The Culture War - Tim Pool - Pentagon Official Allegedly THREATENED Catholic Cardinal, Warns Vatican To ALIGN With TRUMP ft. Scott Greer

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00:00:59.280 connexontario.ca. I don't know if you saw that Trump is invading the Vatican. This is according

00:01:04.360 to Christopher Hale. I'm paraphrasing a little bit here, but that is essentially what a lot of

00:01:08.760 people on Twitter are under the impression of. I went through the story. I went through some of

00:01:13.920 the reaction from the based TradCath contingent of our MAGA coalition. I wanted to get into the

00:01:20.360 story first? Because a lot of people are immediately saying, should we take this guy

00:01:25.120 at face value? I mean, this is obviously, you know, like an Obama, Biden apparatchik, and he's

00:01:30.520 reporting that, you know, a Trump or a Pentagon official spurged out and like, you know, crashed

00:01:35.600 out on this Vatican official. What's your analysis on this story? I mean, I'm obviously a bit skeptical

00:01:41.200 here, but what was your initial reaction to the story? Was it, you know, is this base? Is this

00:01:45.500 justified? Or was this crash out a little too beyond the pale? I'm curious what you have to say.

00:01:49.240 it's a very bizarre story i don't know whether to believe it or not it's also very odd for

00:01:54.320 any administration to do this because what the official that is named in the story elbridge

00:01:59.580 colby did is the he brought in a vatican official and a cardinal to uh castigate him for the vatican

00:02:07.420 criticizing american foreign policy but the vatican has been doing that for many many years

00:02:12.660 you know they oppose the iraq war they've opposed some of the actions we did in afghanistan this is

00:02:17.140 not something totally new or out of the blue. This is just something they do. And according

00:02:23.960 to the story, it's being treated as an unprecedented event that the Vatican has to be on our side,

00:02:28.820 which has not always been the case in American foreign policy. So I found it odd. I don't know

00:02:33.640 whether to believe it or not, because it just sounds pointless for defense officials to try

00:02:39.040 to tell the Vatican to get on the side of America and be like, we need you to be supporting us,

00:02:44.140 which, you know, they haven't really done that in the past.

00:02:47.860 I mean, they did show, I mean, the Vatican and the Catholic Church did show support for America during the Cold War against the communist threat.

00:02:54.780 But, you know, it's been very different over the last 35 years with the Cold War over.

00:02:59.140 So I don't really understand why they would have this meeting or what they would accomplish by it.

00:03:04.940 You know, even the claims that they're going to support an Avignon papacy.

00:03:09.120 I don't know how that would work for America.

00:03:11.320 Or there's this threat that keeps running up.

00:03:13.160 I don't know what that would work. I guess we're going to have a Doral papacy pope appointed by Donald Trump.

00:03:19.980 I don't know who he would pick for pope, maybe himself. I don't know what that would do.

00:03:25.160 So but I don't think that's actually going to work out like it did in the Middle Ages.

00:03:30.040 So I don't really understand what's going on with that. But it's just a very bizarre story.

00:03:35.400 It's very weird. You don't know whether it's true or not. And it certainly wouldn't accomplish anything.

00:03:40.280 I mean, there have been battles between the church and secular powers for many years.

00:03:46.940 I mean, this characterized much of the Middle Ages.

00:03:49.260 It characterized battles in the 18th and 19th century between them and the French government.

00:03:53.920 And then, of course, the German government of Bismarck's time waged a culture war against the Catholicism in Germany.

00:04:01.100 So there has been all these types of battles before.

00:04:04.420 You know, it's not unprecedented for the church and a secular power to be at loggerheads.

