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Don't let tax refund worries hold you back. File now with TurboTax on Intuit credit Karma. They'll find every credit and deduction to help you get every refund dollar you deserve or your money back. Start filing today in the Credit Karma app. President Trump did not nuke Iran on Tuesday night, but he did nuke a bunch of podcasters last night. As the podcast wars go from a schoolyard scrap to into the bombing of Dresden, then speaking of wars, the CIA can apparently track you down over a thousand square mile territory, listening only for your heartbeat. We'll get into that new technology that leaked. And finally, did the Pentagon threaten to depose the Pope? I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Michael Knowles Show. Welcome back to the show. We will also, if we have time, remember the life of Michael J. Fox, who is not dead. He's alive. He's very much alive. But CNN reported that he was dead yesterday, which just perfectly sums up the liberal media, doesn't it? They just can't get anything right. They don't know anything. So we'll get to, we'll get to what? The premature death of the very much alive Michael J. Fox tells us about how to understand political media. First, though, I want to tell you about Catholic match. Go to catholicmatch.com this episode is sponsored by Catholic Match. While our culture celebrates love as chocolates and roses and one night stands, Catholic Match is doing something different. They're helping young Catholics find the kind of love that leads to a lasting and fulfilling sacramental marriage in a world that celebrates and encourages practically everything else. I hear from a lot of young people, a lot of young people, how hard it is to find really anyone to date, but especially people who are looking for serious Catholics to date, people who understand that marriage is a sacred vocation, not just a relationship status. 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So right now we know that countless couples have met on Catholic Match. They've been happily married for years. This year, don't give up. Download the app or go to catholicmatch.com and find your forever speaking in matters of love and hate. President Trump, he went nuclear. Not on Tehran, not on Carg Island. He went nuclear on right wing podcasters yesterday. I'm not gonna read the whole post cuz it's extremely long. I think it's about 500 words. But President Trump waded into the podcast wars. Sort of. Sort of. This is actually different from the podcast wars. I'll just give you his words first from the president untruth social. I'm gonna be as objective as I can here. I know that lots of people listening, they have personal affection. Many people have personal relationships that a lot of these people followed them for years. Trump was friends with these guys for a very long time. So here we go. Fully objective reading Trump's tweet I know why Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens and Alex Jones have all been fighting me for years. Especially by the fact that they think it is wonderful for Iran, the number one state sponsor of terror, to have a nuclear weapon. Because they have one thing in common, low IQs. They're stupid people. They know it, their families know it and everyone else knows it. 2. Look at their past. Look at their record. They don't have what it takes and they never did. They've all been thrown off television, lost their shows and aren't even invited on TV because nobody cares about them. They are all caps, nutjobs, troublemakers and will say anything necessary for some free and cheap publicity. Now they think they can get some clicks because they have third rate podcasts, but nobody's talking about them. The President is obviously, but nobody's talking about them. And their views are the opposite of maga or I wouldn't have won the presidential election in a landslide. MAGA agrees with me and just gave CNN A 100% approval rating of Trump. Not hard flailing fools like Tucker Carlson who couldn't finish college. He was a broken man. Okay, so then it goes on and on. I'll just summarize it cuz it's so long. He, he goes after Tucker and calls him dumb and says he needs a psychiatrist. He goes after Meghan and Says that she didn't used to like him. She had that Rosie O' Donnell question in the debate in 2016. Goes after Candace specifically for accusing the first lady of France, Brigitte Macron, of being a man. Trump then goes on to say that he actually thinks the first lady of France is more beautiful than Candace. So he gets a real personal jab in there. Goes after Alex Jones for being bankrupt. Says he says a bunch of dumb things, Lost his fortune for claiming that the Sandy Hook victims were crisis actors. Says these pundits are losers. They always will be. Now, fake news, cnn, the failing New York Times, all the other radical left organizations are hailing them. He's saying the liberal media are promoting these people because they're attacking Trump. He says these people are not maga. They're losers. They latch onto maga. I'm too busy on world and country affairs. And after a few times, they go nasty. Then he goes into Marjorie Taylor Greene, whom he calls Marjorie Traitor Brown. Won't even let her keep her color. And he says, MAG is about winning and strength. America's hottest country in the world. Okay, that's a pretty thorough summary of what President Trump said. Some of the people that President Trump named have already responded. Here is Alex Jones taking on the president's broadside against him. But as bad as he is, as