Weekly Roundup: State of the Union Fallout: ICE Expansion, Christian Nationalism & Retribution Politics

Brad Onishi: Welcome to Straight White American Jesus. I'm Brad Onishi, author of American Caesar: How Tech Lords and Theocrats Are Turning America Into a Monarchy, and founder of Axis Mundi Media, here today with my co-host.

Dan Miller: I'm Dan Miller, Professor of Religion and Social Thought at Landmark College, and almost capable, Brad, of actually getting things on my screen where I need them. So we'll see. We're off to a swimming start.

Brad: You're coming to us from campus today. You have a really collegial, scholarly, academic background. I feel like I'm in your office hours right now. That's good. You look like a Vermont professor. You got the flannel. I mean, this is great. I really feel like I'm getting the full experience.

Dan: All right, friend. If you could just see all the snow out the window, you'd get the real full Vermont and all the reasons you don't live in this part of the country.

Brad: Yeah, I don't want to. All right, State of the Union was this week. The State of the Union address was pretty predictable, but there's things around it—like what's going to happen in Minnesota, supposed fraud, the Hillary Clinton deposition, the missing interviews from the FBI that were not released in the Epstein files—that all sort of make the subtext and pretext fairly interesting when it comes to the State of the Union.

We'll then go to just the fact that ICE is building a large-scale network of detention centers and what I would call concentration camps across the country. And we want to dig into the arguments that Christian pastors and leaders are making to defend that. How can you defend making concentration camps? Well, we're going to look to a Catholic in Kevin Roberts and a Protestant in William Wolfe, and figure out how they are doing that and poke holes in those arguments, because they're pretty weak and pretty easy to poke holes in.

Finally, we'll talk a little bit about the pending, it seems, merger of—well, let me just put it this way—the buying of Paramount and Warner by the Ellison family, and what that means for the media in the United States. Lots to cover, let's go.

All right, Dan, State of the Union was this week. I'm just gonna say, like, I'm gonna start with vibes. There was really, to me, very little interest in the actual speech on my part, because I think: A, at this point, I knew what he was gonna say. B, he was gonna lie through his teeth. C, there was no drama of like a Democratic Speaker of the House like Nancy Pelosi sitting behind him and ripping up a paper. And not that I'm interested in the speech for the drama and the gossip and the soap opera stuff, but the actual speech, to me, was less interesting than in the past.

Maybe you can call me jaded, or say Brad has lost the plot, or you need to dial in, or you need to be willing to pay attention to these details. But to me, there are things swirling around the State of the Union, and there's something that was announced at the State of the Union that's really important. I have a couple of quotes from the actual speech we can go over briefly, but I want to get your initial thoughts, and I'm wondering if you agree, or if you felt like you needed to tune into every sentence, or at least fragment of a sentence, because Trump rarely speaks in a way that there is a subject and a verb, much less an object.

I don't know if people still do this—like having to diagram sentences. You know, we had to map them out. But if you do it for Trump, it's just a black hole. It just trails off. It just becomes like a series of ellipses.

Dan: No, I'm fairly—I've talked about being neurodivergent in the past, and I'm a writer, and one of the things I do that most people have no idea I'm doing while they're speaking, is I correct their grammar. So like, if you use "that" and "which" incorrectly, or if you use "who" and "whom" incorrectly, in my head, I fix it. I can picture the sentence and I fix it. One of the reasons I can't watch Trump all the time is my brain explodes trying to do that as he speaks.

Brad: Yeah, so I'm with you. I don't watch—I knew it was the longest speech ever given.

Dan: Big heart.

Brad: And I knew it was going to be—he broke his own record. I'm just like, you can't do it. To your point, the day after, there's all the fact-checking of Trump's speech, and I glance at those things, but it's like, why bother? It's full of lies and whatever.

A couple things that I thought were interesting—you talk about the vibes and so forth. One was really basic: Trump kind of stayed on for a while. Like he did okay, and you could feel all the Republicans being like, "Come on, you can do it, stick with me."

We had the Olympics recently. I was streaming the Olympics. I was watching them on Peacock, the platform. And I don't know why big streaming things can't make apps that can work for a long time. So when I would watch the Olympics on it, I'd have like an hour before it started getting really laggy and juddery, and I'd have to go in and come out and turn off the TV and restart it and redo it and kind of reboot it. That's Trump.

