Iran Fires Missile BARRAGE At American Carrier, US Denies Attack
Tate Brown and guests Elad Iliyahu and Ryan Gerduski dissect Iran's alleged missile barrage against the USS Abraham Lincoln, which U.S. officials deny occurred after Tehran rejected Trump's 15-point peace plan involving nuclear dismantling. The discussion explores whether this signal reflects internal White House dynamics regarding JD Vance as a negotiator or domestic Republican tensions over gas prices and Joe Kent's resignation. Gerduski further contrasts Catholic historical contributions in AIDS care with modern anti-Semitism, citing data that refutes Gen Z religious revival claims while highlighting the rise of nihilistic discourse and the "Church of Oprah." Ultimately, the episode suggests current geopolitical and cultural fractures stem from a rejection of traditional institutions and orthodoxy. [Automatically generated summary]
I am very happy to be back with you on this beautiful, beautiful Wednesday.
It's a great day.
It's really sunny out, and I'm very thankful that I'm not at the airport right now because it's total pandemonium.
We just got a headline in.
Trump's going to send the National Guard to the airports.
That's like the new plan because we can't do something as simple as funding the TSA.
Now, the solution is to quite literally militarize the air.
It's getting wacky and wild.
It is a complete joke, quite frankly.
The state this country is in.
The Save Act is dead.
There's no chance that's going to.
I mean, you're just looking around.
It's just like, like, this is just, it's a really grim situation we're in.
So, but, you know, the upside is it's nice and sunny here just outside of our nation's capital here in beautiful West Virginia.
It's nice, sunny with a little balmy, a little balmy weather.
It's breezy, so to speak.
But yeah, very happy to be back with you guys.
And we have a lot, Ilya, who will be joining us at the 12-10 mark, just about right around there to give us updates from the White House on the sitch there.
So I'll be very pleased to be having him join us.
And we'll have the great Ryan Gurduski joining us at the half hour mark.
I don't know if you guys have seen, and I'm speaking as a Protestant, so you know it must be a bad if I'm speaking up, you know, going to bat for the Catholics.
There's been this kind of weird all-out assault on Catholicism.
It's quite sloppy, quite frankly, the attacks, the vectors that they're deploying.
But there is a conceded effort, so to speak, sort of deriding Catholics in the United States.
I'll see what he has because he's a Roman Catholic, so I had to bring him on to discuss.
There's not too much I can add because it doesn't necessarily affect me personally.
We'll get into all that.
Obviously, the big stories in the news is Iran says it fired a missile barrage at the USS Abraham Lincoln.
And the United States has come out.
Senior officials are saying, no, this didn't happen.
Really bizarre stuff.
We saw the headline yesterday that Iran is saying that they want JD Vance to be chief negotiator and they're really not interested in talking to Witcoff or Kushner anymore.
We'll get into all of that as well.
And then I think we can get into some of the latest on the TSA if we have time.
It's really a lot of action today, quite frankly, a lot of action today.
So we're going to get into all that.
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With that, we should just get right into the big story today.
This is a really bizarre one.
This is a really bizarre one.
Things are getting kind of weird, to say the least, over in the Iranian theater.
I have to say Iranian theater because I saw a headline this morning that apparently we're conducting strikes in Ecuador.
You know, there's just a few headlines.
It's a little difficult to say how involved we are because they say U.S.-backed strikes.
Well, that could just mean we've previously backed the Ecuadorians and their struggle.
That seems to make a lot of sense.
But I'm going to get into this.
This is really some fascinating stuff.
I'm using the New York Post here.
They're one of the first people to have grabbed this story.
Iran says it fired missiles at the USS Abraham Lincoln as Israel targets Tehran.
And then obviously, we saw this headline coming out of the Times.
Iran claims to have fired missiles at the USS Abraham Lincoln after senior Iranian officials dismissed Trump's ceasefire proposal.
U.S. officials have not confirmed whether the USS Abraham came under attack.
And it's still, that's as far as I can tell, the latest is no, they still haven't confirmed.
It appears that they're going to outright deny that this actually happened.
Iran said Wednesday that it had fired cruise missiles in the direction of the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier hours after Tehran's military dismissed any talk of an agreement to end the war with the U.S.
The semi-official Afar's news agency, which has close ties with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, claimed that the missile attack had forced the American naval fleet to change position.
There was no immediate response from U.S. Central Command, which has taken to social media in the past to refute Iranian claims to have struck the Lincoln and other U.S. assets.
The carrier had been based in the Arabian Sea in support of Operation Epic Fury, which will mark the conclusion of its fourth week, Friday.
In the Oval Office on Tuesday, Trump told reporters that Iran had shot, quote, 100 missiles at one of our aircraft carriers, one of the biggest ships in the world, actually.
Out of 101 missiles, every single one of them was knocked down.
The missile launches increased following a top spokesman for Iran's military vowing that Tehran will, quote, never come to terms with Washington after the U.S. transmitted a 15-point peace plan via Pakistani intermediaries.