corrupt as he's gotten, the insider trading, all of it, I'm really glad he's differentiating, saying, you're not with me because I'm not with you. I don't want to be at your cool, corrupt kid. Howard Ludnig, Jeffrey Epstein, class table. Thank you so much for delineating that I'm not with you. A sinking, burning ship. The left attacks me and says, oh, you admit he was bad the whole time. You made a mistake. No, we got a lot of good done with him. I'm proud of the fact I went through hell to support Trump, but I have integrity and I will now stand against this new Trump, who by the day becomes more demonic, more twisted, and more sick. Demonic, twisted, sick. I think previously Alex Jones had been saying for a week or two that President Trump needs to be removed from office through the 25th Amendment. Obviously, Tucker was going very hard against the Iran war in particular, calling Trump's actions evil and demonic and all that. I think Candace has responded and said something to the effect of, you know, grandpa needs to be put in a home now. I don't think Megyn Kelly has responded yet. I haven't seen anything from Marjorie Taylor Greene. She mostly was A. A kind of a footnote to this attack. Is there anyone else in there? Those are basically the hits on it. Okay. Does this mean that Trump is entering the podcast wars? That's how a lot of people are characterizing this. Wow. The podcast wars have just gone to the highest level possible. No, no, these are different conflicts. The podcast wars refers to skirmishes between podcasters and crucially, skirmishes that were not so much political in nature, but meta political in nature. I've obviously been talking about this. Well, everyone's been talking about this. And I've made the case that it is not politically helpful to amplify the podcast wars on the right, specifically because the podcast wars on the right were not really talking about hard political issues, politically relevant issues. I found the podcast wars to be mostly personal battles between various podcasters over conspiracy theories, over things like the first lady of France, as you know, and whether or not she's a man or something. All these kind of very abstract, often very petty, often personal kinds of issues. And I pointed out during the podcast wars, I said, the podcast wars are. They're lucrative for a lot of people. All the podcasters are benefiting from this. Cause one of them makes a crazy claim, and then the other one says, well, that person's evil. Cause that person's making a crazy claim. And then the first person goes after the critic again about other totally extraneous, irrelevant issues. And it was just this tempest in a teapot that crucially, didn't really touch on issues like immigration issues like the economy issues like issues like the conduct of the government. It was all this kind of, I don't know, pie in the sky kind of stuff, or petty detraction, gossip, slander, all this kind of stuff. But it didn't really affect the political order. What Trump is doing here is different. Notice when the podcast wars were going on for six, seven months, Trump didn't really say anything about it. He didn't publicly weigh in on the first lady of Fran stuff. He didn't weigh in on every episode of Tucker or Candace or Meghan or Alex Jones for that matter. He didn't involve. He would make general comments. Part of the podcast wars were all these claims about TPA and Erica Kirk, which, again, were awful as they might have been. They were sort of extraneous to the actual political order. And Trump would make these general comments, as many of us did, saying, oh, look, Erica Kirk is great. TPUSA is a great organization. They've done great work. But he didn't get in the muck of the podcast wars, until the podcasters started going after a real political issue, the real policies that he was enacting, as he says here, specifically the war on Iran, going after him as a politician, going after whether or not people should elect him and his endorsed candidates. That was when he got involved. Cuz that's a distinct fight. The analogy I would use is the podcast wars are like the Bosnian crisis of 1908, the Bosnian crisis of 1908, when the Austro Hungarian empire starts weighing in very heavily into Bosnia Herzegovina. And this exacerbated Serbian nationalism. But it wasn't a global conflict, it was a contained conflict. That then, because it exacerbated Serbian nationalism and impelled someone like Gavrilo Princip to assassinate the Archduke Fran Ferdinand, all of a sudden it becomes this world war. You would not say that the Bosnian crisis is the same thing as World War I. They're related conflicts, but they're different. The podcast wars were the minor skirmishes, the skirmishes on the outskirts. What Trump is doing here is weighing in on an actual political battle that has things to say about elections, that has things to say about hard policy. He's going into this now because they are going after the things that he is actually doing with the government. So some people are really surprised that Trump would go after all these people who have, all of whom have supported Trump at some point. They didn't all support Trump the whole time. Some of them got off the Trump train a long time ago. Candace has been pretty tough on Trump for a while now. Tucker was pro Trump then. He clearly was quite upset with Trump four or five years ago. Then he was very much on the Trump train again. Megyn Kelly obviously was not particularly supportive of Trump at the beginning. Then she very much got on the Trump train. Alex Jones was very