Bill O’Reilly’s No Spin News and Analysis - Iran War Uncertainty: What’s the Likely Outcome?, Chad C. Pecknold on Pope Leo’s Role in Trump Feud & Clarence Thomas’s Controversial Lecture

Episode Date: April 21, 2026

Hey BillOReilly.com Premium and Concierge Members, welcome to the No Spin News for Monday, April 20, 2026. Stand Up for Your Country.  Talking Points Memo: A rundown of Bill's speech at St. Edward’s Church in Palm Beach and the latest in Iran. Chad C. Pecknold, Ph.D., associate professor at The Catholic University of America, weighs in on whether Pope Leo has done anything wrong in his feud with Trump and how the media has used the situation to undermine Trump. Bill examines Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s lecture at the University of Texas at Austin. Where the United States stands in wealth, according to new data. Final Thought: Bill celebrates his YouTube award wins, subscribe to his channel here!   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey Bill O'Reilly here. Welcome to the No Spin News, Monday, April 20th, 2006, stand up for your country. Well, as I reported last week, I went down to South Florida to give a speech to a Catholic church, and this was book way, way before the Trump Pope Leo controversy. And I walked into the hall at St. Edwards Basilica in Palm Beach. I didn't know what to expect. And that is the subject of this evening's talking points memo. It was pretty calm. Nobody was angry.

People were confused a bit, and that's where I come in. But there wasn't a vibe in the air, somebody who did something wrong, or I'm preferring this person over that person. The crowd was traditional. I wouldn't say conservative. It wasn't a MAGA crowd. It was one guy with a MAGA hat. Okay? One, about 500.

And the crowd was churchgoers, people who have an association with St. Edwards. But not a political crowd. I didn't pick that up at all because it was an extensive Q&A. after my opening remarks. And it wasn't like, oh, how can he do this, or how can this guy do that, or how can Trump say this, or how can Pope Lee?

And it wasn't like that at all. It was basically what the deuce is happening in a very calm way. And there were more women than men at the event because it was in the morning. I would say confusion. There was some confusion in the room. room. And of course, everybody wanted to know what the likely outcome of the Iranian conflict

will be. And of course, I don't know. Only Jesus knows or God or whatever you want to classify it as because I don't know what's going to happen there. I can give you odds. I can tell you what's happening, and I certainly will this evening, but how's it all going to come out? This is just way, way too much stuff that we don't know in the air. So I wrote a column yesterday about this, and I quoted a man from Pennsylvania wrote me a letter, and he was heated. He was mad that we're involved with this, and he didn't like it at all, and quoted him. So that column is on bill o'Reilly.com. I don't want to reread it or be redone. this evening, you want to read it, there it is.

We do a Sunday column every week. In addition to every day, we do a message. And it's all free on billowrally.com. There's no fee for it. And the dilemma is that the media gets involved. And I said very clearly, I can mediate this. I could meet you in half an hour. I'd have them both on the same team, both the Pope and the President, and they'd be buddies.

It's not hard because they're not really opposed to one another. They're annoyed with one another. It's a big difference between being annoyed and being opposed. Now, President Trump's annoyed because he wants the Vatican to support actions against evil. And again, that's confronting evil. I told him, many on a cover that book, and President Trump is going, look, I'm trying to save the lives of human beings here, and you, the Holy See, are in that business, so why aren't you on my side? The Pope's point of view, and he is now backing away from that a bit, is that we don't like any of this conflict. We don't want to

any of it kind of unrealistic and that and I that's coming from a Catholic because conflict has always been with human beings since Cane and Abel. Cane and Abel. You don't know who can't enable are you got to get busy. You got to go you know the conflict has always been there. And the peace Remember, blessed are the peacemakers for they shall see God, I believe it is. Their mandate is a lesson of conflict. All right? So Pope Leo doesn't want the conflict.

You don't want any of this. He doesn't want bellicosity. He doesn't want threats. He doesn't want going to blow you up. He doesn't want any of that. At the same time, I think the Pope understands the danger from Iran. I think, because he's never spelled it out, and that's not what the Vatican does. They didn't spell out the danger of 9-11.

