The Daily - How Pope Francis Changed the Catholic Church

Episode Date: April 22, 2025

Church bells rang out across the world on Monday to mark the death of Pope Francis at the age of 88.Jason Horowitz, the Rome bureau chief at The New York Times, discusses the pope’s push to change the church, his bitter clashes with traditionalists, and what his papacy meant to the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics.Guest: Jason Horowitz, the Rome bureau chief of The New York Times.Background reading: For Jason Horowitz, Pope Francis was always a surprise.Francis’ death silences a voice for the voiceless.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. Photo: Andrew Medichini/Associated Press Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

From the New York Times, I'm Michael Bobarro. This is The Daily. On Monday, church bells rang out across the world, from Mexico City to Paris to Kurdistan to mark the death of Pope Francis at the age of 88. Today, I speak with my colleague, Rome Bureau Chief Jason Horowitz, about the Pope's push to change the Church, his bitter clashes with traditionalists, and what his papacy ultimately to the world's 1.4 billion Catholics. It's Tuesday, April 22nd. Jason, good evening. We know it's late there and that it's been a long day for you. So thank you. Happy to be here.

I know from the messages we've been exchanging today in preparation for this conversation that you've spent some time in St. Peter's Square where mourners are now gathered. Can you just describe that scene to us? Sure. Well, earlier in the day, it was strange sort of scene because it was mostly tourists and you had a feeling that a lot of people didn't even know what had happened. But as the day went on and pilgrims and people who were there to mourn Francis started arriving and you could really sense a sort of somber feeling take over. And by the end of the evening, there were tens of thousands of people there paying tribute

to a pope who had led the church for a dozen years, but more important than that, who had pointed the church in a new direction that a lot of them really hoped the church would continue following. And some were there also, maybe hoping it took a turn. Hmm. In a different direction. In a new direction or an old direction, depending on how you look at it. Well, that's, I think, what we really want to talk to you about the legacy and meaning of this papacy which

Turned out to be in some ways more divisive than I think those of us watching from the very beginning Might have imagined that it might be and I think actually you came to Rome pretty much around the same time that Francis I think actually you came to Rome pretty much around the same time that Francis became Pope. So I want you to just talk a little bit about the ultimate legacy of Francis. When I think of Francis, I think of sort of a dividing line in the Roman Catholic Church that there are those who see him as finally a breath of fresh air who came in willing to introduce or at least entertain reforms that would thrust the church into modernity. And so on the liberal sort of side of the church, they saw in Francis the guy who was finally going to go to bat for them and who was going to make these changes and who was

going to make the church much more relevant. On the other side of the coin, you had conservatives who had been in power for decades with John Paul II and Benedict XVI, and they first saw Francis as actually on their side, but then came to fear him and came to fear him and what he might do to the doctrine of the church, to what they consider the truth of the church, that he would basically shake it so much that he would break it. Wow. And as a result, there was a robust opposition to him within the Vatican and beyond.

And I think in the end, it's not clear what side he's on, because I don't think he thought of himself that way. I think he thought of himself as doing something very different, being a pope for not the partisan sides of the church, but for the flock. Well, I think to understand how Francis became a dividing line, even if he himself never saw himself that way, we need to talk about his background and how that background made so many people on the left and right see him as a change agent. So tell us the story of how he came to be that dividing line.

So Francis is born as Jorge Bergoglio and he's from Buenos Aires in Argentina. He's from a very humble neighborhood. You know, he's not poor, but he's more sort of middle class, but just a normal family of Italian descent. His grandmother, who he was deeply close to and who was deeply religious, was an Italian immigrant. And that also, that experience of growing up in an also an immigrant neighborhood, I think,

opened his eyes to people's trying to make it. And there were also influences throughout his life and his upbringing that I think had a lasting effect. He wanted to be a chemist at a certain point. And he had teachers who had communist politics. And it didn't mean that he was a communist, right? Which is what some of his critics said, but he sees the world from a bottom up point of view.

