00:31:50.000The idea that UAE, that Saudi, that Bahrain, that they're all sitting around believing that Iran is going to make a deal with them, it's not going to work.
00:31:58.000The thing the Gulf allies are most afraid of is that the Iranian regime survives in rump form and then rebuilds.
00:32:04.000And by the way, it is Russia feeling the pressure too.
00:32:07.000So there's been a lot of talk about Russia benefiting from the war.
00:32:10.000In the long term, not even remotely close.
00:32:13.000According to the Wall Street Journal, over the long term, the conflict poses a much bigger threat to Russia's global ambitions.
00:32:19.000In recent weeks, Russia has stepped up its support for Iran, its closest partner in the Middle East, providing satellite imagery and drone technology to help Iran target U.S. forces in the region.
00:32:28.000By the way, remember, this is a supposed allied country.
00:32:30.000Remember, Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon, and others have said Russia is our friend.
00:33:07.000If you know a single thing about what the Russian dictator actually believes and the people around him, you know that they are not oriented toward the West.
00:33:15.000They are oriented toward their own imperialistic interests.
00:33:18.000They have been for legitimately generations.
00:33:22.000So, with all of that said, it is now becoming clear that Russia is in trouble as well.
00:33:32.000That is the reason why they've gotten so involved.
00:33:34.000Iranian President Mahmoud Pazeshkin is actually thanking Russia.
00:33:37.000Quote: President Putin's messages and the support of the Russian people inspire us in this war.
00:33:41.000The resistance and courage of the Iranian people promise new bonds that will ensure the security of East Asia by the countries of the region.
00:33:48.000On behalf of the people of Iran, I thank the government and people of Russia.
00:33:53.000So, again, the Russians, not the good guys, they never were.
00:33:58.000Well, President Trump, for his party, says there are still a lot of targets left on the board.
00:34:02.000In fact, thousands of targets left on the board.
00:34:24.000And then, you know, at some point, we're going to have to determine what we do.
00:34:28.000But they have never seen anything like it.
00:34:34.000President Trump also said that there are a lot of weapons that we have not even revealed yet.
00:34:41.000We have weapons that nobody's ever seen before.
00:34:44.000We have weapons that nobody even knows about.
00:34:48.000President Trump also added that the Gulf allies and Israel are on the same side, so it's about time for the Saudis to join the Abraham Accords.
00:35:00.000The Saudis basically have said that as long as there is a plan to make a plan to one day make a plan with regard to a Palestinian state, then an Abraham Accord or something like it would be on the table.
00:35:10.000President Trump is saying: listen, you can see who the enemy of any sort of common peaceful interest is.
00:35:59.000Meanwhile, by the way, the Iranian government is divided against itself.
00:36:04.000According to Iran International, serious disagreements have now arisen between Pazehkin, who, again, is the one who's kind of like appealing to the Gulf allies to stop, and the IRGC chief commander, Ahmed Vahidi, over how to manage the war.
00:36:15.000Pezehkian, who's widely perceived in the region as weak, is criticizing the IRGC for continuing to up the ante.
00:36:22.000The IRGC, meanwhile, they're basically saying we want to keep upping the ante because eventually the Americans and Israelis will back down.
00:36:29.000The Iranian regime, by the way, has taken it directly on the jaw.
00:36:32.000Again, all of the talk about how America's, quote-unquote, losing the war, Iran has been absolutely pummeled.
00:36:38.000According to the Washington Post, four of Iran's key ballistic missile manufacturing locations and at least 29 ballistic missile launch sites have been damaged in the first four weeks of the U.S. Israeli offensive, undermining Iran's central military strategy.
00:36:53.000The damage, according to the Post, has most likely halted Iran's ability to produce short-range and medium-range ballistic missiles until the facilities can be rebuilt.
00:37:02.000Again, there's only one way that Iran gets out of this situation.
00:37:05.000It is if the U.S., Israel, the Gulf allies somehow decide to basically leave the Iranian regime in place and in effective control of the Strait of Hormuz.
00:37:15.000I think the president knows that, which is why I think it is highly unlikely that that is the end point here.
00:37:20.000Meanwhile, there was a tempest and a teapot on X this weekend surrounding Israeli home front restrictions on gatherings in Jerusalem's old city.
