Dinesh D'Souza and Paul Kengor dissect the Strait of Hormuz crisis, arguing Iran's attacks on Gulf allies caused a diplomatic catastrophe while Trump's double blockade forces global oil buyers to strengthen the U.S. dollar against BRICS initiatives. They analyze the unprecedented clash between President Trump and Pope Leo XIV, defending the Pope as a conservative aligned with Republican values despite liberal criticism of his silence on Christian persecution in Africa. Ultimately, the discussion suggests that while papal opinions lack ex cathedra authority, diplomatic restraint driven by Vatican financial interests undermines moral clarity regarding radical Islam's aggression. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
|
Time
Text
Strait of Hormuz Crisis00:14:58
The Strait of Hormuz, like Schrödinger's cat, is open and closed at the same time.
Is it open?
Yes, according to Trump and Iran's foreign minister.
Is it closed?
Yes, according to Iran.
Traffic going through the Strait now seems restricted.
Here's the voice of an Indian tanker captain trying to get through.
Sepa Navy, Sepa Navy, this is Motorenga Sunmar Herald.
You gave me clearance to go.
My name is second on your list.
You gave me clearance to go.
You are fighting now.
Let me turn back.
A further escalation by the U.S. military might be next.
Just yesterday, an Iranian cargo vessel refused to turn back, and bam, hole in one.
Motor vessel Tosca, motor vessel Tosca, vacate your engine room.
Vacate your engine room.
We're prepared to subject you to disabling fire.
We gave this layer The strait, now off limits, might be open once again before we know it.
We're in the fog of war, and not only is finding out the truth elusive, but the truth itself, the facts on the ground, change pretty rapidly.
So, what's going on here?
I debated this subject last Thursday with Myron Gaines.
He insisted that Iran is winning on virtually all fronts.
Not militarily, of course, Myron couldn't bring himself to say that, but diplomatically, strategically, reputationally.
The war, Myron insisted, is a big win for Iran and a big loss for Trump.
Well, let me start with the reputational issue.
Is Trump losing in Iran, or is it simply the case that Trump's critics want him to lose?
I find that whenever Iran does something extremely minor, a huge cheer goes up from the global left and from the Democrats here in America, and even from the anti Trump right.
See, Iran got a missile all the way to Diego Garcia.
That shows how powerful Iran is.
Well, never mind that the missile was disabled, it didn't do any damage.
Iran hasn't been able to get off a second one.
Or Iran has hit Israel, penetrating its defenses.
See, Iran is just mobilizing its counterattack.
Well, to me, this is all just pathetic.
I mean, a small country like Israel, 10 million people, ruthlessly pummels a big country, Iran, nearly 10 times its size, killing its scientists and top officials, toppling its military and communications facilities.
And you're getting excited?
Iran landed one rocket near Jerusalem, hardly disturbing normal life in the city?
The simple truth is that the left is hoping.
For Iran to win, not just because they are anti Trump, but also because they see Iran as being on their side.
Why do you think Obama sent all that money to Iran if not to build its military and terroristic capacity?
Why did he approve an Iran deal with inadequate safeguards if not to hurry Iran along in getting a nuclear weapon?
I made a film about Obama in 2012, Obama's America.
Other conservatives viewed Obama as a misguided civil rights guy.
I exposed that his real motivation.
Was anti colonial, just like the Islamic radicals.
He views America as an evil empire, an evil regime.
His policies were aimed at helping America's adversaries and taking down America's wealth and power.
Very much in the Obama vein, the left today wants to ally with the radical Muslims to undermine traditional America and defeat the right.
And the harsh truth is that the anti Trump podcasters, like Tucker and others, are collaborating with them.
Now, of course, Tucker can't openly say that, so Tucker makes predictions.
It will all go badly for us.
America will regret this.
We should never have done it.
And blah, blah, blah.
Now, beyond Tucker, the endless forecasts of woe oil will skyrocket to $200 per barrel, global energy crisis, stock market crash, collapse of the dollar, World War III, thermonuclear holocaust.
Every prediction proves wrong.
And Tucker never admits this, never apologizes.
One gets the impression his predictions are wishful thinking, nothing more.
All right.
Let's talk about Iran's supposed diplomatic successes.
Here I'm tempted to laugh because Iran could have used this conflict to make diplomatic headway with the Arab countries in the Middle East and in fact with the whole Muslim world.
It would have been smart for Iran to try and make this seem like a war against Islam.
Trump and Israel, the Christians and the Jews are combining forces to target an Islamic regime in a Muslim country.
That might have worked.
But what do the Iranians do instead?
Targets in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, and Jordan.
They make enemies of their own potential allies.
Consequently, the UAE freezes Iranian assets, restricts Iranian access, even talks about joining the fight on the side of the U.S. and Israel.
I made this point to Myron in my debate, and he really didn't offer any rebuttal.
Iran had the opportunity early on to try to rally the Muslim countries in the region the way the Palestinians have.
And make this seem like a war against Islam.
Iran was so dumb that they didn't do that.
They actually began to attack bases and assets in these countries, thus, making it really easy for really rich and powerful Muslim countries to go far beyond what they have done before, not merely to denounce Iran, but freeze Iranian assets, limit Iranian access, even talk about joining the U.S. and Israeli initiative.
If the attacks continue, so Iran has done something I think monumentally stupid and that it has alienated its other potential allies in the Muslim world, even in the Middle East.
Forget about Muslims in Pakistan and Indonesia.
I'm just talking about Muslims in the region.
This, I think, was a catastrophic blunder.
So the war has been a diplomatic catastrophe from Iran's point of view.
Iran is completely isolated, even in the Muslim world.
China and Russia aren't even helping Iran.
Iran's only allies are podcasters, Myron, Tucker, and a few others.
Consequently, the US and Israel have had free reign in clobbering the regime of the mullahs.
Now let's turn to the strategic element.
