What 'systematic failures' led to the Southport attack? — BBC Newscast

[0:00] Hello, it's Adam in the Newscast Studio, and I should just warn you that the first half of this episode may contain details that you find distressing, because we're going to be discussing the first report of the official inquiry into the Southport attacks, which happened in 2024, which was released today. [0:16] Now, we all remember what happened that day. That was when the teenager Axel Rudicabana stormed into a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport and killed three young girls, Alistair Silva Aguilar, Elsie Dot Stankham and B.B. King. He also wounded many, many others. [0:36] Now, this inquiry was led by the judge, Sir Adrian Fulford, and he found that these murders and this attack could have been prevented if the killer's parents and several official authorities had acted in the years leading up to the attack in 2024. [0:52] This is a big, big report with some big consequences, and it's very difficult reading, especially for the families of those involved. [1:00] Now, we're joined here in the Newscast Studio by two people who know this story incredibly well, because they've been covering it for years. [1:07] Here, joining us in person is the BBC Special Correspondent, Judith Moritz. Hi, Judith. [1:11] Hi, Adam. [1:12] And Daniel Samford, our correspondent, is here as well. Hello, Daniel. [1:14] Hi, Adam. [1:15] Should we just do a bit of backstory here? I mean, obviously, everyone will remember the attack and that horrible period. [1:22] But how did this inquiry, Judith, actually come about? Why did we have it? [1:26] I mean, frankly, it's the search for answers, isn't it? Something horrific happens, and in the aftermath, people are clamouring for an explanation. [1:34] And in this case, it was, even though there was a criminal case going on, there was somebody who had been charged and then eventually pleaded guilty for what happened. [1:43] It was very clear from the absolute get-go that there would be multiple questions to answer that a court case, a criminal case, wasn't going to touch. [1:52] And that's what this inquiry was designed to do. So it had various functions. Included in it, actually, was to be the inquests for the three little girls who died. [2:03] That was part of this process. But way beyond that, it was looking at the circumstances of the day itself, but really, critically, everything that preceded it. [2:14] The background to the attacker, to what we now know, was not done to prevent this. [2:22] It was realised really early on that this was an attack that could have maybe been prevented. [2:28] Today, of course, we've got that confirmation. [2:31] And Daniel, there's two things that strike me about just how the report is presented. [2:36] First of all, these very, very harrowing accounts of the lives of the survivors, all anonymised, just talking about nightmares, flashbacks, being scared to go out in public. [2:48] And then the fact that the perpetrator of the attack is only known by his initials throughout. [2:54] Yeah, it's very striking that the decision was made to refer to him as AR. [2:58] There was no kind of legal requirement on the inquiry, and they've not put any legal requirements on us. [3:03] We'll go on talking about him as Axel Wood of Cabana. [3:06] But the decision was taken to essentially anonymise him in that way so that he could be spoke about as AR during the inquiry. [3:13] And also, by the way, his parents were not referred to by their surname either, and his brother wasn't referred to by his surname. [3:21] And yes, there's an increasing desire by these inquiries and inquests and court cases to make sure that the people most harmed by these events aren't forgotten in the process. [3:34] So whereas back in the 1990s, an official inquiry report might not have gone into great detail about the effect the attack had had on those who'd survived, [3:43] and of course on the awful, awful effect on the families of those who died, that is now much more part of the process. [3:52] And there's a sort of essentially a separate chapter dedicated to that part of this really, really awful story. [4:01] Yeah, that's a very powerful bit of the report to read. [4:03] Right. Let's delve into then some of the findings then. [4:06] And Judith, the first one is this whole sort of alphabet soup of organisations who were involved in this case, [4:14] but didn't quite ever do enough to prevent the attack happening. [4:18] Yeah, I think that the headline here, if you want, and bearing in mind, you know, we're talking 800 pages, lots of chapters, lots of detail. [4:26] But the inquiry chair, when he delivered the report, when he made his statement, he said, well, there's one headline finding, it's what he's calling the absence of risk ownership, [4:37] which is essentially saying that all of these different authorities and agencies, it's not the case that they didn't know there were problems with Rudecabana. [4:48] They were all talking about it. [4:49] They were even talking to each other, but they were all, frankly, passing the buck. [4:53] What we're seeing here laid bare today is the way in which nobody owned the particular risk. [5:01] No one took command or leadership. [5:04] There was a lot