00:37:29.000So first, before I start explaining this story, you need to understand the geography of the old city.
00:37:32.000You've got to spend a lot of time in the old city.
00:37:49.000All the buildings are chic and jal next to each other.
00:37:52.000Many of the buildings do not have any sort of protective infrastructure for missile attacks.
00:37:57.000They were built literally a thousand years ago.
00:37:59.000And so many of them, particularly the holy sites, were built so long ago.
00:38:03.000It's not as though if a missile hits the Dome of the Rock or Al-Aqsa or, as it turns out, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, that somehow it's going to stand up to that.
00:38:12.000Okay, so there have been significant restrictions in Jerusalem's old city.
00:38:15.000Those restrictions are not the same as in the rest of Jerusalem.
00:38:37.000Okay, so you need to know that so that you understand the backdrop to what happened over the weekend.
00:38:42.000So controversy broke out over a visit by the Cardinal Pier Battista Pizzabala and other prominent Catholic figures, like a couple of other prominent Catholic figures, to the church of the Holy Sepulchre on Palm Sunday.
00:38:54.000That is the date, of course, that traditionally marks Jesus entering Jerusalem at the beginning of Holy Week to celebrate Palm Sunday Mass.
00:39:02.000So apparently, Pizzabala and the others, again, there's a couple of other people, they wanted to go and they wanted to do the Mass by themselves, and they were stopped by Israeli police.
00:39:12.000Again, the reason that that happened, it was a mistake, as we'll see.
00:39:15.000But the reason that happened is because the entire old city is currently under severe restrictions thanks to safety concerns over Iranian missile attacks.
00:40:10.000In areas that are not within immediate reach of a Muhammad, a Mamad is a protected space in Jerusalem, or a bomb shelter.
00:40:17.000There are no gatherings that are permitted at all.
00:40:20.000Unless you like live in your house, you're not supposed to go to places that do not have a Mamad or access to a bomb shelter in the Old City.
00:40:31.000Again, there is a reason for that, because if you go to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and it is hit by a missile, you can't even get an emergency vehicle in there.
00:40:42.000Police say the alleys correctly are mass casualty risks, which is why the Church of the Holy Sepulchre has been largely closed to the entire public since early March.
00:40:51.000By the way, everything in Israel is like the schools are closed.
00:40:55.000As we'll talk about in a second, it's not the only holy site in the Old City that's closed.
00:40:59.000It is not a standard protected space against direct ballistic missile assault.
00:41:05.000It is in the middle of a honeycomb of close quarter alleyways.
00:41:09.000The church of the Holy Sepulchre was not being treated literally any differently than any other site in Jerusalem.
00:41:14.000Okay, so the idea that there was like a double standard being applied to the church of the Holy Sepulchre, which as we'll see is sort of the accusation, it's not true.
00:41:21.000This is a picture literally yesterday while this was happening of the Western Wall, which is treated by most Jews as the holiest site in Judaism.
00:41:29.000The actual most holy site is above the Western Wall in the Temple Mount.
00:41:43.000Al-Aqsa, the Al-Aqsa Mosque, up on the Temple Mount, a holy site to Muslims, is closed.
00:41:48.000Nonetheless, the Patriarchate put out a statement, quote, the two were stopped en route while proceeding privately and without any characteristics of a procession or ceremonial act and were compelled to turn back.
00:41:59.000As a result, and for the first time in centuries, the heads of the church were prevented from celebrating the Palm Sunday Mass at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
00:42:05.000This incident is a grave precedent and disregards the sensibilities of billions of people around the world who during this week looked to Jerusalem.
00:42:12.000The heads of the churches have acted with full responsibility and since the outset of the war have complied with all imposed restrictions.
00:42:20.000Arrangements were made to broadcast the celebrations to hundreds of millions of faithful worldwide who, during these days of Easter, turned their eyes to Jerusalem and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
00:42:29.000Preventing the entry of the Cardinal and the Custos, who bear the highest ecclesiastical responsibility for the Catholic Church in the holy places, constitutes a manifestly unreasonable and grossly disproportionate measure.
00:42:40.000This hasty and fundamentally flawed decision, tainted by improper considerations, represents an extreme departure from basic principles of reasonableness, freedom of worship, and respect for the status quo.
00:42:49.000So I don't know what the improper considerations here are supposed to be.