00:04:09.280 our heads but i think in this situation it just seems weird because you know they accept that the

00:04:14.640 church is not going to be happy with uh wars that america is carrying out or certain policies that

00:04:19.940 we engage in and i don't think uh you know a random department official or defeat our war

00:04:26.260 department we were almost calling a defense department it's a war department official

00:04:29.820 we're having to correct ourselves uh would gain anything by uh yelling at a cardinal yeah i mean

00:04:37.220 it's not like the Pope's going to change his opinion. You already know why most people are

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00:05:46.920 yeah before we get like the the thing where you accidentally slip up and say department of defense

00:05:51.320 and then people literally uh like it's like the dead naming thing it's like oh it's actually the

00:05:55.960 department of war and i'm like what i need like a three year like after three years if i'm still

00:06:00.840 saying department of defense then you can get on my case but it's like what are we doing here with

00:06:04.840 that i mean to your point it's a good point which is like okay the vatican has been you know opposed

00:06:10.220 to american foreign policy for decades now this is really not too big of a surprise i think it

00:06:14.620 does actually kind of get to the point that a lot of catholics are making which is um you know while

00:06:19.480 you know obviously people are poking holes in this idea that there's a catholic resurgence

00:06:23.160 the United States, because, I mean, you see numbers like for every Catholic convert, there's

00:06:26.460 like eight that leave the church. So it's like on the whole, Christianity by and large is still

00:06:30.860 declining. Maybe it's declining slower now. That's probably true. But again, like Zoomers are the

00:06:37.040 least religious generation in history. So a lot of this like New York Post sensationalism falls 1.00

00:06:41.520 short. One thing that I think is true, and some Catholics are pointing this out, and it's true, 1.00

00:06:46.740 is that it is sort of ascendant, so to speak, in DC circles. You know, you see a lot of DC, 0.76

00:06:52.500 you know, people in the DC sphere, specifically in the Trump admin that are Catholic or Catholic

00:06:57.060 converts. And so I think that could actually be what's going on here a little bit is you have

00:07:01.480 people that are staffing the Pentagon or, you know, the Trump administration by and large

00:07:06.400 that are simultaneously Catholic and devout Catholics, but also loyal to Trump. And that's

00:07:12.220 a big point of contention for them. That's frustrating. And so I think that is why you

00:07:16.280 are seeing this emphasis. That's why you did see a crash out from a Pentagon staffer. We don't know

00:07:20.900 who it was because they maybe feel a little bit of tension here between, you know, the Vatican's

00:07:27.180 stance on this was following the Venezuela operation. They were reacting to Pope Leo's

00:07:31.460 comments where he was basically just, you know, finger wagging. That was kind of what this was

00:07:35.280 in reaction to. They probably feel that tension with the fact that the Vatican and their employer

00:07:40.600 are at odds here. And that's becoming abundantly clear. Or maybe they didn't think about that

00:07:45.020 before. I don't know. Do you agree with this consensus? Do you think that could potentially

00:07:48.140 be what's going on here yeah there is that element within the trump administration i mean there was

00:07:52.620 last year where uh vance got into a theological dispute with the church over immigration and other

00:07:58.840 matters which you know most uh prominent american officials have never gone into theology of like

00:08:05.160 why we should deport people or why we should engage in certain policy but he was going really

00:08:10.080 in the weeds on theological matters with the church and he had bishops and even the pope was

00:08:15.780 rebuking him for his stance and it was just an odd matter because it's not it's something that most

00:08:21.780 americans aren't that familiar with with what his arguments were making and it was like very in the

00:08:26.560 weeds but it's something that was appealing to a lot of the people who are prominent in conservative

00:08:32.660 circles and in the administration that they want these affirmative theological cases made for mass

00:08:38.460 deportations or immigration restriction of that sort and then they're going to go and make these

00:08:42.720 arguments so it's for a certain audience not necessarily the american public so you are

00:08:48.780 this type of dispute between the church and the administration would definitely cause uh tension

00:08:55.720 and awkwardness among them that they would have this and um i don't know why the administration

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00:10:02.400 I think they would just have somebody release some type of official to make a theological case for the Don Rowe Doctrine or some sort.

00:10:12.120 I don't know what theological case they could make, but I'm sure they would find someone to do that.

00:10:18.780 And then they can have this debate between the church over what's proper Catholic doctrine or what's not, like Vance was doing last year.

00:10:28.000 But yes, no, I think it is very much true what you're seeing with the resurgences is definitely more a part of institutional conservatism.