Someone like us will never come to terms with someone like you.
Not now, not ever.
That was their Lieutenant Colonel Ibrahim Zalingan Zolingari in a video shared by Fars.
Quote, the strategic power you used to talk about has turned into a strategic failure, he added.
This one claiming to be a global superpower, which has already gotten us out of this mess.
If it could, don't dress up your defeat as an agreement.
Your era of empty promises has come to an end.
So, punchy demands or a punchy statement here from the Iranian camp.
The 15 U.S. demands on Iran include, which is according to the Wall Street Journal, dismantling nuclear facilities and capabilities as well as foregoing the pursuit of atomic weapons, handing over all enriched uranium to international authorities, limiting its missile program to self-defense uses, keeping the street of Hormuz open, and cutting off funding for terrorist proxies.
I think it's safe to say the Iranians have probably not agreed to this deal.
Trump is saying that this deal is done.
But he's saying all of this.
He's having to play the markets a little bit.
You know, he's making these really white-pilling statements on Mondays.
But when you get to Friday, I might imagine this happens again this week.
As you get to Friday, it's very doom and gloom, especially going into Saturday as the markets close, which basically just creates a lot of market volatility, which you can calm back down Monday.
It's a really, he's having to keep the markets, you know, in line because he can't afford a economic meltdown right now.
I mean, we're in the midst of this war.
We're trying to wrap this up.
I think it's safe to say that we haven't accomplished sort of what we sought out in Iran.
Again, I think we thought that the regime would kind of cave in on itself quite quickly, and that just really has not seemed to have happened.
I just don't see that.
I don't see why the Iranians would agree to this deal.
I mean, this is just effectively the end of their regime.
With that, I think that's why we should bring in the great Elad Iliyahu because he might have some latest from the White House regarding the sitch over there.
Let me get this pulled up and get this situated really quickly.
You know, I haven't seen official comment from the White House so far on it.
However, Caroline Loverett will be holding a press briefing behind me in roughly an hour.
I suspect it'll be one of the first things that comes up.
But I saw from some officials, I believe, that they were denying that the attack came anywhere near the ship.
And I mean, it could be that the Iranian missiles were shot in the direction of one of the aircraft carriers, but I don't know if any missiles reached anywhere near the actual ship.
I mean, it seems obvious to me that the main reason why the Iranians conducted this was basically to signal to the world that they are not willing to make this deal that Trump has proposed.
That he's saying we've agreed to this deal.
You know, we're just waiting on some ink to be, or some, you know, some papers to be inked.
It's difficult to imagine, you know, President Trump escalating in this situation because it's not necessarily that people are opposed to the war on principle.
I think we're, you know, we've discussed at length that the American people broadly, you know, specifically like your everyday American, is not terribly interested in our geopolitical affairs.
They might have some kind of vague opinions, but it's not like the people that are watching the show where they're tuned in, they have strong opinions on all these sorts of matters.
But if Trump does escalate this war, it is going to hit the economy quite hard.
Again, gas prices will continue to rise, energy prices broadly, which will raise prices across the board.
That's why it's difficult for me to imagine that Trump is really ready to take that next step to pursue a full regime change.
I mean, there seems to be some signals.
We've seen, you know, there was reporting from CNN that, you know, there may be, you know, the Iranians want JD Vance, you know, to be the primary negotiator here.
But that could just be a, you know, that could be direction from the White House.
It could be some rumors that maybe we need to try a different approach in negotiations because it seems like a regime change operation would just completely decimate Trump and the polls.
The president is trying to leave as many options open as leverage points against the Iranian regime.
So as far as the military goes, he's been trying to send in different infantry groups.
And I believe the 86th Battalion is getting prepared to head over there as leverage to potentially threaten the regime with.
So I think we'll be seeing more of that.
He's also doing well, as I understand and as I see it, managing the headway for how far he could potentially want this war to go on for.
The biggest threat, I believe, domestically, because thankfully there aren't many casualties, are these increasing gas prices.
And somewhere we're seeing like over a dollar increase.
I believe the national average is reaching like something like 70 or 80 cent increase from what we've seen before.
The president, it's a little bit ironic too, because the president has emphasized in the past how and would brag about how much he's been bringing down these gas prices.
Of course, now, you know, you see gas prices around there.
It's like a walking billboard for why we should probably stop moving forward in Iran.
We've been seeing some rumblings within the party, of course, from people like Joe Kent, who's resigned over this.
But besides that, as polls, some recent polls have shown, I believe it's something like eight out of 10 Republicans and nine out of 10 mega Republicans support the president's actions in Iran.
And so long as that doesn't dip under maybe 70% of Republicans, I believe he feels comfortable continuing to continue this war.
But this is all this, you know, you brought up Joe Kent.
This is what is so strange to me.
There's something going on in the White House because, well, you're there, so it's very helpful that you're there.
Because Joe Kent, you know, he resigns and it's this, you know, this like 11th hour moment.
Like, you know, I can't stand for this.
Like, what's about to happen is about to just completely violate my conscience.