of evidence that individuals would, and we're talking both agencies and individuals working for them. [5:11] So, you know, across the public sector, particularly social services, health service, schools, they're criticised in different ways and to different extents. [5:22] And there has been some very good behaviour also identified, I should say. [5:27] But ultimately, what we're hearing, what we're seeing in the report is that there would be meetings, there'd be conversations, [5:33] there'd be discussions between people working, you know, for those services who'd come into contact with him. [5:40] But it was always, well, it's not for this agency. [5:44] Everybody was looking to somebody else to pick up the issue. [5:48] And ultimately, he fell through the cracks. [5:51] Although the report doesn't point the finger at a particular person or one particular organisation to say, oh, it's their fault. [5:58] Well, more than that, recommendation number one in the report is to try and get to the bottom of which single agency should take responsibility [6:09] for high-risk children. [6:11] And that's what part two of this inquiry, you know, he's literally put that as recommendation number one. [6:16] I should look and try and work out what single agency that should be, whether it should be one of the existing agencies [6:22] or whether there needs to be a new agency that deals specifically. [6:25] Because there was a lot of people in this case worrying about the risk to Axel Rudakobana, [6:32] worrying about, you know, how vulnerable he was with his mental health difficulties, [6:37] the situation that he found himself in having been excluded from school, sitting at home during COVID, [6:43] turning up on buses carrying knives. [6:46] But nobody was asking, well, what risk does he pose? [6:50] Although they were asking the questions, as Judith says, they weren't saying, well, I'm going to take that on. [6:55] I'll be the agency. [6:56] I'll be the person in the agency who says, right, we're going to get to bottom this risk [6:59] and we're going to make sure this guy is not a risk to other people. [7:02] Because the judge makes it quite clear that he thinks that Axel Rudakobana should either have been in care or in custody. [7:09] Well, he shouldn't have been sitting at home with his parents. [7:11] And Daniel, just expand on that episode on the bus. [7:13] And that was in 2022 and it was when he was arrested because he was on a bus with a knife threatening to harm people. [7:19] Yeah, his parents reported him missing and there was a big alert to try and find out where he was. [7:24] Eventually he was found sitting on the back of a bus. [7:27] He was carrying a knife. [7:28] They asked him why he was carrying a knife. [7:29] He says, I want to use it. [7:30] And he also said, by the way, I'm also thinking about poisoning people. [7:34] And they were very concerned about him and his state of health. [7:37] But they didn't arrest him and they didn't go and search his house and his computers. [7:41] If they had, they would have found the beginnings of this armory of weapons that he was building up in the home. [7:48] They would have found the precursors to ricin that he'd purchased. [7:51] And they would have found some very troubling things in his internet search history. [7:55] But because that was dealt with as being a vulnerable child rather than a child who might be a risk to others, [8:01] even though he was carrying a knife on a bus and said he was thinking of using it, then that was never dealt with. [8:06] The judge is pretty clear that he thinks that is the moment, one of many, but a really key moment where he could have been stopped. [8:15] He could have ended up in custody or in some quite serious criminal justice situation. [8:19] And he might not have been able to carry out the attack. [8:22] And Judith, I mean, us three, we read a lot of reports of this ilk over the last few decades. [8:28] Maybe not into an incident as sort of chilling as this one, but it seems quite unusual for me for so much of it to be about the parents [8:37] and for the judge to be so explicit about their failings as a mum and a dad. [8:43] Yeah, I think that's true. [8:46] And I remember being at the inquiry when they gave evidence, which was not something we were expecting until pretty much the last minute, actually. [8:56] His brother was legally represented at the inquiry, but they weren't. [9:01] And they were the last witnesses to give evidence. [9:05] And it was extraordinary. [9:08] It was extraordinary to listen to. [9:09] I mean, some of what they said, his father saying the love that he had for his son overrode his good judgment, [9:16] that he had no authority as a father, that he felt he had no power at all to stop him accessing this horrific material online. [9:23] And, you know, you may remember the photographs of that house that the police released, [9:28] which the sitting room was chaotic and weaponry all over the place, that the parents hadn't sounded the alarm. [9:37] Now, I'm saying I found that extraordinary. [9:39] But bear in mind that also listening to that evidence at the inquiry were the parents of the children who were murdered and who were injured and the adult survivors. [9:49] And for them to hear that, I