00:10:36.260 I mean, they've always been a large number of Catholic converts there, but it's much more assertive than it was in the past.

00:10:42.300 And I think even a lot of the conversions are happening at a more elite level across the country.

00:10:47.440 I think it's more when you're seeing this, it's not so much the large country as a whole or middle America.

00:10:53.760 It's at elite institutions and elite universities, because if you talk to anybody who's still like Harvard or Chicago and all these places, they will note that there's a larger number of their fellow classmates who are turning to the church, are turning to even orthodoxy of some sort, which a decade or 20 years ago, this had been very rare and very seldomly seen.

00:11:14.820 But now you're seeing a number of them doing that.

00:11:18.560 And also journalists are aware of those trends.

00:11:21.080 You know, they go to many of the same schools and they notice these trends and they're like, oh, that's odd.

00:11:25.480 We should cover this. This wasn't happening before.

00:11:27.700 But it's certainly a major factor within the conservative movement and the Trump administration.

00:11:32.480 You know, no other past Republican administration would have trotted out their vice president to make a theological case, you know, really in the weeds case for a certain policy that they were pursuing.

00:11:44.560 Yeah, yeah.

00:11:45.000 I mean, because you can tell it's kind of a new paradigm.

00:11:47.160 I mean, because, you know, us along with Christopher Hale, we all share the same home state of Tennessee, the great state of Tennessee.

00:11:52.640 And this whole like topic is just bewildering to the Republican base, that kind of evangelical base, because they just don't really understand what's going on.

00:12:03.020 I can say this as someone that grew up evangelical.

00:12:05.400 I grew up in the Southern Baptist Convention.

00:12:07.020 I didn't even really meet many Catholics growing up.

00:12:09.400 I mean, I grew up in the Memphis suburbs. 0.99

00:12:10.920 And so I always found this stuff just kind of like foreign and confusing.

00:12:14.800 I understood it later when I kind of got like more into theology.

00:12:17.540 But, you know, the average, you know, Republican is just kind of like tuning this out.

00:12:21.680 I would say this is mainly a like in-house sort of thing that's going on.

00:12:27.280 I guess this is kind of the frustration that a lot of people have had of the Trump administration, where they do kind of get sidetracked on these issues that really only are like beltway issues.

00:12:35.940 These are only like topics that are really beltway. 0.79

00:12:37.440 And you can tell that the second Trump admin is staffed by a lot more, I guess you would say, zealous Catholics. 0.63

00:12:45.520 Because you'll see Trump on Truth Social every once in a while just randomly tweet out a Catholic prayer. 0.66

00:12:51.260 I remember a year or two ago, it was that archangel prayer, and he just chucked it up, and it was like, what's going on?

00:12:56.440 I thought this guy was like a Paula White devotee.

00:12:59.900 What's going on here?

00:13:01.020 So, you know, I think that's I think that's kind of what's going on here is this is just an issue for maybe 10,000 people and it's kind of being exposed to the entire country.

00:13:11.620 And that's why everyone's just kind of like confused by what's going on here.

00:13:15.300 Yeah, exactly. I mean, I actually grew up Catholic in Tennessee, but you didn't meet any.

00:13:21.000 And generally, this wasn't even a part of our experience there. It was more more Episcopalian, I guess, of that type of growing up.

00:13:29.960 But, you know, a lot of this stuff even would seem foreign to me as someone who grew up Catholic.

00:13:34.400 And I think that would even be the case for a lot of the average Catholics who maybe only go Christmas and Easter.

00:13:41.040 You know, they're not as into this stuff as maybe their parents and grandparents would have been. 0.66

00:13:45.080 So this this is very much of an in-house matter.

00:13:49.240 But it also is, you know, if the White House did bring in a, you know, a representative of the Pope to skewer him or to criticize him and to demand the Vatican get on their side, you know, that's just, you know, that's just very strange for any administration to do, which is why I'm very skeptical about this story.