So I must resign.
And then a week later, if you go to his Twitter right now, he's like saying, well, President Trump's doing a great job of negotiations, like peace through strength and all that.
And it's just so bizarre to see like the heel turn from Kent as if he's anticipating a wind down to this war, as if he's anticipating that if JD Vance, you know, is on the forefront of negotiations, that he will be successful in striking a deal.
You know, you start to think to yourself, is there some sort of internal divide?
I mean, you know, people have speculated there's an internal divide in the White House between the Vance camp and I guess you would say Tulsi and Kent are potentially aligned in some way.
And then the Rubio camp, you know, kind of that older guard.
To me, that kind of seems to be what's going on here.
Is it does seem like there's a reason why Vance has been quite, you know, very quiet.
There's a reason that it seems like to some degree he's been sidelined because Trump's holding court down in Florida and Vance has been up in Washington every weekend.
You know, it's kind of one of those questions.
It's like, maybe there is something going on in the White House because that's just weird behavior from Kent.
And again, this article from CNN, I don't think that's just a coincidence that the Iranians have decided to talk now.
Potentially, that's information that was selectively released by the Vance camp.
So I believe many Republicans are looking towards a post-Trump future.
The president obviously can't run again, or I mean, who knows?
Maybe he'll run for a VP and then the president was resigned.
But no, I think many Republicans are looking forward for a past post-Trump environment.
And I think one of the things that they think he might be most unpopular on is this war in particular.
So I think we've seen a couple of politicians posture against him in this way, thinking that it'll pay dividends in the future.
We've seen this with people like Representative Thomas Massey.
I think we've seen this with former Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Now we're seeing this with Joe Kent.
And then, of course, you have some of these odd characters in the administration who were, you know, whose political bend was completely antithetical to war with Iran.
When Tulsi Gabbard ran for president in the past, she used to sell t-shirts that said no war with Iran.
So it seems a little bit ironic now that should be part of an administration or the intelligence, top intelligence official during an administration that decided to bomb Iran.
She also sent out this odd tweet where she was saying that she gave the information to the intelligence to the president and he interpreted it the way that he saw fit, kind of sort of distancing herself from him.
Obviously, Vice President JD Vance has this history of having this isolationist bend.
He still decided to be the vice president and tag the log to the president's administration, though.
He's in no position to really buck the president.
I did think it was a little bit odd, though, that they requested vice president be the exclusive negotiator.
You have to wonder what's wrong with Jared Kushner and Steve Wickoff in the eyes of the Iranians.
Yeah, well, I mean, you know, some reporting was like that they had a problem with the fact that they were Jewish.
You know, that was some of the reporting that came out.
But I also think that potentially this could be a play within the United States.
I think this could be a play from the Vance camp because, look, if you're JD Vance, if you're looking towards 2028, this is a brilliant move here, really.
As you put yourself at the forefront of negotiations, you can be the guy that ended the Iran war.
I mean, to me, that seems like there's a huge incentive from the JD Vance camp, so to speak, to get this sort of reporting to CNN.
I also maybe think they would try to, you know, create a divide between the president and vice president if they can, naively thinking that they can do that.
Because I believe they do think that the vice president has a little bit different views on the war right now, despite having, despite supporting the president fully, as he needs to publicly.
You have to imagine that he has some reservations about what's going on.
Yeah, and I think it's safe to say, like, President Trump's family, I mean, by all accounts, Trump Jr. and Eric Trump have a great relationship with JD Vance.
Like they have a personal friendship.
So it's really hard to imagine if there'd be any way to sort of put a rift between Vance and Trump.
I mean, that just seems like an impossibility, even in spite of what appears to be a massive difference of opinion over this war.
So that's, I don't know.
That's why my analysis is like, I think JD Vance, this is a play here.
I think he's making a play because it seems obvious that there's a lot of, I don't know if Rubio himself is interested in 28, but it seems like there's a lot of figures that really would rather have Rubio than Vance for the nomination in 2028.
So that's why it just seems like I think there might be some sort of like some sort of internal conflict or war happening in the White House right now.
I think what's most fascinating about it is that ultimately the president, whoever he endorses, will end up being the Republican nominee.
You'd have to imagine, right?
Whoever he would anoint as the future MA guy.
So both Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance are sort of performing for the president in their roles to try to get in his good graces to be anointed by him.
And you have to imagine that's what's going on behind the scenes.
Reporting says that they're very close friends.
Vice President Vance likes to say that he's very close friends with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, but you have to imagine there is some tension with both of them obviously being very ambitious political characters.
Yeah, so just as far as the president's schedules go, yesterday he swore in now DHS Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen, former senator from Oklahoma.
He took some questions then.
And today he has a light schedule, a light public schedule, but he is fundraising for the NRCC later today over in Congress for Republican congressmen.
Obviously, Congress is looking to Democrats in Congress are posturing very aggressively on TSA funding among different parts of DHS funding.
The president's solution to this was temporarily to put ICE agents in different airports throughout the country to do some of the tasks that TSA is supposed to.
