Analysis in the Selection of the New Pope

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This hour of programming on seven ten Doubor. He is
sponsored by Toyota City and Mamaranac and Nissan City of
port Chester, proud members of the Integrity Automotive Group. Now
former Westchester County executive Rob Aristorina on seven ten, do woor.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Can you believe I'm still in Rome? I can't. I
mean my wife I was talking to her yesterday and
she said, when are you going to get your ass home?
It is good to be with you. Yes, I am
still in Rome. I mean, look, okay, I've had worse assignments.
This has been phenomenal. So I was in Rome early

(00:46):
March because we actually came out here for Newsmax, me
and a producer, and we were interviewing some cardinals in
preparation for Pope Francis's death because that's when he was
in the hospital. So we weren't sure, but you know,
we were going to have some stuff in the can

(01:06):
as they say, you know, just an oh bit package
we call it in TV. And you know, these cardinals
agreed to do it and in some cases talk past tense,
which is very unusual, but they did it. It was great.
So we were here for let's see that first trip.
I was there five days, all great, first class, excellent meals,

(01:27):
you know, the whole thing. And then I came back
when I explained, you know, when the Pope died, I
was in Spain, I was in Seville, and then my
wife and daughter were supposed to go home, and they
did and I was supposed to go with them, and
I got sent to Rome. So I was in Rome
for a week for the papal funeral, which very different

(01:50):
than what I just went through this week, I mean
night and day, obviously, the burial of the pope, the
just the somberness of the week, and it was you know, look,
it was great to be there. I'm sure you probably
watched it. You saw some of it on TV. Hopefully
you watch news Max and my coverage. But that was

(02:10):
the end of a papacy. I mean, the minute Pope
Francis was put into that wall, when he was buried
at Saint Mary Major, about four miles from the Vatican,
that was it. And then it turned to okay, who's next.
Who is going to be the supreme pontiff, Who is
going to be the successor of Saint Peter, not the

(02:32):
successor of Francis. Because that's not how the Catholic Church
looks at it. This is who's going to be the
two hundred and sixty seventh Pope, basically from Peter on.
So it you know when I came back here last Sunday,
So now this is I've been here, what this is
my seventh day here, I'm coming home. Well, I'm staying

(02:54):
tomorrow and then I'm going to actually spend a day
or two Monday and Tuesday visiting some folks that I know,
some family and others here in Italy. And then I
think I'm gonna like drive up north and fly at
a Milan. So I'm gonna spend two more days here,
but that's like totally on my own. That'll be fun.
But anyway, so this whole week has been really really

(03:16):
interesting because it was like building up right, it was
the speculation, the parlor game who was going to succeed Francis,
And anyone that knows anything about this stuff, anyone that's
ever covered a conclave or watched the church means you
should know it's totally unpredictable. Anyone who thought that they

(03:40):
knew who was going to be the next pope, you
were completely wrong. And if I were betting, and I
was looking at the odds, because of course there's odds
for something, there's gods for everything. I was looking at
him saying, okay, so the former Secretary of State Paroline,
he was like the favorite. Immediately take them all the list.
They're not going to win, period. This is a whole

(04:03):
parlor game. If you saw the movie The Conclave, there's
a lot of similarities to what happens in the real conclave.
So the parlor game is, you know, the leading candidates,
they generally don't get elected for a variety of reasons
because when they're kind of leading and far out there
and everyone's pushing them, everyone has kind of doubts. The

(04:25):
cardinals this is They've all told me this. Anyone that
I've talked to a cardinal who is voted in any
of these conclaves has said the same thing. So it's like,
it's the last thing you want if you want to
be pope is to be on that popability list, that
the list that everyone talks about, because it never works out,

(04:46):
and so you gotta almost play the field. It's a
field bet. And so you know, during the week I'm
looking I'm talking to some of the cardinals off the
record about what they're thinking and going into the conclave,
like a day or two before, none of them that

(05:06):
I spoke with knew what to expect, and so the
cardinals had met. They were all in pre conclave meetings
every day the noven Diali they call it the nine
days basically of morning following the Pope's funeral, and that's
meant to kind of get everybody together so they can
understand each other what the biggest issues are. They're not

(05:30):
outwardly politicking. They're not outwardly saying hey I want to run,
or hey I'm the guy, or how about that guy.
Basically what they do is they all kind of take
turns making speeches about issues, and so you know, everyone
in the back of their head is saying that guy's
not bad or forget him. But you know, to a man,