mean, that really was very unusual. [9:52] They said afterwards, they made public statements and talked about the fact that they felt those parents should be held to account. [10:00] And that clearly is what's happened today, although the chair has also been at pains to point out that they're not operating in isolation. [10:09] And arguably, you know, the agencies who've come in for criticism are also being criticised for not looking at the family unit as a unit, as a whole. [10:16] Not just looking at a troubled teenager, but thinking to themselves, well, what's going on in the family home here? [10:23] And what's the bigger picture? [10:26] And Daniel, there was a little bit of the report I didn't quite understand and what it was actually calling for. [10:31] And it's about this idea of what access children and teenagers have to the internet. [10:37] Is it calling for a new law that clamps down on young people's access to the internet? [10:44] I wasn't quite sure what was going on there. [10:46] Yes, I mean, one of the issues is that Axel Rudokopana's searches at school were a little bit known about. [10:53] And one of the things that had led to him for the first time being referred to the counter-extremism programme that's called Prevent. [11:00] But nobody knew what he was searching for at home. [11:03] And because of the missed opportunities, nobody searched for what he was looking for at home. [11:08] And his parents didn't have any parental controls on his use of the internet at home. [11:15] So it was a complete free-for-all in terms of his use of the internet at home, not only what he was searching for, [11:22] but also the ordering of machetes and knives and the caster beans that can be used to make ricin. [11:29] And what the judge is saying is that he thinks that maybe in certain circumstances where there's been some criminal justice or extremism intervention, [11:38] maybe there should be like a legal block on what a kid can access at home. [11:43] So it goes beyond what the parents think is appropriate and what they should put in place on the devices and on the broadband router, [11:50] but actually whether there should be a legal block. [11:53] Again, another thing that he wants to look at. [11:55] Just going back to the parents who clearly were in an incredibly difficult situation. [12:00] One of the things that comes out from both their evidence and from Sir Adrian Fulford's conclusions is that they were being obstructive. [12:10] It wasn't just that they were lost. [12:12] They were clearly lost. [12:13] And his brother talks about how frightened he was about what Axel Riddle-Pakarno might do to his parents. [12:19] But they were being obstructive. [12:21] When the school was trying to intervene harder, the special school that he was attending, they were kind of blocking that. [12:28] And then really, really, really critically, one week before the attack, Axel Riddle-Pakarno leaves home with a knife, [12:36] apparently seeming like he's going to go to Range High School, the school that had excluded him a few years earlier. [12:41] His parents desperately try to stop him going, clearly concerned that he's going to go and carry out an attack on a school. [12:49] And once they've got the thing under control, they don't call the police. [12:53] And then a week later, on the morning of the attack, they realise he's left home. [12:58] There's an empty knife wrapper in the house. [13:01] And again, they don't call the police. [13:03] So, yes, listen, of course, you can't only blame the parents because that would be unfair. [13:10] These agencies are designed to help parents and also take control away from parents where they're failing. [13:18] But definitely the parents do have a significant chunk of responsibility. [13:21] And the judge is really clear. [13:22] It is A, parents' responsibility. [13:26] B, agencies avoiding any responsibility for the risk, as Judith was talking about. [13:30] And have we heard from the parents, other than the evidence that they gave when they were being questioned? [13:36] So, when they gave their evidence, we could hear them, but we couldn't see them. [13:42] The parents have been, as I understand it, given the opportunity to live somewhere else. [13:47] They're certainly not back at the family home in Lancashire. [13:50] The BBC has made many attempts to make contact with them previously. [13:54] But other than them giving that evidence, that is the only public comment we've ever had from the parents of the attacker. [14:01] Also, there's a bit of the report that's quite nuanced where it's talking about Ruda Cabana's autism diagnosis. [14:09] What's a way of thinking about that? [14:12] I think the concern is that the judge is really cautious about this because, obviously, he doesn't want people to draw the conclusion that, like, [14:20] all people who have an autism spectrum diagnosis are a risk to the public because that blatantly isn't the case. [14:27] And it shouldn't be the case in this case. [14:30] I think his feeling is that the concerns about actually Ruda Cabana's autism meant that people weren't considering, [14:40] well, he's got autism, they were saying. [14:42] But they weren't thinking, well, what risks does he pose, leaving aside the fact he's got