I actually visited LaGuardia Airport on Monday in New York.
There were roughly a dozen to two dozen ICE agents walking around assisting in some security role, but apparently not affecting or making any arrests.
I didn't even see them inquiring with people at the airport.
So they aren't there in an ICE capacity and in the capacity to remove illegal aliens from the country.
But it seems they're in the capacity to try to help TSA.
These TSA agents are being paid because they're part of the government, isn't funded currently.
So until that, they are calling in sick.
A lot of these people aren't showing up, and it's causing long lines at the airports.
I think they need to think of a long-term solution here, but until TSA is refunded, the president is posturing with ICE agents at a lot of these airports.
It looks like Hobby's fine, but Bush is like a train wreck.
But like, I left from Dolas.
I won't say where I went, but last weekend, I traveled domestically and I left from Washington, Dolas, and it was fine.
There was literally like three people in line.
I showed up like four hours early.
My girlfriend was absolutely furious that we ended up showing up four hours early and there was no one in line because I'd been seeing all these headlines.
I'd seen that Houston and Atlanta and all these different airports were like a complete nightmare.
So I show up like four hours early.
I drug her kicking and screaming.
And just kidding, she was totally, she's a plant truster, don't worry.
But we show up and there's like three people in line.
I'm like, what's going on?
Why is Dolas perfectly fine?
Atlanta and Houston can't figure it out because I was under the impression this was all the same agency.
So I don't know if what I've been told, what has been explained to me is that some of these airports are paying TSA out of pocket.
So your Doluses and whatever.
I don't know if that's true.
I really, it's just bizarre.
It's like we're literally, this is like a third world.
TSA lines in Houston and Australian do a mind-blowing three.
It's like wrapped around the airport.
So this is at Bush.
Yeah, okay.
This is literally like a third world.
I don't, I can't even say it's a third world thing because like when I went to, you know, when I went to Africa for a while, I landed in Nairobi and the line was pretty long to clear customs, but like at least I didn't wait three hours.
It was like an hour.
Unbelievable stuff.
This is hilarious.
These airlines are starting to get pissed because this is hurting their bag.
I mean, the New York Times put a piece out where they were like, they just embedded some reporter reporters, some reporters in these lines, and they were asking people, you know, what they were going to do, if they're going to miss their flight.
People were saying they're pushing their flights back like a day or two and they're just going to sleep in the airport because they had to get where they were going, but they couldn't afford to miss the flight.
So it was just better if they could just clear security and just wait it out until they get their flight.
This is really doing a number on these airlines because they're getting people canceling their flights all the time, moving their flights all around.
It's a complete nightmare.
This is why they're starting appears, you know, to reciprocate.
You know, it's a really funny thing.
This is from NBC News.
Their headline: Delta has cut off special services for members of Congress at airports as the industry continues to feel the effects of the government's failure to pay TSA workers.
I mean, it's one of those things.
It's like, like, I get, I say, I get, I mean, I think it's retarded, but like, I understand the Democrats, you know, it's like a political thing.
They don't want to fund DHS because, you know, that means that means, you know, defending the border, which the Democrats are clearly opposed to doing.
They just want to flood the country with as many, you know, illegals as possible.
Could we not do a carve-out for TSA?
I mean, like, I guess they're, I guess the Democrats correctly have identified that this really does put pressure on, this really does put pressure on, you know, I guess Trump's approval rating because he's already struggling with Iran.
You know, the gas price is going up, that sort of thing.
A little double whammy if you got to wait for three hours at the airport.
I mean, this is like pissing people off.
This is the kind of stuff that like pisses Americans off.
Like, you know, saying, well, Trump, you know, Trump lied to us.
He said he wasn't going to go to the award with Iran, but now he is.
No one really cares, quite frankly.
Waiting three hours at the airport, that pisses people off.
People come unglued over that kind of stuff.
So unbelievable, unbelievable why we can't just do a little carve-out and get TSA funded.
I think it's time to hit Ryan, hit a brother on the hip, as they say.
So we're going to go grab the great Ryan Gerduski and we're going to see, we're going to talk to him about this all-out pincer movement on the Catholics.
So this story, when it was presented to me, honestly, it made me kind of mad because, you know, I've been dealing with seeing a lot of these rage bait stories regarding the H-1Bs like replacing a lot of like jobs that Americans can obviously do.
And when I think about anti-Catholicism, no one does that better than like Heritage Americans.
You know, when you really think about like a kitschy evangelical, no one's better at like railing on Catholicism than us.
Like, you know, this is where I come from.
So seeing like a subversive op against Roman Catholics, I get offended because I'm like, hey, you know, as Oron McIntyre, the Great Arm Act everybody, he's like, that's our job.
Like, what's going on?
You know, you can't just take that from us.
Can you give people a break?
Because a lot of people maybe haven't seen this.
They've seen some rumor or some, you know, murmuring on Twitter, but there really is like a calculated op going on here.
Can you maybe outline what specifically is going on?