And here we must get into the complicated politics of the Strait of Hormuz.
This is a narrow waterway, 20 to 30 miles wide, located right next to the Iranian border.
The strait connects the Persian Gulf to the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea.
It's the only sea route for oil and gas exports from the Persian Gulf to reach global markets.
This means that oil from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, UAE, And Iran flows through the strait to markets in Europe, India, China, and elsewhere.
Some 20% of global petroleum goes through that narrow corridor.
And this helps us to understand how Iran's control over the strait affects global oil prices.
If you restrict the global supply and the demand remains the same, prices go up.
Economics 101.
So if you want to know why you're paying more at the pump the last few weeks, hey, that's why.
But that might prove to be a short term squeeze.
Trump did something recently with the Strait that seemed to defy logic.
The Iranians created a blockade or cordon around the Strait, and one might have expected Trump to use U.S. force to break the cordon.
Instead, Trump does the opposite.
He asked the U.S. Navy to build a second cordon around the Iranian cordon, a sort of double blockade.
Essentially, Trump said to the Iranians, You can keep everyone out, and we can keep you out.
So this was an unexpected and audacious move, and initially puzzling to people, including some on the right.
But Trump's logic was ingenious.
The Chinese, the Indians, the Europeans, they're all dependent on oil.
If they can't get it from the Middle East, where are they going to get it from?
Answer the United States, Venezuela.
And currently, the U.S. is working with Venezuela so that we control our oil, we also control their oil.
Basically, we've become the top dog of the global oil market.
The world's biggest buyers have got to come to us.
U.S. oil exports surge.
The Chinese yen, Indian rupees, European euros must be converted into dollars.
For them to make their oil purchases from us.
And this doesn't just strengthen the US oil industry, it strengthens the US dollar.
Bad news for the so called BRICS countries India, China, and so on.
They're hoping to build a rival currency to the US dollar.
Not working out.
Now, Iran has found itself in a desperate situation.
It started out with Iran controlling the Strait of Hormuz.
Nobody else could go through, at least not without Iranian say so.
Then the US shut out Iran, but allowed other ships to pass.
And so tankers from UAE and Dubai could smoothly cross the Strait, while the US Navy refused to allow any entry or egress out of Iranian ports.
Iran ended up in a situation where the Strait was effectively open to everyone except Iran.
Quite, quite amusing if you think about it.
The Iranian foreign minister announced a couple of days ago that the Strait of Hormuz was open.
Evidently, this was in the expectation the U.S. would lift its blockade, but Trump did not lift the blockade, and now the Iranians have denounced their own foreign minister and said they are reimposing restrictions on the Strait.
That's where things stand as of now.
It seems like there may be some tension between Iran's political authorities who want to find an amicable resolution and Iran's military authorities who want to use their last form of leverage, the Strait, while they have it.
So the U.S. might have inadvertently achieved Another key objective in war is to detach the political leadership from the military leadership, to create, in other words, fissures within a previously unified regime.
Now, true to form, like the circus performers they are, the European leaders have now jumped into the mix.
Keir Starmer of Great Britain, Macron of France, Giorgio Maloney of Italy, claiming to be formulating a plan to keep the Strait of Hormuz open.
Their plan, as it turns out, is simply to advocate what the Iranian government will agree to.
Their plan is the Iranian plan.
No wonder Trump has had it with this European Circus Act.
He knows it's a desperate bid for relevance on the part of countries that are, well, no longer relevant.
The European plan for the straight, as it turns out, is about as valuable as my own plan, and I don't have a plan.
These clowns are giving us a clear indication of why NATO has become obsolete.
Meanwhile, Trump keeps his sights on the big picture.
There are five major maritime choke points in the world the Strait of Gibraltar, the Strait of Malacca, the Strait of Hormuz, the Bosphorus Strait, and the Panama Strait.
Now, the U.S. already works with Panama to control the Panama Canal, which is the passageway through that Strait.
Recently, Trump made a deal with Indonesia over the Strait of Malacca and another with Morocco over the Strait of Gibraltar.
Basically, Trump knows that energy is the fuel of the global economy, and if the United States effectively controls Most of the key choke points, then we have created something close to a strategic monopoly.
Myron Gaines kept telling me Trump is losing strategically, but I doubt he's even heard of the Straits of Malacca and Gibraltar.
These characters, the anti Trump pundits, think they know more about the real estate of the world than Trump, a lifelong real estate man on the world stage.
Militarily, of course, this conflict is absurdly one sided.
Basically, the US and Israel have wiped out Iran's major military facilities, communication centers, and key infrastructure while suffering.
Hardly any damage themselves.
We can verify this by simply making a list of casualties and infrastructure damage on both sides.
Now, in a normal war, both sides suffer significant losses.
In a Civil War battle, for instance, if the Union Army lost 3,000 and Robert E. Lee lost 2,200, this was considered a big victory for Lee.
He only lost 2,200 men.
Now, if the US goes to war with Sri Lanka or Luxembourg, we might expect a complete wipeout.
But Iran?
Iran is not Sri Lanka.
Iran is, well, was, I guess.
Perhaps the most powerful Muslim nation in the Middle East.
Certainly, it's one of the big three Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Iran.
Iran was seeking through its nuclear program to become the undisputed top dog.
Given all that, I can't even remember, not just in my lifetime, but even in history, a conflict with a major country as one sided as this particular one.
Iran has already lost and lost badly.
Now, poor Myron Gaines finds it hard to admit this, and so he tries to convert the military catastrophe into a moral victory.
Iran, he says, is not really lost.
They could hit Israel hard.
They could hit the U.S. hard.
They're just not doing it because, well, because they're exercising moral restraint.
I'm not having any of it.
And that is the idea that Iran's reaction was measured due to moral restraint.
No, Iran's reaction was measured because they had no other reaction to do.
It's kind of like saying if I step into the ring and I get so badly pummeled that I'm flat.