autism, [14:47] which might explain his behaviour and his kind of very impersonal way of talking about the violent attacks [14:53] that he wants to carry out and things like that, you can't just say, well, he's got autism, so that's okay. [15:00] Because one of the features of people who have this disorder is that they can be quite obsessive. [15:05] So it's great if someone obsesses on maths or music or something, they can become geniuses. [15:11] But if they obsess on school massacres, that's a big problem. [15:15] And I think he felt that it was being used as an explanation for his behaviour rather than people looking beyond that as to what risk he can pose. [15:24] Judith, you've got to know a lot of the families who've been affected by this in Southport. [15:30] What sort of things are they saying about this inquiry and about the report today? [15:34] I think on one level, it doesn't tell them anything they didn't already know in the sense that, particularly while they've been watching the evidence [15:44] with mounting horror over the last few months, that this was an attack they knew with a sinking heart could have been prevented. [15:54] But what they said to the inquiry and what some of them have said to me was that they were very, although they found it very difficult, [16:02] particularly those days when they came themselves to give evidence, which was very traumatising, [16:08] they were very supportive of the whole exercise, but only if it is for the purpose of effecting change. [16:16] So the way they will look at today is it's a step on a journey. [16:20] They won't gauge the success of the inquiry on today's report. [16:23] They'll gauge its success down the line, whether or not the recommendations that are being suggested are given time to happen. [16:32] And now some of them we'll see detail of in the next phase of the inquiry, but most of them are not connected to that next phase. [16:38] And I'm not entirely certain what the mechanism will be for policing, whether or not all these agencies are being told that they need to make improvements, [16:46] whether that's going to happen, because frankly, we have sat here before you and I, we've talked about the Manchester Arena inquiry [16:52] and other public inquiries where, you know, recommendations are made and then you wait and you see, is there going to be change? [16:59] Can we change? That's really the key. [17:01] Although Daniel, just before we started recording this bit of this episode, Keir Starmer was in the comments [17:05] and he was doing a statement about the Middle East and the Gulf, but he inserted a bit about his response to this. [17:10] And he said that he was determined that the lessons would be learned. [17:13] So I suppose there is a kind of a bit of a political yardstick there now. [17:17] And of course there is phase two of this inquiry. [17:19] Yeah, exactly. I think there's two more steps to this journey. [17:22] There's phase two, what now that he's identified those issues that he wants to go into more depth, the systemic issues, as it were. [17:30] What will Sir Adrian Fulford conclude at the end of that? [17:33] And then the next stage, the critical ones for the family, as a student says, [17:38] is will those recommendations come into force quickly and will they be effective? [17:44] I think it's just worth adding as well that, you know, this has been an absolutely devastating report in terms of its criticisms. [17:52] It's the widespread nature of its criticisms. [17:55] But it's worth remembering that in there, there are amazing examples of people really doing their job well. [18:04] And the Acorn School, the school at which Axel Rudakobana went after he was excluded from Range High School, [18:10] gets lots and lots of praise for identifying the problems and persistently raising the problems. [18:18] Unfortunately for them, they made a mistake about possibly not sharing some browsing history with the police. [18:23] So they get a little bit of criticism about that. [18:25] But the Acorn School gets lots and lots of praise for saying this is a dangerous boy and we need to work out how to handle him and then not paid attention to him. [18:35] And another thing was just a PCSO at the moment of the attack going in and the decision being made by the police officers to go in and arrest Axel Rudakobana. [18:46] And a PCSO had been told to stand to guard the door and he goes in and helps as well, even though it wasn't really his job to go and tackle this incredibly dangerous man. [18:56] So it's always worth remembering that in these reports, there are those glimpses of people really doing their job really, really well. [19:03] Well, and also one of the sort of scariest bits as well when you read the testimonies of the victims and the survivors is that little kids were having to protect other little kids in the moment. [19:15] And I didn't want to dwell on what we've learned about what happened in the building and in the room, but that is something that kind of jumps off the page as well. [19:22] Yeah, and you know what that will never leave me is that experience of listening in the hearing room as all of those parents one by one came to tell the inquiry about the psychological effect and damage that this has wrought on all of those