Very much a Catholic, Catholic, very proud of my faith and the church I was born into.
My biggest point is that, you know, we're approaching Easter, and on Easter, thousands and thousands of people across the country will convert to the faith and will join the Catholic Church.
And Catholic converts have played a very important role in the history of the church from everywhere from St. Paul to Elizabeth Ann Seton.
And, you know, there's millions others.
And there's a lot to do in the Catholic Church to make it a better church.
And I hope that they fill that role.
However, there are a few people who are using the platform as being a Catholic convert.
And I'm not going to name names because I don't want, because they live on attention and I don't want to give them that energy, but y'all know who I'm talking about, who have used the role, the platform of the faith to promote politics that are antithetical to the faith at times and otherize people, namely Jews.
And they, and in the long history of the Catholic Church and the Catholic Church in this country specifically, as you mentioned, Catholics have been otherized.
We've been ostracized.
We've been told we have foreign, we're in line more with foreign countries than we are with this country.
Political parties have started up to ostracize and to otherize and to stop Catholics from being a prominent part of this country.
So I think that as a cradle Catholic, maybe we are more cognitive of that history.
It is not the role then of these recent Catholic converts than to do the same thing to other people.
And I make the point in the article that if you look at Catholic doctrine, we're not called to be Zionists.
It's not a goal.
You can believe whatever you want to believe.
I do not make the case that you have to believe.
You have to be pro-Israel or pro-Bib or whatever.
There's certainly a lot of Catholics who have a lot of concerns over Palestinians and over Palestinian refugees and civilian losses and wars.
However, you should not use the platform of being a Catholic then to authorize Jews to dehumanize them, which is something that's so common in our culture today is to dehumanize other people.
If you have a logical case to make in favor or opposed to anything in politics, you can make it without using your religion and your new religion, mind you, to make those points.
That was my greater argument.
Don't use this joining of the Catholic Church because it is a super minority that are doing this.
However, they have very large platforms.
They have very large profiles.
And I don't want them to taint the idea that this speaks to a large percentage of the thousands and tens of thousands of people who are going to be joining the church in just two weeks.
Yeah, well, this is why I'm glad your op-ed, I mean, because your op-ed was perfect.
It was perfectly timed, I would say, above all else.
Because, you know, the op, I guess the operation I was referencing at the top, you know, is this tendency for a lot of people in a certain sphere to say, well, you know, Catholicism is this emerging thing.
And it's really scary, actually, because, you know, like Catholic integralists, and oftentimes they are referencing some problematic figures, but oftentimes they're lumping in people that are just like maybe a little too aggressively like pro-life and this sort of thing.
It does happen.
It happens.
And so that's kind of what I was referencing at the top.
But then there's the other side where, and this is what frustrates me, you know, as like a Protestant, is these guys who were literally Southern Baptists five minutes ago, they convert and now they're calling me like a cuck and like they're lecturing everyone on like how Christianity ought to be.
And they're like, we need to bring back a crusade.
And I'm like, could you maybe visit like, I don't know, the New York metropolitan area and meet some cradle Catholics and like get a correct sense of like what Catholicism actually is and what it realistically is, what your average parish actually looks like.
Because the LARPing is really what grinds my gears above.
I hate LARPing.
LARPing is the number one, it's my number one enemy.
So it's the guys that I'm like, I was at Sunday school with you, you know, and like we're, you know, you're, you liked Hill song in high school, and all of a sudden now you're like your at-based, you know, crusader pepe or whatever on Twitter.
People who convert any religion oftentimes are the most devout.
I mean, because you really, really look for it.
And I get that.
And that's good.
That could be good.
I mean, you could do a lot with devout people.
And the long history of the Catholic Church in this country is one that has taken care of the sick and educated children and fed homeless people and done amazing things going to the Catholic from like the Dorothy Day and the Catholic workers to just, you know, as I said before, like, you know, St. John Bosco or Elizabeth Anston, Elizabeth Anston.
They've done amazing things, you know, to help this country.
And those things need to continue.
That's the work that really should be done, especially in a time when you have a lot of divisiveness and a lot of anger and a lot of frustration.
It's time that these civic institutions can really come together to kind of mend and heal a lot of people.
And people do, the large majority do.
It's just that you don't fuel that anger and use the platform of my religion to demonize other people.
And I really take, it's not really about Israel per se.
I've never been to Israel.
I've not, I mean, I've been invited, but I have no, I'm going to love Hamas.
I'm sure I would love this country.
I've never, I've no, I've never gone.
I don't have any plans to go soon.
However, I really think of like the aspect of like American Jews.
I have a lot of Jewish friends.
And in the last couple of years, to do everything from seeing October 7th happen in Israel and then the day after to see, you know, blue-haired they them and Muslim immigrants chanting in the streets for Hamas and a terrorist organization before Israel even responded while people are still bleeding out.
And then to see everyone on the left who you thought was a friend turn your back on you and think, okay, I have a home on the right.