(05:53):
the cardinals that I had spoken with prior to the conclave,
they all knew who they did not want to vote for,
but none of them knew who they did want to
vote for. So it's really interesting and it's just they
the American Cardinals stayed at what's called the Pontifical North
American College, just you know, like a five minute walk

(06:15):
from the Vatican up what's called the Jennicolo Hill, and
it's a beautiful, beautiful place, beautiful college. This is where
all the seminarians go, is about I think one hundred
and twenty of them from around the US just and
I got to spend time with these guys, just good
down to earth guys studying and will be future priests.

(06:35):
But the cardinals were all staying there, the US cardinals,
so it gave them a chance to kind of, you know,
at night time with dinner, kind of talk it over.
But just like in politics, like the US, like we've
got Republicans, Democrats, liberals, conservatives were they were all over.
We're all over the place, right and even though the

(06:56):
issues are kind of different, you're not going to find
any cardinal or any poe. Certainly they'd be excommunicated by saying, yeah,
I'm pro choice, it's just not how it works. Or
yeah I'm pro gay marriage. No, no, they can't. So
the whole thing with like liberal, Republican, Democrat, conservative, all

(07:16):
that kind of stuff, it's it's very different in the church.
Now you've got guys that lean one way and guys
that lean another kind of philosophically definitely on how they
want the issues. Francis for instance, was all about you know,
climate change, refugees, what we would call kind of the
social justice, you know, liberal kind of stuff. But others

(07:39):
were not. They were like, we got to bring it
back towards like the main focus here, you know, do
what the church does. So anyway, the Americans had a
chance if they wanted to to basically, and there's ten
of them to basically vote as a block, right, that
would be a little bit of power going into that conclave.
But the problem is the Americans are all kind of

(08:01):
all over the out right. You have Dolan and Tobin,
two very different Dolan more conservative, Tobin in Newark is
more liberal and actually very close to Prevosts who ended
up becoming the pope. So unfortunately they were diluted in
their power because they were sort of broken up. Now

(08:22):
in the end, did they all kind of come together, Well,
they're not going to say, but you know, you definitely
had some of the liberal cardinals in America who were
definitely going that way. Whether they were the ones who
brought everybody over and got Prevost over the hump, I

(08:43):
don't know, but it was so unpredictable going in because
I had heard from several of them that they didn't
think this was going to be quick. They didn't think
this was going to be two days like Francis. They
thought this was going to go you know again, this
was going to go maybe into Friday night or Saturday.
Some of them said they were prepared to be there
on Monday because they would have not voted on Sunday.

(09:05):
They would have taken a break. And that's real, I mean,
that's where the real heavy politicking, like let's get out
of here. But so when it was, it's just crazy
to be here and outside the square. So after let's
just jump forward, right, They all the cardinals on let's
see what night would it have been on Wednesday, had

(09:27):
to go to Wednesday night or Thursday morning, it was
their choice. Had to go to the Vatican and stay.
And that's when they were gonna be basically hermetically sealed.
All of their electronics are taken, their phones are taken, literally,
windows are sealed shut. They have electronic jamming devices. It's

(09:49):
like the old you know, get smart, It's like the
cone of silence. That's really what it was. It's amazing.
They can have no contact with the outside world until
they decide who the next pontif so up until then,
they're getting texts, they're reading the papers, they're going online,
they're talking to people and friends. Everyone's kind of lobbying

(10:11):
them right one way or the other. But once they
go in there, that's it is. It is only the
one hundred and thirty three College of Cardinal Electors period,
and they got to figure out among them, and they
don't even know each other, how they're going to come
to some sort of compromise or get somebody to the
magic number of eighty nine. That's two thirds, two thirds

(10:33):
plus one eighty nine. And I mean, you got the
American cardinals who know each other, they know, the Canadian
cardinals they know you know, they know some of the
others around the world. But imagine, like just imagine you
and some friends went to some big meeting with one
hundred and thirty three people and you only kind of
know each other. You know, maybe some other people by

(10:55):
face or you know, here and there you would see
each other, maybe a couple of emails, but everybody else,
you have no idea who they are, even if they're
wearing a name tag you like, you're from where, And
imagine if you got put in a room they locked
the doors and said, all right, figure it out, you
guys got to figure it out. Who's going to be
the leader of all of you and everybody. That's kind