supportive of Trump at the beginning. He's been much more critical more recently. But at some point they've all supported him and Trump has now weighed in and people are shocked that he would go after them. I am not shocked that he would go after them because I have read my Machiavelli and I have watched the Wire. And because politics doesn't really change all that much. We'll get into what that means. We'll get into why this is happening, what happens now. Then we will get into how the CIA can detect your heartbeat across a thousand square mile radius. And we'll get into whether or not the Pentagon threatened the Vatican. You want to talk about old school politics, the secular empire threatening the Pope. We'll get into whether or not that actually even happened. First, though, I want to tell you about something just delicious, and that is Kexi cookies. Go to kexi, k-e K-S-I.com, code knowles. Folks, mother's Day is right around the corner. Lent is over. And you know what that means. That means I finally get to eat my delicious Kexi cookie just a little right now. Otherwise, I'm gonna sound like a big Beauvin on this show. These cookies are maybe my favorite cookies I've ever had. I would say if you accept the cookies that sweet little Elisa makes and that my mother used to make, put those cookies aside, maybe one or two little childhood delights. These are the best cookies you're gonna get. They are so, so delicious. First of all, they're gigantic. My favorite here in this box is the peanut butter chocolate. It's wonderful. It shows your mother how much you love her. I bet she made a lot of cookies for you in your life. You need to get some cookies for her. They're so good. Trust me, I know. My cookies make Mother's Day easy. This year, go to kexi.com, k e K-S-I.com use code knowles k n a w l e s for 15% off your entire order. Treat her and yourself to the Texas sheet cake, the carrot cake cookies, and definitely the peanut butter chocolate that is K-E K-S I.com, code knowles. As Trump drops this nuclear weapon, this rhetorical nuke on the podcasters last night, my mind instantly went to Niccolo Machiavelli, the inventor of modern political science, the Italian writer, playwright, political scientist, politician, ambassador. Here's what Machiavelli said. Machiavelli said, I'll say it to you in the Italian first. It's so beautiful. Lo feze GE si fal uomo de ve sre modo que ella non tema la vendetta. The offense that you make against a man, the injury that you make to a man, has to be in such a way that you do not fear revenge. I'll translate that into more modern political parlance by way of the Wire. And the advice is, if you come at the King, you'd best not miss. This is the issue. A lot of people treat politics as debate club. A lot of people treat politics as just another TV show. That was one of my big issues with the podcast wars is it was also frivolous. A lot of it was nasty. A lot of it was immoral. A lot of it was all these things, but it was politically frivolous. It did not do what politics is supposed to do, which is form coalitions around certain ideas and more importantly, policies and practices to win elections, to defeat the enemy, to gain power and to advance the common good. That's what politics is supposed to do. The podcasters were aligned with that in 2024. That's why they called it the podcaster election in 2024. The incentives of the podcasters and the politicians on the right were perfectly aligned because everyone was out of power. Everyone faced a real threat from the left. Everyone recognized that we had to work together to achieve political power, to improve the state of the country and to improve our own positions. As we were being targeted by the left wing political powers over the last 16 months, those interests diverged. They diverged because the right wing politicians now had to get into the business of governing, because the right wing politicians now had basically uniform political power. The presidency, the House, the Senate and the Supreme Court, all obviously with obstruction from the left, but still they had substantial political power. The political media does not do very well when their side is in political power. The political media does a lot better when it is in opposition. That is why the political media, after we won, started to decline in ratings. Certainly our side started to decline in ratings. That's just what happens. That happens every election cycle. But because the political media today are mostly independent, the old days of the networks, which had standards and norms, which could platform or deplatform, which could gatekeep, which now no longer can gatekeep because of the tech technological change to the political media and the political circumstance of now our side being in power, the political media had every incentive to become more sensational, to become more radical, to become more vituperative, and to place itself in opposition, which it did, placed itself in opposition to Trump on a whole host of issues. That is why I was never all that surprised by the podcast wars. As I said, ad nauseam, very unpopular truth to state. But nevertheless, it was my view, and it happens to be correct. I was never surprised by that. This was always going to happen. And Trump in many ways showed a lot of patience and a lot of discipline because he didn't weigh in to all of those extraneous matters. But then when the podcast wars started to take aim at the direct political order, at the administration, at Trump, at the various issues, including Iran, which is controversial, which