Holy Week, Artemis II Lifts Off

Now on 105.9 FM and streaming worldwide on the WMAL app, O'Connor and company. It is 5 0 7. It's Thursday morning and it's the second day of April and what a busy day it was yesterday from the moment we got off the air until well close to midnight it was just an at-chin-packed day all of it revolving around the president of the United States from arguments at the Supreme Court that he attended to an Easter lunch where he basically held court into the stand-up routine to an address to the nation about the latest in the conflict in Iran and oh by the way in the background it appears a deal to restore funding for the Department of Homeland Security struck between leader John The Thune and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson. We're gonna unpack all of that for you. Oh and did we mention we also launched a rocket on a mission to the moon? Yeah we got a lot to discuss today and of course looking forward to the future. It's 705 Mark McCory and Center for Immigration Studies talk about yesterday's arguments about birthright citizenship 805. General Jack Keane will discuss yesterday's speech by the president and what the next several weeks are gonna look like for our military and then at 835 we'll speak with our friend Kurt Schlichter columnist at Town Hall and he'll well he can talk about everything. That's all coming up it's Larry O'Connor you know who else can talk about everything? My sidekick today Radn Shackgun with me. She's Cassie Smedley. Good morning Cassie. Good morning Larry so good to be with you. Thank you it's good to be be be with you as well. I don't know what I was trying to and happy Holy Thursday to everybody. Well with all of this going on also we also had Passover last night and now it's Holy Thursday for those of us who are Christian and it's all full steam ahead from tonight's Mass all the way through our glorious Easter. Hallelujah. It's this is it. It's go time. The Tritum as we Catholics like to refer to it. Do you go to Mass every day? I do. I do and I'll be honest as much as I love the Easter vigil which is incredible in Easter morning. Tonight's is my favorite. I love Holy Thursday Mass. The the focus on the Last Supper and the institution of the priesthood and the washing of the feet and all of the things that we Catholics like to do because we're all drama queens and the music on Holy Thursday is phenomenal. I think the music from Holy Thursday hangs with you because obviously Good Friday music is so solemn and the Mass is so solemn understandably so and it's just sort of the Holy Thursday sort of hangs with you all the way through. It sort of coasts me through the sorrow and the despair of the crucifixion and then boom the explosion of joy on Easter Sunday. It really is quite a little journey that we take. I just can't wait tonight and my daughter who is now she's doing graduate school up at New Haven. I'm flying up to she actually sent me a text earlier this week saying can you come up and you know be with me for Holy for Holy Week and so we sort of moved our schedules around and I'm going to be heading up there later today. I'll be on the year tomorrow morning. Good Friday but but from remote location so that I can be with my daughter for Easter for the first time in years because she's been on the West Coast all this time. Oh I love that. That's awesome and I love that she called to be like Dad can you come spend a Holy Week with me? I know. Raising her right? Well she's singing with the choir at her at the school she goes to and she um she decided she decided when she was there that she was going to join the chapel and go to go to Catholic Mass on campus and then she started singing with it and her well she goes to I don't know why I'm shy she goes to Yale. She's in the graduate program at Yale and Yale has a whole you know people forget that Yale was founded as a as a Christian college and they still have an incredible divinity program including a um a worship music program that is just internationally known so if if you're a musician a singer a composer what have you and you want your career to be focused on on faith-based worship and music Yale's a good place to go you're going to get a good gig right and so subsequently the music at their choirs and the music for all of their religious services is just phenomenal just incredible and so she sings with her choir up there and she said you know it's pretty amazing we're going to have a great great masses and I'd like and and yeah it's like you know when your 26 year old daughter reaches out to you and says you want to you know come spend Easter with me it's like yeah I kind of have to make that happen you're gonna you're gonna move that in there yeah for sure it's not going to happen very much longer so I'm excited about it maybe maybe not but that's cool yeah and you you with your little munchkins you get to do uh I mean this is so now that your kids are of the age now where this is where they start remembering it's like for instance your oldest does she even remember Easter last year um but not not in a sense of like the why even from the Easter Bunny perspective it's like oh we did fun stuff this day right but and I got to dress her pretty dress yeah yes but we know it's right because