On the ground, and therefore, I'm flailing from the ground.
You can't say, Oh, look at that guy.
He's being so restrained.
He's only flailing from the ground.
The truth of it is, he can't get up.
That's why he's flailing from the ground.
If he could get up, if Iran had vastly greater capacities, military capacities of an active Navy and active Air Force, you don't think that they would be completely strafing and bombing.
You don't think that they'd be sending jets to hit U.S. bases.
You don't think that they would try to activate, for example, their connections in Venezuela to try to hit Miami.
They would be doing all of these things.
The reason they can't do it is they're like the guy in Monty Python who's lost his arms and his legs.
So their restraint is fake.
It's not restraint, it's actually genuine weakness that has been imposed on them on the losing side of a military campaign.
And even Myron admitted that they are losing this militarily.
Even so, the mullahs in Iran are clinging to power, and maybe they will survive.
If the U.S. and Israel achieve their military objectives and get out, the mullahs will try to hold on.
Now, I hope that they can't.
I hope they don't.
I hope the Iranian people can take back their own country.
I'm hoping to see a free Iran, a free Venezuela, and a free Cuba.
Can you imagine Trump's legacy if he creates the conditions for these things to happen and then they do?
But the US is not going to make them happen through a land invasion.
Crypto and Global Markets00:05:47
Predictions are a tricky business, but I'm going to predict that Trump and the US come out on top.
All's well that ends well.
And let's remember that Trump did this in a few weeks.
This hasn't been Vietnam or Afghanistan, Iraq.
This hasn't been a forever war.
The left was wrong.
Keir Starmer was wrong.
Marjorie Taylor Greene was wrong.
Joe Kent was wrong.
They were wrong, and Trump was right.
We're not done yet, but let's judge the enterprise by its results.
Oil prices are already sharply down.
Once this wraps up, they're going to go much lower.
This will give a massive boost to the stock market and global markets.
The Trump tax plan is now taking effect, and millions of Americans are going to have bigger tax refunds this year.
An AI and robotics revolution isn't just around the corner, it's already here.
The mullahs may be trying to restore the Islamic glory days of the seventh century, but hey, as for the rest of us, we'll enjoy the productivity revolution, the economic boom that's coming for us and for our children.
And that's the way I see it.
Here's the thing about crypto it's here to stay.
That argument is over.
But think about it this is a market that never sleeps.
It's moving at midnight, it's 2 a.m., 3 a.m.
And while you're asleep, who's watching?
Because here's what nobody tells you most crypto platforms give you a login, wish you luck, and call it a day.
That's not investing, that's gambling with your retirement and hoping for the best.
That's why I've partnered with Block.
Trust IRA.
Block Trust IRA is a crypto IRA built for Americans who refuse to be on the losing side of that equation.
Their award winning AI engine navigates the notoriously volatile crypto markets around the clock, automatically rebalancing your portfolio to protect your gains and limit your exposure when markets swing.
No panic, no emotion, no missleep at 3 a.m.
Your savings sit inside a $200 million institutional grade insurance shield managed intelligently.
And secured from day one.
Their AI never sleeps.
It's rebalancing your portfolio around the clock, managing risk, responding to volatility, protecting what you've built automatically, intelligently, without panic.
Voted Bitcoin Magazine number one technology platform, and that doesn't surprise me one bit.
Open your crypto IRA today, and Block Trust IRA will give you up to a $2,500 inflation shield bonus straight into your account.
Go to dineshcrypto.com and sign up today.
They can print dollars, but they cannot print crypto.
That's DineshCrypto.com.
Guys, if you're on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, you're probably seeing a bunch of posts about Noah's Ark.
Very fascinating.
Has it finally been found?
I want you to know I'm producing a special four episode series called Finding Noah's Ark.
It's fascinating because if Noah's Ark is found, it will be the greatest.
Finding in biblical archaeology even bigger than the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Incidentally, I've been studying biblical archaeology for the past three to four years.
My book on the subject, it's called The End of Time Biblical Archaeology, Prophecy in the Last Days, will be published this fall.
Remarkably, you can pre order now on Amazon.
So go do that.
Be one of the first to get it.
And the Noah's Ark series will be released this summer.
But here's just a glimpse of some of the visual images that give you a preview of what's to come.
Stay tuned.
It's kind of full circle for me.
I started out as a journalist, writing articles for National Review, The American Spectator, The Washington Post, lots of places.
After my stint in the Reagan White House, I pivoted to writing books, and that was way back in 1991.
So I've been mainly known as an author and, of course, later as a filmmaker.
But my first job, journalist, and now I'm getting back to that.
On Substack, you'll get original articles and commentary, groundbreaking investigations, exclusive access to film clips and show clips.
Trump vs The Pope00:15:05
And guess what?
It's free.
So check it out.
Go to Dinesh D'Souza.
Substack.com.
My guest today is an old friend, someone who has actually appeared in one of my earlier films.
It's Paul Kengor, a political scientist at Grove City College in Pennsylvania, and also an eminent author of a number of great books.
I'm most familiar with the book he did on God and Ronald Reagan.
So The topic of religion and politics is something that Paul has been thinking about for a long time.
And the new book, very topical and very timely American Pontiff, Pope Leo XIV and his plan to heal the church.
I want to talk about the battle royale between the Pope and Trump.
Paul, welcome.
Thank you for joining me.
Let me begin by asking you is it not the case that this is a rather unprecedented? Clash between not just an American president and the Catholic Pope, but as it turns out in this case, an American president and an American Pope.
Indeed, Dinesh, my old friend, good to see you again.
We go way back, way back to Pittsburgh in the 1990s to when I brought you to Grove City College.
And yeah, we worked together on films and all kinds of stuff.
So good to be with you again.
Yeah, this is totally unprecedented.
I mean, I did, I actually did a book called A Pope and a President on Ronald Reagan and John Paul II.