families, the surviving children. [19:40] And actually, we heard as well from one teenager who was there that day who gave her own account. [19:45] And I mean, I will never forget that moment and it was utterly silent in the inquiry room, apart from the tears that, you know, they were speaking bravely through tears, through absolute agony to give those accounts. [20:01] And as I said before, they did that for a real purpose. They want to see a legacy here to be one to change. [20:07] Judith, thank you very much. [20:09] Thanks. [20:10] Daniel, thanks to you too. [20:11] Thanks, Adam. [20:11] And since we spoke to Judith and Daniel, we heard from the Home Secretary, Shibana Mahmood, who was giving a statement in the House of Commons, and she said that the government will introduce new legislation to make planning an attack without a clear underlying ideology into a specific crime. [20:28] Since the last episode of Newscaster was recorded, Donald Trump said that in reaction to the failed negotiations in Islamabad over the weekend with Iran, the US would introduce its own blockade of shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. [20:42] So that was the threat. It's since been implemented, which means we've learned a little bit more about what it actually means in practice. [20:50] And the person who's been monitoring it is my podcasting cousin from AmeriCast, Anthony Zerker, who joins us from the US now. Hello, Anthony. [20:58] Hey, it's great to be back. [21:00] Is your flight booked for a cast fest on the 25th of April? [21:03] My flight is booked. My hotel's ready. I am looking forward to being on the same stage with you. It's very exciting. [21:09] Great. We will be doing a lot of podcasting that weekend, so it'll be really good fun. [21:14] Right. In terms of events following this weekend and the negotiations in Islamabad between the US and Iran, one of the outcomes of that was Donald Trump saying that he was going to stage his own blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. [21:28] Now, that was due to be kicking in at 3pm UK time on Monday. We're now recording just after six on Monday. Do we know if this blockade is in place and what it actually entails? [21:42] Well, the Central Command, which is the US military command in charge of the Middle East, says that the blockade is, in fact, in effect. [21:50] It's a little different than the way Donald Trump described it in that Truth Social post on Sunday. [21:56] It's not a blockade of everything going through the Strait of Hormuz and stopping any tankers that paid some sort of a toll to the Iranians. [22:06] It's a blockade on ships that are heading to or from Iran, and they're intercepting them after they pass through and out of the Strait of Hormuz. [22:15] So it's a little easier, I suppose, for the United States Navy to track, and it is also a little more in keeping with the norms of international law, which is if there's a state of war, the military combatants, you can have a blockade on your enemy, but you're not allowed to interdict independent, neutral vessels, which is what Trump's original blockade would be leaning towards. [22:41] So we are seeing evidence that the blockade is in effect. We have actually seen some tankers apparently turn around, according to tracking. [22:49] Others have turned off their tracking. And Trump just under an hour ago said that yesterday, 30-something ships had passed through Hormuz. [22:57] So there are signs, at least, that maybe traffic is picking up a bit there from those neutral vessels. [23:05] Oh, so that's interesting, because my first reaction when I heard the blockade was, OK, India and China are not going to be happy about that because they get so much of their oil and gas from ships that have passed through the Strait of Hormuz going east. [23:20] But then equally, India and China and other countries have been getting some of their oil and gas from Iran, so they are still affected by this. [23:27] Right. I mean, that was the first question that jumped to my mind, too. How do you enforce that? How do you know if anyone paid a toll or not? [23:34] And, yes, it would lead to perhaps more direct confrontations with all of those Asian countries, and not just China, but South Korea and Japan, that rely on Middle Eastern oil. [23:48] Now, as you mentioned, Iran has been sending tankers through with their own oil, and that has been reaching places like India and China. [23:58] So this could still lead to a decrease in the supplies to those countries. [24:04] But it isn't quite as confrontational as the way Trump initially made it sound, whether the Defense Department, the Central Command said, no, this is the way we have to do this. [24:16] And Trump acceded, or if he just kind of got it wrong when he was characterizing it on Sunday. [24:21] I guess we still don't know that. [24:24] And how do we think this fits into the diplomatic efforts, which didn't go so well in Islamabad at the weekend? [24:30] Yeah, I think this is an attempt to ratchet up the pressure on Iran. [24:35] There was a lot of criticism, if you remember, during the first month of the war, that the United States was still allowing Iran to export oil. [24:43] And, in fact, had taken off sanctions on Iranian oil that was already at