00:14:10.060 that they may have had they definitely had the meeting they confirmed the meeting but over what

00:14:14.900 that meeting talked about and how they went about things uh i am skeptical as i'm not i'm not sure

00:14:21.500 what they would have accomplished right by yelling at him and telling him to be on the side and

00:14:25.780 generally it doesn't most catholics i remember even when the lead up to the iraq war was happening

00:14:30.560 and the pope came out against it and that didn't really sway the average catholic in america because

00:14:37.380 they're just like oh it's expected for the pope to oppose the war i remember my parents saying that

00:14:42.680 yeah and then they i mean this is not an argument for the iraq war but that just didn't factor in

00:14:48.000 people just expected it's like that's what the pope is supposed to say and i even think it's not

00:14:53.120 like the pope is going to be like wow this maduro raid is one of the greatest uh accomplishments of

00:14:59.600 all time thank you donald trump you know he like hashtag maga i don't think that's going to happen

00:15:05.260 with that. I mean, the Pope is obviously going to oppose wars and military interventions. He's even

00:15:12.220 had, well, I don't know, his predecessor, Francis, took a lot of criticism in Europe for wanting to

00:15:18.320 end the Ukraine war and wanting to have negotiations with Russia. And so the Catholic

00:15:23.460 Church was having a lot of this criticism and tensions and animosity with various European

00:15:30.140 countries, particularly Ukraine, for wanting a peace deal with Russia, which, you know, it's

00:15:37.060 standard practice for the church to want to end wars. I mean, they were like this in World War I,

00:15:41.320 World War II, you know, pretty much every conflict they've wanted to end. And that's a problem for

00:15:46.780 certain governments if it goes against their interests. So it was very common in Europe for

00:15:52.460 them to bring in Vatican officials and then lecture them about how they're not supporting

00:15:56.560 Ukraine and not backing the war effort and then being too pro-Russia. And there was all these

00:16:01.480 conspiracy theories that the Pope is controlled by Putin for merely wanting a peace deal. So

00:16:07.060 it is standard for the church to do this. And we saw this in Europe and many of the people who

00:16:11.560 would be outraged by the Trump administration allegedly castigating this official would have

00:16:21.540 been supportive if the same thing had happened under Biden for the church not backing Ukraine.

00:16:27.360 Right. So, you know, you would have seen some of the changes in that.

00:16:31.620 And this is I guess this would be kind of a good segue then into sort of the reaction to the story,

00:16:36.120 because, I mean, to your point, you know, you go and you talk to, again, your average cradle

00:16:40.960 Catholic, you know, anywhere in the United States. And if you ask them, you know, what their opinion

00:16:45.220 is on Pope Leo or what their opinion was on Pope Francis, you're either going to get sort of like,

00:16:49.900 I don't really think about it too much kind of response as in like they don't have a strong

00:16:53.640 opinion because they're just used to this is business as usual there's always been a pope

00:16:57.440 like I don't need to have a strong opinion on every single statement he makes or you'll get

00:17:01.340 the take of like yeah he's a liberal I kind of expect that their their faith is very much

00:17:06.460 detached from like the Vatican although they are part of the Catholic Church again they're not like

00:17:10.720 pious zealots they're not zealot you know they're not going through every single ecumenical council

00:17:14.940 and like giving their take on it that's just not how Catholics operate and to this point I mean

00:17:19.720 that kind of demonstrates that I think, you know, Catholic, cradle Catholics in the United States

00:17:23.380 are actually fairly well assimilated. I mean, people make this point all the time, you know,

00:17:28.100 you know, outside observers that are Catholics make this observation about Catholics in the

00:17:31.800 United States is that they do have this kind of Protestant flavor to them in some regard,

00:17:35.900 where they do kind of make their faith their own, even within the Catholic Church, where it's this

00:17:40.260 new breed of converts who I think another maybe classification you can make of these people be

00:17:45.580 like for you page converts or Instagram real converts where they saw like a based edit and

00:17:50.640 they converted for political reasons. Unfortunately, like we actually do have to address these people

00:17:55.960 because they're dominating my timeline right now. Some people are calling it the great Catholic

00:18:00.360 coal out, the great ecath coal out of 2026, where they're just taking the story at face value

00:18:06.660 and adding to it. They're turning this into like, there's some sort of showdown between the Pope

00:18:11.580 and Trump right now, which is just not happening. Trump probably doesn't even know this is going

00:18:14.720 on right now, or he's probably not paying attention. The Pope doesn't really care that

00:18:18.260 much. He's got a lot of, you know, bigger fish to fry. But they're making this into this, like,

00:18:22.720 again, we have tanks right outside St. Peter's Basilica right now when we're about to go in.