00:42:54.000That's the only part of the statement that I find somewhat objectionable.
00:42:56.000I'm not sure what the improper consideration was, because I'll tell you what almost certainly happened.
00:43:01.000What almost certainly happened is that there was a police officer stationed outside the church.
00:43:05.000And the cardinal, who again proceeded privately with the custos without any characteristics, according to their statement, of a procession or ceremonial act, the police officer probably said it's closed.
00:43:16.000And they said, well, we want to go inside.
00:43:17.000And I'm the cardinal and I want to do the mass.
00:43:19.000And the police officer, being, you know, a low-level police officer, probably said, wait for it.
00:43:32.000Yes, they were trying to maintain safety standards.
00:43:34.000And also, given the importance of Palm Sunday Mass, some prior planning should have been done with the Patriarchate to allow a private service to take place.
00:43:42.000By the way, it's still unclear in any of the reporting whether the Patriarchate actually went to the government to initiate those discussions prior to heading over to the church.
00:43:50.000So if they did not, then the reality is they probably walked up to a random Israeli police officer who is stationed outside and told not to let anyone in.
00:44:10.000The Israeli police put out a statement yesterday.
00:44:13.000Here was a spokesperson for the Israeli police.
00:44:17.000The Israel police is committed to the safety of every soul in Jerusalem.
00:44:20.000During Operation Roaring Lion, while our civilians are being targeted by Iranian regime ballistic missiles, our mission has been very simple, protecting life.
00:44:29.000Under Home Front Command Directives, life-saving restrictions have been applied to all holy sites in the Old City.
00:44:35.000This includes for Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike.
00:44:39.000We've already seen the Old City targeted by these murderous missiles, not just once, and that's alongside the residential communities that are being targeted non-stop over the last month.
00:44:49.000These threats, they don't discriminate by religion or background, and neither does our duty to protect you.
00:44:54.000And because the lives of our Christian residents, civilians, and clergy are precious to us, we cannot allow public gatherings in areas that lack standard protected spaces.
00:45:04.000The narrow alleys of the old city where emergency and rescue vehicles cannot quickly arrive to scene or victims means a single incident can become a tragedy.
00:45:14.000Okay, so the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the police officer went on to explain, by the way, they're in dialogue and figuring it out.
00:45:20.000So the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs then put out their own statement on this, quote, all safety and precautionary instructions in the old city are a direct result of Iranian missile fire.
00:45:47.000It's a wonderful site, and it is perfectly open to Christians when there isn't missile fire raining down on the city.
00:45:53.000Now, as the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, as is known, the Iranian regime has fired on the Old City on multiple occasions, striking sites in the vicinity of the church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the Western Wall.
00:46:04.000In light of this, and in order to protect the lives of worshipers of all faiths, precautionary instructions have been issued for all holy sites of all religions, and mass gatherings are not possible.
00:46:13.000The concern over a mass casualty event in the Old City is particularly acute, given the area's density and the difficulty of deploying first responders in such an incident.
00:46:21.000The police will meet with Cardinal Pizzabella, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, and work to explore solutions that allow for as normal a routine as possible while ensuring public safety.
00:46:30.000In the picture, and then they included a picture that we showed you of the Iranian missile that hit just a few feet from the church of the Holy Sepulchre.
00:46:37.000Then the prime minister, Netanyahu, also put out a statement, quote, over the past several days, Iran has repeatedly targeted the holy sites of all three monotheistic religions in Jerusalem with ballistic missiles.
00:46:48.000As a result, Israel has temporarily asked worshipers from all faiths not to worship at the holy sites in Jerusalem's old city to protect them.
00:46:55.000Today, out of special concern for his safety, Jerusalem police prevented the Latin Patriarch Cardinal Pizzabala from holding Mass this morning at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
00:47:03.000Again, there was no malicious intent whatsoever, only concern for his safety and that of his party.
00:47:07.000However, given the holiness of the week leading up to Easter for the world's Christians, Israel's security arms are putting together a plan to enable church leaders to worship at the holy site in the coming days.
00:47:19.000And then the Israeli president put out a statement, again, similarly oriented, saying, quote, I just called the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, his Beatude, Cardinal Pier Batista Pizzabala, to express my great sorrow over this morning's unfortunate incident in the old city of Jerusalem, in which Cardinal Pizzabella and the Custos were prevented from entering the church of the Holy Sepulchre for prayers amid the ongoing security situation.