By the way, John Paul II is a great example of this because so I could go through examples of popes opposing presidents on war going back to Woodrow Wilson, right?
And I mean, oftentimes, and, and, People watching, I'll defend Trump and I'll defend the Pope and I'll criticize both.
So hold on here.
But, you know, popes often say what Leo has been saying about Trump.
Generally, during wartime, they pray for peace, right?
And recently with John Paul II, I mean, he was very critical of George W. Bush in the Iraq War.
By the way, so was Donald Trump, right?
Trump said Bush lied about WFDs, right?
Bush said, you know, Saddam is on the cusp of getting a nuclear weapon, right?
And, you know, Trump said he lied, right?
Well, right now, Trump says Iran's on the cusp of getting a nuclear weapon.
And by the way, they might be.
I supported Bush in Iraq.
I support us trying to stop Iran.
But yeah, I would caution Trump here like, you know, we thought that was Saddam too, all right?
So, but popes generally make these general exhortations for peace.
Even the statement from, I know we could theologically, biblically unpack this, the statement from Leo about God doesn't bless wars.
I mean, you know, generally, Jesus, the Prince of Peace, you know, doesn't want people at war.
So if you Really dig into these statements.
That's kind of generally what he's saying.
And people should take a careful look at Leo's statements.
He has not yet come out and said, like, you know, this is an unjust war, which would be an extraordinary statement from him because he's an Augustinian.
He knows more about Augustine than any pope ever.
He headed the international Augustinian order.
Now, some of the more reckless, pardon me, obnoxious, liberal left wing bishops have said that.
They're not as measured as Leo the 14th is, but Leo hasn't said that.
So But Trump's eruption on truth social of the Pope, yeah, that is totally unprecedented.
And John Paul II called the Iraq War an unjust war.
And then Bush diplomatically met with him, said, We know that's kind of what the Pope does.
Bush didn't explode on him.
So with Donald Trump, that statement against the current Pope, yeah, completely unprecedented in the history of the presidency and papacy.
The uh, I mean, I'm just going to read a couple of lines from Trump's post since you bring it up.
He talks about the fact.
Well, first of all, he says, I like his brother Lewis much better than I like him, meaning the Pope, because Lewis is all MAGA, he gets it, and Leo doesn't, right?
I mean, only Trump, right?
Classic Trump, and and look, you know, we all know people watching, you know, who like Donald Trump voted for him.
Um, I voted for him.
We all know that if you oppose Trump.
Usually, he doesn't like you.
And Trump is here.
I mean, what did Harriet Gaines last week?
You know, so it's kind of, you know, I'm just going to say it childish, right?
You ought to be able to have people disagree.
And if the Pope disagrees with you, so what?
Who cares, right?
The Pope's pray for peace.
He disagrees with you, fine.
I think what really set Trump off, Dinesh, in Trump's defense is when the three most liberal American bishops.
Or cardinals, all appointed by Francis, right?
Tobin, Supich, McElroy.
I mean, gosh, Francis put McElroy in charge of the Archbishop of Washington, right?
As soon as Trump came into office, and it's like, this is going to blow up.
And then, you know, McElroy comes right out, you know, unjust war, morally unacceptable.
Of course, saying things that, you know, the more careful Leo would never say.
And then they all appear together on 60 Minutes on Sunday.
And so all that stuff really served to set Trump off.
And the Pope had met with Axelrod, right?
And so Trump was wondering if that was a connection to all this.
I don't think it was.
And by the way, I would add, popes meet with pretty much everybody.
I mean, Francis met with atheists.
I remember Newt Gingrich told me a couple of years ago, he said, well, if it was okay for Jesus to meet with tax collectors and prostitutes, I guess the Pope can meet with Nancy Pelosi, right?
And by the way, the Pope would meet with Donald Trump too, although Trump said last week that.
He doesn't think he wants to meet with the Pope.
He should meet with the Pope.
They'd get along because Trump in private meetings gets along with everybody.
So he needs to, they both need to cool it off, pull back.
I think Trump already is a little bit, but still, that Trump eruption was really pretty shocking and unprecedented.
You were suggesting a moment ago with 60 Minutes that there is a little bit of the left staging a conflict here between Trump and the Pope, magnifying it, maybe bringing out these other cardinals to say what the Pope wouldn't say.
And you have said, in fact, in a recent article just coming out today, but also in the book, that we should understand that Pope Leo is a Republican and a conservative.
Now, I highlight this because we've.
Been treated to social media clips over the last several days, basically trying to portray the Pope as a leftist.
Hey, here's a picture of the Pope in the 1980s protesting against, protesting for some nuclear deployments, or here's the Pope on climate change, or here's the Pope on gun control.
Can you lay out briefly the record of the Pope as being, as you say, because I don't think most people know this, a, in fact, confirmed Republican and also a conservative?
Yeah, they should dig up pictures of Robert Francis Prevost, right, marching in the March for Life in Washington, D.C.
And the very first of them going back to the 70s, of him at Villanova, which was left wing and is still left wing.
He was probably one of the only conservatives at Villanova, which is supposed to be an Augustinian university, starting the pro life club.
He is, we know for a fact, all right, that he voted in the Republican primaries when he came back from Peru in the 2010s.
I quote in the article for American Spectator that I did today.
He voted like 2010, 2012, 2014, 2018, 2024.
I don't think he voted in the general in 2020.
It's off the top of my head, but I have all the years in the article.
He even voted absentee ballot from the Vatican in 2024.
So it's quite possible that Leo XIV, as Robert Francis Pravos, voted for Donald Trump.
All right.
It's entirely possible that he did.
He's not a Democrat, he's not a liberal.
And he's conservative.
I quote in the article statements that he made during the Benedict Papacy against homosexuality, euthanasia, same sex marriage, all this stuff.