(11:18):
of what it was like, because Francis named all these
new cardinals from like the peripheries of the world. Seriously, Mongolia,
Mongolia had a cardinal. They've got like thirty five thousand Catholics.
But that's what Francis did. So more from Africa, more
from Asia, less from Europe, less from the US. So,

(11:39):
I mean, it was just amazing how they did it.
So all right, let's skip ahead. They're already in the
conclave blah blah blah. Now I'm outside in Saint Peter's Square.
I'm going back and forth. We had a cafe restaurant
set up on what's called the Borgo Po, which is
a pedestrian walkway just outside the Vatican, and so Newsmax
we were doing our coverage from there, which was pretty cool.

(12:01):
It was kind of nice, you know, kind of among
the people and sitting down and yes, I ate, I
freging ate too good. I mean, it was all free
because it was paid for and I just kept ordering
and ordering. Oh my god. And then we had a
rooftop location, and then we had some positions inside the square,
so you know, you could do your stand up whatever,

(12:22):
and behind you is Saint Peter's Basilica. So on Wednesday night,
the first night, I'm sorry, uh, what night? Thursday night.
I don't even know what day it is anymore. The
first night of the conclave, when they all got together,
we were outside a lot. They asked the meated. Forty
thousand people showed up. Forty thousand people showed up on

(12:45):
for the first night, just staring at a chimney, and
there was no doubt there was going to be black smoke. None.
They were never going to make a selection on the
first ballot. I don't think there ever has been. It's
extraordinarily rare. So anyway, the next day they have two
votes in the morning and then if necessary, two in

(13:05):
the afternoon. So the morning comes and goes. You see
the black smoke. Now at this point, everyone's like, all right,
it's Thursday morning, likely not to get something tonight, maybe tomorrow,
who knows. So in the afternoon you still have people
now gathering thousands and thousands of thousands, and that sun

(13:28):
was so frigging hot. So I'm in in my jacket
and my tie, and I am roasting, baking, baking in
the sun, and everybody is just in the you know,
we're in our little press area. Everybody is just moving
closer and closer to get some sort of standing room

(13:49):
where they can breathe a little bit, where nobody's just like,
you know, their elbow is in your ear, and ugh,
you know what it's like. So all of a sudden,
all of us sudden, as we're all kind of milling
about and talking, at some point, you start to hear
like breathlessness, a roar, and all you instinctively turn around

(14:15):
and you look in the distance to that little chimney
on top of the Sistine Chapel, and it's white smoke.
And it was the most amazing thing I have seen
in a long time. And I've been covering all the
big events. I've been fortunate, but this is something very different.
It's like everything is starting to happen. Now you've got

(14:37):
this the white smoke. Everyone is starting to roar. Just
there's like applause, there's excitement, there's goosebumps. People were starting
to cry, and they don't know who the heck is
gonna come out. By the way, they have no idea
who the pope is. It's just the moment and the
bells from the cathedral, I mean, the basilica just starting

(15:00):
to ring, because that's something that they changed. By the way,
there were issues in the past with the black and
the white smoke, the chemicals that they used to burn
the ballots. Sometimes it would come out and they're like, uh,
what is that color? Do we have a pope? Do
we not have a pope? You couldn't always tell. So

(15:22):
they made sure that if it were white, the bells
had to ring simultaneously. So bells and smoke. White smoke
means we have a pope. If for some reason you
only saw white smoke and there were no bells, that
probably meant there was a screw up. But anyway, the
bells are going off, the white smoke is going and

(15:42):
it's just one of those magical moments. And now it's
just everyone's leaping into work. Like me, I'm on the
air right away describing, you know, to the Newsmax audience
what's going on, and just everyone is just getting in
a position, but then there's like a lull. I don't
remember the time, but it had to it was definitely

(16:05):
more than an hour because after that point, and they
haven't confirmed whether it was actually the fourth ballot or
fifth ballot, so the first voting round in the afternoon
or was it the second So it really doesn't matter,
but the time that it takes to burn the ballots,

(16:28):
to have every cardinal then go up to the new
pope and profess their fidelity and their loyalty, and then
for the new pope to go to what's called the
Room of Tears, where previous popes had literally just cried.
I mean that the awesomeness of that moment strikes them.