And that just imbues him with an empathy that in a way is his sort of guiding light, right, through everything. So what draws him to the church, which is, of course, about helping people, but is very hierarchical, and perhaps not so in keeping with this bottom-up approach that he's becoming fixated on. Right. The Roman Catholic faith was always really present in Bergoglio's life. So he

had a sense of the church as an important institution in one's life. And, you know, at a certain point, he's a teenager, he has a bunch of friends, he's going to go hang out with them, but he passes the Basilica of St. Joseph and he has an epiphany, he feels a calling and he decides that no, he's not going to be a chemist. He is going to dedicate his life to the church. He wants to be a priest and that changes his life and it changes the life of the church eventually. So Francis becomes a priest and he's a Jesuit priest, which is a Catholic order, probably best known for being intellectuals. They care a lot about education. They travel around the world. They believe a lot in social justice. And even though the hierarchy isn't necessarily what

interests him, he climbs the hierarchy. And eventually he becomes the Cardinal of Buenos Aires, which is a huge figure in Argentina, huge figure within South America. And stories start being told about this Cardinal in Buenos Aires, who is a little bit different. And I was covering the Vatican back then. And I remember there was this image of him, which made the rounds. And it was this cardinal taking the bus. And that was just something you didn't see much. I thought maybe that this is someone to pay attention to. So the way that he married these influences of his childhood, his love of neighborhood, perhaps some of that bottom-up teaching with actually being a high-ranking church member

was to do something as simple as taking the bus, making sure that his commute from home to the church is done on public transportation. Yeah, Francis, I mean, even before he was Pope Francis, he was sort of a master of gestures. It showed his flock, the entire country, that he didn't think that he was better than them. That was a talent he had.

So how does he become not just this quirky master of the gesture cardinal, but actually the pope? So I think it's important to remember where the church was in 2013, the year Francis became pope. It had been governed and led for decades by a very conservative streak. And the Pope at the time was Benedict XVI who had been the keeper of the orthodoxy, the guardian of the church's doctrine. And he retired, which shocked the entire world. Right. Popes don't retire. Right. It was a shock. And the question is, okay, where's the church going to go now? And so now maybe the church needed to try something new.

It had been with the Italians for centuries. Then it tried Europe. And so the idea was, well, these cardinals were probably gonna look elsewhere from Europe. And so the way it works is before the conclave begins. And conclave, we should just say, is the kind of election ritual of the Catholic Church. That's right, it means with the key.

They lock them in with a key so that they can't come out until they pick a new Pope. But there's a small timeframe before that begins in which the Cardinals can sort of, it's not campaigning because you're not allowed to campaign and campaign is definitely frowned upon, but you can give speeches about what you think is most important for the church, right?

So Francis Bergoglio at the time gives this speech, which is very short. And basically what he says is, we have closed the door in on ourselves. We are so self-referential. It's time not just for us to open the windows and let fresh air in, it's time for us to get out. We have got to get out of the church

and go to what he calls the peripheries, right? So far away, we need to go where people are. We need to sort of be on the streets with these people. And he means it sort of literally, right? He wants priests to get out of their churches and go talk to people. But he also means it's time for us to stop being so obsessed with ourselves and go talk to people and deal with the lives they're actually living. We need to go to them to show them that we care and show them why we think

that this is the best way to live. And that speech really sort of knocks everyone's socks off and they decide when they go into the conclave, this is the guy who's going to lead us. Were you there in Vatican City when he was named Pope? I was. I was in St. Peter's Square. And I remember that they announced the Pope's name in Latin. Qui sibi nomen imposuit Franciscum. And what was also very important, I think, is the name he took.

So he's the first Pope ever to take the name Francis, who's a 13th century saint who is known for being extremely humble and vows of poverty. And by taking the name Francis, that was, again, this is a master of gestures, already a strong sign to his fellow cardinals and to the world that his priorities were gonna be different. ["The Star-Spangled Banner"]

One of the things I remember is that as soon as he came out onto the balcony, he was just more colloquial. And you know, the one of the first things he said is like, you know, good evening. Right? It just, it seemed less sort of like a regal address to the masses below him than someone who people could relate to. Right. I remember watching this all, hearing those details you were just describing and starting to think, oh, something interesting is going on here inside the Catholic Church. But I assume this was the case with many people, reserving judgment, because this is an incredibly traditional rule-bound institution. Yeah. And he's doing all these things that symbolically say, wow, something's totally different here. But you're right. This is an institution.

So the question was, you know, was this all style or was there going to be substance here? So right away, he says something which completely shocks the world, which is when he's asked about gay priests. And he says, well, who am I to judge? Right? Now, this is the Pope. And the answer is, for the past many centuries, you're exactly the person to judge. Right, right, exactly. This is the Pope. This is the guy, like his job description is judging. And he says, but you know, that's not what I'm here for.