she's four and we're um we were just talking about this I know but we get to do we're here normally we're traveling for Easter so we're here so I'm very excited to instill the traditions we're working on the balance of the reason for the season but also trying to be a fun mom and do the fun Easter things and we'll dye the eggs and all of that stuff but we'll also we do a lamb cake did you ever grow up making a lamb cake I didn't but I have I have heard about it it's yeah that's kind of so we did our dry run of that so ready to go so it'll be really fun and then I think we're gonna get to go to the White House Easter egg roll on Monday so I am really excited to kind of do our own personal traditions and then some of these distinctly DC traditions it's it's hard to sort of you want oh you always want to instill in children the reason for these holidays if you can and Christmas is super easy but you know baby was born baby Jesus was born do you know oh Jesus like you know on the yeah the guys on the cross will they hear you as a baby starts as a baby and so that's pretty resurrection is hard to explain hard to get your head around yes when you're when you're not in kindergarten yet so I really love your pointers on this because I'm struggling I'm trying to remember actually I try to remember I think we may have put it in terms at that point you know because we're Catholic they're used to seeing Jesus on the cross because we have crucifixes everywhere and so we sort of explain a bit of that but it is it is hard to the concept of sacrifice and all of that it's kind of hard to sort of you know toddlers generally speaking aren't into sacrifice for anything right they don't want to give up anything for any reason whatsoever so it's sort of hard to lay that out there I want to say that we just use sort of larger language like you know Jesus I think we made I think we did we told our toddlers Jesus today's the day that we celebrate Jesus coming back from the dead and and he saved us all he saved us all and I think that was they understand the concept of save and so we you know if you said this is this I think but but honestly let's let's face it a lot of us adults don't quite get it all the time right you think about it so the best way yeah I know here for all the resources but right now she thinks our old family dog is about to come back from the dead this weekend too she's kind of like oh everybody gets to come back and visit well okay it's not quite you're getting there so you use the family dog as an example you just said here's someone that we love oh she just well I should say I was sticking with Jesus and I was like this is great and this you know whatever it's just one person only only one person in all of human history that that's and whatever I know biblically there's some stuff about others coming but well Lazarus was brought back but yes but I'm trying not to keep the focus and the little girl she's like there are a couple little girls all right sorry go ahead right I know Jesus Jesus cured one and brought a little girl back from the death and then st peter brought a little girl back from the death from death but that's not a resurrection one thing at a time all right I'm just but so anyway but we're in bible mode looks like we're gonna have nice weather cast the beauty of talking about um the christianity and the resurrection of Jesus and everything on the morning of holy thursday especially today um we we cannot possibly bore or offend our jewish friends and listeners because it's Passover and they're not listening Passover so there you go we we did it all right I wish them a blessed Passover of course we do we we listen I um we uh all right we'll move on from our christian bible thumping and we'll focus on the phenomenal launch yesterday down in florida as we are heading back as as a human race and most specifically as americans with one canadian until we are heading back to the moon we'll get into the details of how thrilling it was to watch that launch in a moment first though 515 in-depth interviews we feature newsmaking interviews with the top guests on the whole planet and I'll ask the questions you only dream of other interviewers asking and a front row seat to the most important conversations of the day this is a show with an obsessive focus on what's good for america you are going to love vince the vince show following listen on your favorite platform well the crew of orion on the artemist two mission to the moon and currently uh circumnavigating the earth in orbit and they're going to they're going to go I think they go around twice and then they slingshot toward the moon that the oh it's funny yesterday well first of all did you see the launch was that not a spectacular spectacular yes that was cool we turned on the another thing of explaining to small children yesterday but it was very cool to have on and have everybody gathered around the tv to watch yes it was and there's something about gathering around as a child and seeing things like this I so I am old enough to remember the very last moon launch and I do remember I actually don't remember the launch to the moon and the Apollo missions but I do remember the splashdown because I remember remarking to one of my brothers that you know the three parachutes