And then for conspiracy theorists and people to, you know, have criticisms, some are fair, a lot aren't, and use their religion and the religion I share with them as the reasoning and as the mechanism, I feel very bad for them.
I feel bad that they feel like so other eyes.
And, you know, I wasn't alive for this, but Catholics in this country, the biggest lynchings ever were Sicilians and Catholic Sicilians in Louisiana, you know, the political party can't remember.
Like we have dealt with this and we have come out a different side and we're part of the entire intact of the institution of the United States.
Our last president was Catholic.
Our current vice president is Catholic, Catholic convert, mind you.
Like we've come through the other side.
We are, you know, most Catholics are as waspy as wasps are in many sense of the word.
Like it's a fully assimilated thing.
We don't have a Sicilian work ethics, which is a, you know, for the benefit of everybody.
However, don't then use the same platform to promote things.
And they took really opposition in two sentences.
And I'll explain those two sentences if you have a second.
So the two part was: I said, unlike many other branches of Christianity, the Catholic Church does not demand that the faith will be committed Zionist to receive God's blessing.
Many prominent members of the church have spoken out in the plight of civilians in Gaza.
100% true.
Church, the Catholic Church does not view Christian Zionism as a legitimate thing.
They say it's actually a very bad teaching.
Many of the people in the church that they view that the Catholic Church is really the new Israel.
Totally legitimate.
The second part is where they don't, what they really don't like, where I say it seems that many recent converts of the faith understand that these teachings, but somehow forget the church also rejects any form of anti-Semitism, condemns hostility towards Jews, and upholds the enduring covenant with the Jewish people and God as God's chosen people.
Okay, that is, they, I mean, the, the, you know, the mob online has extreme opposition to that, but it comes straight out of Second Vatican Council.
Second Vatican Council says God holds the Jews most dear for the sake of their fathers.
He does not repent of their gifts.
He makes the calls, he makes or the calls he issues.
And then the catechism, the old covenant has never been revoked.
There's no legitimacy where you can say as a Catholic, you can use your faith to promote anti-Semitism.
It is, it is as vitriolic as racism or anything else or any other sin.
And I take a great opposition of people who use like props, political, religious symbols of the faith as political props.
And then will do things like they'll chant like, you know, Christ is king.
And then the next like sentence will be like, execute Bibi Netanyahu.
Like, no, those are not, like, you're clearly like, you're not saying this in any meaningful or devout way.
This means literally nothing to you.
It is no different than taking Christ's name in vain.
So I just had to say something.
A lot of people who are putting opposition to this are either very weirdos online who are like, have no religion and are just, you know, they're, they're just, they're we, you know, I'm talking about people like Catholic integralists.
I'm like, what are you talking about?
And then other Jews.
And I'm like, okay, somebody who is of this faith should say something.
And I was like, this is going to be me.
So I just wrote this while I was waiting for a plane at the airport.
And I think it's, I think it's a, I think it's a decent piece.
I know that's what that was so funny because I'm reading it again as a you know Protestant kind of looking in seems like to be a feud that doesn't necessarily involve me as much.
And I'm just seeing, I'm like, yeah, this is like the conventional, like, correct me if I'm wrong, the kind of the conventional Catholic view.
Because again, online, it's one thing you're seeing these, you know, Spurgs, you know, crashing out all the time.
But you go, again, you just go and just talk to like Catholics, just everyday Catholics.
Again, they're like, what does Israel have to do with like my faith whatsoever?
Like they probably aren't even, they don't probably don't even realize it is even a contentious issue at all.
And the same thing in the evangelical church and the broader Protestant faith.
It's like, again, most people that are attending church don't even realize these debates are even happening.
And that like, you know, online, it seems like it's at a fever pitch.
And, you know, there's these massive plays happening.
You know, there's this massive, you know, people are in mass pouring into the Catholic Church or, you know, people in evangelical churches are finally turning on Israel or they're all in on Israel.
And then you go to these places and like everything is still for the most part fairly normal.
Like people aren't ideologues.
People aren't these LARPers.
Like it's just very normal people with normal views.
And the reason that they are in these churches are for very practical reasons.
And like if, listen, if you want to be a quote, I mean, I mean, the problem is everyone wants to be a freaking influencer.
If you want to do something that's like really noble and like be influential, go save Catholic education.
Go save the Catholic hospital system, which is like falling apart.
Go like do other things.
Go revive the history of what Catholics in this country did.
And from everything from like, you know, taking being the first places to take care of AIDS patients when they were dying to, you know, promoting, you know, peace among the races in parts of the South.
Like they've done a lot of really noble things.
And also around the entire globe.
I just read a story the other day about how these Catholic nuns sacrificed themselves for the end of the reign of terror in the French Revolution.
And like three days after they did that, like Robespierre was executed.
Stuff that is very fascinating and interesting.
There's a lot of things, like a lot of Catholics just skimmed the surface.
And I did, I do a lot.
I mean, I'm not going to lie, like, because I'm a cradle Catholic and that's what we do.
We don't read the Bible.
We kind of skim the surface.