00:18:26.540 And they're like, I'm loyal to the, you know, the Pope before I'm loyal to Trump. And it's like,

00:18:31.200 like, what are we even doing here? But it's this new breed of converts who, again,

00:18:35.960 unfortunately dominate a lot of discourse online. And I was making this point at the top of the show

00:18:40.180 that actually what happens on Twitter does have some implications, because again, a lot of Trump

00:18:44.700 staffers and staffers across the world for various, you know, political institutions are

00:18:49.580 reading, you know, Twitter, they are participating in sort of the political zeitgeist that is on

00:18:55.240 Twitter, and that is leaking into different, you know, policy decisions. So, you know, it's really

00:19:01.400 crazy to see, again, a lot of these people adopt a flavor of Catholicism that isn't hasn't really

00:19:09.540 existed in the United States ever. And it's just really bizarre to see. I'm wondering what your

00:19:13.920 take is, especially, you know, I mean, you have a Catholic background, so I mean, you have a

00:19:17.500 particularly insightful, you'll have, you know, particular insight into this. You could say maybe,

00:19:24.100 but I think it's that one thing about American Catholics is they do not live up to the 0.76

00:19:28.380 know-nothing myth that they would come here and be a fifth column for the Pope, is that they'd all be

00:19:34.460 personally controlled by Pope and acting under his orders, which that was a lot of the

00:19:39.420 nativist sentiment against catholics in the 19th century and as we've seen that was not the case

00:19:44.560 and that was illustrated by jfk our first catholic president that you know he clearly didn't really

00:19:49.460 care what the pope and the vatican were talking about he was not a very devout catholic yeah as

00:19:54.640 you can see by his personal behavior and that would have been the case with biden as well

00:19:58.120 our two catholic presidents even though the media like to hype up about biden's devout faith it's

00:20:03.680 very obvious he did not have a devout faith he probably forgot he was catholic by the end of

00:20:08.080 presidency anyway. And yeah, and some of these types want to live up to that know-nothing image

00:20:16.940 of Catholics, but they themselves don't practice this because then if the bishops say something

00:20:21.180 about immigration or they say something about Israel that maybe they disagree with or any type

00:20:26.760 of other issue, it could be anything. And then they'll take great umbrage at that and demand

00:20:33.800 that the bishops change their opinion based on what they have. And some of these, there are,

00:20:38.600 I think this is a very small number of them that you really only encounter on social media. I don't

00:20:42.780 think this is even the majority of converts, but some of them immediately convert and then they 1.00

00:20:47.320 become set of Achanists. This is a big problem under Francis. I don't, this has not really 0.96

00:20:52.840 emerged under Leo, but there'd become a lot who would join the Catholic church and say, submit to

00:20:58.560 Rome. And then, you know, Francis would do a lot of, make a lot of liberal remarks, particularly

00:21:03.940 about immigration, or sometimes there'd be a prominent official who would signal openness to

00:21:08.940 maybe gays being welcomed in the church or some sort. And then people would get mad and then

00:21:14.540 start demanding that this is not my Pope, you know, not my Pope. They can't have impeachment

00:21:20.560 proceedings against the Pope, to the best of my knowledge, but they would almost like want that

00:21:25.800 type of response to it. And so it's, you know, they immediately go convert and then they start

00:21:31.360 advocating their own against their own hierarchy. So sometimes they will do that. I think there are

00:21:36.900 a few people who maybe are taking this a little bit more seriously than it is. The administration

00:21:42.540 is not going to be evading the Vatican City. I mean, if the government did come down hard on

00:21:48.760 the Catholic Church, it would definitely make sense for believers to take issue with that and

00:21:54.500 be very opposed to it and turn against Trump over that. But I don't think that's going to be the

00:21:58.820 case. I think this is either badly remembered marks or maybe just one official decided to

00:22:09.120 do some creative commentary on what he thought that the administration's policy was, because

00:22:13.420 it is very silly for the administration to try to tell the Catholic Church what to do.