By the way, all stuff that Donald Trump would never say because Trump has always been liberal on kind of LGBTQ issues, right?
So he's always been a conservative.
And also, people should understand this.
I don't think they get it.
Simply, part of the problem, you and I go way back and we understand philosophical conservatism, especially on Ronald Reagan.
We know Russell Kirk and Edmund Burke and Buckley and Chesterton and all these different people.
To be a conservative is to believe in biblical law, natural law, enduring moral order, right?
Divine law, the belief in tradition.
You really can't be a pope and be a liberal, right?
You could be a pope and have some left wing positions like Francis did.
But about the only place where you could say that Leo XIV is liberal would be, I don't know, maybe.
On maybe, maybe on immigration, maybe in opposing Trump on Iran.
By the way, I bet Pep Buchanan opposes Trump on Iran.
You want to call him a liberal?
But I could read statements to you.
In fact, here, this is the Trump, this is the Pope in November 2025, Dinesh, on immigration.
November 2025.
This is a few months ago.
If someone is in the United States illegally, there are ways to address this.
There are courts.
There is a judicial system.
I believe there are many problems in the system.
Okay.
And then he said this No one has said that the United States should have open borders.
By the way, I guess some have, but this Pope hasn't.
And then Pope Leo XIV said this I think every country has the right to determine who enters, how, and when.
So, I mean, and that's basically Donald Trump's position.
Now, the bishops.
Aren't always as nuanced in their statements like that.
But the Pope understands, especially being an American, that countries have borders, that a president has a constitutional responsibility to enforce the borders.
But the Pope also understands that you should treat every migrant with dignity.
And also, this is key too for people to understand the Pope isn't Pope of the United States, of course, he's the Pope of the universal Catholic Church.
He's the Pope of an organization that has no borders.
So, his constituency, if you will, is the world.
It's borderless.
He wants people that are immigrants to be taken care of.
The president has a different constituency.
And I think Leo actually understands that and has not made any statements on that, that if you really unpack them and look at them carefully, should offend Trump supporters all that much.
You know, let me highlight a couple of things you just said because I want to emphasize.
The first one is the fact that I think you're saying that at the deepest level, conservatism isn't just a set of policy positions, whether on gun control or even immigration.
It is this kind of belief in an enduring moral order.
And of course, for a pope, he has a portfolio, right?
In other words, his portfolio is not to make prudential observations about tax cuts or the Trump plan, it is to sustain this sort of moral landscape and connect it to the spiritual life.
And you're saying when you look at the Pope's portfolio, he is solidly conservative, contrary to what many people think, and perhaps in some tension with his predecessor, who was clearly into liberation theology, clearly more liberal in a more fundamental way, even on some of these moral issues.
Now, you know, I think part of what's going on here with Trump and the Pope is, I would call it jurisdictional.
And what I mean by that is, Well, you suggested, hey, the Pope is a universal guy and Trump is America first.
That's one difference.
I think the other one is that the Pope is, in fact, looking at this morally and philosophically, and Trump is looking at it almost like the world is a prized piece of real estate.
I argued this on my show a week or two ago.
Trump is sort of like looking at the Iranians as disrupting the peaceful real estate commerce and traffic of the world.
What I'm getting at is that while the Pope is thinking, In terms of philosophy and maybe moral principle, Trump is an operational guy.
And he's thinking more in terms of, you know, how do I get the good Muslims who care about robotics and AI to come over to my side and the seventh century Muslims who want to, you know, take us back?
How do I get them out of the picture?
How do I outmaneuver them, so to speak?
Do you agree that we're, we have two guys who are talking past each other to a degree?
Yeah, that is so well said.
And in fact, the Pope said in his response to Donald Trump, the first time he ever used the word Trump, by the way, on the airplane last week, flying to Algeria, and it was after the Truth Social Post.
And the reporters started asking him over and over again, What about Trump?
What about Trump?
And that's where he said, I have no fear of the Trump administration.
And he still didn't use the word Donald Trump.
He said, I don't want to get in a debate with him.
I'm not a politician, right?
He's not a policymaker, right?
You know, my job is to spread the gospel of Jesus to talk about peace.
And the only time prior to that, that the Pope even directly responded to specifically something Donald Trump said, up to that point, he was talking about praying for peace, peace vigils, laying down your arms, that kind of general stuff.
When Donald Trump a couple Tuesdays ago made that really unsettling statement, right?
Tonight at eight o'clock, an entire civilization is going to be rendered extinct or wiped off the face of the earth or something like that.
And he said, I hope that won't happen, but it probably will.
I mean, that shook me up, right?
And even I thought, well, this is Trump.
He's not going to do it, right?
Just War Traditions00:15:32
This is art of the deal stuff.
He makes these wild threats and it brings people to the.
And he didn't end up doing it.
But that was the first time that the Pope said, he didn't use the word Donald Trump or Trump administration.
He said, statements like statements about wiping out entire civilizations are morally unacceptable.
And Trump folks might not like the fact that the Pope responded there, but good gosh, man, good grief.
I mean, if the Pope can't, at a moment like that, the Pope has to come out and say something.
I mean, whether it's Trump or Putin, I don't want to equate Trump with Putin, pick some liberal leader in Canada, Trudeau or some British prime minister.
Any leader that makes a statement like that, the Pope's obligated to come out at that point and say, talk about wiping out entire extinct, extinct.
Entire civilizations is morally unacceptable.
No one should get upset that he makes a statement like that.
But Trump did.
Trump kind of launched after that.
And we have a problem with this president.
He's unbelievably sensitive to any criticism of his policies.
And so are his biggest supporters, right?
I mean, I've got an email box full of emails from Catholics who will not question Donald Trump, right?
But just exoriate their Pope up and down.
They're not shy about criticizing him at all.
It's this really weird.
So you and I were able to criticize Reagan.
We both wrote books about Reagan.
It's okay.
It's okay to criticize your hero.