So like he can do okay for a while. If he was capable of coaching, and you could say to him, "Just stick to the script and give us half an hour, just half an hour, just hammer home what you want to hammer home. Do all the medals. Make it about the spectacle. Talk about the hockey team, whatever, and move on," he'd be okay. But he can't. And then it sort of unravels, and the wheels come off as it goes. And he starts yelling at Democrats for not clapping for him and things like that. I mean, all the Trumpy stuff.

One thing I think is sort of worth watching—you talk about things swirling around at the State of the Union—there was a poll this week showing that increasing numbers of people have questions about Trump's mental capacity, his mental acuity. Not specifically tied in with the State of the Union, but it's on display for me when he just evolves into more word salad and just the vitriol and whatever. So I think all of that was there. As you say, all the standard hits are there.

I've seen some things this week from Republican strategists, like one moment in the speech that they think is going to kind of fix all their messaging on immigration. But there's just—there wasn't a lot there there. And I think at this point, the number of Americans who are really sort of literally undecided on Trump who are going to be swayed by the State of the Union is really, really small.

Brad: That's what I mean. Like any pundit out there, or anybody who wrote anywhere—social media, print, whatever—that was like "This State of the Union is a chance for Trump to do this," or "gonna reset," and it's like, just stop. Like, stop. We know the narrative. We know this guy. Stop. There's no drama here in terms of resetting anything or whatever.

So I think that's it. Let me give you two minutes on a couple quotes, and then I want you to take us through the Minnesota retaliation brigade that was announced at the speech.

So here's one quote for you: "When God needs a nation to work his miracles, he knows exactly who to ask. Destiny is written by the hand of Providence."

You know that was written by Stephen Miller. It just was. If you read Stephen Miller's tweets like I do, unfortunately, that's how he talks. He's always—I mean, AOC made fun of him this week. He's always talking like some sort of 19th or 18th century wannabe man of letters. So whatever. "Destiny is written by the hand of Providence." Cool.

Dan: Just gonna say destiny and Providence in the same sentence. That's something. Especially because destiny and Providence are kind of contrary ideas, but that's Stephen Miller, I guess. So there we go.

Brad: There was a Charlie Kirk reference in the speech. "In Charlie's memory, we must all come together to reaffirm that America is one nation under God." He said that Kirk was martyred for his faith, and that the renewal of religion in the United States has been part of Charlie Kirk's legacy and work, and also Trump. So that's there.

I'll give you one more, and then we can go. Taylor Rogers, White House spokesperson, said that Trump is the "greatest president for religious freedom in modern American history." And you know, one of the things I talked about elsewhere is that when Trump touts religious freedom, you always have to ask: whose religious freedom? When you tear down the wall between the separation of church and state and welcome religion into the government, whose religion is welcome in? Whose religion is going to be sanctioned? Who's going to be considered a good American because of their religion and a bad American because of their lack of it? When you welcome religion into the government, we've talked about that endlessly.

But let me give you the quote here from Rogers that goes further: "Only anti-Trump activists would complain about the president touting a renewal in religious faith that is spreading across our country during his historically successful State of the Union address."

Only anti-Trump activists? Well, about 40% of the country just doesn't fit into the renewal and religious faith he's talking about because they are Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, atheist, agnostic. I mean, we're talking hundreds of millions of people here. In addition, we already know, if you've listened to this show or you pay attention at all, that the kind of religious renewal he's talking about is not all Christian renewal. It's a certain narrow brand of Christianity that is being renewed.

And so if you complain about that, you're not only complaining about a renewal of faith that is exclusionary and myopic, you're complaining about the fact that the government is taking a role in facilitating religion, and that's not good for anyone, as we've outlined ad nauseam on this show. I don't want to do it today.

Give us your thoughts here. Tell us what's going on with Minnesota.

Dan: So this line, I think, is worth noting: when it says "only anti-Trump activists," notice—I mean, I noticed the juxtaposition. Doesn't say "only people who hate Christians." It doesn't say "only infidels or pagans or whatever." It's not about religion. It's about Trump.

And what I mean by that is like, they'll talk about religious freedom, everything that you said—that it's a very particular religion, it's a very particular model of religion, it's a very particular form of religiosity. But then it's not even about religion, it's about Trump. "Only anti-Trump activists."

They don't even care about the religion piece. They don't make it about religion. They don't make it about Christians. It's: "Don't support this? You're anti-Trump." It's the equation of Trump with faith, of MAGA with faith, of MAGA with faithfulness, Christian nationalism with Christianity. I think that all of that comes through in that kind of statement that equates Trump with everything Christian, everything faith. It's right up there with Trump selling his Bibles.