a lot of people don't support, granted, but that's actually secondary to the point when the political media turned its guns. Political media, which had been aligned the podcasters had been aligned with the political order when they turned their guns on that very same political coalition. Trump responded, this is different from podcasters fighting with each other. This is someone who is categorically different. Trump, a politician, the president, the most powerful politician in the world, delineating, enforcing the boundaries of his own political coalition. That's what's going on here. Now, what does this mean? Does this mean that MAGA is totally fractured? I don't think so. I actually don't think maga's nearly as fractured as people say it is. Does this mean that Trump will never welcome any of these people back? I don't know. I mean, this is pretty hardcore, but he might. Trump famously doesn't really hold personal grudges. This is one of the big misunderstandings about Trump. Trump says, lying Ted, his dad killed Kennedy. He's the worst person ever. He lies, lies, lies. And then after the primary's over and Senator Cruz starts working with him again, he says, I don't call him Lying Ted. I call him Beautiful Ted. He makes friends with people. Trump famously had a big fight with Megyn Kelly, and then they made up. So maybe the podcasters could come back in. I don't know. Even that question doesn't interest me all that much. What interests me is the dynamics of the politics here. Trump's approach was, I'm staying out of this. This doesn't involve me. This isn't serious. Podcasters want to go get ratings, okay? Whatever you think about it, they can go get ratings. I'm going to keep my eyes on the prize. I'm going to stay focused. As he says here, he says, I'm too busy on the world and country affairs, but if you start to threaten what I'm doing now we're gonna have a problem. Now we're gonna have a problem. All of this, of course, exacerbated by the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Another. Well, the assassination was not predictable, but what happened after the assassination was predictable. The podcast was started precisely when Charlie was assassinated. That, too, would be predictable because of the incentives of the various influencers to vie for position, to try to take hold of a political movement, to try to improve their standing when the undisputed leader of that activist, influencer, organizer, coalition was assassinated. All of this totally unsurprising, shocking to a lot of people, but totally unsurprising. And now that Trump has weighed in and said, hey, this is my movement. A lot of people have helped me, but this is my movement. I built it. I'm the one who Got elected with the popular vote. Trump says, get in line or you're out. On the political issue itself of the Iran war, it is worth pointing out, yes, Trump has a lot of support on the Iran war on the American right. I have warned, though, that support is a little soft. And so the lesson, I think, to take away from the podcasters, all turning is a lot of it is just baked into the difference between political media and the actual politicians. But it is a real hot issue. It's very hot. I think that 90%, 100% support, I think it's soft support. I think if the war wraps up within the four to six week frame that Trump had talked about, now we're getting pretty close. And we're at the end of that period now, and we are in principle in a ceasefire. And the Strait of Hormuz is slightly open, Is somewhat open. And even Israel, which then immediately started bombing Beirut. Israel seems to be in talks with Lebanon now, and Pakistan seems to be trying to mediate between the United States and Iran. And J.D. vance, who had the precise position on the war in Iran, according to the reporting that I did from the beginning, very skeptical, argued against it, remains skeptical of large scale regime change, and he's now leading the negotiating coalition. Okay, this might be it. And then the most important thing of all of it for actual Americans, for the American people and the American political order. Not for our entertainment, not for broadcasters, not for people who like to listen to shows and see the latest crazy tweet or sound bite, but the people who actually want to do good for the American political order. Now we have to focus. Now we have to look ahead to those midterms. Now we have to say, hey, guys, do you want the Democrats to win and get subpoena power and impeach Trump and gum up all the good that's been done thus far? Do you want the Democrats to win the Senate, potentially remove Trump? Do you want the Democrats to win the White House? And then what? And then go right back to what they were doing. Imprisoning pro life grannies, infiltrating our churches and spying on our churches, Flooding the country with millions of illegal aliens per year, Giving a blanket amnesty to the illegal aliens. Do you want that? Selling out American industry, Do you want that? Putting men in the women's bathroom. Are these the things you want? No. Okay. You don't like everything Trump has done. You wish he were. I think Trump has a very good record, actually. I know that's an unpopular opinion too, these days, at least in the media. But you cannot allow a Gavin Newsom to become president. Do you really wanna go back to that? Can you imagine what the country would look like right now if Kamala Harris had won or Joe Biden had remained alive and walking and able to speak and had remained president? Can you imagine that the potentiality of all the little podcast