that come down with the capsule for the splashdown and I said it looked like Mickey Mouse because of the three you know the three circles oh sure I have a vivid memory as a little child watching that on television saying oh look Mickey Mouse and my brothers got a kick out of that that's pretty much all I remember of the Apollo launches but a core memory nonetheless yes and how many more memories were made yesterday well most millennials I mean I don't want to speak for you but probably the most vivid memory of space travel for you was gathering in a classroom to watch the Challenger launch because children all around the country all around the country in the when was it 86 1986 gathered to watch the Challenger mission because the first civilian was on that was on that Challenger and she was a teacher so they made a whole curriculum for kids and so all these little children are watching it that the disaster happened I know I was um so the Challenger I was in a crib during that so I don't know all right so you're a little too young for that but but my um it was funny last night we happened to be FaceTiming with my parents and oh yeah we've got it on blah blah blah and my mom paused the conversation she couldn't go on until she saw that that rocket was safely making its way on its journey I do think a lot of people have that moment of holding their breath and just as we were saying you know as we were talking when we first got up this morning like it's still it's such an experimental thing we and it's a relatively new experiment still this space travel these ideas space missions we haven't been doing them that long relative to so many other things and it's a hold your breath moment but it's very cool yeah it is it is funny how we sort of we reached a point I remember that with the Challenger we took it for granted that it was like well we got this down now nothing can go wrong right and and obviously something disastrous happened but that's you know you either you either have this you have this memory this this little touchstone in you of this exhilaration and excitement of goose pimples and sort of this I don't know emotional mystery of what it's like to be able to to travel and explore and it sort of captures something in us some part of our human spirit and I would make the case specifically for Americans because we're the ones who have been able to achieve this we're the ones who have been able to put a focus on it the rest of the world celebrates it but they don't come close and let's face it we Americans are all ancestors of explorers of some type and unless you're Elizabeth Warren and you're part of her you know Native American tribe setting aside that and even they were explorers because they came across the Bering Strait from Russia to settle this continent right so but but we all have ancestry in our DNA of people who have taken a risk either if you go back to the Mayflower days and the and those incredible explorers and adventurers or if your ancestors like mine decided to come across on immigrant ships in the late 19th century that was a risk that was a journey that was mystery that was I don't know what's out there but I'm gonna I'm gonna take that adventure and take that risk that's who Americans are and and I do believe it manifests into what we saw yesterday this new mission to at this point just slingshot around the moon but eventually the next mission will be to put boots on the ground if I can use that term yeah and you know thank you to Gale King and Katy Perry for their pioneers their astronauts as well Larry you know because of them because they walked yesterday's astronauts could fly do you think they watched it yesterday Katy Perry got a little lump in her throat she sort of thumped her chest looked at the screen pointed and said I'm with you I'm with you my brothers and sisters she said I remembered okay this is the point where this is happening and then she said oh I've lost it now I don't know what they're still up there they didn't come right back what um no but yes all your points are very well taken sorry for taking us off that patriotic course that's fantastic all right we'll continue you know let's let's keep talking about the uh the actual nuts and bolts of the mission and by the way yesterday we had an astronaut on the show yesterday and I said so once they get up into Earth's orbit before they actually you know aim toward the moon and start heading toward the moon what are they going to do while they're orbiting the earth and he said oh they're going to test the systems out and make sure they're working the first system that he mentioned that they had to test out was the toilet system and I found that hilarious but obviously oh well that makes sense because if you know the toilet ain't working it's going to be a long journey well guess what they tested and guess what had some problems last night once they got into Earth's orbit we got an issue with the toilet system right now I don't know if it's resolved yet but we're going to give you all the details on what our astronauts are doing right now what the mission's going to look like and what the next nine and a half days are going to have in store for us as this incredible moment of human achievement American achievement transfers