Right? And eyes go wide when he says that. And people start saying, well, wait a minute, maybe this is something really different here. So there's tons of these little things and sometimes not so little things, right? You start saying, if you're a married, divorced person in the church, maybe you can receive communion again. And now that's been a no-no, right? That's against the doctrine. Everyone is all of a sudden paying attention to Rome, where you have this guy who is really turning the church on its head. And people start talking about something called the Francis effect.

Are all these people gonna start coming back to the church and filling the pews because they love Francis so much. And then the sort of the policy questions start arising, especially from people who have been out in the cold for a long time in the Catholic church, right? People who want married priests, people who want women to be priests, people who want all sorts of things are saying, wait, maybe this is the guy who's going to finally change

things. Right. Maybe a revolution is genuinely afoot in this most unrevolutionary institution. Exactly. And he feels very much like a man of the moment. Think about it. At that time, you have Barack Obama in the White House, you have Angela Merkel in Germany, you have liberal leaders across Europe. You have this feeling that there's this migration crisis

and it's time to help these people, right? And we've got to find a solution to this. As many European nations debate tougher immigration policies, Pope Francis has highlighted the value of migrants. Earlier, Francis urged a joint meeting of Congress to reject what he called a mindset of hostility towards refugees and undocumented immigrants. It becomes a beacon on issues like climate change, which he cares deeply about. With the global gathering of Catholic bishops as a backdrop,

Pope Francis warned the world is approaching the point of no return on climate. He urged decisive acceleration to renewable energies and away from oil and gas. So on that, on questions of human rights and human dignity. Pope Francis is the Pope of mercy. He's the Pope of the poor. He's the Pope that visits inmates. And he seems very much to be on the forefront of all of this, right?

He's not just a spiritual leader stuck in the Vatican. He's a global player. His Twitter account, at Pontifex, ranks in the top five most searched words on the internet. And he's everywhere. Prime magazine names Pope Francis as its person of the year. Time calls the Holy Father a septuagenarian superstar. It's hard to overstate how big a deal Francis was. All over the world, everyone felt it, but especially if you were someone covering the

Vatican, which had sort of become sleepy and irrelevant in a way to the big discussions going on. All of a sudden, the Roman Catholic Church had a leader who was not just at the table, but in some ways, you know, was sort of dictating the agenda. But while he's sort of getting all this adoration, within the church itself, there starts to be a feeling that not just of bemusement, but of real concern amongst conservatives, that wait a minute, is this guy actually gonna start changing the rules of the church? And the rules of the church isn't just sort of legislation,

right, it's the truth for them. And so the idea that you would have a pope who is extremely popular using that popularity to change doctrine, what they care most about, starts really causing a lot of fear within conservative circles, and a backlash starts building. We'll be right back. Jason, talk about this backlash that you just mentioned, which I think means talking through what changes Pope Francis brings to the day-to-day operations and teachings of the church itself, not just the things he's saying to the outside world.

There's a saying in the Vatican that personnel is policy. And one of the first things that Francis starts doing is getting rid of people. And so the guy who is in charge of the office that protects the doctrine, the congregation for the doctrine of the faith, it's called, he gets fired. There's an American Cardinal named Raymond Burke, who's the head of what is essentially the Supreme Court of the Vatican. He's kicked off. All these figures who are sort of the favorite heroes of the traditionalists and the conservatives

and the church, the heads start rolling. This is looking like a real kind of traditionalist house cleaning. It is a bit of a house cleaning is what's going on. And, you know, these are figures who, especially in the case of Burke, one of his positions was he was on something called the Congregation of Bishops. And what they do is they pick the next generation of bishops. So that's a big deal, right? Because that means that all the clergy and all the bishops who really run things for the next generation are gonna be of a different mindset.

And that mindset becomes clear is much less traditional and is much more open to debate and much more pastoral. And that's sort of the guiding word for Francis, pastoral. And again, it goes back to the very beginnings with him Pastoral and that's sort of the guiding word for Francis pastoral and again It goes back to you know The very beginnings with him and he just wants a bishop and he wants a priest who's going to be with people And helping them work things out. He doesn't want somebody Shaking their finger at a parishioner and saying no. No, you can't do that. That's not what we do here

And so that turns out to be a major shift and And it's not changing the laws of the church, the doctrine. What was doctrine the day before Francis got in is still doctrine now. But even if it's not changing the laws, the people who love the laws start thinking that this is a gigantic threat to that old mindset. And what is the reaction among those who see this as a threat?