skirmishes have now collapsed into a real political fight? All the little skirmishes, all the little nonsense that really was not worth talking about. The political fight is worth talking about. Trump has established that. Now what do we do? Is it over? We're done. We're not gonna vote anymore. We no longer support Trump because he only deported a million and a half illegal aliens last year instead of two and a half million. We're not going to support Trump anymore because he fulfilled his promise to attack Iran if he thought they were going to get nuclear weapons. Even if he didn't like that promise. He did say he was gonna do that. He doesn't wanna get bogged down in long Mid east wars. But he did say. He said for 10 years he's not gonna allow Iran to get a nuclear weapon. He thought that they were gonna get a nuclear weapon. He attacked Iran in the first term. He took out their top general. You can't say he lied to you. You can't say that you didn't see this coming. Now we're just gonna. We're done with Trump. Cause of that Inflation way down. Price of eggs down 65%. Everyone said that oil was gonna go to $200 a barrel. Oil's at $90 a barrel now, even with the Strait of Hormuz largely closed. Now we're done. Bring on Gavin Newsom. Bring on mass abortion and trannies everywhere. Flood the country with foreigners, face tattooed criminals. No law and order. That's what we're gonna do. Because why? Because your feelings got hurt? I don't think so. I don't think so. The incentives between the media and the actual hardcore political order did diverge. I know it. Listen, look, had I done more of the media thing, my ratings would be even higher. And that'd be very nice, but I don't think it's worth it. What profiteth a man to gain another million listeners but to lose the world? I don't think it's worth it now. Now that Trump has reestablished incentives from the actual political order. Okay, good. Get back on board. Focus. We put our feelings aside for a second. Politics is a rough business if you can't bear to see your own blood on the ground. Get out of politics. Now move on. That's my hope. Anyway. Speaking of hard boiled, tough fights, the CIA has just revealed how they were able to rescue the weapons operator in Iran after he went down on Good Friday was rescued on Easter Sunday. The technology makes all this talk about aliens and UFOs seem quaint. We'll get to that momentarily. First, though, I want to tell you about RO. Go to rownutrition.com, use code KNOWLES. Folks, no one likes talking about toxins, but we're surrounded by them in the air, in the water, in the food packaging, cleaning products, even in things marketed as healthy. It's not one big exposure that hurts us. It's that daily buildup that quietly wears us down. That is one reason I strongly recommend glutathionone. 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Go to rownutrition.com, use code knowles canada w l e s for 20% off site wide ro r h o nutrition.com, code knowles Here is CIA Director John Ratcliffe, as the President calls him central casting, discussing the CIA Ghost Murmur technology. At the President's direction, we deployed both human assets and exquisite technologies that no other intelligence service in the world position possesses to a daunting challenge comparable to hunting for a single grain of sand in the middle of a desert. This was also a race against the clock, as it was critical that we locate the downed aviator as quickly as possible while at this okay, he he then or sorry, a Pentagon source told the Post. This technology is like hearing a voice in a stadium, except the stadium is a thousand Square miles of desert in the right conditions, if your heart is beating, we will find you. Part of the reason I'm always skeptical of the UFO talk. We have crazy technology and we remain the superpower. We get confused in the liberal international system with nice institutions like the UN where we pretend that all countries are basically equal. They're not. It's the same confusion that tells us that men and women are physically the same. No, we're all just as good at sports. We can all be cops and soldiers in exactly the same way. No, we're not just a little bit different. We're a lot different. Men are not just a little physically stronger than women. Women can't beat up men full stop. It's not just that America is a little bit stronger than other nations. We're essentially the only country in the world that can project force forward effectively. Now, politically, diplomatically, even if you can project all the force in the world, you can still get bogged down in quagmires. That's the fear of what's going on in Iran. But we are on top, guys. We're still on top. And that's clearly Trump's vision of America First. Whatever. Anyone else? All these various competing visions of what America first is. Trump's the guy who made that movement, a national viable movement that won the popular vote. And his vision of America first is we're gonna be the biggest, the best. We're going to focus on our interests contrary to liberal globalism, but we are also going to pursue our interests wherever we want, contrary to isolationism. That's his vision. And if you can detect a heartbeat in a thousand square mile desert, you could probably do that. Okay. Speaking of these battles and old political truths, there was a story that went viral yesterday. All day yesterday I was getting these questions from different people. Michael, what do you make of the Pentagon going to war with the Vatican? What do you make of this? Michael, what was this about? I think there