You don't help him by accommodating and making excuses for his worst outbursts.
Even his wife criticizes him, folks.
His kids criticize him.
It's okay.
It's okay.
It's okay if the Pope does too.
It's almost as if the Trump supporters, obviously me included, see Trump and his rhetoric as something that is not to be taken for what it says.
I mean, here's Trump, for example.
He says, I'm looking at his post on the Pope, I don't want a Pope.
Who thinks it's okay for Iran to have a nuclear weapon?
Now, you know better than me, but to my knowledge, the Pope has never said it is okay for Iran to have a nuclear weapon.
He also goes on, I don't want a Pope who thinks it's terrible America attacked Venezuela.
And then he says, I don't want a Pope who criticizes the President of the United States because I'm doing exactly what I was elected in a landslide to do.
We have two people talking past each other because the Pope is not criticizing Trump's referendum or his mandate.
But it's quite possible that the American people overwhelmingly elected Trump to do something bad.
And if Trump does something bad, it's the Pope's job to call him on it.
So you have here, I think, this very strange kind of rhetorical back and forth.
But let me zoom in here a little bit because the Augustinian tradition that you referred to earlier is the just war tradition.
It is not a woolly headed pacifism.
It sets precise and, in fact, rather clear criteria for when a war is just.
Now, the Pope has not done a just war analysis of the Iran expedition, but I'd like to attempt one very briefly.
As I understand it, some of the criteria in the just war, I'm not getting all of them in here, but the first one is you know, you have to, the war has to be, have a just cause.
You must have a just cause.
Purpose number two, it has to be declared by a legitimate authority.
Trump must, in fact, and Netanyahu have the authority.
Uh, they can't be usurpers or just private citizens declaring war, they have to be they have to have a legitimate authority to do this.
Uh, number three, it has to have a reasonable prospect of success that they are likely to achieve this outcome.
Uh, that is more debatable, isn't it?
Increasingly, it that's debatable.
I'm not saying any of this is not debatable.
Perhaps the more important ones I'm about to get to, you can't target civilians.
Civilians do die in war, and they do die sometimes as a result of collateral damage, but you can't aim to kill them.
And that's why, for example, this I'm ending a civilization.
I mean, if Trump actually meant I'm going to wipe out 90 million Iranians, this would be morally, I think, utterly indefensible from the point of view of the just war tradition.
He said that.
He used the words morally unacceptable.
Morally unacceptable.
And then I think that perhaps the trickiest one here, which is this, that it has to be A defensive war.
You can't just sort of set out to go attack somebody else that has not either seriously threatened you or perhaps even attacked you.
Now, the phrase war of choice, did the Pope use that phrase, war of choice?
This is a war of choice.
I can't remember if he did.
Now, on the point though about the last one, I think a country like Israel would have more of a just war case, right?
Because they actually were being attacked and hit by the Iranians, right?
The United States was never actually hit by anything.
Now, you could argue, but Trump is preemptively trying to get the Iranians, stop them from getting nuclear weapons.
And even then, one could say, yeah, but even if they got one, they're not going to be able to hit the United States with it, right?
But they could hit Israel and other countries with it.
So he's trying to do the world a favor, Israel a favor, the Middle East a favor.
Peace a favor by stopping them from getting a nuke.
But it does get more sticky there.
And there's also another just war condition that you should have exhausted all possibilities and avenues for peace.
I talked to Mike Pence about this.
Obviously, Donald Trump's former vice president, and he's a fellow at Grove City College.
So I've become pretty close to him and talked to him about it a lot.
And Pence told me, he said, you know, we actually consider all those just war criteria.
He said, we don't sit down in a room with them all on a blackboard and look at them and check them off.
But all of this goes through our head.
And he said, I could tell you in the first four years of the Trump administration, and I'm not quoting him directly, but he basically told me, you know, we had dozens to hundreds of, you know, times that we reached out with the Iranians in negotiations and it never went anywhere.
Right.
So they felt like they exhausted all diplomatic procedures.
So did the Bush administration with Saddam Hussein.
Right.
And in the case, the Bush administration argued who all said this?
Donald Rumsfeld said it, Dick Cheney said it.
We don't want our next warning to be a mushroom cloud over Manhattan, right?
We don't want another 9 11.
So we're taking out Saddam now, right?
Saddam has attacked it preemptively.
And I don't know that just war precludes preemptive action.
I think you could probably argue that preemptive action is acceptable.
But when you start going through all those very carefully, yeah, it becomes more sticky.
And for the record, this Pope has not come out and said, As an expert on Augustine, as a son of Augustine, as the head of the international order, Augustinian order, I declare this unjust.
Now, Bishop Cardinal McElroy did, but this is why McElroy shouldn't be in the position that he's in, right?
And that's what really set off Donald Trump.
But the Pope is much more thoughtful, much more measured.
This guy has a doctorate in canon law from St. Thomas Aquinas, the Pontifical Academy, the Angelicum in Rome.
This guy's no slouch.
And also, too, folks, we all got to admit, right?
Donald Trump is not a theologian.
He's not an intellectual.
And he's most certainly not as well read and well versed in the morality of war as the Pope is.
So I would cut the Pope here a little bit of slack on this, right?
I mean, it's also better than Trump does.
It's also worth saying, Paul, that the just war tradition, although it has deep roots in Catholicism, Augustine through Aquinas and then later, it's also in the Protestant church.
In other words, this is a Christian doctrine, not uniquely a Catholic doctrine in the way that, say, The birth control, Humanae Vitae, is a Catholic encyclical that most Protestants would not go along with.
It also seems to me that on this issue of who's attacked, there is an argument here for collective action or treaty.
And here's what I mean.
In World War II, the Nazis did not attack Great Britain, they attacked Poland in 1939.
But Great Britain declared war on Nazi Germany.
Why?