sea in order to allow that oil to be sold more freely around the world to help keep down the price of oil. [24:56] So people were saying, well, why are we letting a country that we are currently fighting financially benefit from their exports when we have this awesome military that we could turn it off and cut it out anytime we wanted? [25:08] So I think what we see now is the decision by the Trump administration to use that tool to pressure Iran, to hit them where it hurts, essentially, to keep them from getting these funds, to tighten the economic vice in order to push them to make more concessions. [25:24] Because I think the big thing that, at least according to this administration, coming out of those talks was that Iran was not willing to totally abandon their nuclear program to give up the enriched uranium, to stop enriching more uranium. [25:40] And this could be seen as a way to pressure them to back off that. [25:45] It's also a reminder that, OK, the U.S. military action against Iran was huge, but it wasn't the absolute maximalist approach they could have taken. [25:53] They could have been doing this from the very beginning if they'd wanted to be complete. [25:58] Right, right. And I think it reflects the fact that Trump is very sensitive and has become even more sensitive to what's happening on the domestic front with the price of gasoline here at the pumps over $4 a gallon. [26:13] And now it was heading up. He understands that that is that is a point where Americans feel the economic hardship of this war very quickly and very visibly. [26:24] You drive around anywhere in an American city and you see the displays at gas stations of the price of a gallon of gas and it becomes very clear how much more this is costing you. [26:36] And so he had to acknowledge and try to fight this war without leading to an economic crisis from increased energy prices. [26:46] He hasn't been able to to resolve the war despite doing that, although now he now he seems to be willing to bear perhaps a little more disruption by doing this to Iran. [26:56] And it'll be it's going to be a test of will. Can Iran endure this economic hardship and possibly more bombing or can are they going to give him before Donald Trump succumbs to the pressure of politics here in the United States and the economic hardship and global unrest that could come from higher energy prices? [27:16] And Anthony, you mentioned the higher gas prices at the petrol stations. How much higher than normal are those numbers? [27:22] I think it's up about 60 percent. And I was getting gas here in the Washington, D.C. area for about three dollars and 30 cents a gallon before the war started. [27:33] And now it's hovering right at three ninety nine, four dollars a gallon. It had gone up a little higher last week. [27:39] It came down a little bit today. So, you know, 60 cents a gallon. [27:43] If you drive a lot and it's the difference between filling up a tank of gas once a week for, say, 40 dollars and filling it up for 60 plus dollars. [27:53] I mean, that starts to add up over the course of weeks and months. [27:58] Thank you for clarifying that. Now, another dispute that Donald Trump is having is with the Pope, Pope Leo. [28:04] This started when the Pope said, actually, there should be dialogue rather than conflict. [28:11] Donald Trump hit back and now both men are on the airwaves having pops at each other and actually not just on the airwaves, but on separate airplanes. [28:19] By the sound of these clips, we don't like a pope that's going to say that it's OK to have a nuclear weapon. [28:26] We don't want a pope that says crime is OK in our cities. [28:30] I don't like it. I'm not a big fan of Pope Leo. He's a very liberal person and he's a man that doesn't believe in stopping crime. [28:38] He's a man that doesn't think that we should be toying with a country that wants a nuclear weapon so they can blow up the world. [28:48] I'm not I'm not a fan of Pope Leo. I do not look at my role as being a political politician. [28:53] I don't want to get into a debate with him. I don't think that the message of the gospel is meant to be abused in the way that some people are doing. [29:02] And I will continue to speak out loud against war, looking to promote peace, promoting dialogue and multilateral relationships among the states to look for just solutions to problems. [29:14] Too many people are suffering in the world today. Too many innocent people are being killed. [29:18] And I think someone has to stand up and say there's a better way to do this. [29:23] Pope Leo saying he will not get into a debate with Donald Trump, having sort of started a debate with Donald Trump. [29:29] Anthony, what's your take on this latest front on the Trump's war with everyone? [29:34] I'll say this actually goes back even farther than just this give and take over the Iran war. [29:40] And Pope Leo has been critical or at least calling for peace, critical of the escalation, the threats against Iran that Donald Trump made, particularly last week, saying talking about civilizational destruction, death for Iran if they didn't accede to his demands. [29:56] But this can go back all the way to the beginning of the year, even earlier, with Pope Leo criticizing the United States's immigration