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The Irrational Trump Pope Spat · Mark and Pete

• 0:05
  The irrational Trump Pope spat. Welcome to Mark and Pete, where
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  I can declare it's war. Or at least it's an irrational
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  battle of silly tweets by people who should know better.
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  Yes, this is Mark and Pete's two blokes with half an opinion.
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  Now here's our first thought. The irrational rules of
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  unruliness. A president, Pope and a fool
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  contemplated the world and how to rule.
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  The president had hope, the Pope a cope.
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  But the fall wasn't the sharpest tool.
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  The Pope disappeared to his vestibule.
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  The president appeared and sat on a stool.
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  The Pope blessed his cotton socks, which was an unorthodox,
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  and the fool laughed like a mule.
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  The fall began to dribble and drool, but neither the Pope nor
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  president was cool. But after open confession, we
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  get the impression we're still unclear who is.
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  Best to rule. Yes, quiet extraordinary, isn't
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  it? When you think about our great
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  leaders of the bygone area, They stood there for integrity and
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  they actually represented the people.
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  Today we just have nonsense on social media.
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  Yes, the. U.S.
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  President has accused the pontiff of being weak on crime
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  and terrible for foreign policy. Is he right?
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  Mr. Pete, I ask you, when we see the Pope come out on social
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  media and battle with AUS president, a world leader, this
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  is unprecedented. What say you about the behaviour
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  of our leaders? Well, it's it's perhaps a so
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  that you could put in a tweet or a cliche to say, well, it's a
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  sign of the times that this is because the way social media has
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  taken over discourse on almost every level.
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  Yet it means that the way that we communicate even at these in
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  the higher echelons of power, the Pope, the head of the of the
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  whole of the Roman Catholic Church, the biggest Christian
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  denomination, versus the president of the United States,
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  the most powerful country in the world.
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  Throwing insults and short 180 characters or let or whatever
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  the character limit is these days tweets at each other really
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  reduces the both their respective positions in the
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  world and the level of the discourse to really the lowest
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  level possible. It's as as listeners will be
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  aware, we're big fans of both the Pope and President Trump,
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  but this really is beneath them. Yes, I think that's a very good
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  point. Now, what's also rather worrying
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  here is other people have got into the mix and started add to
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  the conversation. So the Italian Prime Minister,
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  George Gina Georgia Maloney has come into the conversation
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  saying that basically the Pope is the head of the Catholic
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  Church and it is right and normal for him to call for peace
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  and to condemn for every form of war.
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  Now the problem here is, is this is that is we would recognise
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  that the Pope would naturally do that and we would also recognise
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  some of the political actions that Donald Trump is taking,
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  particularly against Iran. My worry, Mr. Pete, is that when
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  world leaders decide to start to get into this almost childlike
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  behaviour of, of commentary, it sends a message, I think a wrong
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  one to those who are either affected or to the rest of the
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  world. Because what we're really, we're
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  looking for is we're, we're looking for a little bit more of
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  a highbrow conversation. We're looking for thought
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  leadership. We're looking for those who can
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  really hold their ground. And, and I don't see this.
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  It's almost as though the whole thing has been trivialised for
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  what really is a very serious matter.
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  Yes, I mean, Trump is particularly effective at using
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  this short form of communication, you know, like a
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  really short form blog, Twitter and of course in in his own true
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  social, he's very effective at it.
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  But sometimes it just isn't appropriate.
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  And in fact, people have noted that when Donald Trump was
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  banned from Twitter, his approval rating went up.
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  So you can look back particularly at the those daily
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  tracking polls of presidents and in his case of ex presidents, of
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  their popularity at, at that time, an ex president and you
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  can look and see that that is the case.
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  I'm thinking of the Rasmussen daily, the daily poll on the
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  popularity, the approval of various of the president and ex
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  presidents and comparison with current presidents.
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  And yeah, you can see that it's actually true.
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  The the sort of things that they've said to each other maybe
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  have been taken out of context by some people, though it made
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  it seem worse than it is because they are making they're both
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  making, I think important points.
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  I think they really, I think you'd agree.
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  Well, they're just what they're doing is just using the wrong
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  arena to say it and there and also being too insulting.