It was because Great Britain had a defense pact with Poland, and the Nazis had, in a sense, attacked one of the allies of that pact.
So, arguably, here too, the United States and Israel are joined at the hip.
The Iranians are one of the key planners and orchestrators of October 7th, not alone, but with other groups.
Iran is, of course, responsible for Hezbollah, the supporters of Hamas.
So the idea that Iran, quote, didn't attack first is not really right, not to mention a 50 year tradition, right, of the hostages, the Beirut bombing.
I mean, Iran has been at this for a pretty long time.
Let's turn in the time we have left to another important topic I want to touch on, and that is the Pope's view of.
Islam.
I say this because it seems to me that, and the Pope understands this as well as anyone, that while in the Christian tradition you've always had this kind of distinction between the scope of the church and the scope of government.
Now that distinction has become blurred in many times in history, but nevertheless it goes right back to Jesus render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's.
And this creates the scope of religious freedom, right?
Because after all, if there is some distinction between religion and government, Then it's possible to have multiple religious commitments within a single society of laws.
Now, Islam rejects this.
Islam is based on the idea that there is no meaningful distinction between religion and government, and that the ultimate goal of all serious Muslims, I underline the word serious, is in fact to bring the world under Islamic rule and Islamic law.
Now, that may not seem Practically something you can do tomorrow or maybe even in 10 years, but it is in fact a very clearly stated aspiration.
So, given that, and given what we know is not just the turbulence in the Middle East, but powerful Islamic infiltration of Australia, Canada, large parts of Europe, the United States, I mean, the Pope's remarks to me seemed a little, seemed not to show a kind of urgency or awareness.
Of the threat that this Islamic project poses to Western democracy and religious freedom in the West.
Well, the Pope condemned the, I think he used the words terrorist extremism in Sydney.
He's done that a number of times already in just his first, this point, 11 months of his papacy, but really a bunch in the first six months of his papacy.
And he remembered the trip to Turkey as well.
He went into the Hagia Sophia and refused to pray, right?
And he said, No, I'm just going to walk around a bit, right?
Previous popes had.
And by the way, I hate to say this as such an admirer of John Paul II.
I never want to bring it up, but He kissed the Quran.
He publicly grabbed the Quran and kissed it, right?
Really?
No.
Right?
So they, remember the Benedict XVI, the Regensburg Address.
So the Pope has not called out radical Islam, but again, I don't expect him to, right?
He's pushing for peace and unity, humanism, trying to bring peace in the world.
His literal first word from the Logia, May 8, 2025, was peace.
He said in Italian, La pace sia con tutti voi, peace be with all of you.
So, I don't expect him to do that.
I don't expect him to condemn radical Islam.
Now, I would like him.
Yeah, I guess.
But, Paul, let me jump in here.
I mean, the Pope is in some ways the most titular, prominent defender of Christendom, right?
And there is a long history the Crusades going further back, the Battle of Lepanto.
So, if the Pope isn't going to criticize, Radical Islam.
I mean, I'm not asking him to criticize it even on, I mean, shouldn't he be criticizing it on religious grounds?
Yeah, they generally don't in modern times.
And by the way, I must add, so he hasn't been Pope for a full year yet, right?
So I mean, you know, who knows what could come?
But they generally haven't done that.
And the days of Pope Pius X meeting with Theodore Herzl and saying, we cannot recognize the nation of Israel because you have not recognized Jesus Christ, right?
Jesus Christ walked that land and you have not recognized it.
And then later, John Paul II apologizes to Jews for that.
So we're in this period of about the last 50, 60 or so years of the papacy of just this soft ecumenism where popes generally don't criticize the other major religions.
It's just kind of the way it is.
Is it part of Paul?
I don't think that it makes Leo naive about Islam, but.
It's just kind of what they do.
Yeah, I don't even say that I support that.
But as a historian of the papacy, I could tell you that Leo here is not doing anything different.
Is it partly, do you think, Paul, and I would say this to some degree, I suppose, even of immigration?
You have the Catholic Church is a large institution, right?
It has financial interests.
It has Catholics who live in Muslim lands.
So, in other words, they're subject to Muslim authorities.
And the Pope, to some degree, it may be, has to be.
A little bit of a diplomat.
Now he can't, in other words, he's a religious leader and spokesman, but he's not speaking in a moral vacuum.
He knows that what he says is going to be taken into account by Muslim authorities in countries like Indonesia and Pakistan.
And there are Christians in those countries.
And so could it be that the Pope, in part, he's also the head of state?
People forget the Vatican is a state.
That the Pope is, in a way that's maybe not fully recognized, playing this dual role.
Of also exercising a political and diplomatic function, although it sometimes comes out in kind of moral tones or moral language.
But the church has other interests at stake.
That's what I'm getting at.
Yeah, he has to keep a lid on things.
Silent Echoes of Violence00:06:23
And I mentioned the Regensburg address that Benedict XVI gave, and man, the Islamic world flipped over that.
And it wasn't even all that harsh of a criticism.
And that, in fact, Pope Francis, when he was Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, was very critical of that.
So that has just undermined decades of outreach.
To Muslims, right?
Of trying to.
And then Francis goes and makes this horrible statement, Dinesh.
I use it in my Middle East politics course at Grove City College.
I think it's verbatim, something like this.
Every reading of the Quran shows that the Quran is opposed to every form of violence or something like that.
Well, I mean, no, read, no, come on.
Come on, read the book.
It says over and over again, right?
The infidels chop off the heads of the infidels on the battlefield, right?
I mean, come on.
Say something different like, I believe that modern Muslims want peace like I do and are against violence.
Okay, cool.
All right, great, great.
We can all debate that, right?
But don't say something like, if you read the Quran carefully, it's opposed to every form of violence.
I don't think you'll see statements like that from Leo because he's more careful, he's more thoughtful.
And it's also why he's in Africa right now and he doesn't want to launch a religious war in Africa between Christians and Muslims.