(16:49):
Where you go from probably relative obscurity. You might be
known from where you're from, right if you're a cardinal
an archbishop in a dias is, okay, you're probably known
in that area, in that media market. Maybe if you
do some other things, but for the most part, I mean,
if you saw even the US cardinals walking down the

(17:10):
street other than Dolan or maybe Tobin in here, you
probably wouldn't know who the heck it was, right, So
think about this, whoever it is goes from literally obscure,
a member of the church hierarchy, but you know, member
of the church that most people don't know, and in
the snap of a finger goes from that guy to

(17:37):
arguably the most famous man on earth and the most
recognizable person in the world. And so the burdens of
that have gotten to many men who went into that
conclave never thinking that they would be pope, maybe not
even wanting to be pope, but selected and chosen, and
they have to say that yes, I accept. I don't

(18:00):
know if anyone's ever said no, but they do have
to formally say that they accept. So once they do,
their whole world has just changed in an instant. So
they go to this what's called the Room of Tears
to kind of kind of gather their thoughts. Right there,
they're sitting there and reflecting on what's next, and they

(18:22):
get they get fitted for the cassick, the white, the
white of the pope, right, and they have different sizes
ready for whomever it might be. And then when they
start to go towards the balcony, now you have that curtain.
That curtain was put up, I think it was put
up on Tuesday. So that curtain is there at the
balcony and what's called the proto deacon. In this case,

(18:47):
it was Cardinal Momberti from France. Now why do I
know that? I know that because if you looked at
my social media this week, and if you haven't go
to it on Instagram or Facebook, I think I put
it on X two. I met Cardinal Molmberti, who at
the time wasn't a cardinal, he was an archbishop, but

(19:07):
he was a part of the delegation at the United
Nations for the Holy See. So I forget how it was.
It might have been Monsignor Franco who was my guest
two weeks ago from Austining. He brought him up to Westchester.
So it was a Sunday and I went into the
office when I was County executive, was in twenty thirteen,
and we had a reception with then Archbishop Moulmberty. We

(19:31):
exchanged gifts, I gave him a proclamation and we took pictures.
That was that. It wasn't until a couple days ago
somebody reminded me, Hey, the guy that's going to introduce
to the whole world who the next pope is? You
met in White Plains. So I was like crazy. So anyway,
we put the pictures out. So I was I'm like,

(19:52):
what if this guy is the next Pope? And as
I mentioned on my social media, the one tip was
if Cardinal Momberti is not the guy that comes out
first to introduce the note pope and say abamos Popham,
then Momberti himself is the Pope. But as it turned out,
obviously Momberti comes out there. So when he came out,

(20:13):
obviously roared the crowd excitement. Who's it gonna be? And
when Momberti says abamos, bop them and then he says
his given name, and then he will say his papal name.
So when he said Robert Francis, I'm like, oh my god,

(20:34):
it's an American. And then he says Gornbrevos, who takes
the name bo Blio the fourteenth. The crowd went ballistic,
and most of them probably didn't even know who he was,
but they went crazy. But as as it as it
was understood that this is the first American, all of

(20:57):
a sudden you had chance of Usa USA Like it
was like it was a Rangers game or an Olympic
hockey game or something and It was just an amazing
moment to see that spectacle in the good sense of
the word, in that this was something that the whole
world was literally watching. The whole world was watching, and

(21:20):
I was getting texts every second an American Oh my god,
you know, send pictures. So it was just a really
cool moment, and you know, I will never forget it.
I'm definitely I'm gonna tell you about this guy, and
I'm gonna tell you about what's next because you know

(21:42):
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Right, all right. Rob Astorino show here rolling right along
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(23:19):
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Call Premiere Comfort dot com. All right, so who is
this no uh new pope? Because when it happened, when
he was named, and look the odds of the of
the of the conclave, picking an American was always slim.
But interestingly enough, though I looked up the Vegas odds,

(26:42):
the odds for Prevost to become pope, We're sixteen to one.
So he was like, I think eighth in the list,
so he was not a long shot, but he was
like kind of he was in the top half of
the field, but nobody really had him. So sixteen to
one not bad. And the fact that he would or

(27:04):
the odds that he would pick Leo were what was it,
eight to one, So the people in the know they
had him lurking there, they kind of thought, this guy's
got a shot, and obviously obviously he did. So the
first reaction from conservatives was, oh my God. This guy,

(27:29):
you know, he spent time mission work in Peru. He's
a Vatican insider. He loves Francis. This is gonna be
Francis Part two. I don't think so. I think this
was the best. This was the best scenario for conservatives
who did not have the numbers to pick their own pope.