policy, the crackdown on undocumented migrants here in the United States. [30:08] He was pretty pointed in some of the things he said then as well. [30:12] And I think it's pretty clear that the United States and the Trump administration didn't take too kindly to that. [30:18] So this is just perhaps the boiling point for this dispute between the two world leaders. [30:26] But it is part of a larger trend. [30:29] And you can hear there Pope Leo not wanting to get into a back and forth with Trump. [30:34] I think probably he views it as pulling him down to Trump's level because Trump was pretty pointed and personal in his criticisms of the Pope. [30:43] But I think it's also clear that the Pope is not going to back away from this. [30:48] I think he views it as his responsibility to call for peace and call for a way to find a resolution to this war and not for more violence. [31:00] And then there's a subplot to this, which is a now deleted post from Donald Trump on Truth Social, which I'm not going to get into religious iconography here, [31:10] but sort of looks quite Christ-like with Donald Trump as a sort of Christ-like figure. [31:16] And it's now been deleted. [31:17] And there's now a dispute about that as well. [31:20] Yeah, I mean, what I saw, it looked like Trump dressed like Jesus and he has his hands on the forehead of what appears to be a sick man [31:29] surrounded by a kind of a group of people looking up at Trump in awe. [31:34] And there's a sunburst over his head with what appears to be angels coming out of the skies and an eagle, an American flag, very over the top, [31:43] kind of in keeping with a lot of the stuff that Trump posts glorifying himself. [31:49] But this one was particularly geared towards with a kind of a religious theme. [31:55] And that generated some pushback, even from Donald Trump's own supporters. [31:59] Some conservative evangelical activists, religious figures criticized him. [32:05] Sean Fucht, who is a right-wing Christian activist, called it blasphemous. [32:09] Blasphemous, Riley Gaines, who is an athlete who has appeared with Donald Trump repeatedly to condemn transgender athletes competing in women's sports. [32:19] She felt compelled to come publicly out and say that Donald Trump should take that post down. [32:25] And he did, although it's interesting. [32:28] Just now, probably within the last half an hour, Trump was talking to the press for the first time today on Monday. [32:34] And he said he didn't know that that picture portrayed him as Jesus. [32:38] It wasn't depicted. [32:39] It was me. [32:40] I did post it. [32:42] And I thought it was me as the doctor and had to do with Red Cross as a Red Cross worker there, which we support. [32:48] And only the fake news could come up with that one. [32:52] So I had just heard about it. [32:56] And I said, how did they come up with that? [32:58] It's supposed to be me as a doctor. [33:00] I'll let our listeners come to their own conclusions about whether you can look at that image and think that that wasn't religious. [33:07] With the white flowing robes at all. [33:10] But I will say it seems a bit of a stretched interpretation and an attempt by Donald Trump to evade responsibility for something that has angered a key part of his governing coalition. [33:24] Right. [33:24] Anthony, thank you very much. [33:26] Anything else you want to bring us up to date with? [33:28] I personally didn't see those remarks from Donald Trump at the White House. [33:31] Did he see anything else significant? [33:32] He had a McDonald's DoorDash delivery person come and bring some burgers. [33:38] This was an attempt. [33:39] The whole thing was an attempt to promote his tax policy, the suspension of tax on tips, in order to help working class Americans, a key part of his 2024 campaign promises. [33:50] But obviously, as it is doing for the past month plus, the Iran war and the arguments over that continue to be the main focus and the main subject of debate in this town. [34:03] I will say that Congress is getting back after their Easter recess for two weeks. [34:08] They arrived back in town. [34:10] There are going to be some very animated debates, again, about war powers, on whether the president is authorized to be fighting this war, and bigger debates about war funding, where the money is coming from, and Donald Trump's record request for Pentagon Defense Department funding in the next budget year, a bigger percentage of the American gross domestic product than we saw during World War II. [34:32] So these are all things that the legislature is going to be grappling with in the days ahead. [34:37] And for non-American listeners, DoorDash is a meal delivery service, isn't it? Like Deliveroo or Uber Eats. [34:43] Exactly. You pay someone to go pick up a burger and bring it back to your house. [34:48] And if you tip them with Donald Trump's policies, you won't pay taxes on those tip incomes. [34:53] And I think that was what Trump wanted to tout, besides the fact that he clearly loves having hamburgers delivered to the White House and feeding people there then. [35:02] Anthony, you got my mouth watering. [35:04] Thank you very much, and see you soon for CastFest. [35:07] Yeah, yeah, just a little over a week. I'm looking forward to it.