They condemn the action, but they're not political scientists over there. don't get involved with that at that level. And the Pope made a mistake injecting himself into this without answering obvious questions. Is the Vatican okay with Iran having a nuclear weapon? If you're going to get involved, you've got to be able to answer that question. That's a key question, because that's what it's all about. All right, here's the latest that we have. No, this Iran controlling the Straits of Hormuz is just bull.

I told you this last week. It's just a bunch of garbage. And it's bit out there by the irresponsible media. Iran can launch some drones. It can put mines in the water. That's not control of anything. Okay, so on Saturday, more than 30 ships passed through there, the straits, because the U.S. Navy is now controlling what happens.

Today it was much less. I'm not exactly sure why that number is going down, but the insurance companies have everything to do with this. So the ships that go through can't go through unless the insurance companies uphold the policies. That's a big part of this. And if the insurance companies think there's grave danger or whatever, then they stop. Then China is also a factor here, and we don't know anything about what China is doing. Now, President Trump has sent J.D. Vance, the vice president.

And you remember on Friday that all the media was saying J.D. Vance isn't going and he fell. All a bunch of bull. I mean, I'm sitting there watching lie after lie after lie from these people. We're talking CNN and MS and, you know, the newspaper or the urban newspaper. They don't care what they report is true. They don't care. It's like the Revolutionary Guard, which apparently now controls Iran. they don't care how many Iranians get killed, they'll kill them themselves.

It's the same thing. Anyway, our negotiating team is in Pakistan. Nobody knows whether Iran is going to show up. Wednesday, the treaty, the two weeks, sees fire, stops. Nobody knows what's going to have. happen. That's where we are. It's dangerous that the Revolutionary Guard is in control. You'd want to have some kind of moderation or civilian, and these people are just fanatic. Everybody dies, everybody dies. It's another challenge. Let me get the number

for you. I got it here. Three ships crossed today. through the Strait of Hormuz, 24 ships crossed through on Saturday. I want to get the number down. Finally, price of gas is pretty much a dollar more than it was before the Iranian action began. And that's another consideration, not for me, but price. a lot of Americans, they don't want to pay any more money for gas. Again, the follow-up question is, are you okay with Iran having a nuke? And then your gas bill goes down.

Is that the trade that you want? Yeah, the answer is some Americans go, yeah, I don't care when they have a nuke. Go like this. But then there's all, how do we know? and I get into that in the column. And that's a memo. All right, so the Pope is in Africa. He's in Equatorial Guinea.

The reason he went over there is that the continent is rising in Catholics, where most other places are receding. And he issued his statement trying to tamp down any feud with President Trump. Financial stress is hitting an all-time high. Millions of Americans are stretched thin with no extra money, no room to breathe. And this isn't just lower-income households. Middle-class families are also running out of options. If debt has been weighing on you, you are not alone.

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That's goldbelly.com. Code bill, free shipping, 20% off your first order. Go. The talk that I gave at the prayer meeting for peace a couple days ago, was prepared two weeks ago, well before the president had ever commented on myself and on the message of peace that I am promoting. And yet, as it happens, it was looked at as if I was trying to debate again the president,

which is not my interest at all. I'm good. I'm glad he said that. And I believe every word he put out there that the peace statement that he had about the Iranian situation was issued a long time ago. But when it came out, it collided and Mr. Trump didn't like it. And there in the media, here we come. gin up the controversy. So the Pope is going to be back in Rome, April 24th, around there.

And that is an update. I think we've covered it. That's where we are. Joining us in Washington is Dr. Chad Peknold. He's associate professor of systematic theology at the Catholic University of America. Catholic U, we played them in football way back when I was at Maris College. It's not U.N.S. at a liberal university, would you, Catholic U.S.U. at this point? No, I mean, as universities go, it's less liberal than your average liberal place, but, you know, a conservative in a university is the unicorn, so there's not many of it.

Okay, but you're not talking about a radical. campus like George Washington or American University or these places that hate Israel and all that. We're not talking about that, right? That's true. We have all the usual kind of dynamics of every American university, but we also have this sense that we are tied to the teachings of the Catholic Church. It's a church that founded the university. So we, I think, have some some sort of stability, unlike a lot of woke colleges. Okay. So you're deeply invested then in Pope Leo and how he's treated and what he says.