00:22:19.460 It is. I mean, the church officials, particularly in America, haven't been that fond of Trump's policies.

00:22:26.960 You know, they did issue that, you know, it was a pretty notable letter that the bishops issued opposing his immigration policies.

00:22:33.780 And Leo himself has made it clear, even before he was pope, that he was not a fan of Trump's immigration policies.

00:22:40.220 And he has doubled down on that stance as pope.

00:22:43.460 Yeah, I mean, well, I mean, obviously him not just not showing up for July 4th, which is whatever.

00:22:49.460 I mean, I don't know if I expected them to show up, but again, go to Lampedusa, I think

00:22:53.460 is how you pronounce it.

00:22:54.120 Obviously, the staging point for migrants as they enter Europe.

00:22:57.740 I mean, that's clearly a political action.

00:23:00.300 I think it's quite obvious.

00:23:02.540 I guess this might be a point where maybe we diverge, maybe we disagree.

00:23:06.520 Stephen Wolf, he's a Protestant.

00:23:11.960 He's a guy on Twitter.

00:23:12.820 I think people would recognize his profile.

00:23:14.620 He makes this point, and I'm kind of sympathetic to it, and you might disagree here.

00:23:18.080 But I think what's going on with a lot of the Catholicism energy you're seeing on the right specifically is because, you know, this is, you know, it's a Protestant country, not to say it's distinctly Protestant, but obviously the majority of, you know, religious people in the country are Protestant or evangelical at this point.

00:23:34.040 And so I think something that's happening in regards to, again, this new interest in Catholicism is because it grants you something additional.

00:23:41.940 It sort of grants you like a minority identity in the sense of being a Catholic, being a devout Catholic gives you access to sort of some of these perks that would come with a minority identity.

00:23:52.200 You get like this in-group preference, this group solidarity kind of thing.

00:23:56.540 Do you think that's part of what's going on here?

00:23:58.820 Because, again, you see people convert. I mean, to your point, this isn't necessarily the majority of converts, but again, the people that are participating in the zeitgeist seems to be a good segment of them immediately become really zealous.

00:24:10.940 They put the Vatican flag in their bio or whatever, and then they immediately adopt this group solidarity with other Catholics.

00:24:19.600 And that's, to me, kind of a luxury of a minority identity in a country that, again, is a majority or at least the majority of religious people or evangelicals is it grants you that.

00:24:28.820 I don't know, maybe if you agree or disagree, but it seems to be that's something that I think a lot of people are enjoying participating in is kind of this additional identity that you get when you, again, become a Catholic or if you are a Catholic, when you begin to take it very seriously.

00:24:44.120 Yeah, I don't know if I would say minority identity, but they want a well-defined group identity independent of being a generic American.

00:24:50.840 Right. And I think that's a common trait in a lot of Americans today. I mean, you can even see that among certain groups that, you know, maybe their parents were immigrant and they were raised as a normal American. Then they decide that they're suddenly very into the immigrant heritage that they have, that they weren't raised around and they didn't even learn their homeland's language. You see that.

00:25:10.440 But what I think with a lot of Catholics is that they think of a generic American culture as just McDonald's and the NFL, and they want something more than that.

00:25:18.020 And they feel that the Catholic Church offers them that.

00:25:20.820 And you can see that.

00:25:21.760 I can see that even with conservative circles today is that people, when Ash Wednesday comes around, they're very, there's a great enthusiasm to have the ashes displayed throughout the day.