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  They could be calm and rather than regarding implying that the
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  other is the enemy of what of of each other like you're, you're
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  pitting then the millions of Roman Catholics against the
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  millions of Americans. Some of you know some there is
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  some overlap. Of course, what Trump is saying
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  is that the Pope doesn't understand.
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  There's a quote that he put out a true social.
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  It's important that the Pope understands Iran is a threat to
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  the world. That's was reported on Reuters.
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  So he actually said that. And he said the Pope is weak on
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  foreign policy. These are reason, reasonable
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  points. You could argue, well, should he
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  have a foreign policy as a Pope? I guess you could argue that he
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  meant weak on understanding foreign policy.
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  The Pope itself says war is always a defeat.
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  It's madness, which is a fairpoint because if you go to
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  war, it means that all the other avenues they've been pursuing
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  have failed and war is the the worst possible outcome.
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  So it's a defeat in in that sense.
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  And then he saw that although even even if it were the case
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  that it was right to attack Iran to stop it from or at least
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  reduce its ability to quickly produce nuclear weapons, it
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  escalated. And I think Trump has, well,
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  Trump has definitely said that he was surprised at how they
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  escalated him by attacking neighboring countries.
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  And then the Pope went on to say in in this was in an address,
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  you know, to the from his, you know, a speech rather says
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  rather than in a tweet. But he said we must stop before
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  it is too late. So he's looking at the
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  escalation, which is good. So they're both are making good
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  points. It's a pity that it has it.
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  It comes across like a silly a silly argument because of their
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  irrational use of this particular style.
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  I don't it's the start. It's what the way that they're
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  conducting the argument, not what's behind it, which is a
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  good discussion to have two sides of whether you should go
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  to war or not. And I would agree with the Pope
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  here that the last thing you want to do is go to war.
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  But my understanding is that's also Trump's point of view.
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  So why not start there with a point of agreement?
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  Here, here's a No, I, I think that, look, they all come from
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  different viewpoints. The Pope himself actually had
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  some interviews with the media, and he mentioned very clearly
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  that his role is not that of a politician, but as someone is
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  spreading the message of peace. And he said in an interview, I
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  have No Fear of the Trump administration or speaking out
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  loudly of the message of the Gospel, which is what I believe
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  in. And I'm here to do what the
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  church is here to do, and that's fine.
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  But my question to you, Mr. Pete, is do you think that the
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  Pope, who's relatively new to his role in this position now,
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  has been poorly advised? Because going into social media,
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  and I do understand that over the years social media has taken
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  on different forms and it's almost become basically a form
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  of communications that many stakeholders do.
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  And of in the past we would not have heard or seen popes do it
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  in the same way. But do you think he's been ill
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  advised to go out in this way on social?
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  Media, yes, I think that he, I think that Donald Trump, you
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  can't say that he was ill advised.
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  You could say that he's mistaken.
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  He makes the decisions. I think that Pope Leo would have
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  taken advice from the way that he's that he's branched out into
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  this. He wasn't known particularly for
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  his presence on social media beforehand.
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  So it seems that he's taken advice responding, I guess,
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  though, to the way that Trump conducts himself.
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  But that doesn't mean that you need to do it as well.
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  But it's the, the actual positions they're taken whilst
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  being, I would say reasonable positions, both Trump and the
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  Pope, reasonable positions to take.
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  As as I said before on this show, I I think that Trump was
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  right to engage around in the way that he did a better, more
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  reasoned approach of the of, of responding to the Pope with the
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  Pope not trying to engage Trump in the what ends up being a
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  slanging match on on Twitter would have helped.
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  Why do you need to try and best Trump at something that he's
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  good at despite his, despite the Pope saying, Oh yes, I, I'm not
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  being political about this. He's been so political,
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  extremely political, by making these comments.
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  You can't just say I'm not political and then make
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  extremely political comments. I'm only proclaiming the gospel.
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  Except for loads of Christians who believe the gospel disagree
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  with you. That's disingenuous.
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  I agree. Well, look, we know that the
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  actual topics themselves are rather contentious.
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  They're very serious and many people are obviously concerned
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  about World Peace. But as I sort of alluded to at
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  the beginning of this episode, whether it's a Pope, whether
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  it's a president or a fall, as far as I'm concerned at this
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  moment in time, I'll vote for the fall, I think.