00:47:42.000I clarify that the incident stemmed from security concerns due to the continuous threat of missile attacks from the Iranian terror regime.
00:47:49.000I reaffirmed the state of Israel's unwavering commitment to freedom of religion for all faiths.
00:47:53.000Okay, so as if that weren't enough, then the Cardinal put out his own statement too.
00:47:57.000Quote, it is true that the police had said that the orders from the internal command prevented any kind of gathering in places where there is no shelter.
00:48:03.000But we had not asked for anything public, just a brief and small private ceremony to preserve the idea of a celebration in the Holy Sepulchre.
00:48:09.000So first of all, any kind of gathering in places where there is no shelter.
00:48:13.000So in other words, it doesn't sound as though they actually went to the police to clarify before they went that you showed up and they wanted to do it.
00:48:19.000And the police probably, again, it was a low-level police person who was there and probably said, it's closed.
00:48:33.000We want to use this situation to try to clarify better in the coming days what to do in respect for everyone's safety, but also in respect for the right to prayer.
00:48:41.000Again, the police should have responded by trying to accommodate the important private service.
00:48:46.000And again, it is not just possible, but probable that the particular police officer at issue had no idea the cardinals and others were coming or that there was an important service plan.
00:48:55.000And the state has made clear from literally every level that they will work with the cardinal and others to ensure that services over Holy Week can advance as necessary.
00:49:03.000In fact, here is the Cardinal smiling with the Israeli police as of today.
00:49:09.000Clearly, massive religious discrimination happening against Catholics in the Holy Land.
00:49:13.000The Israeli police then posted, quote, following a productive meeting between the Israeli police and Latin Catholic Cardinal Pier Batista Pizzabella, a mutual framework has been established for upcoming Easter ceremonies.
00:49:24.000Due to the complex security reality of Operation Roaring Lion, ceremonies including the Holy Fire will be held in a symbolic limited format.
00:49:31.000This coordination ensures that freedom of worship is maintained alongside our shared primary duty, the protection of human life.
00:49:38.000The life-saving restrictions are a direct response to a real and present danger to all worshipers.
00:49:42.000And then the Latin Patriarchate itself put out the following statement this morning, quote, the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem and the custody of the Holy Land hereby confirm the matters concerning the Holy Week and Easter celebrations at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre have been addressed and resolved in coordination with the relevant authorities.
00:49:59.000Naturally, and in light of the current state of war, the existing restrictions on public gatherings remain in force for the time being.
00:50:04.000Accordingly, the churches will ensure the liturgies and prayers are broadcast live to the faithful in the Holy Land and throughout the world.
00:50:10.000And they expressed sincere gratitude for the president of Israel, Isaac Herzog, for his prompt attention and valued intervention.
00:50:18.000And they say, it is our hope that appropriate arrangements will continue to be found enabling prayer to take place in places of worship, particularly in the holy places of all religions, in a manner that both respects legitimate safety needs, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
00:50:29.000Okay, so why was this an international story?
00:50:33.000Well, I mean, it really shouldn't have been.
00:50:35.000It was a local screw-up by local police in a dangerous time of war amidst broad-scale restrictions that apply equivalently to people of literally all religions in the old city.
00:50:46.000Muslims, Jews, Christians, Armenians, Ethiopians, literally people of all forms of Christianity.
00:50:53.000So why was this an international issue?
00:50:55.000Well, because by some, particularly the World of X, it was treated as an all-out assault on Catholics everywhere, which again, you've seen the context.
00:51:06.000The amount of outrage over the police's mistake, again, was treated by people in the world of X, which is psychotic, as an assault, a purposeful assault by the state of Israel on Catholic practice.
00:51:18.000Emmanuel Macron, who, by the way, should never get to sound off on these issues.
00:51:22.000He has presided over the wholesale surrender of his country to radical Islamism and radical secularism.
00:51:27.000He's suddenly speaking out, quote, I condemn the decision of the Israeli police, which adds to a troubling series of violations of the status of the holy sites in Jerusalem.
00:51:35.000Now, again, Macron had literally nothing to say about missiles being fired at the holy city.