before our eyes that's coming up in just a moment it's 523 now on 105.9 FM and streaming worldwide on the WMAL app O'Connor and company it's 536 on the second day of April you survived April Fools and what a day it was lot in the news that we're going to unpack all morning long and then focus on the future at 705 Mark Kirkorian Center for Immigration Studies will give us his review of yesterday's discussion at the Supreme Court 805 General Jack Keane will give us his review of the president's speech last night and then at 835 Kurt Schlifter will basically tell us whatever is on his mind Kurt can talk about the military and he can talk about the legality of birthright citizenship he's a lawyer and a retired Colonel of the Army Kurt Schlifter at 835 Larry O'Connor with Cassie Smedley morning guy you weren't either a lawyer nor a retired officer in the military no so thank goodness Kurt is here yes because I can't speak to those things thank goodness Kurt is here is something that he's never heard in his life all right so so the rocket is launched and honestly I got emotional I happened to be filling in for Mark Levin last night so we were doing it live on the air and I it it choked me up I got so excited with that and you know how if you watch the old launches or if you remember watching the space shuttle launches and things you know you get to the end of the countdown and the rockets fire and then there's this like pregnant moment where there's like a pause it's like the rockets are firing but it takes it like a split second or a couple of seconds for that lift off to happen and it's really slow because the hard you know you think about it the hardest gravitational pull is going to be right at the very first moments where you're lifting that giant you know multi-tum thing off the earth not this one that rocket is massive and it it started at a pretty fair clip right from the moment the the engines ignited did you see that um yes I don't remember thinking oh that's different I was plugged in I'm not it was very powerful yes and I thought where you were going to go I always love um you could hear either when the feet will cut in and it you hear mission control and they're given the the send off message and then the countdown and then it's almost like everyone in mission control is collectively holding their breath for a minute or taking it in what I thought you're going that it's just quiet for a few seconds of ever it's like everyone's in awe even the people who do this as a matter of routine for a living everyone takes a moment to just go all right we're off so amazing so amazing and it really did I mean and what a fireball it was that is a powerful rocket I've seen videos from various angles as well here's the plan this is what's going to happen the crew's going to get a total of 5000 miles from the moon's surface this is going to be the furthest beyond the moon that any human has ever gone that we know of I mean humans could have been abducted by aliens and taken back to the mothership at some point we don't know about that and for that matter humans could be it could have been sent on you know secret missions to outer space that we don't know about that the you know government's hiding from us we don't know we don't know do you know the truth is out there you know a lot I I just feel like it would have been hard to launch a rocket and no one noticed did you see how many people could see that rocket from their house so maybe but well I you know you know anything's possible all right the um the crew sleeps in two four hour periods uh today or Ryan is how do you sleep how do you sleep I mean I guess eventually your body is just so tired you have to sleep but seriously could you say oh well we just launched it off the surface of the earth and now we're orbiting the planet so all right everybody get some sleep it's like I might probably be pumping the entire time big day tomorrow you know they're like gotta get to work I don't know because they ostensibly they've been practicing they do all these simulations right so maybe they're in the mode I don't know they're they're professionals by the way I feel like I'm leaving everyone hanging on the toilets there was a problem with the toilets they were they were given the go ahead last night before they went into their sleeping bags and went to sleep they were told uh yes you're fine to use the toilet now but my understanding was up until that point up until they got the green light on the toilet they were doing a number one was in the little pouches that are attached to them for launch right the little like baggies or whatever and number two they could go number two in the little um container but they couldn't actually you know send it out to space to um to orbit the planet or whatever they do to expel it um it just had to sort of sit in there which is fine for day one but you know 10 days of that not so good not so good so yeah right that would get I imagine that would add some tension yes you're the person who's long long trip enough to place so so uh the the toilets are functioning now uh today the engines are going to accelerate the Orion spacecraft to escape the velocity of to escape velocity they call it and uh send them on the trajectory toward the moon and then days three