was a report in the Free Press, but it was really pushed by this guy, Christopher Hale, who's a Democrat operative who says that he's Catholic. This is a big problem because the Democrat Party is totally opposed, not just to Catholics teaching broadly, but to non negotiable political issues. Reasonable minds can vary. According to Pope Benedict XVI on the death penalty. Reasonable people can have different views on the death penalty. Reasonable people can disagree on immigration. Pope Leo himself has a pretty nuanced moderate view on immigration. No Catholic can disagree on abortion. The Democrat Party supports abortion with no limits whatsoever. No Catholic can disagree on the nature of marriage. The Democrat Party almost universally supports a false definition of marriage. No Catholic can disagree on these bedrock issues of human dignity, of life, fundamental truths. So you're already skeptical when you say. Hold on. A Democrat operative, a left wing operative who says he's Catholic. Okay, so this guy, Christopher Hale, he posts this new. A stunning new report. Claims that the Pentagon summoned Pope Leo XIV's top American diplomat and threatened him after the US born pontiff gave his January State of the World address. Leo used the address to denounce a world ruled by a diplomacy based on force and zeal for war. Okay, hold on. The Pentagon summoned the Pope's top American diplomat and threatened him? What does that mean? Some of the reporting that came out later said that the Pentagon even brought up the Avignon papacy when the papacy was exiled from Rome to Avignon because there were battles over who would control the Holy See, the Universal Church. The Trump administration is threatening to depose the Pope. And who was doing it? Oh, this dastardly fellow, this under secretary the left is trying to portray as the face of evil and anti Catholicism. Elbridge Colby, who I believe is a Catholic. Hold on. What? And I've followed Elbridge Colby for a long time. He's great. I'm very pro. Elbridge Colby. So did this really happen? No. According to the U.S. ambassador to the Holy See, Brian Birch, he says, I was pleased to speak yesterday with His Eminence Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the Vatican official in discussion here. As expected, he confirmed that recent media characterizations of his meeting with the undersecretary Rich Colby are, quote, fabrications that were just invented. Given the intelligence and seriousness of Mr. Colby, I was likewise not surprised when His Eminence acknowledged there were no threats of any kind in this meeting. It was a frank and cordial meeting that took place two months ago. Threat of Avignon. None. None. So According to the U.S. ambassador of the Holy See, this is just totally made up. But the U.S. ambassador of the Holy See is quoting the cardinal who the report is supposedly based on. Now you say, okay, well, hold on. That's just the Trump administration trying to run coverage. That's them trying to cover themselves. Right. The Department of War posts these pictures, this scary, terrible meeting where the US Says we're gonna depose the Pope. Let me see. Can I see the picture again? Where is it? Oh, they don't. The cardinal smiling, shaking hands with Elbridge Colby. Colby smiling. Doesn't look like such a harsh, terrible meeting. But let's go to the Vatican sources. Diane Montagna One of the best journalists on Vatican issues in the world. I mean, she's in like the top two, Diane says, as confirmed by His Excellency Christophe Pierre, former Apostolic Nuncio to the United States. His meeting with Mr. Alberjandrew Colby formed part of the pontifical representative's regular duties and provided an opportunity for the exchange of views on matters of mutual interest. The account given by certain media outlets regarding this meeting does not correspond to the truth in any way. That is a comment given to Diane from the official Holy See press. So this whole thing was just totally made up. Everybody involved, the United States, the Vatican, the serious journalists, all of them agree this was totally fabricated. But it gets to a real political issue. And this is what I find so interesting about both of these stories. The Trump dropping the nuke on the podcasters. And this skirmish, supposed skirmish that didn't even really happen between the US Government and the Holy See, is it means that politics doesn't change. One of the real lies about modernity is that politics has fundamentally changed. That's what Marx promised. Marx in the 11th thesis on Feuerbach. He says the philosophers heretofore sought to interpret the world, but the point is to change it. And we have a new science of history that is going to totally change politics. That's what the progressives said. We're gonna change politics. We're gonna change human nature. Even the Enlightenment liberals, who many conservatives like the Enlightenment liberals said, oh, we fixed all the problems of politics. Now we're not gonna have to worry about the cycle of regimes anymore. We've cured tyranny. We've established a political order based on reason instead of passion. We fixed all the eternal questions. Well, guess what? The eternal questions all come back. The fight, the tension between the secular power and the spiritual power is as old as rocks. This particular fight over who has what power in politics goes back at least to the 5th century. There's a famous Catholic maxim. Back when in the west there was only the Catholic Church duo sunt there were two powers, the spiritual and the temporal power. This was established by