(27:51):
Liberals were kind of driving the train here. They needed
to come to a consensus candidate. My guess is both
sides kind of held out in the first couple were rounds.
And from what I heard, the Chicago Arts bishop Cardinal Zupitch,
who I got to talk to a little bit yesterday,
he was kind of pushing Prayvost. Both from Chicago. They

(28:13):
knew each other very very well. Another guy right you
know here in Newark, Tobin, Cardinal Tobin has worked with
directly worked with Pravost in what's called the Dicast for bishops.
So he was pushing him. So what you had were
cardinals from the US and South America and other areas

(28:35):
and elsewhere going like all right, they went up to
these two guys saying, who's this guy? If they didn't
know him, and so they apparently they were the ones
pushing him, and look, it's a secret ballast you'll never know.
They're never going to say. They're not allowed to say.
They take an oath who they voted for. And I
don't know if Dolan and Donardo from Houston galveson who's conservative,

(28:58):
if they ended up going with with Pravos. My guess
is they probably did when they saw where it was going.
So who is this guy? So? I mean, you know, look,
you've heard about the biography stuff, right. He grew up
in Chicago. He was a White Sox fan, still is
a White Sox fan. He went to the World Series
when the White Sox were there. He's, from everything that

(29:22):
we've heard, somewhat of a normal guy. And I think
you saw that in the pictures too, right. You saw
the glasses and the smile. He seems like a really
decent man. And from what I've heard, that's how he is.
And I texted one of the cardinals the other day
who happens to be conservative, not one of the cardinal electors.
This cardinal voted in past conclaves, but he's retired, and

(29:45):
I said, you know, what do you think? And he goes,
you'll like him. He's good. So that was kind of reassuring.
You know, so here we all everything is politics right
left right thing. We were talking about this a little bit.
But he In my estimation, this guy is not going

(30:05):
to be Francis Part two. I think there are things
he's gonna continue with Francis. But he's an Augustinian who
they run Villanova, as you know. So of course everyone
who went to Villanova that I know is texting me
go wildcats, you know. But I think I think we're
going to be pleasantly surprised. We're not going to get

(30:27):
a report card of this guy for maybe twenty years.
I mean, think about it. I mean, Francis, you know,
he was there for twelve years. Twelve years. We can
say he was a disaster, at least in my opinion,
not because he he went against dogma or doctrine he can't,
but because he just he left a mess. He just

(30:50):
just threw stuff out there that was so confusing. You
can't have chaos. Any strong leader's got to be this
is it. This is the direction. I'm going follow me,
you know, or get out of the way. And the
thing that bothers a lot of people, at least traditional Catholics,
people that are involved in the church, bishops, etc. If

(31:11):
you heard him say cinidality, right, that's what Francis used
to use, this term cinnidality. A synod. What is a synod?
It's a meeting. It's basically a long meeting over the
course of months perhaps, but they have a topic and
everyone is invited to attend. So you have lay people,
you have bishops of all stripes, you might have nuns,

(31:33):
you have professors, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
You talk talk talk talk talk talk talk. But the
problem is you have all these different opinions and they
don't get anywhere other than cause confusion. And what Francis
did was he sewed chaos because he was kind of
throwing things out there. And so a synd is basically

(31:55):
bottom up. That's not honestly, sorry, folks. You know those
of you don't understand what Catholicism is. That's not what
the church is about. This isn't a democracy, you know,
we believe we got it from from Jesus. This is Catholicism.
This is the law as we see it, you know,
in the church. And there's no movement and to have

(32:18):
a pope basically kind of wander and mehander and have
bishops go, well, what do he mean by that? And
then different bishops saying different things because they're going to
take different approaches, like on let's say, gay marriage that
you cannot have. So I don't think pravos from what
I've been talking to people, I don't think that's how
he is. He's going to bring it back to somewhat

(32:41):
the middle on the issues of the Church of the
non movable, if you will, right the Jesus issues. He's
going to bring more clarity, which is what is needed
right now. I posted this the other day if you
saw it. But I was baking in the sun on Thursday,