Brad: Let me—before we do Minnesota—let me just tell you some things that I think are swirling around this, and then we can do the Minnesota part.

As he's speaking, we're learning a couple things this week. One, there are multiple FBI interviews with a person who claimed that she was sexually assaulted by Donald Trump when she was a teenager—like a 13, 14, 15-year-old. They were not released with the Epstein files. So that is a huge scandal, period. And everyone has covered this. The New York Times has covered it. Greg Sargent on his podcast, the New Republic. I mean, it's out there. And if you're the kind of person who consumes news, you know that this is there.

So as he's speaking, there is a real sense that something remarkable is happening in American history that's unique, and that is the fact that the sitting president has been accused of raping an underage teenager, and that that has been covered up by those who have been in charge of releasing the Epstein files. So I think that's swirling around.

They also deposed Hillary Clinton this week, days—like two days after the State of the Union—and held her for six hours in questioning, which is really kind of bizarre at this point. Like, again, I'm not the only person to say this. It's been 10 years since Hillary and he faced off. I think there's still a sense from like boomers in the Trump orbit that Hillary is the antagonist par excellence, where if you're a 30-year-old, a 25-year-old, you were like 15 or 18 when all of that was happening. Bill Clinton is even further. Sort of like, "Who's that?"

Dan, Bill Clinton is to like the 30-year-old or the 25-year-old these days what like Gerald Ford was to us, or Spiro Agnew. I mean, I have studied those people. I've read about them, I have watched clips of that. I was not alive to experience Spiro Agnew. I don't have childhood memories of that stuff. But I think they still are like doing the Hillary Clinton thing.

And I just want to say this publicly and out loud, and then I'll throw it to you for the Minnesota thing: if you wanted to depose like a first lady who knows things about the Epstein files, I can think of a first lady who has a lot of pictures with Jeffrey Epstein, hugging him, being at his parties, talking to him. I mean, I'm just wondering if Melania was like, "Hey, let Hillary go first." You know she was. She was like, "First lady first. She gets to be first. I'll go in second."

Like, Jim Comer, are you gonna call Melania? Because she seemed to know Epstein really well. I'm just wondering if that first lady will get questioned. Probably not, right?

All right. Back to you.

Dan: It's waiting, right? I'm sure next week it'll be announced that Melania is being called to the Republican-controlled committee to give a—yeah.

Brad: Yeah.

Dan: So tying in with this, another one of those things sort of swirling around—we talked about the State of the Union and Trump lashing out at Democrats. I think we talk about, as you say, the weirdly placed—we're still gonna go after the Clintons. And like, nobody in the Democratic Party cares at this point. Like, fine, go after the Clintons. Let's do that. Like, who cares?

But tied in with that is just the ongoing retribution, the ongoing targeting of all things perceived anti-Trump. So this week, JD Vance, with Dr. Oz on board with it, announced that the Trump administration was halting about $260 million worth of Medicare and Medicaid funding to Minnesota because of fraud.

Now we remember the fraud stories and the things about Somali Americans. We also obviously know that Minnesota is the site where you've had the most, I think, the most visible protests against ICE and the murdering of American citizens and all of this other stuff going on. It has become the locus of opposition to Trump and everything that's going on. So of course, this week, they announced they're withholding these funds.

Now, the ostensible reason is because of fraud. I think it was Dr. Oz who kind of comes out, says other blue states should watch out. It's clearly because of political aims. It is clearly because of it being Minnesota. Other states are targeted, clearly because they are blue states. There was withholding of other funds announced this week. Disaster relief funds to several blue states were withheld this week.

So we've seen this, and we see it ongoing, this effort to weaponize everything at their disposal in the federal government to go after so-called blue states. And my thoughts about this: number one, again, the obvious point, it's retribution. Everybody knows this. It's transparent. It's on the surface. No doubt this will be challenged in court. I think it'll be struck down in court. And that's not really the point. I should restate that—it is important. It's important. Those funds are important. But the larger point is the Trump administration targeting blue states.

And I say so-called blue states, Brad, because it's so apparent that I think we can fail to notice it, but I think it's worth continuing to remember: there has never been a pretense in the Trump administration that they're governing for all Americans. There's never been the pretense of, "Hey, we recognize that not everybody voted for us. We live in a democracy, and nobody's going to get all the votes. But hey, I'm president now, and I'm your president. I'm the president for all the Americans." Nope.