through five the crew's going to fine tune that approach to the moon and just do all the little while we got to make sure adjust and and make sure that we're on the right path they've got the little you know um little adjusting rockets or whatever they call them uh day six is when the crew fly by flies by the moon so that's going to be around April 7th that's when they do their big fly by they're going to be about 250,000 miles from earth and days six and seven the crew uh fine tunes their approach back to earth and on day 10 they're going to splash down uh they splash down by the way not off of the coast of Florida like we've often seen it's going to be off the coast of San Diego this this re-entry will be San Diego I don't I don't weather it's just a bigger target perhaps two parachutes will slow the capsule to 17 miles per hour they splash down off the coast of San Diego and um and there you go that's the and what but it won't look like it but there's only going to be two there's only going to be two this is very sad very sad um and that's that's what we're going to do oh here's the sound of the lift off it really was those the rocket is so massive and the thrust that you can hear it from the sound of it take a listen and here we go 10 9 8 7 rs 25 inches 4 3 2 1 booster ignition and lift off the crew of Artemis 2 now bound for the moon humanity's next great voyage begins listen to that good roll pitch Roger roll pitch Houston now controlling the flight of integrity on the Artemis 2 mission around the incredible incredible by the way um I don't know if you saw that they'll be woken up at 7 a.m. by the way they are sleeping they'll be woken up at 7 a.m. um and you know the song used to wake them up is always a big deal so we'll see what song is used to wake them up and it's each of the members of the the four members of the crew were um were allowed to say something or they were asked to say something right before the launch and I missed this like I said I was on the air but Meredith told me and I have verified it now that um uh one of the uh one of the crew members said um hang on where did it go I just had it one of the crew members said we are doing this for humanity and the Denver Broncos oh gosh is there anything more American bro than that no I mean yeah I love it I kind of love it there I am in my mind I think that astronauts are so solely focused on the mission at hand that they don't know or care or have any hobbies so all right no I'm I'm more cynical than you they clearly did this that guy did that so he never has to buy another ticket to a Broncos game the rest of his life that's why he did that and by the way smart man because the Broncos are good now if you've met any Broncos fans I do appreciate the fact that he was able to draw a very distinct line between humanity and the Denver Broncos this is they're very two different two very different categories of human beings uh it's just great it's wonderful and we'll give you daily updates here on the program on the incredible Artemis to mission and man's return Americans return to the moon it's 544 hey there I'm Paula Pan I help people make the smartest money decisions possible Joe you know what's been great about being a saver for money the bank and that money over the past couple of years has made a pretty good yield pre-pandemic money was making zero now it's actually making something but that's starting to go down down down I love how we can play the fact that inflation's been really high as a positive but if you're a saver you know what that means to change silver lining Joe silver lining afford anything follow and listen on your favorite platform I was uh on the air last night as I mentioned filling in for Mark Levin Cassie and I was you know obviously you're taking in the moment and sharing it with the national audience and the listeners at the launch and timed it up great took calls and then I go to Twitter I go to X and I have legitimately now I have people responding to me saying I can't believe you bought into this I can't I can't believe I can't believe that you don't see through this this is obviously all fake this is all fake we've never been to the moon this is all fake it's all staged it's all to distract from the Epstein files oh wow I wish I were joking and and they threw in to boot that this is really also financed the entire thing was financed by BB Netanyahu and the Israeli government of course so that we take our eye off the ball while they you know capture Lebanon or something I don't know as a political communicator I give them credit for being on message relentlessly on message I suppose that's true wow well actually you know what as a political communicator why don't you tell me what you think of NASA administrator Jared Isaacman by the way these same people did take pains to point out that the administrator of NASA a Jew you see so you think that's a coincidence together yes here he is talking about the importance of NASA and space exploration just yesterday cut three I mean I you know I've been to space twice and I think it's very hard to be there and not be somewhat spiritual because you just have an appreciation for you know how small we are in the grand scheme of things like the enormity of what's around us and like it had to