00:25:34.940 more so than it was i think 10 years ago when i know there was still some of that but there wasn't

00:25:40.020 as uh overt but and you can see that even on fox news where there's far more guests and hosts that

00:25:45.660 are displaying the the ashes throughout the day and these are people who are going to have makeup

00:25:50.460 on so i've heard even reports that some of them have it like reapplied over the makeup uh to

00:25:55.580 identify that but it is a way of saying that i have a particular uh well-defined group identity

00:26:01.480 that makes it different from just generic American,

00:26:05.480 which they think is there's a lot of things lacking

00:26:08.600 in maybe that generic American identity today,

00:26:11.060 and it gives them something unique and particular to themselves,

00:26:14.660 and they would like to have that particular group identity

00:26:17.600 that you can see in other religious groups such as Mormons

00:26:20.200 that they would like to have for Catholics,

00:26:22.220 which, you know, it operates to a certain level at the elite level,

00:26:25.820 but I think for the rest of America, the average Catholics,

00:26:30.100 As you can see by a lot of the people who only attend Christmas and Easter, they don't even go to Ash Wednesday and all that, that they are not as participating in that Catholic culture.

00:26:40.680 They're practically generic Americans. But I think for a lot of the converts and cradle conservative Catholics, that it does provide that unique particular identity that is not offered by generic American identity.

00:26:54.460 And so that's why they accept it. You know, maybe it in some ways resembles minority identity, but it's not so much to become.

00:27:01.640 Even though some of them might want to protect, proclaim themselves as victims.

00:27:05.640 But I think that's a tiny minority among the right because they also want to identify themselves with the right wing trends of America.

00:27:12.980 And some of them even adopt nativist slogans and lingo and symbols while being Catholic.

00:27:19.120 So they don't want to pretend that they were victimized by, you know, the Protestants of the 19th century. 0.58

00:27:25.080 They also accept that. But it's also adding this particular group identity with recognizable symbols and cultural cultural events and traditions that makes them different from being a generic American.

00:27:40.320 Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, I guess to kind of close here, maybe to escape the for you page discussion here and then go back out to like the geopolitical implications here. We talked about last time on the show, I think this was, I think we were discussing the Greenland situation. And we were kind of, we were exploring how useful Trump, the Trump administration's rhetoric towards Europe is for again, like our goals as American right wingers.

00:28:05.160 This, I think it's kind of tough for people to parse.

00:28:08.100 Would you say this is an example of the Trump administration just becoming increasingly

00:28:13.060 frustrated with the Euros, so to speak, kind of mouthing off about American affairs and

00:28:18.060 finger wagging from a position of authority that they don't actually have?

00:28:21.320 Or is this something separate? 0.91

00:28:22.660 And I know you said this is just kind of redundant because this has always been the Catholic

00:28:25.760 position.

00:28:26.580 But a lot of people are kind of tying this to kind of the same thing when like, you know,

00:28:30.640 you have like, you know, the president of Estonia come out and like start shaming, you know, Donald

00:28:35.480 Trump as if like his opinion matters at all. Do you think that's kind of maybe part of what's

00:28:40.180 going on? Maybe not from that specific official, but the Trump administration largely just kind

00:28:44.260 of increasingly frustrated with junior partners starting to try and dictate terms for, again,

00:28:51.280 our foreign policy? Yeah, I think you could say that's a part of it. Whether it's what the,

00:28:56.560 I mean, the church is always going to do its own thing or not, but it is part of a pattern of greater criticism from our allies in Europe, far more than we've seen in past administrations.

00:29:08.440 Some of that might be with Trump's own commentary, but other times there's a greater overreaction towards it.

00:29:15.660 I mean, Europeans, you know, when they assess on polls, they generally like Democrats more than they like Republican presidents.

00:29:23.020 I mean, there was good reason not to like George W. Bush, but then they thought Barack Obama was like the greatest president we've had in many, many years, which that was not the case.

00:29:31.960 And then they didn't really like Trump. They liked Biden a lot more, and they certainly had a friendly relationship with Biden, even though Biden would make these, you know, off the off the wall remarks.

00:29:41.760 He was also forcing Europe to cripple its economy on behalf of American foreign policy objectives and other things.

00:29:48.340 And, you know, the Biden administration likely played a role in blowing up the Nord Stream pipeline.

00:29:53.380 And then Europe would practically said, we have no idea who did this, but thank you, America, for looking into it.