If he didn't get your state in the Electoral College, you're his enemy. Doesn't matter. It's not just the governor of Minnesota. It's not the Democratic Party in Minnesota. It's not even just protesters. It's everybody in Minnesota. It's everybody who needs Medicare funding. It's everybody who needs Medicaid. They are all his enemies, the enemies of this administration.

And I think a theme that we've talked about for a long time, and I think that you've really hammered home, is we've been talking for years about this notion of who are the real Americans. And as we've said, you might be a real American now, but eventually you're going to fall into the list of not being the real American. They're going to come for the people of color first, but eventually that's going to branch out to others.

And we see this over and over and over in this iteration of the Trump administration: punishing supposed blue states because everybody who lives in Minnesota is Trump's enemy. Everybody who lives in California—you and I were talking before we recorded—in raw numbers, more people in California voted for Trump than from any other state, just because of the raw numbers. Millions of people in Minnesota voted for Donald Trump. He has supporters there, and yet they are now persona non grata to him in this vindictive effort to punish everybody who's perceived to not sort of toe the MAGA party line.

So that was a really significant story this week, as they continue to target Minnesota in every way that they can, against the backdrop of everything that's going on with ICE and their dislike of Tim Walz and everything else.

Brad: First of all, the idea that Dr. Oz would get up and talk about anyone else as being a fraud is the richest irony, and it's one of those moments of absurdity. You're watching Dr. Oz and you're like, "This guy who's made his life on being a fraud..." I mean, he ran for Senate in Pennsylvania—or governor, sorry. Wait a minute. I'm getting those confused. Anyway, people will email me. I will check it in a second. Nonetheless, he lived in New Jersey at the time. He was not—I mean, whatever. So Dr. Oz has, if you look at his career, that's your entire thing, bro, is fraud. Or at least grifting. That's number one.

I think number two, another obvious point, but it goes overlooked in the Trump era, is just the State of the Union is often what you just said. It's a chance to stand in front of the country and explain how you have done things in a year that have helped it, but also try to make an appeal. You talked about it earlier, there used to be this sense of like, "Barack Obama is going to appeal to this sector of the American electorate," or "George W. Bush is going to try to explain to moderates or centrists or independents why the Iraq War is this, okay?"

And the Trump administration uses the State of the Union to mete out its vengeance. And you see that with what happened with Minnesota. Like this is our chance to say, "JD Vance, the fraud exciser, the fraud exorcist." And we've already had one. We've already done this. We've already had DOGE, we've already had Elon Musk, we've already had Big Boss, we've already had Russ Vought. We've already—you keep telling us you're going to get rid of the fraud, and it just becomes more and more clear, I think. And this is where it matters. And then I think we can move on.

The Epstein files are making more people than before think of Trump as a liar, a hypocrite, a fraud. I think what is happening with the Epstein scandal is the more they cover it up, the more they try to get rid of it, the more that they try to sweep it under the rug, the more that the non-politically obsessed person who might have voted for Trump hears about it. That could be in various news outlets, but it's probably more like on a podcast. It's probably more like in social media. It's probably more like in a place where some manosphere guy is like, "No, I'm not with Trump anymore, because he's not going to get those who hurt kids and underage girls and all this stuff."

And the reason I think that, if you start putting the two together, if you start associating Donald Trump with fraud and lying, and then all he's talking about is getting rid of fraud, there are people who will turn on him that had supported him a year ago. And they may not be the core MAGA person whose car is covered with MAGA stickers and they wear American flag Donald Trump clothes and their Facebook profile picture is Donald Trump with his shirt off riding a horse and all. But it might be the 26-year-old bro, right, who does listen to the manosphere and is willing to say—or the 36-year-old dad of two who has two little girls who are in preschool, and is like, "You know, I'm not with this guy anymore."

And the more he talks about fraud with Dr. Oz and JD Vance and all this stuff, the more you start to associate things with people. And I think we've talked about this before. When you talk about people's weaknesses and you hammer them home, they start to hurt them. And this is what always hurt people like Hillary Clinton, to go back to her, right, when it came to her emails and her stamina. And if you can start to make this actually part of Trump's persona, then it will hurt him.

So I don't know if that's of any consequence. I want to get to these pastors defending immigration. But what else you have on State of the Union Minnesota? Anything before we jump on?