(33:02):
the day we're waiting for the black smoke in the morning,
and of course we were waiting for the smoke later
and I'm sitting in Saint Peter Square all day just
like getting dehydrated and baking and ugh. It was horrible.
But I saw one area where there were the mounted police,
two mounted police from Rome, and the horses took massive

(33:22):
dumps all over the place, and you had these two
municipal workers that went out there and they were scooping
up the poop. And I'm like, Okay, it could be worse,
but that's kind of what Francis left in many ways.
Now you may have a different opinion of him. I'm
just telling you as I see it, and as the
criticisms were of Pope Francis, which okay, he was a leader,

(33:45):
you can say he was, you know, infallible. No, there's
only been twice twice in the two thousand years of
the church where a pope has declared infallibility. Only twice. Okay,
So when a pope's speaks, he's speaking as a person,
and this guy just created nonsensical chaos. You can't have that.

(34:08):
So I think Pope Leo is going to go back
to more tradition. When he came out on that balcony
and he wore the red cape, that was tradition. Francis
didn't do that. Francis left a lot of things on
the side and wanted to do things differently, which really
annoyed a lot of people. So Leo is going to

(34:30):
be more of a traditionalist, more of this is what
the church stands for, more clarity. But he's also going
to be a little bit of Okay, I'm a social
justice warrior. That's the Augustinian in him, the Augustinian Order,
Saint Augustine, go teach, go do missionary world. He spent
how many thirty years in South America in Peru, And

(34:53):
I tell you one time, my son and I he
was at Iona Prep and it was I think twenty eight.
I think he was after his freshman year. He's going
into a sophomore year. And I own a prep. And
Rochelle does a great thing. They have a father's son
mission trip, so I think up to five fathers and
sons and then some school officials. I think twice a

(35:14):
year go down to Peru to the Christian Brother's house.
So my son Sean and I did that, and we
went to Peru. We went to Lima and the outskirts,
you know, up in the mountains, we were painting churches,
building little houses, and you saw the poorest of the poor.
I mean, it was such a different perspective. And yet,

(35:36):
and here's the crazy part. And yet, as poor as
they were, as poor as they are walking literally probably
half a mile up a hill and down a hill
every day to just get like water, they all had iPhones.
I could not believe it. They all have iPhones. But
the reality is they are dirt poor, literally living in

(36:00):
you know, ten by ten little houses, all have a
crucifix or across. All are beaming with life and thankful
for the little that they have and literally some have
dirt on their floor. And we got to experience that.
And that's what prevost Pope Leo brings to the world.

(36:21):
That's that's that was his calling. So yeah, that's okay
when we say social justice, when we say we got
to help the poor, Republicans aren't against that. Democrats have
wasted so much money because there's no accountability and they
feel it's the you and and my tax dollars have
to pay for everything. Waste it wasted. We're not against that.

(36:44):
We of course, we all want to help the poor.
We just want to do it in different ways. And
we believe that it should come from from the heart.
It should come from the charity, it should come from
the church, it could it should come from the community,
not forced by the government who can't do anything right.
So that that's the mindset that he is bringing. And
nobody's opposed to that. So I think you're going to

(37:04):
see somebody that, like I said earlier, there were so
many conservatives when he was picked, that were upset. That
was their initial reaction. Mine wasn't that. And I think
as people a day went by and people started doing
their research on him, I think he's going to be
pleasantly surprised. I really do. I think his smile, his

(37:29):
his Americanism, quite frankly, the fact that he was born
and raised America, it's a part of him. I think
that's going to bode well. And one thing that the
church needs badly is money. It's something called a Peters
Pence collection, where it's for worldwide in church once a year,
I think it is, they have a collection at Mass

(37:50):
and it goes to the Pope, it goes to help
the Vatican City state. And that has been off over
twenty five percent in Francis's papacy. Why because Pope Francis
basically hates America. He hated America, he attacked capitalism, he
attacked you know, Donald Trump, which represents half of America

(38:11):
who voted for him. So when he started attacking the US,
US donors were saying, well, if this guy hates me,
why would I give money to him? And so the
Catholic Church took a beating worldwide because American donations were
way down, so I think I think maybe that was

(38:33):
a little bit of why he was pushed and more
acceptable to the cardinals all over because of what he brought.
He's also an insider. He spent a lot of time
in the Vatican, so he knows how it works. He
spent a lot of time in the field. He spent
a lot of time as a pastor, you know, in