And do you believe that Pope Leo did anything wrong here? Well, I mean, you know, I think always, always with the, with the Pope and with presidents, it's always best to blame people around him than the person. I mean, I think there is a whole calm scheme around the Pope. there's a whole term of the president. And I think we have to, you know, maybe reassess how they're going to think about future discourse between Pope and the president. This is like 2,000 years of conflicts between popes and things to tell us that we should manage this carefully. And I think we're going to see a lot more of this.

But, yeah, I think the Pope did not know that he would walk into a media. No, I agree. I don't think the Pope knew that this was going to stir it up, but he should have known. Should have. And his people should have known. Right, because Francis, his predecessor, got into a lot of controversy by basically being an open border guy. Exactly. And we've had this problem in the church for a while.

You know, for many, many years, Catholics in America were Democrats. And now we face a different reality in the Catholic Church in this country where something like 56 or 58% are Republicans and many support the president. And so we have a new dynamic, a lot of older Catholics, and certainly that would include bishops, you know, are still sort of thinking that they should be helpful to the Democratic Party's line as far as they can be. And that involved the church in all sorts of contracts with the government to help migrants at the borders.

And I think we've gotten some fuzziness from the church on these issues of immigration. And so it's not surprising that we also see. still have fuzziness on just war theory. I think, you know, the church's teaching is very clear in print. You know, if you look up the catechism, the catechism is extremely clear about the, you know, the criteria for just war, and who has the competent authority to make a judgment about its justice? It's not the pope. It's the government authorities who have that. But I noticed, you know, while Francis was very pro-immigrant, and an open border guy that didn't want any restraint.

As soon as Leo came in, and I put this into the Leo's an American citizen category, Leo said that, no, countries have a right to control their borders, and they have a right to enforce their laws. he said that very, very quickly on distancing himself from Francis. Now, President Trump didn't get that memo, okay? For some reason, he didn't get that memo at all. Because one of the reasons that he whaled on Leo and brought in soft on crime was the border. I don't even know if President Trump knew.

that Leo came in and said, no, I'm different from Francis. I do believe in law enforcement in migratory affairs. I'm guessing here. I did not talk to President Trump about it, but he did link it in, and therefore, you know, I don't like popes. That was Trump's line who are soft on crime and that, da, da, da, da, da. Which, of course, the Pope is not soft on crime. the church's teaching isn't softened crime, but we have this tradition, and especially on the back of Francis, and what the media did, I think you're exactly right, Bill.

The media has ginned up this controversy because they've been in the habit now for the last decade or more of using the Pope for their own purposes. They can get enough of it, and still to this day, they're still doing it, trying to undermine President Trump by using the Pope's moral authority. But the Pope made a mistake, in my opinion, as I just said in a memo, if you're going to make a very powerful statement about just war, and there's a simple reason why the war is taking place, and the simple reason is that U.S. intelligence believes the Mullahs are weeks away from being. able to weaponize uranium. And if you're going to get involved with that, then you have to answer essential questions. Is the Vatican okay with that? But the Pope doesn't want to do that. He wants to stay in the theological realm. Or am I wrong? Well, I don't even know if they're staying in the theological realm. I think this was an issue on immigration when the vice president met with the bishops last year. You know, there's a kind of

vague virtue signaling that happens both with war, which sort of vaguely signals in favor of pacifism and a vagueness about the rights of the migrant against the dignity of the nation and securing the common good of the nation. We don't get specificity from the bishops. We don't get specificity from the pope. And I am very happy for the pope and for bishops to intervene in our national conversation. I don't think that Christianity is a private thing. I don't think it has no place in our public discourse, I think it's absolutely central. But I think bishops and popes absolutely need to recover their kind of technical interest in these problems.

Or their moral authority. And their moral authority. If you don't want a nuclear bomb, I mean, I'm against nuclear proliferation. So is the pope. So is church teaching. So is Donald Trump. So we're all actually on the same page that we don't want nukes, right? But how do you get rid of them?