You know, at first they give them some time, you know, they give them a couple years, and then they start saying, well, this is really dangerous. And a couple of them start speaking out. It's very, very unusual to challenge the Pope if you're a Cardinal, right? Right. And the whole thing is basically a hierarchy that's based on the idea that the pope is in charge and That you might agree you might disagree But if you disagree you probably don't go out and say something because he's the pope that changes

The conservatives are so upset and they're so worried that Francis is gonna wreck the church that they start even sending in these complicated technical Vatican things called dubias, which are questions. And what they're doing is they're questioning that Francis's own understanding of what he's doing. They're saying, you said this thing, do you really know what you're talking about? Wow. And so Francis, who's very politically savvy, responds in a way that drives them crazy, which is he doesn't even deign to respond. Wow. He ignores them completely, drives them nuts. Why? Because he doesn't want to give them oxygen, is what I think is what it was.

At the time they're a small but noisy, if somewhat powerful, within the Vatican group, but he knows he is wildly popular figure around the world. He's wildly popular, especially with rank and file Catholics. Regular Catholics adore him because they see him as caring about them. And so why would he all of a sudden get into a theological argument with a conservative opposition group within the church, which is not what he sees himself there for. So he ignores them. But while he ignores them, they don't go away. They keep building momentum. And many of them happen to be American because the American church is extremely conservative, traditionally very conservative. And in America, there is a lot of money

and there is a lot of media. And those two things amplify the opposition to Francis. The Pope is the vicar of Christ on earth, full stop. However, when he goes and talks about politics, that doesn't deal with theology or the church or infallibility. And it becomes also very much attached to and married to populist politics.

So you have people like Steve Bannon coming to Rome. The pope has been consistent that all the problems in the world are because of this populist, nationalist movement. And he's using his outlets to try and amplify the messages that are coming out of the conservative American church. And it ends up being this sort of strange ecosystem with a common target, and that is Francis. So Pope Francis should stop worrying about the criticism of Donald Trump,

and he should start to worry about this crisis in the Catholic Church. It keeps getting bigger and bigger. I remember being in a basement of a hotel where all the entire opposition to Francis, essentially, within the Vatican had gathered. And there was Cardinal Burke on the dais. He basically said that we have a problem where we think the pope might be a heretic, right?

He couches his language. That's an extraordinary thing to suggest. Yeah. And it wasn't unusual in that crowd, right? They had basically become convinced that, oh, we have a major problem here. We have a pope who doesn't believe in what the Catholic Church believes in. Allegations of cover-up come to the Vatican, and Pope Francis remains mum.

Then eventually you have actually accusations levied against Francis, accusing him of knowing about child sexual abuse and hiding it. In a bombshell letter, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano urges Pope Francis to resign over what he calls a conspiracy of silence about McCarrick. And it ends up being a full on sort of revolt against Francis. He tries to stay above it, but I remember I asked him once on a flight. but I remember I asked him once on a flight. I said, you know, these people, they can't stand you.

And they're talking about breaking apart from the church. What do you think? I mean, what's your opinion about this? And he basically said something that I thought was really interesting. He said, look, the history of the church is very, very long. There's been lots of schisms, right? These people breaking apart.

I hope they don't do it, but if they do it, and he sort of shrugged and he said, then they do it, I'm not scared. In other words, he's saying, you know, have a party, guys. If you really want to break away off of, on this, he's daring them. Yeah, he was saying like he was playing chicken with them. Because on some level he knows they're probably not going to do it.

They're probably not going to do it, They're probably not going to do it. And it's also not what he thinks it's about. Right? He thinks that this is a distraction from doing the mission of the church, which is going out and being pastors to people who need their help. So Jason, as this revolt, as you're describing it, is playing out among the conservative wings of the church, I'm curious how the progressive side of the ledger is seeing Pope Francis, because the things you're describing,

the personnel changes that he's making, I'm guessing that they don't satisfy the appetite for change among progressives who want big sweeping changes around issues like who can be a priest and who can take communion. Exactly. I think what these initial sort of symbolic changes that Francis does, that what they do is they wet the appetite of liberals in the Catholic Church and they who start thinking, oh my God, this guy's actually going to make huge changes. And they're waiting and then they're waiting some more and I think

it starts dawning on liberals that maybe he's actually not going to change anything. And that maybe this is actually symbolic and the very things that upset the conservatives in a way also upset the liberals because it's not enough for the liberals. Fascinating. Right? What liberals because it's not enough for the liberal. Fascinating. Right? What's the definition of not enough? Well, if you look across the board, there are things where he seemed to walk right up to the line on.