Dan: A couple things. One related to Minnesota: There was that moment where, I think it was supposed to be like a big gotcha moment where Trump said, "Everybody who believes that the role of government is to protect American citizens, and not"—his term—"illegal aliens, stand up." And of course, the Democrats didn't stand. I think it was this thing: "Haha, look at us. We got you." And I've read so many things this week that are like, you know, Republican strategists like, "This is it," and they're putting together the hit pieces to go after it. "And we caught them. We caught the Democrats saying they don't care about Americans and whatever."

And like, people still see what is going on in Minnesota. People still see what is going on down the street in their town. People still see, as you say, what is not going on with the Epstein files and the releases and the lack of fallout, and then the not acknowledging survivors who are present in Trump's presence and so forth. It's one of those, I think, wishful thinking sort of denial kind of thing that like, "This is a simple reset. Some Democrats didn't stand up, Brad, so boom, we're there," without having to actually address the fact that they're underwater on immigration now because of their own actions, not because people don't understand or don't see or whatever. So that was one piece from the State of the Union, the piece that was intended to be like big political theater that I think is going to fall pretty flat and not do what they want it to do.

The other piece that ties in with your point about, on one hand, the fraud, the claims of fraud, the claims of hiding things, the claims of dishonesty—when everybody's like, "Dude, what about Epstein? What about Epstein?"—is also just the denial of the experienced reality of millions of Americans. Trump cannot talk about affordability. He can evade it. He can say that it's not real. He can do what he did in this speech and keep talking about how big the economy is and how well it's doing and how—and yes, fact-checking things—and "most states have gas under $2.30 a gallon," and they found there's like two places where that's ever occurred this year or whatever.

The point is, the willful denial of the experience of millions of Americans is one thing that is costing him this coalition that they thought was going to last. But when you combine that with the fraud, the "look over there, look over there, look over there" all the time, when someone's like, "Dude, it's right behind you. We see Epstein. We see the pictures. We've seen Melania. We've seen these things. You need to talk about this."

I think those two things together and the way that they played out or didn't play out, as it were, in the State of the Union, I think that tells us everything about where the Trump administration is and where they are actually liable as we sort of circle around toward the midterms.

Brad: Yeah, it's a great point. The affordability part, we didn't really talk about at length. I'm glad you mentioned it, because he just can't do it. He can't. All he can do is say that everything's great, and sorry. He also talks about, like a rich person—rich people talk about, "Oh, the GDP is really high. Look at the return on investment, 401(k)s," all of that stuff. Because all of their money comes from investments. It comes from stocks. It comes from the stock market. And how does the stock market make money? It does it by firing workers and cutting the workforce and reducing cost, because that's all human beings are to companies. They are costs.

And he cannot shift gears to people who actually have to pay to survive, and they have to—making ends meet is hard. He just can't do it. He just gets defensive, and he denies that it's real and everything else, and it just—it's maddening. It makes me crazy, and I'm already crazy about the things Trump does. It's landing flat with millions of Americans who supported him, I think, in the last election, because of what he said about the economy.

Let's take a break. Be right back to talk about ICE building detention centers, concentration camps across the country, and the Christian pastors and faith leaders defending that.

This is from Reuters, Dan. ICE plans to spend $38 billion this year on centers for detention. I just want to stop for a minute and talk about affordability and taxes. So give me a 22-second interlude. You ready?

Dan: Snowstorm in New York City this week. Mayor Adams gets out on the streets. He's like, "Everybody, we're gonna clean up and the city's gonna do it, but you all do it too. Let's pitch in." And there's all these pictures on social media. It looks great. Actually, they've done a really good job. And Fox News was like, "Can you imagine what he's doing? Those are your tax dollars going to extra plows and paying people $20 an hour to clean." And everyone—there's just these people on social media that are like, "That's what tax dollars are for, so that when there's a snowstorm, normal people can walk to work or get on the subway, or not be stuck in their house and unable to go to school, or they can do trash pickup, or shut-ins can get their groceries, or whatever—the city can move and do what a city needs to do." Interesting, what tax dollars should do.

Brad: And ICE plans to spend $38 billion of your tax dollars, listeners, on detention centers. That's a lot of money. With a B. Plan: $38 billion.

Dan: Yes.

Brad: Plan calls for eight large detention centers, 16 regional, quote, "processing centers." Jesus, I hate the word "processing" when it comes to human beings. The detention budget for ICE rose from $3.4 billion in 2024 to $45 billion this year. It's more than a tenfold increase. I mean, I'm a humanities professor, Brad. I'm not good at math, but by my math, that's like a tenfold increase for, as you say, the quote-unquote "processing" of human beings.