have all started like somewhere right we don't have you know an answer for that right now so the idea that maybe this was all part of some extraordinary grand design is you know those thoughts have to go through your mind like it's um it's just it's interesting of a perspective not to not to kind of go down that road I think so but it is like this is this is what we are pursuing right now we are going to learn so much you know in the years ahead and I absolutely believe we were destined to do this to go out to explore and to seek out a lot of those answers and they're waiting for us to hear a man of faith talk about God and creation and humanity when he's the NASA administrator and you know you scientists and space explorers often get sometimes rightly deserved they often get sort of stereotypically put into a the same pot of you know atheists that are just you know personally I don't see a difference I don't I don't see any sort of dichotomy between being a person of religious faith and embracing science they they are not at odds with each other but but that said there's often this sort of stereotype that oh if you're a scientist or if you're into space travel then you can't believe in God well Mr. Isaacson clearly does and some of the most compelling religious arguments I've heard are from people who have explored space either actually traveled there or through there's a there's a great astronomer who has discovered you know quarks and all this other crazy stuff out there and he is 100% a a bible-believing Christian so it's it's I think it's interesting to hear this discussion through the eyes of someone who clearly has a a deep abiding faith in God as our current NASA administrator has also by the way the fact that this mission is going on during holy week you know Passover last night during the launch and now you know they will be on this mission during Easter one wonders if there's going to be I don't know a religious moment from these astronauts yeah the ultimate sunrise service yeah or earth rise service for that bad earth rise service yeah I was thinking about actually do they get that but I think I have to believe and this is kind of what he was alluding to a little bit there's something very humbling when I imagine but when you're up in space you realize how greater the universe is than you and the little piece of it that you occupy and yeah you talk about how scientists very scientific and they operate in fact and they operate in absolutes and but at the same time at some point you go wait a minute this is wild there has to be something more that brought all of this together I think it's I've heard I've heard it explain to me that that there's a difference between getting a bachelor's degree in one of the sciences or something and just sort of glazing across the surface of one of these disciplines then having a full lifetime profession diving as deep as you can into it because when you when you have that extensive immersion into whether it's space travel or anatomy and biology or what have you you start to realize oh this is designed there's there's no way that this is random this is just you know just just the human eye when you you know it is so obviously designed and so obviously you know thought through and put together there's no way any of this just randomly occurred that's what ends up happening you know so it's those people who actually get neck deep in this stuff that are like oh there's definitely a creator by the way I just mentioned they're going to be but on Easter Sunday they'll be approaching the moon basically the moon will be larger in their window than the earth the last time that happened Christmas Eve 1968 Apollo 8 mission this happened take a listen yeah for all the people back on earth the crew of Apollo 8 has a message that we would like to send you in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth and the earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep and the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters and God said let there be light and there was light and God saw the light there was good and God divided the light from the darkness one of those great moments one wonders I hope something's gonna happen Easter Sunday with this crew as they are making their final approach to moon before they do their orbit but oh and one last thing the scientists who came up with the big bang theory that is now sort of embraced by the science across the board and is now sort of yes oh okay that's how the universe was created it was a big bang that's scientist a catholic priest because if you think about it the big bang sort of fits with what those astronauts in 1968 were just reading us about it's 555 next role with Vernon Davis the transformative journeys of athletes artists and entrepreneurs ladies and gentlemen lights out Sean Merriman I want to be the biggest and the best one I do and so whatever it takes I'll get it done in business and everything else all I do is know how to fight and earn what I want my man Malik asks what actor comedian what you want to collaborate with me Jamie Foxley Kevin Hart in a movie we said it on Vernon Davis podcast and so we'll circle back be like yep it's gonna clear next role with Vernon Davis follow and listen on your favorite platform