For example, remember when we talked about divorce? It seemed like he had opened the door, he was going to walk right through it. Instead all he did was crack open the door. He never actually made the change. But then even on sort of the hot button topics of the Catholic Church, such as women becoming priests, no movement on that. Women becoming deacons. He closes the door on that as well. He allows a little bit of debate, but it's debate that he's allowing and he's not changing the rules. And so at a certain point, it starts dawning on liberals

in the church that, wait a minute, maybe this guy's actually not going to change anything. Maybe this is all about sort of redirecting the ship, but where are we going to go? Is he going to move it forward? Why do you think that he wasn't willing to use this extraordinary authority he has to make these kinds of changes? I mean, if he's willing to say to the US conservative wing of the Catholic Church, you know, I'm sorry you don't like it, if you need to break off, break off. If he's willing to do that, why not make some of the changes that it felt like in his heart

he might have wanted to make? Or is that a misreading of it? Is it the case that he actually didn't want to see these changes? Or was he worried that he might take the church someplace it wasn't ready to go? I think that the important way to see this and the important way Francis saw this is that the church is much bigger than Europe and the United States. The future of the church, if you look around, is in Africa, it is in Asia. And if you make these big changes, right, you are going to lose a lot of people.

So on LGBTQ Catholics, right, which was a major issue especially for people in the United States and Europe, he opened the church, right? He let people in, but he wouldn't change the rules. Maybe because in Africa, homosexuality is amongst Catholics is viewed very, very negatively. What Europe or the United States would view as progress would be viewed as a deal breaker for the place that actually has people and

has the future of the church. So I think if there was a conservative argument that Francis came to understand or accept was that the unity of the church was extremely important. And maybe he didn't wanna be the guy who destroyed the whole thing over, what might in a way be an interest group, a Western liberal interest group. And I think really what he believes is that he believes

is that he believes that the church is gonna be around a long time. And what he did is he opened up these debates and he wants the church to reach a sort of consensus on these things so that it can move together. Now that's really hard, right? Because the world's a big place with lots of different views and lots of different Catholics,

he thinks differently. But I think that he thinks to make those big changes to doctrine and to law, you want everyone to be on board or at least a consensus that you feel like you're not going to break the church apart. Jason, listening to you talk, I'm thinking of that phrase you used at the beginning of our conversation about the dividing line over Francis. And in hearing you talk about what Francis was willing to let upset conservatives and liberals, the through line seems to be a desire to make sure that the largest number of Catholics possible in the fastest growing places in the world end up seeing the church

as relevant. And if something doesn't do that, he doesn't really want to be a part of it. And if someone stands in his way of something that might do that, he would dismiss them. Am I getting that right? I think you're right that he's got a very tricky balancing act, right? I think for Francis, it's not just about being relevant, which he desperately wants the church to be relevant in the lives of Catholics all around the world, but it's not just to be about being relevant in the fastest growing places or the places where the future of the

church is. I think for Francis, he also wants to make sure that the Catholics in Europe and the United States are still part of this giant mission. But I think what he has little patience for, and I think this is where he ran into trouble with some of the American conservatives, is what he views as ideological or politically motivated dissent. I think when he senses that the motivation behind this has more to do with power, more to do with the word he uses, which he hates more than anything is clericalism, the idea that a priest is higher than his flock, it turns him off immediately.

And I think that's what he was trying to sort of rid the church of. Well, Jason, the really complex portrait you were presenting here is of a pope who inspires both the progressive and conservative wings of the Catholic Church to think things that don't really come to pass. The progressive wing thinks that Francis is going to be this revolutionary figure who delivers decades worth of changes in a short period, and he doesn't on all kinds of fronts. And then the conservative wing is suspicious of him in this profound way, thinks he's going to tear the church apart and break all its traditions, and he doesn't do that either.