However, there is a lot there when it comes to like Catholic mysticism and the life of saints and all the times that the church has really been the savior of Western civilization.
The only difference, the only thing that saved Western civilization from true barbarism throughout history is the church.
There's a lot to say and a lot to talk about and a lot of wonderful things to uphold and a lot of things that you need this country needs right now.
You can do that.
There's not a lot of easy prayer.
One, it's not easy work.
It's much easier to stand on a stage and scream about Jews.
And secondly, but that hard work is the more important work and the ones that is probably more fulfilling if that's what you're actually looking for.
My guess is people that are doing this, and once again, it's a minority of a minority of a minority.
They're not doing this for any sense of self-fulfillment or for a sense of peace or anything.
They're doing this to become popular.
And I can't emphasize this enough.
I'm not, you know, to quote Fran Leibowitz, my great lot in life is I'm always a godfather and ever a God.
I'm not telling you what to believe in.
I can't control you.
You can believe whatever you want.
Don't use the church you've been a part of for 45 seconds to be the platform to like hate on Jews.
Well, I mean, you know, I like watching the family feuds.
You know, it's enjoyable.
It's almost like Mari, but like religious.
No, I'm just kidding.
One thing I wanted to talk about, I mean, you know, there's been a few people, a few shows that have already kind of hashed this out.
But, you know, people have said there's this kind of op that's happening where there seems to be an attempt to divide the coalition right now that exists, you know, broadly between Catholics, you know, and evangelicals or largely Protestants.
And there's an attempt to like put a wedge in right now.
I have seen it to some degree.
Again, it's one of those things like everyday people probably don't even really differentiate that much anymore.
I mean, I think like most of the anti-Catholic sentiment that exists with the evangelical church is more they're just kind of weirded out by a lot of the stuff, but they're not like, I hate Catholics because they're Irish.
It's like, that's not really happening really anymore outside of my family.
But anyway, like, I'd really, I'm actually kind of skeptical that this op, so to speak, is, is really like a thing that's like as worth investing all of this bandwidth into.
Like, gosh, we know we've got to keep everyone together.
I'm like, I don't really think that's even happening.
And like, I mean, listen, we live in a low trust society.
Like, we just do for a lot of different reasons for the internet, for mass immigration that spreads diversity, diversity lowers institutional trust for all the all the controversies that have afflicted every civic institution in this entire country.
And so there's their, they're looking, and anger fuels a lot of what people do.
And so if you can be angry and you can purport to, and you can be like the proponent of the truth, the real truth, you can monetize that.
And some people do it very well.
A lot of people do it really, really wrong.
And some people have made a lot of money doing it.
So I think that in like this world where you can get, if you can get 1% of the country to like you, you know, you could be a very rich person.
And all you need is that 1%.
And so I think a lot of it is not like an open op.
I think a lot of it is a chance to feed the hunger of wanting acknowledgement, which I think everyone has to a degree and to make a lot of money in a very easy way.
And it's a whole business model around it.
I don't think that it's like a true intention.
I don't think like, you know, if they crossed paths with each other, they maybe have an interesting conversation, but there would be like no hatred across different faiths and different religions.
But it doesn't do anything to like help us as a people, as an American people.
And it certainly doesn't make us look like we're worthy of looking up to.
Like you have, you know, you're as an American, you are to a sense destined for greatness if you want to fulfill that.
However, a lot of that comes with immense sacrifice and hard work.
And people want the accolades without doing the work.
And the work is as important as anything else.
So I find it to be something where people are just trying to make a quick buck, fueling anger rather than doing anything else.
And I think in combination with that, I don't know if you'll agree or disagree on this point, but I think there's also a lot of money being made in the false optimism sphere as well.
And the sense of coming from like the Christian community, headline after headline after headline saying, Gen Z is flocking back to church.
Like there's a religious revival in Gen Z.
And like, honestly, there's a lot of stuff that's like, you know, they're like the Catholic conversions are like unbelievable and these sorts of things.
And when you see the data come out, it's just never reflected.
And it breaks my heart.
I wish this were the case.
Like, I wish there was a push again towards like traditional Christianity and mass.
I wish that in general there was a religious revival among Gen Z, but the data comes out and it's just not really there.
I mean, there's a great, I don't know if you've seen his work, Ryan Burge.
But it's just what the data really shows is more of a flatlining.
Like the decline is not exceeding anymore.
Like it's not like a perpetual decline like we used to see, but it's not a revival in the sense that people are looking for it.
And there are people, you know, with there are churches that are thriving.
There are some churches everywhere that are thriving.
There are some communities that are thriving.
But, you know, to a point of this was an old book, A Nation of Heretics.
I don't know if you ever read it.
But they say if without a traditional, without a traditional church, people make their own gods.
And at the time, like Oprah Winfrey was very popular.
So like the church of Oprah, where everyone was going on a fat lost diocese and, you know, reciting pledges to themselves in the mirror every day, 30 times.
Like it was all the practicalities of a religion without a deity and without an orthodoxy, which is where a lot of problems come from.