00:51:39.000He's too busy kissing the ass of Iran.
00:51:42.000The same was true for Canada's Mark Carney, who suddenly found it necessary to sound off.
00:51:46.000Let us make something absolutely clear because it's true.
00:51:49.000Israel protects the rights of religious minorities in Israel, which is why the indigenous Christian population of Israel has increased over the decades.
00:51:57.000That is not true of any surrounding country.
00:52:00.000Now, you may have heard from professional lawyers about the increasing Christian population of UAE or Qatar or Kuwait or Bahrain or Saudi.
00:52:39.000The law of Israel literally prevents this.
00:52:41.000The Declaration of Israeli Independence guarantees freedom of religion.
00:52:44.000There is a law from 1967 called the Protection of Holy Places law, and it mandates that holy sites of all religions, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, be protected from desecration and that access to them be guaranteed.
00:52:56.000In fact, as far as I'm aware, literally the only religion that is being given specific, specific carve-outs here is Cardinal Pisabella and the Catholics.
00:53:07.000There are Jewish rabbis who are not allowed to get together in areas in the Old City.
00:53:14.000I think it is useful, and I think it is worthwhile.
00:53:16.000And it is totally legitimate to be upset about a bad local police decision preventing a religious ceremony of tremendous importance from going forward.
00:53:23.000But what is totally illegitimate and ill-advised and stupid and also malicious in many cases is to suggest that this was a purposeful state-driven attempt to discriminate against Catholics.
00:53:34.000Again, the Patriarchate here will be the only such institution, as far as I'm aware, allowed to perform such services under current circumstances.
00:53:43.000So don't pay attention to the not, and I will just point out the number of tweets on this topic, it trended number one yesterday, the number of tweets on this mistaken turning away of the Cardinal, hundreds of thousands, over 300,000.
00:54:00.000The number of tweets total when a piece of Iranian missile nearly destroyed the place, 9,000.
00:54:07.000So yeah, I'm not going to put a ton of stock in the sort of overwrought response that suggests not that a terrible mistake took place and should be rectified, which it has been, according to the Cardinal.
00:54:21.000I'm not going to put stock in people who suggest that this is part of a total Israeli war on Catholics or some such nonsense because it isn't true.
00:55:26.000So, you know, again, this is sort of the great call that's being put out there.
00:55:29.000The Vice President JD Vance actually said this yesterday.
00:55:32.000So the Vice President put out a statement yesterday in which he claimed that we ought to basically trash the filibuster now because if we don't, then Democrats will.
00:55:58.000So we might as well do it now to enforce the protection of the American electoral system.
00:56:04.000It's the dumbest political argument I've ever seen.
00:56:07.000I promise you, Benny, I would bet every dollar that I own that the next time the Democrats have control of the Senate, they will break the filibuster, pack the Supreme Court, and destroy this country.
00:56:18.000We have to do it now in order to save the country.
00:56:22.000Now, again, I don't think this is totally non-credible.
00:56:24.000I think that it is an argument worth listening to.
00:56:26.000I asked Senator Thune directly about this just last week on the program.
00:56:31.000I will say that if this is true, and the move Republicans should make right now is that they should immediately, like right now, say that there ought to be a constitutional amendment to enshrine the filibuster for all time.
00:56:43.000And that if it is not passed within the course of the next three months, they're going to just nuke it.
00:56:49.000This is a suggestion put forward by the co-founder of the Daily Wire, Jeremy Boring.
00:56:54.000I've always thought it was a good idea.
00:56:56.000The sort of mutually assured destruction of the filibuster, it seems like it might not hold in the future.
00:57:02.000However, you just don't have the political support among Republican senators to, I mean, you would need unanimity among the Republicans.
00:57:08.000I'm not sure that you have 30 Republican senators for destroying the filibuster.
00:57:12.000And also, again, I will point out that there are a lot of Democrats.
00:57:16.000I think John Fetterman is not going to vote in favor of destroying the filibuster, for example.
00:57:21.000So, if you lost so much trust that you can't count on the other side to maintain the filibuster, you really should push for a constitutional amendment.
00:57:29.000That should be the next move rather than just destroying the filibuster wholesale.
00:57:32.000All righty, folks, the show continues for our members right now.
00:57:34.000We'll be answering your questions over there as well.
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