So we are headed to—and you will hear us talk about this on the show. We will cover it. I promise. Others are. Others have, others will. We are headed toward a place where there is a network of concentration camps in this country. Some of those already exist. The conditions are disgusting. They're inhumane, and people are being left to get disease and to not eat well, malnutrition, etc., in those places.

I want to highlight one thing from this week that really highlights, to me, the cruelty of what is happening with ICE and CBP and DHS. This is from CBS News, Emily Mayaskas.

Officials in upstate New York are demanding investigation into the death of a refugee who was found dead in Buffalo this week. He was released from custody by US Customs and Border Protection. Nur Almond Shahalam, 56, suffered from various medical conditions, including visual impairment. This is a man, Dan, that was legally blind. He really couldn't see. He was picked up by ICE, and then they left him miles and miles and miles from his home, no way to communicate with his family, no way to talk to anybody. Didn't—we mentioned there's winter happening. I don't know if anyone's ever been to Buffalo in February, but yeah.

And he died. He died because they left him on the street. Your government picked up a man who was blind and left him on the street. They didn't arrest him. They didn't detain him. They didn't say "you're a criminal." Was this a violent sex offender? Was this the gang member from Venezuela you keep telling me about? It wasn't. No, it was a blind man who was a refugee.

We can argue about whether or not he was going to gain refugee status here and become somebody who got a green card. I don't know what was going to happen. I know that he's dead. That's what I know.

This is disgusting, and I could spend the next hour yelling about it, Dan. But nonetheless, there are Christian leaders and pastors out there that are like, "Oh no, no, mass deportation, what's happening with CBP and ICE, that's exactly what God wants."

One of those is William Wolfe. William Wolfe is not a fringe guy. He is a former Defense Department person. He is somebody who has graduated from institutions of higher ed related to the Reformed Christian tradition. He has ties to Doug Wilson. And if you still don't believe me, a year ago, one year ago, 15 faith leaders were invited to the White House to pray with the President, meet with the President. He was one of the 15.

Here's a clip of him talking about ICE, immigration, and how Christians should feel about it.

William Wolfe: Christians can and should oppose mass migration, support secure borders, support mass deportations and denaturalization and remigration, because God is a God of order, not chaos. God is a God of justice, not anarchy. And God is a God of righteousness, and that's really what it comes down to. When I think about this, this really is a question of righteousness. It's a question of the difference between good and evil.

Those who want to have open borders and flood our country with illegal aliens are promoting something that is evil. And Christians who stand up and say, "I love God and I would never mistreat an illegal alien, but it's time for them to go home," are on the side of what is good and right.

So do not be confused and do not be cowed or intimidated by the loud voices on Facebook or Instagram, or maybe even some of your friends. I mean, I have them too. I see people I went to college with right now who graduated from the same Christian college I went to saying like, "ICE is the devil." Do not be intimidated by these people.

I've said this before, and I'll say it again: if you are a true Bible-believing Christian right now, I think you have a moral obligation before God and before your fellow citizens to support and cheer for our brave men in Immigration and Customs Enforcement, in Customs and Border Patrol, and to support Donald Trump as he seeks to save our country by removing the illegal invaders.

So WWJD—who would Jesus support? The answer is all of them. Thank you so much, brothers and sisters. Happy to take some questions.

Brad: All right, Dan, I'm about to blow a gasket. Off to you. Tell us about this argument and why it is—bleep, bleep, bleep—things I'm not going to say. Go ahead.

Dan: Yeah, sure. A lot of ways into this. I've got all these notes. My notes look like they were just—I don't know, like I let my dog walk on my keyboard or something. They're such a mess. But I think what stands out to me, and this is like a common rhetorical move that I think occurs in a lot of these arguments, is all the false alternatives, the false dichotomies. There's always this strict either/or black or white logic. It's this or this. There are only two options. And they're always completely false.

So for example, he talks about God on one side, chaos on the other. "God is the God of order, not chaos." And you always get that appeal to order. We can talk more about that, but notice that there's not "more order or less order," or something that's more ordered or more organized or less. Nope: chaos or order. Full stop. Those are the only two options. Justice or anarchy. We have justice, or—and not like, I don't know, we could disagree about what justice is, or we could debate about the relation between law and justice. Are all laws just? Probably not. And how do we—nope, nope. You have justice or you have anarchy. That's it. Righteousness or evil.