When you've got a nation that has a death to America day, they celebrate death to America for, you know, what is it, 37 years they've chanted death to America. And they want to develop a nuke. And, you know, we can't, we can't simply wave our hands at peace and think that we should do nothing. And so I think when the Pope or when bishops want to intervene, and they should intervene when they feel a need, they need to bring specifics. And they, it's called responsibility to back up your assertion, but I'm going to disagree with you, doctor, a little bit. 60 minutes cherry picked three liberal bishops to back up the Leo point of view. They didn't seek out any conservative bishops, and there are conservative bishops. So 60 minutes took the three. that we're going to pound Trump, put them on the air, and that's not unusual for them.

That's what they do. That's what they do. But the Vatican is a bureaucracy, as you well know. If you go against Pope Leo in any way at all publicly, and you're a bishop, you're toast. You're done. They're not going to brook that. So there is a fear about conservative, clerics in the Catholic Church speaking out about this.

So I went to Mass on Sunday, as I usually do. There wasn't a word about this. Don't, they don't want anything to do with this thing, okay? I mean, we got Isaac and we got Jeremiah, we got all bunch of, we got, we didn't get any Iran, okay, and in the sermon, because they go, whoa, we don't want to get on the wrong side of this, Vatican is a huge operation, and it is a secular operation way it runs. Last word. Yeah, I mean, I think that's true in a sense, you know, the Catholic Church has thought the

mafia how to behave, you know, with a very sort of strict line of command. And the Pope says something, then you follow it. You follow it. Many of you don't. I think, you know, the Catholic lady are the ones who have to speak up about these things. you speak up about these things, I speak up about these things. J.D. Vance speaks up about these things. And the Catholic laity, you know, have rights to speak to. And, you know, I think it's often been the case that Catholic rulers have often led the way on these questions.

And I think we do need greater specificity. I don't think these disputes between a Pope and a president are going away. I think we're going to see more of this. Whoever the next president is will continue to see more of that. So I think we actually have to- That would be interesting. But I think there's going to be a little detain here between Leo and Trump. I think this is going to lessen now.

I believe that. I think we found resolution. All right, doctor. Thanks very much for helping us out. Really appreciate it. Down in Texas, Clarence, Thomas gave a rare speech. 77 years old, longest serving Supreme Court justice. You know, Thomas doesn't say a lot, but here's what he told the Longhorns.

Go. I think if we don't stand up and take ownership of our country and take responsible for it, we are slowly letting others control how we think and what we think. I think the beauty of going to school is that you learn how to think for yourselves. You develop the discipline to think things through. If you think it's losing confidence, then you get up and you participate. You don't sit on the sidelines. Okay, I think the little message that was hidden there was you got to take ownership of your country.

And you got to let your opinion be known. And I'm for that more than anyone because I've made my living for 50, actually 30 years doing commentary. I was 20 years a reporter. However, you've got to know what you're talking about. Worst thing in the world is for some dumb, ideologue, run out there and start spouting of that stuff. They have no blank on clue. That's why I respected this crew in St. Edwards in Florida. They were there to seek information.

They weren't there to seek my validation or anything like that. They didn't know what I was going to say. They wanted as much information as they could get, and I gave it to them, just like I'm giving it to you right now. That's the key to a responsible American citizen ring. All right, the Vatican, particularly Pope Francis, who I liked him. Really, you know, I spent a little time in his presence. He was a big liberation theology guy, as Leo is. Leo's not as big as Francis.

The reason I'm going back to this is because one of their themes is, look, you can't keep people down into poverty. You've got to give them a way out to have lives that matter. You have to. That's your moral imperative. We do that better than anybody on earth, the United States. But you wouldn't know it by the progressive media and the Bernie Sanders crew. You'd think that we were some kind of fascist nation that, you know, boot has a boot on everybody's neck.

Well, here are the stats. There's a letter called the Clobisi letter. Okay? It's a stat. Do stats, economic stats. So I always encourage everybody to watch this program with a pen and a paper. I'm going to give you the stats now. Write them down.