(38:54):
the parish. So he really brings a lot, I think,
a much different perspective, much needed perspective at this time.
And you know, don't forget the Pope is a head
of state. The Holy See is it's recognized throughout the
world as a city state, a sovereign state. So the
Pope is ahead of state, and the Pope has ambassadors

(39:17):
to I forget how many countries, but almost all of them.
There's an ambassador from the Holy See to the United Nations,
and we the United States have in the last forty
years or whatever fifty years, have had a direct ambassador
appointed by the President confirmed by the Senate to the
Holy See who lives in Rome. And so there are,

(39:39):
just like any other country, relations between the United States
and the Holy See. And that suffered it has suffered certainly,
and I think greatly under the papacy of Francis. So
that hopefully will get better. And if relations between the
US and the Vatican are better, think of what it's done.

(39:59):
I mean, you had pope that literally saved I don't
know what, tens of thousands of Jews during World War Two.
You had a pope that basically took down Communism and
took down the Soviet Union, right John Paul the Second.
So the pope can be not just a historical historical figure,

(40:24):
not just a religious figure, but a worldwide diplomat. And
we need a good, strong pope for so many reasons,
not just religious. So hopefully there will be good relations.
And of course that was the big topic. You know,
is he going to get along with Donald Trump? Because
he tweeted if you didn't hear Robert Prevost was a

(40:45):
voter in Chicago, they had the voter registration forms. He's
a registered Republican. He has voted in presidential and local
elections in Illinois, so he did. He's not a Trumper,
that's for sure, But logic would say if he was
a registered Republican, he probably voted for Republican candidates in
the past. So I say, give this guy a chance.

(41:10):
I think we're gonna I think in the long run,
we're gonna like what we see, and let's give him
a shot. Let's give him a shot. All right, What
do I gonna do here? Oh, Liro's point to point. God,
I love these guys because when I go to the
airport or come home from the airport, like when I
get out of here and finally get back to New York,
I'm gonna call Lero's point to point because they text

(41:30):
me right when I get you know, when I land boom,
meet here, boom, clean car, boom, good driver, insured, impeccable credentials,
and I get home. I've had I don't know how
many times I've had to call an uber because Newsmax
would sometimes call me an uber and they're like, I'm

(41:52):
in terminal one, they're in terminal four. I'm calling them up.
I can't understand what they're saying because they're not good
English speakers, and it's like taking me fifteen twenty minutes
to finally reach this guy. That's not the case with Liros.
So call Lero's point to point. You'll get there, You'll
get there safely. Liros point to point lerostg dot com

(42:15):
lirostg dot com, or you want to do the old
phone thing, one eight hundred eighty two Liros one eight
hundred eighty two Liros. All right, Newark is a freakin mess,
the airport and the mayor, and how about Judge Denin.
We got to talk about that when we come back.
Don't go away. The rob Astarino continues right here on

(42:35):
seven to ten, WR finishing up. I'll be back next
Saturday in New York. I'll take your calls. Don't worry.
I know you miss dialing in, I miss your voice.
But a lot going on here, so before I forget.
If you're looking for a car, you got to go
to Nissan City or Toyota City. They're both part of

(42:56):
the Integrity Automotive Group. I love these guys. Toyota City
write in Mamernick Off I ninety five and Nissan City
right off exit eleven off of two eighty seven in Portchester.
They got the cars you want, obviously, Toyota or Nissan,
whichever brand. Make sure you head over there. They got
the models and trims and stock. They've got no hidden fees.

(43:18):
They show your respect because they are part of the
Integrity Automotive Group, so they're all trained by the same people.
They only hire good people. They want you to be
their customer for life, so they're not going to screw you,
which is why I got my car from them. So
make sure you go to either Toyota City or to
Nissan City, both in Westchester right on the Connecticut border.