So all the false alternatives, so that you only support one, and then the list of what that is. So what is evil? Mass immigration is evil. Why? Like, I mean, are all those people terrible? That's what they tell us on Fox News all the time. But we know that they're not. We know that most of the people who've been rounded up and deported are just regular people. They're just people trying to live their lives.

Does mass immigration have to be chaos? No, no reason. It could be—imagine if you put the kind of funds that they want to put into removing everybody to actually staffing immigration courts and being able to let people's immigration cases be heard and adjudicated and so forth. You could have mass immigration and actually get all these people through the system if you were interested in doing that.

The point is, for me, there's an interest in these false alternatives. And then what you do is you tell a good Christian audience that—you know, "Hey, hey, good Christians, you like God?" "Well, yeah, I like God." "You want to be righteous?" "Well, of course I want to be righteous." "You don't want to be evil, do you?" "No, no, no, no." "You believe God's a God of justice?" "Well, yeah, the Bible says that all over the place." "All right, all right. You got to oppose mass immigration then, because it's evil and it's chaotic and it's anarchistic, and it's all of these things."

And I think that's part of what stands out to me, is that rhetoric that is everywhere on the right with the kind of false alternatives that are forced. And I think a lot of well-meaning people oftentimes fall into that trap.

To give a sort of funnier example of this for Stephen Colbert fans, it's like if Stephen Colbert was talking about the State of the Union, and he's like, "State of the Union, Brad—great speech or the greatest speech?" It's, of course, ridiculous, because it's neither. It doesn't have to be one of those two choices.

That's what strikes me about the rhetoric, and it plays out all the time. And we can get into the theology and the ideology behind it, but just the rhetoric that I think steers a room full of Christians—some of whom want to hear this. They want it to be okay to hate brown people and to want to get them out of the country. But I think there are also well-meaning people who are like, "Hey, I'm just trying to be a biblical Christian, and God's a God of justice, and so I have to support this." They fall into the trap of that rhetoric.

Brad: I think what William Wolfe does here is make apparent something that has been clear for those of us paying attention for a long time, but it's a chance for us to dig into it. And that is the fact that Christian nationalism prioritizes order over humanity, order over compassion, order over empathy, care, hospitality.

Dan: I was just gonna say, you know, there's a talk of justice. It's the notion that order is just by definition, no matter what is being ordered or the damage it does. If it is order, it is just, it is good, so it cannot be questioned.

Brad: So he says, "God is a God of order, not chaos." And you know, just to back up my claim here, let me just remind you of what William Wolfe has said in the past about immigration: "I don't care how much they scream." So this is a man at the end of the clip that we just played you who said, "What would Jesus do?" Would Jesus say, "I don't care how much they scream, I don't care how much they cry. I don't care how loud they protest, and I don't care how much it costs. I don't care how many of my fellow citizens who act recklessly impede legitimate law enforcement operations suffer consequences"—that's talking about Rene Good, okay—"they need to knock it off. I don't care."

This is direct quotes from William Wolfe: "I want my country back, whatever it takes." If that means shooting people like Alex. If that means leaving a blind man on the street in Buffalo. I don't care. I want my country back.

There's analysis that I've always come back to, and I find to be so astute, and that is from Sam Perry and Phil Gorski in their book The Flag and the Cross. Here's a quote: "White Christian nationalism is a theory of order and of hierarchy. It distinguishes insiders and outsiders. And when those two must occupy the same country, those on top and those on the bottom, people like us—white Christian citizens—are the true American citizens."

And there's a sense that what Christian nationalism is is about order as justice, which you just outlined—that the most primary obligation, the fundamental theological priority, the biggest demand God makes on a society, is order. And order means that you have to have a monoculture that is filled with, quote-unquote, "heritage Americans." That is order.

So freedom is what? Well, here's Gorski and Perry again, from page 101 of The Flag and the Cross: "White Christian citizens have God-given rights. These rights are inalienable"—so we can think about guns here—"they are sacred. No one may violate them, especially not someone from another tribe."

So when it comes to guns, when it comes to the rights of the white Christian citizen: untouchable rights. Other people? Not so much. That could be birthright citizenship, that could be due process, that could be all kinds of things. I don't know—a man left on the street in Buffalo to die. I don't know. How about that? Sorry.

But the thing that's really important for white Christian nationalists, according to Gorski and Perry, is that white violence is the ultimate source of order. Black or leftist violence, by contrast, is the ultimate source of disorder. White Christian violence is the most fundamental expression of freedom. The violence of minorities or perceived socialists is the deepest threat to freedom.