Right now, that's not his goal, right?
As Bishop of Rome, head of the Universal Catholic Church, preaching peace, he's not going to be calling out radical Islam right now.
It's just not what he's going to do.
Again, for better or worse.
Yeah, I mean, I think it's for worse.
And here's why.
While I would agree that the Pope's job is not to perhaps declare some new crusade against Islam, he doesn't want to do that.
I do think that he should be more fiercely partisan toward the Christians who are being persecuted in African countries, right?
The Christians appear to be, I won't say turning the other cheek, but they are on the defensive against these violent incursions from Muslims.
In the name of jihad.
So, this has deep historical echoes, civilizational echoes.
And if the Pope is silent on it, then people, you know, Muslim leaders aren't silent about it.
They're aggressively on the Muslim side of this.
And they would love to see these African countries where, by the way, Christianity has finally gained a strong foothold for the first time.
I mean, you've got these African countries where 30, 40% of the population is Christian.
Who are they going to, many of them Catholic, are looking to the Pope as their defender.
So, I guess this is what I'm getting at.
It seems to me prudentially, and there's strong moral principle on his side, so that if he subordinates those concerns to, hey, I want people to get along with a bland prescription of peace, it seems to miss what is actually happening on the ground, doesn't it?
Yeah, I can't argue with that.
And he has, and he will, and he is right now condemning persecution of Christians in those countries.
But he doesn't say that it's being done by the hands of radical Islamists, right?
He leaves that out.
Everybody knows that that's what he's referring to, right?
But he's not saying it explicitly.
Yeah.
So, yeah, agreed, right?
I think one thing you've shown, Paul, in this conversation is that the Pope is going to take these enduring moral principles and articulate positions that apply to the world, but it is not incumbent on Catholics or Christians or you or me if the Pope is not speaking, as they say, ex cathedra, meaning on a fundamental doctrine.
Of Catholic moral teaching, that if the Pope is opining, you should attach some moral weight to it because it's a serious guy and he does have an important position.
But reasonable people can disagree.
Isn't that where we come out on this that we should carefully consider the principles that the Pope is putting forward?
But at the end of the day, it comes down to hey, you know, how does this principle of the just war apply in this given situation?
And that great Christian virtue of prudence, uh, or application comes into play.
Well, that's right.
And he sees himself as the vicar of Christ, right?
As a representative of Christ on earth.
And when he first came out onto that Logia, Dinesh, May 8th, 2025, and again, he said, Peace be with all of you.
And then everybody applauded below the throng below.
And then he paused and he said, These are the first words of the resurrected Jesus Christ to the apostles in the upper room.
And at that moment, I mean, think of Peter, right?
I mean, the last time that Peter had made eye contact with Jesus, he had denied him three times.
So, Peter at that point is, first of all, he's thinking a ghost just walked into the room, right?
But he's probably also at that point trembling, not just because he's seen a ghost, but thinking, well, last time I saw this guy, I denied him three times, like he said I was going to do.
But what does Jesus say, right?
He says, Peace, peace be with all of you.
And he says that three or four more times.
And the Pope in that opening statement used the word peace 10 times.
So, I think what he's trying to say is he's trying to preach this gospel of peace.
So, he's not so much interested in condemning this leader, that action.
Or that group, right?
It's just an altogether, you know, kind of like, I mean, most of us when we go to church on Sunday, we expect our priest or our pastor to be quoting the New Testament, to be quoting the Gospels, to be telling us to love your families and love your neighbor.
You don't expect them to stand up there and make pronouncements on what we're doing in Iraq, right?
And so I would just urge people to view the Pope a little bit differently on this and view him as the Pope rather than as a politician.
Well, Kangor, thank you very much.
Great to be with you, Dinesh.
Anytime, my friend.
Good to see you again.
There's something big Americans keep forgetting about behind the news cycles, behind the tariff wars, the conflicts, the ice raids here at home.
Behind all of this, there's an uncomfortable truth we all need to admit.
Medicare's Ticking Time Bomb00:02:12
We now have nearly $39 trillion in debt.
$39 trillion!
A ticking time bomb that could decimate our economy.
Over $355,000 per US taxpayer.
So I want you to ask yourself Am I truly protected from this pending disaster?
If not, I want you to reach out to my partners over at Gold Co.
Gold Co is the number one gold and silver company in the business, and thousands of Americans are using Gold Co to hedge their risks.
So get your free 2026 gold and silver guide and learn how you could get 10% in bonus gold or silver while supplies last.
Go to DineshGold.com.
That's DineshGold.com.
gold.com I'm about to turn 65, and people sometimes say to me, Hey, you don't look 65, and I'm like, Shh, I'm trying to fool the public for the next few years.
Well, if you're about to turn 65 or already on Medicare, there's some important information that you need to know.
I've spent my life researching government programs, and there are very few programs more confusing than Medicare.
I'm experiencing this issue firsthand.
Choosing the right Medicare plan is essential for protecting your health and wealth, but the government and big insurance don't make it easy.
It's almost impossible to understand all of your options.
And make an informed decision.
Make one misstep, it could cost you lifetime penalties or access to the doctors you trust.
Now, this is why you owe it to yourself to call Chapter.
They are the only advisors that search every single plan nationwide and offer unbiased advice.
If you're already on the best plan, they'll tell you.
If not, they'll help you switch.
And best of all, their help is totally free.
They've helped me, and I know they can help you as well.
Click the link below and connect with my friends over at Chapter today.
My latest film, The Dragon's Prophecy, is now available on YouTube, on iTunes, and on Prime.
Very easy to watch, so check it out.
Here's the trailer.
Dragon Prophecy Revival00:00:17
The conflict between Israel and the Palestinians?
The revival of an ancient conflict recorded in the Bible?
The nation of Israel is a resurrected nation.
What if there was going to be a resurrection of another people, an enemy people of Israel?