(43:40):
Give them a call, or better yet, just go to
either Nissancity dot com, Nissancity Andy dot com screwed that up,
Nissan Cityeny dot com, or Toyota City hy dot com.
All right, I got a lot to get to here.
Newark Airport, what the hell I mean? I fly into

(44:01):
Kennedy and you know, these back and forth trips to
Rome from Kennedy has been pretty good. Actually, I would
never fly out of Newark. I had a colleague who
had to leave, you know, lives in Jersey and had
to fly in and out of Newark. Waited there for
like days. What a nightmare. God Almighty. And you know
the fact that Chuck Schumer gets out there and blows

(44:24):
his little trumpet about the outdated you know, at at
Newark Airport, the outdated electronics and computer system. Are you
kidding me? You've been in office since like Pope Leo
the thirteenth, and you want to sit there and scream
and yell. What did you do about it? Nothing? Nothing,

(44:47):
It is such a mess. And don't even get me
going on these TSA agents. I do want to Maybe
next week I'll talk about that and get your opinions,
because it's unbelievable that we've got TSA agents basically doing nothing.
And I got the data to prove it, by the way,
And how about the imbecile mayor of Newark, Ross Baraka,

(45:08):
who I guess bum rushed the Ice detention center because
he wants to make a big case for the detained
illegal aliens. You see, this is what happens with these democrats.
They can't lose even if they get arrested. What do
they care, But overnight they'll raise probably millions, millions just

(45:34):
by playing this stupid little game. So they put on
a show. They get arrested, they do their little rallies,
their little protests, their little demonstrations. They act like the
little children that they are. But they're going to raise
a tremendous amount of money on Act blue. That's how
they do it. No repercussions for these guys. They could.

(45:56):
The more incompetent you are as a Democrat, the more
you're going to be re elected the Democratic state. Look
at Kathy Hogel. These guys are morons, and but they'll
get away with it. Keep doing it. Speaking to morons,
Joe Biden, can somebody just put duct tape on him,
throw him in the closet, feed him once or twice

(46:16):
a week, and just keep him there. I know every
Democrat in the world is thinking what I just said.
They can't believe he's back on the campaign trail, or
at least being in public again. He gave an interview,
you know, in coherent interview on BBC. He flew to
Pope Francis's funeral. He went on the view the only

(46:38):
view we should be seeing of Joe Biden is old photos.
Nobody wants to see you again, Nobody cares about you anymore.
And he's so detrimental to Democrats, which I guess I
keep I guess I hope he keeps going out there.
Why not these these Columbia students. So here's the positive
that Donald Trump is having by putting this ruse to

(47:00):
Harvard and Columbia and all these other universities who have
gotten away with allowing lawlessness on their campus, anti Semitism
on their campus, just outright violence on their campus. Well
now thankfully Trump is putting the screws to them. So
all of a sudden, it took a loss of money

(47:20):
for Columbia to find some religion and to realize, hey,
you know what, not all of our students or their
parents who are paying the bills want to deal with
this crap on a daily basis. So the sixty five
plus Columbia students who stormed the building, they've finally been suspended.
This happened this week. Good finally what else? What else? Oh? Yeah,

(47:47):
you got these blue state Republicans by the way, You
know New Yorkers really like lawlor Elist Dephonic Andrew Garbarino
and Nico Lo Looda on the island. They're really pushing
Trump and the Republican House leaders about the salt state
and local taxes. Right now, it's only ten thousand that

(48:07):
you could write off in deduct so I guess Republican
leadership like Speaker Johnson offered thirty thousand to raise it.
The thirty thousand, which is good. But these guys are
holding out. They're like nope, I think like Lawler thinks
wants to go to one hundred thousand dollars. I mean,
that's a hell of a property tax bill. But this
is going to be interesting because they're gonna get a

(48:28):
lot of pressure from Trump and the Republicans to stop
it at some point. So we'll see what they hold
out for. But right now, I think the threshold is
thirty thousand and finally, So tomorrow is Mother's Day. So
I just wanted to say to my beautiful mother and
my beautiful wife, who is a mother of our three kids,

(48:48):
Happy Mother's Day. You deserve it. I'm sorry I'm not
gonna be there to celebrate with you. I mean, I
am in Rome. So what I'll do is I'll have
a really nice glass of wine, a beautiful dish pasta,
and a wonderful dessert, and I'll toast you. All Right.
I gotta get out of here before I get more trouble,

(49:08):
So I will be back in New York in the
studio taking your calls next Saturday, and I thank you
for listening. Make sure make sure you mark it down
put in your low Google calendar. Rob Astorino Show Saturdays
at four pm. Right here on seven to ten wor
make sure you follow me on social media and I

(49:29):
will talk to you next week. Take care, guys, Bye
bye