00:29:59.640 So there's a different reaction towards it.

00:30:01.520 And I think, you know, it's not like Europeans were not criticizing Trump in the first term, but maybe less so or less ostentatiously so.

00:30:12.760 And I think the administration feels the need to express itself more assertively when dealing with Europe and these allies.

00:30:20.020 So it could be seen as part whatever that conversation revolved around.

00:30:24.380 I think the report is a little fantastical with their claims, what they might have tried to get across.

00:30:30.000 But I do think it's a part of a pattern of the administration getting tired of their Europe and their allies constantly criticizing the administration.

00:30:39.380 And you can even see that with Caroline Levitt's comments, I think she made yesterday of, you know, basically promising for America to leave NATO, which is big news.

00:30:49.700 Whether that happens or not, that is it. But it is part of this pattern of the administration getting tired of dealing with Western allies in Europe.

00:30:57.300 And I think that is part of, you know, the Vatican's comments about Trump administration align with European EU criticisms of the administration as well.

00:31:08.260 Yeah. Well, Scott, thank you very much for coming on. As always, you always have the correct takes.

00:31:13.080 That's why I say you come on to these different shows and then correct everyone.

00:31:16.120 I think that's always really useful to have sort of a tastemaker on the right, so to speak.

00:31:20.800 I try to be that way.

00:31:21.880 Yeah. Before we go, maybe if you could just quickly declare who you'll be loyal to in the incoming Vatican invasion, would you be loyal to the Pope and the President Trump? Obviously, you know, pick one there. And then where people can find you for more?

00:31:34.480 I don't know what invasion that would be.

00:31:37.180 I hope the administration wouldn't lock me up for being loyal to the Pope.

00:31:40.720 I mean, I don't have a, I probably would not be,

00:31:44.260 depending on what they're fighting over,

00:31:45.580 if they're trying to get the Vatican to deport immigrants,

00:31:48.260 I would have to side with the administration on that remark.

00:31:51.720 But I don't have to worry about that.

00:31:52.880 I don't think it's going to happen.

00:31:53.760 But where you can find me, I'm on Twitter at Scott M. Greer.

00:31:56.880 You can also find me on subsec at highly-respected.com.

00:32:00.860 And I have a new book coming out in June called White Pill,

00:32:03.440 the online, right? And the making of Trump's America that can be available for pre-order on

00:32:07.860 Amazon and other great places where you pre-order books. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Scott.

00:32:12.520 We'll catch you next time. Thank you. All right. Well, that was the great Scott Gray. Yeah,

00:32:16.480 I'm excited for his new book. That's going to be a must read. As always, Scott's just excellent on

00:32:22.580 these takes. He keeps it fairly level-headed, I would say, where it's the outrage machine on

00:32:30.640 Twitter. Um, right now, you know, you have the, uh, again, like the, the ECaths that are dominating 1.00

00:32:35.240 the time. We also have people that are responding with, uh, sort of re-litigating some of the 0.85

00:32:39.840 sectarianism from the 19th century, which I don't know is particularly useful, especially if you

00:32:44.040 just quiz, you know, your average Catholic United States, again, they don't really have too strong

00:32:47.000 of an opinion on Pope Leo. So with that, we're going to wind this show down. You can follow me

00:32:53.560 on X and Instagram at real tape Brown. Come on over to X, give me a follow. A lot of people don't

00:32:59.380 even realize they're not following me. It's this new thing where subscribers, followers don't even

00:33:03.180 really matter anymore. It's more about engagement. But come give me a follow. And we'll be back

00:33:08.300 tonight for Timcast IRL at 8pm. I'll be on the show tonight. So I'll see you guys there. Blair

00:33:13.500 White's coming on. So that'll be interesting. So yeah, we'll see you guys tonight. And with that,

00:33:18.500 thank you very much for watching.

00:33:29.380 Thank you.

The Culture War - Tim Pool - April 09, 2026

Pentagon Official Allegedly THREATENED Catholic Cardinal, Warns Vatican To ALIGN With TRUMP ft. Scott Greer

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