Pope Gelasius I in 494, the year of our Lord, in a letter that he wrote to the Byzantine Emperor, establishing that the spiritual power is superior to the temporal power in as much as the spiritual power has man's eternal ends in mind, not merely his temporal ends, as the political power does, but that the spiritual power doesn't totally dominate the temporal power. Cause the temporal power has special competency in temporal matters, just as the spiritual power has Special competency in spiritual matters, and exactly to what degree the spiritual and temporal power can cooperate, to what degree they should be distinct, has been debated ever since Dante wrote a fair bit of the Inferno about this question. And he wrote a separate political tract called Monarchia dealing with this question, in which Dante, who was part of the pro pope political party in Florence, actually put himself on the side of the Holy Roman Emperor, the spiritual power against the Pope Boniface viii. This is a long standing question. These political matters don't go away. Anyone who tells you we've had an awakening, both the left and the right engage in this. The left has woke, the right has the red pill. This awakening, this idea that we've come out of a dream and now we've solved all the political problems, all those old tensions no longer apply. Classical political philosophy doesn't matter. We're modern people. The actual politicians don't matter. We have influencers, we have podcasters. Bunk, nonsense, old hardcore politics continues to exist. The fight between the Pope and the Emperor is playing out, and journalists and the left are trying to exploit that tension. I think there is an op right now specifically on the religious question. There is an op afoot to separate Catholics from Protestants in America. There's an op A foot to do that. And you know me, I mean, I love a good theological debate. It's a lot of fun. I enjoy it very much. All my Protestant friends, I drive them totally crazy as they drive me crazy. But folks, politically speaking, there cannot be a divide between Catholics and Protestants. I was just on Charlie's show with Andrew Colvett and Blake just the other day talking about this point where we're always beating each other up on. On religious matters. We said, hey, guys, but, you know, we're talking about politics. Come on, this is crazy. We all have to be united. There's an op afoot to separate the Catholics from the Protestants in the American political order. And furthermore, there's an OP to separate the Christians from the Jews. There aren't that many Muslims in America yet, so there's not. You don't see much of an OP to separate them. They're kind of politically irrelevant other than Dearborn, Michigan. But look, I love political debates with my Jewish friends, too. That's a lot of fun. Sorry, theological debates with my Jewish friends too. That's a lot of fun politically, folks. I guess this brings us right back to the top of the show. We are up against people who wanna slaughter millions of babies a year, open our borders, ignore our laws, castrate our children, destroy our economy take away our private property and shred our Constitution. Let's not let politically small differences. Let's not let largely irrelevant, extraneous matters totally divert us. Okay? I know I'm running late. I do not care. Ben Sasse, speaking of Christianity, has just. He just impresses more and more each day. Ben Sasse was a senator who then became a university president, a Republican. And Ben Sasse announced some months ago that he had pancreatic cancer and he was definitely gonna die. He was trying some treatment. He has three kids, one of whom is 14. And he said, look, I'm gonna die, and I'm gonna keep a good attitude about it because we're all gonna die. And I believe in Christ. Ben Sass. Now, the physical manifestations of his treatment are so clear. He's on a drug that has shrunk his tumors. It's given him maybe a couple or a few more months, but. But he's now bleeding from everywhere. His skin can't really heal itself at all. And so he has a very bloodied face. He has. I think one can't escape but see it, a face that resembles Christ in the Passion. And here he is discussing all of this, his faith and his death, with Ross Douthen. I was incredibly blessed to be quickly at peace. I kept hearing the Pauline phrase, to live is Christ, to die is gain, and death is terrible. Should never sugarcoat, is not how things are meant to be. But it is great that death can be called the final enemy. It's an enemy, but it's a final enemy. And there will then be no more tears. I believe in the resurrection, and I believe in a restoration of this world. And so I did feel great fear about my death. I didn't want the pain I was going through. I didn't want to be a pansy in the final moments. You're doing okay right now with that? I am doing okay so far. Oh, thank you. But I did immediately feel. He goes on. You should watch the whole interview. He gets Ross choked up by the end of it. Has a public figure died in a more graceful and magnanimous way in our lifetimes? Some examples come to mind. Scott Adams just died in a way that was stoical. And he did say. He said, I've accepted Jesus, though. He said, I don't want to talk about it. He had a very stoical death, which was very admirable in many ways. Of course, stoicism differs from Christianity in as much as stoicism seeks to detach and to minimize suffering. As a way to make it through the waves and vicissitudes of this world. Christianity adds a little something to that, which is hopefulness, which is to