So in a sense, he lets down both sides. In that sense, what exactly is his legacy when we think about that concept you brought up at the very beginning of this dividing line and where he sits on it? Yeah, I agree with you. I think in many ways he's sort of the pope of great expectations that are never fulfilled on either side. That doesn't mean, though, that he didn't do anything. Right? I think that even though he doesn't change the rules that many liberals were hoping for, and that

he doesn't break the place, which is what many conservatives were worried about, I think that he does something that's really important, which is he sort of changes the priorities or the idea of what the Catholic church is around for, right? And that I think was the thing that was most important to him and his supporters would argue that he did a pretty good job of changing people's minds or at least some people's minds about what the church is here for.

And it's pretty simple. His idea of the church was just, it's full of priests and nuns and all these people in institution who are there for people and to bring the faith closer to the people. And everything else is sort of a distraction. And that seems really basic,

but he would argue, I think, that, yeah, it's basic and that's not what we were doing. For decades, we were so obsessed with how we dressed and which way we faced when we said this prayer and what prayer we said, that we forgot what we were here for. And so I think what his entire pontificate was really about was reminding people why

the church exists in his view. And the big ship, the Catholic church, right? It's 1.3 billion people. It's been around for 2000 years. It's not easy to make big changes. There's an enormous bureaucracy that tries to stop change. But I think that he moved things enough that it's very hard to say he did nothing. He also opened up debates, which is something that now people forget. There were things you could not talk about. And more, do you remember when I said

that within the church personnel is policy? Well, Francis named a lot of new cardinals and a lot of new bishops. And those people tend to see the church the way that Francis does. Which means that going forward in the future, the people picking the next Pope within a couple of weeks are going to be people who see the church

more like Francis does, who probably want more of a pastor than someone who's going to be defending doctrine and rules. I mean, what you're describing is a kind of great seeding of future change by a pope who didn't necessarily make the big changes himself. Yeah, I think what Francis ultimately decided is that he was not going to be the guy who was going to make the change, but he was going to create the circumstances, the ability to discuss things, but also the personnel, the actual people who might be more willing, even

than he was, to make the actual changes. So I mean, when people look back now at Francis, was it a revolution that he led? Maybe not, but I think it's very hard to argue that he didn't make a big change within the Catholic Church. Jason, thank you very much. We appreciate it. Thanks for having me, Michael.

On Monday night, my colleague Emma Bobola spoke to some of those who had come to St. Peter's Square in order to honor and mourn Pope Francis. How do you feel today that he's gone? I think the world has lost a very important person, but it was coming. Well, he was a breath of fresh air. Oh, he is a very good guy. He has a good heart. Very giving and generous. A guide for me, for my wife and my son. We might not have always agreed or anything like that, but we...

No matter what the differences were, he was our dad. And that's a difficult thing to lose. He was going in such a positive direction. Yes. He has turned the church in a new way, taken a new corner. So I think it will not be derailed.

But there are forces who would like it to be. I hope the next pope will be as strong as he was. The Vatican says that unlike many of his predecessors, Pope Francis has chosen not to be buried inside the Vatican. Instead, he will be laid to rest at a church in Rome in an undecorated tomb bearing a single word, Franciscus, Latin for Francis. Shortly thereafter, cardinals from across the world will meet inside the Sistine

Chapel and vote by secret ballot on who should succeed Francis as the next pope. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. On Monday, Harvard sued the Trump administration, arguing that the White House had violated its First Amendment rights by seeking to control what the university can teach and who it can hire. The White House froze billions of dollars in funds to Harvard after the university refused to comply with an array of demands, including audits of professors for plagiarism

and the appointment of an outsider to ensure that Harvard's academic programs teach diverse viewpoints. Those demands, Harvard said, now threaten its academic independence. And the stock market nosedived again on Monday because of Trump's tariffs and his ongoing attacks on the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell a staggering 972 points and is now on pace for its worst April since 1932. The sell-off intensified as Trump called Powell a quote major loser

demanded that Powell cut interest rates and Suggested that an economic slowdown would be Powell's fault and not his Today's episode was produced by Rochelle Banja Carlos Prieto Shannon Lin and Michael Simon Johnson. It was edited by Maria Byrne, fact-checked by Susan Lee, contains original music by Alisha But Etube, Dan Powell, and Diane Wong, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brungberg and Ben Landsvark of Wonderly. Special thanks to Emma Bobola. That's it for the Daily. I'm Michael Boboro. See you tomorrow.