There are 135 million American households. 135 million is your family unit. Okay. Out of that, there are 430,000 households with a net worth of $30 million or $30,000 or more. more so they're wealthy all right 430,000 out of 135 million but so most people here are not wealthy all right and a lot of people trying to get wealthy there's 74,000 households that are worth more than a hundred million dollars. I mean, they're the yacht people, yacht rock, or whatever. Okay, they're the

Palm Beach people. All right. Now, that is not a big crew. And it's something to ascribe to, and you can get there in this country. Can't get there in Russia or China or Europe. You cannot get there. No pathway at all. None. Government will prevent you from getting there. Okay. So wages for higher, you know, for people who have good jobs are up about 6% this year over last year. So Trump did pretty well there or has done pretty well there. Wages are coming up. High. level in three years, okay, blowing Biden away. You'd never know it, it's not reported. Now, that's not going to get you into the super rich category or even a wealthy category. Wages, if you work for somebody else, you're not getting there, unless you're an NBA or

major league baseball player, you know, or somebody like that, maybe a movie star, but even movie stars now. They can't get there. You've got to work for yourself. Local news is in decline across Canada, and this is bad news for all of us. With less local news, noise, rumors, and misinformation fill the void,

and it gets harder to separate truth from fiction. That's why CBC News is putting more journalists in more places across Canada, reporting on the ground from where you live, telling the stories that matter to all of us, because local news is big news. Choose

News, not noise, CBC News. And the reason that there has been an increase in the top U.S. household chain is because of high tech. The Bezos people, all right, where they started in the 90s and now is AI, okay, and this is Musk and all of these people. They figured it out. form the companies money came rolling it all tech money okay and uh now there's another surge with the artificial intelligence you own those companies or you're invested in those

companies heavily that's where you're gonna get super rich it's the only way the only way. But people in school, you're not taught that. And there's nothing wrong with just having a comfortable life. Nothing at all. Now, most people in this country still believe in the American dream. What's the American dream? Number one, owning a home.

So that's the top level of the American dream. You own your own home. Number two, you're debt-free. You don't know anybody anything. And number three, you can retire at 65 without a problem. That's the American dream. Okay? So the talker research outfit took a survey, 2,000 Americans.

What group do you think is the highest confidence they can reach the American dream? Hispanic Americans, recent people who have come over here, 56% of Hispanics believe they're going to achieve the American dream in our lifetime compared to 51% of non- Hispanics. The most optimistic is Gen Z, age 14 to 29, you never know that. Okay, that's not reported. They say 67% of them, they can get it.

So the youngans, they got their eye on it. Now, the government's going to tax them to death, which is happening in the major urban centers. They'll never get them. But if you go to Florida or Texas or Tennessee or one of those states where you can keep a large portion of what you earn, you'll get it. You work hard and you're honest.

isn't that interesting California so as everybody knows this guy's Fawwell Congressman he's done finished out never to be heard from again so that throws the governor's race

now the vote is on June 2nd and it's the top two could be the same party that's their election process in California so you have two demos

running against one another, two Republicans running against. Here are the top five right now, according to Emerson. Steve Hilton, he's a Fox guy, 17 percent. Chad Bianco, a sheriff, 14 percent. They're both Republicans. Tom Steyer, gazillionaire, who ran for President 14. Katie Porter, I believe she's a congressperson, 10. Javier Bicera, who worked for Biden. 10. So there it is. Now, my prediction, you're going to have Hilton against Steyer. The Dems will find some way to get Steyer in there. It's giving so much money. And so Hilton, but Hilton could beat him. I don't think it'll happen. The machine is too powerful out there, but it's possible. Now, obviously, if Hilton runs against Bianco, I don't know much about him.

then you've got two Republicans running, and you get a Republican government, California. Might save the state. All right, so we got a little surprise from YouTube, and I'm going to show you that when we come back. Okay, final thought. So I get this in the mail, you two, and I go, oh, is this another bill?

What do I got to do here? It's just, oh, all right. So, it's a plaque presented to Bill O'Reilly for passing a million subscribers on YouTube. And we got way more. We got another plaque. So we're heading toward 2 million now. So YouTube, thank you. It's a nice little plaque.

Presented to Bill O'Reilly for passing a million subscribers on YouTube. So go to our YouTube channel. I mean, it's free. Why would you not go? Fun and free. Two great words. Fun and free. I'm going to hang to someplace.

Very nice. And I got to credit my staff. They handle a lot of the YouTube work. But it's there, and we would like you to know about it. And now we have a plaque if the media says, I'm not a big YouTube guy. because I am or something. Thank you for watching and listening to the No Spin News.

See you again tomorrow.