say there's something to come and I'll dance on my way to the Coliseum, which Sass, I think, is demonstrating. Norm MacDonald comes to mind. He died in a real tough guy way, didn't tell anybody, kind of made jokes about it that we only got after he died. John Paul II would probably be the clearest example of dying publicly in immense pain, with a lot of grace. But Sass is right up there. I don't think anyone has died in my lifetime with greater grace or magnanimity. And the fact that for Christians, the world is rich in symbols, it's a very semiotic world. The fact that as he is dying, one of the strange kind of unexpected consequences of the way he's dying is that his face is resembling the face of the crucified Christ of Christ in his passion, as he is discussing his unity to Christ, his communion with Christ, which is what we hope for. Because the highest good that we can hope for, the very point of life, the scholastics would tell us, is to enjoy God. The whole point of the world is God, and the point of our lives is to enjoy God, to love him and serve him in this world and to be with him forever and eternity. And that you can't help but see a kind of symbolism here that as he is preparing for this and he's telling you his joy amid the sadness of death, which is a real evil, his face is actually becoming like Christ's face. Only the most hardened materialist could look at that sign and say it doesn't mean anything. Speaking of dying right before I go, I know I'm running late. I don't care. I'll get to more of the mailbag in the memorum segmentum. CNN has bad news. Michael J. Fox is dead. But I have good news. He's not dead. CNN just doesn't know what it's talking about. And this is just a helpful reminder. While we're all focused, it seems like the whole political conversation is just focused on the right. The right wing media, the right wing political order, this faction on the right, that faction on the right, it's all about. It's like the left doesn't even matter anymore, which is what they want us to think. This is their campaign strategy. They told us this after Abigail Spanberger's election in Virginia. They said we're gonna run below the radar. We're gonna pretend to be moderate, quiet, sit back. And then when she got elected, she immediately implemented the most left wing political agenda we'd ever seen, the most radical agenda by far in Virginia. Abortion on demand up until the moment of birth, voting rights for all sorts of people who shouldn't vote. Radical stuff. Just remember, the liberal media are that bad. They are that bad. They don't know anything and they peddle a lot of lies, including Michael J. Fox's death, including the New York Times the other day saying that America shouldn't pull out of NATO because NATO's the North American treaty organ. NATO is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. They don't even know what NATO is. They don't know. They don't know. They really don't know. They're really ignorant. And when they're not ignorant, they're perfidious and they're a big threat to all of us. Okay, much more to get to, including the Membrum Segmentum and special guest at the end. First, though, the quintessential test of knowledge and skill is back. In this episode of Face Off, I go head to head with Nick Freitas in a battle of masculinity. Records some of the most pressing facts about men. What color is brake fluid? How many fights does the average man get into? Did we go to the moon? Some of these questions are answered. Check out this clip. Wait, you're saying you said when you tighten the nuts, you were talking about blue balls earlier and now you talked about tightening the nuts. I'm just saying, how do you turn it? I said you turn it clockwise. Is that how you tighten your nuts? Yeah. I mean, Nick understood it perfectly fine. Help me. Watch Full episode Saturday, 10am Eastern. Check out the entire uncensored library of Face off now on Dailywire. From topics ranging from women, dictators, guests from Ben Shapiro to Michael Malice, test your knowledge alongside some of your favorite commentators. Do not forget to click follow on my page so you never miss an episode. If you're watching this on the Daily Wire plus app, thank you, thank you. If you're not, that's where you should be. That's how you get push alerts when we go live, breaking news as it happens, access to our investigative reporting and my big beautiful mug. You just get it. Not like a mug with coffee. I mean like my mug. Like my face. Daily Wire plus app is free, available now on the App Store, Google Play, Apple TV, Roku, Samsung LG, Commodore 64, Compaq, and more. My favorite comment yesterday is from Politically Incorrect 95, who says as they Say Jesus wasn't a socialist, he actually fed people. That's a profound statement. Actually, that's a profound statement because socialism, Communism in particular is self consciously a replacement for Christianity. It's a counterfeit Christianity. But even in Marx's own understanding, it is a counterfeit Christianity. So it's actually pretty profound. It's not just a joke about how the socialists and the communists don't know how to work the economy. That's profound. It is a counterfeit Christianity. And that's why so many popes would never were articulate about how Christianity and socialism are totally incompatible. Okay, I am going to get to the Membrum segmentum and in that Membrum segmentum I'm going to get to your mailbag questions. But before we get there, I'm very excited to welcome on our very own Regan Conrad, who has a new show coming out. Reagan, good to see you.