So yeah, but it's hard.
And I go to church every Sunday, waking up at like eight o'clock, making sure everyone's ready, change, you know, and like we get there on time.
And, you know, your head isn't in a place where you're thinking about what's for dinner is difficult at times to say, okay, how much money can I afford to give to the poor box today?
What can I do outside of Sunday for one hour?
Do I make sure that I am living up to a certain standard?
Oh, that's difficult.
Like it's really, it's, I, and I always say, like, don't, like, I'm not an example to, because I'm, I figured it out.
I haven't figured it out.
I'm trying to, I'm working towards it.
And I look to certain people who I think are really living living out of the lives.
I kind of get like exhausted with these people, though, who make millions of dollars.
They have like one or two children, which I'm sorry, if you're, if you're like a die-hard Catholic, like, let me see you pop out six or seven before I hear you sit there and talk about like how like extreme you are in the faith.
But they have, they live a very, um, they live a life that's very similar to like evangelical Christian prosperity gospel.
And then they want to talk about how giving they are.
Like, sorry, like, you know, I'm not saying you should be poor and living in the street, but I'm sure there's more that you could be doing.
And more importantly, show me.
Don't tell me.
Show me that you are working towards something some way and be an example for people.
And I think that's really, you know, in the sense that Charlie Kirk's died, I think about this.
Like people, people, people in this country, especially young people in this country, really want an example, an authentic example.
Somebody who lives a life and does something.
And it's not all, you know, all show and no go.
And I think that that is a very hard thing to do, especially when it's centered around a religion and a faith.
But go do it.
Like go be that person.
And of all faiths, not just Catholics, but of all faiths.
And I think that that would help a lot of these institutions recover if you had something where people were like living it out and showing that they were living it out.
I mean, well, because that's just what we're dealing with writ large.
I mean, obviously, I don't want to get into it because it's been beat to death, but all this discourse, you know, recently around marriage, obviously, I think has dominated everyone's timelines.
And like, I mean, the good thing, I'm being an elder millennial now, like I'm in middle age, the very beginning of middle age is like kind of experience how tough life is in general.
And you're like, all right, you found some level of peace in your life.
Good for like whatever.
Okay.
She was wild when she was younger.
Hope it was before smartphones were invented.
Like that saves a lot of us.
However, like, okay, like, you know, yeah, he's, I don't know, this person, like, in real life, maybe it is all just like a parody or whatever, but if he's expressing genuine happiness that like his life is more fulfilled and he saved himself and his wife didn't.
All right.
Like, listen, okay.
Like, I let thee who went, didn't go to a single party when they were younger, like, throw the first stone.
Whatever.
Like, I mean, good for them.
I think that so, I think for, I think the judgmental class, um, a lot of them, one, just as guilty as anybody else.
And two, it, it's, uh, it's like something in web added in like human nature to mock everyone and destroy something they find happiness in.
So, um, I don't know.
I, I feel like if you can get to a place where you're living a decent life, like who cares what came before you?
Like, honestly, it doesn't really matter as long as you get there.
And the faster, the better.
But, hey, if you get there, you know, a day before dropping dead, you got there.
So, I mean, that's my opinion of it.
Just work every day as best as you can because it's not like it is not easy and life will run you through.
And people on the internet, as I'm experiencing today and yesterday from the sop-ed, are efficient at doing it because it's how they fill that the void.
Even churches are like, I don't know how many people like that where I'm like, I got like a one friend who's like 28 and he's like a winner.
Like, this guy is a winner.
He would be an amazing husband.
And he just can't, he's just, I guess he's not in the right place or he's not meeting the right people.
But I'm like, we have like, if I'm sorry, if we can make like a car, like a gluten-free bread, we can make something where these people can freaking meet somehow.
Like we like, we should be able to invent something where they can meet and we can have a healthy cigarette.
Like life would be so much better if those two things existed.
Like, do you, I mean, and these people who are like pretending to be like, you know, devout Christians, do you know about half the people in the Bible who were like, we're all doing the same thing?
And as long as you got there, whatever, that's all for the better.
Okay, so he, but also maybe it was, maybe it was for the good that he did it because he was able to be like the rock in her life to tame her or not to tame her, but to like be there as the rock that maybe helped her center herself.
That is, that is like, maybe you should be doing that because it does center somebody else.
And good for him in the end.
I don't know.
I don't really, I'm not really invested in most people, other people's lives.
I'm barely like making it through the day.
But that is what I'm just trying to get through my own.
But that is where, um, where, where I think you can, if you have a positive outlook where you can look and say, okay, she figured it out.
Like, she didn't, you know, some people are, what's some people are raised as their children.
Some people are dragged as their children.
And some, you know, maybe she was just dragged.
Maybe she didn't have a good upbringing.
Maybe her parents were ignoring her.
Maybe she looked for like validation all around places.
And maybe he was better.
But in the end, she found someone who centers her and compliments her.
And hopefully they have like a real solid marriage.
It's not all for social media.
Some people have obviously marriages just for social media.