When I hear William Wolfe talking, Dan, this is what I hear. I hear him basically embodying what Gorski and Perry say in their book, The Flag and the Cross: that order is the theological, political, social priority always, and everything else comes after order. And then what does order mean? It means white people on top, white people in charge of the country, white Christians with all the levers of power in government, politics, culture, business, family, education. That's what order means. More to say here. But other thoughts on Wolfe before we go to Kevin?

Dan: A couple thoughts on this theme of order: first of all, that order becomes an end in itself. That's the goal. Not order as a means to do something, but order becomes the highest goal on its own, with all the presuppositions you're giving of who gets to make that order, who benefits from that order, what have you.

And then tied in with that theme is that this is also the discourse that always holds while there's a Republican in office. But these voices about order and "order being just," and we could tie it in with the passage in Romans they all like about how all authority is instituted by God and so forth—this is fine as long as—

Brad: Is that Paul or Jesus?

Dan: I think that's Paul, Brad. I think it's Paul.

I didn't hear him saying this when Biden was president. I didn't hear them, when Bill Clinton was president or when Barack Obama was president, saying, "Well, you know, they're president. God put them there. So we have to do everything they say, because far be it from us to challenge the established order that God has put into place."

That's the other piece of it that is just so on the surface and so right there. And so if somebody is talking to Uncle Ron and he's echoing the same lines about how order is good and order is just and God's a God of order, be like, "Cool. So what about when Obama was president? What about when Biden was president?" And just hear what they say, because all the stuff comes into view. I'm not saying it changes their mind. They're not gonna be like, "Oh, I guess you're right. Maybe order's not..." Nope. But you'll find what an ordered society is supposed to look like. It's not supposed to have Biden at top. It's not supposed to have a Democrat. It's sure not supposed to have a Black president. That's not the right kind of order. And I think that's right on the surface of these discourses.

Brad: All right, let's hear from Kevin Roberts, a Catholic, leader of the Heritage Foundation, shepherd of Project 2025, author of books about Christian nationalism. Here he is.

Kevin Roberts: I love everybody, but we also have an obligation to our people first, so that we can protect the very society that is so appealing for immigrants to migrate to in the first place.

Brad: All right, so there's a lot to say here. I'm gonna focus on one sentence, and then it'll hopefully allow us to talk about other ones. "I love everybody, but..."

Dan: It's like when somebody's like, "I don't want to sound like a racist, but..." "I don't want to sound like a sexist, but..." "I love everybody, but..."

Brad: Yeah. "I love everything you're doing, but..."

Dan: It's entirely wrong. That's like your coach. It's like the occasional email that says, "I love everything you guys say." I'm like, "Oh great, here it comes, right?" Yeah, but. Yep, you're an idiot.

Brad: Yeah, you're an idiot. So okay, Kevin Roberts: "I love everybody, but we also have an obligation to our people first, so that we can protect..." I'm gonna go on. There's a second part of this sentence. It's really worth digging into.

"We have an obligation to our people first." I have said it many times. I'll say it again. As a Christian, this sentence is really hard for me to understand. Who are "our people" if I am a Christian? Is the kingdom of God not a heavenly, universal kingdom? Did God not make all people?

The idea of "Christian people"—one of the ways to understand Christian nationalism is that the nation is lifted above all else, and the Christian fits into the nation. The nation is the first obligation, the first order of business, the first thing of devotion, the nation. And everything else comes after that. The Christian part comes after the nation: "an obligation to our people first."

And the way he defines "our people"—because what I'm going to show you in a second, Dan, is that this week, the US Catholic Conference of Bishops put in a brief to the Supreme Court saying that birthright citizenship aligns with Catholic social teaching, and the striking down of birthright citizenship goes against Catholic social teaching. And Kevin Roberts came out and said that this was just a huge mistake. Let me read it to you. He tweeted this:

"None of this is church teaching, just a poor argument by the USCCB, a far too common occurrence. It is interesting. Now the human dignity argument is always one way—everything for the foreigner, including lawbreakers, at the expense of the citizen."

Dan: They didn't say anything about foreigners. That's the thing. It's like when it was reading for a class, and we're talking about the Declaration of Independence. And it reminded—the book reminded me—it was Andrew Seidel's book—reminding that one year NPR sort of tweeted out 40 characters at a time the Declaration of Independence, and all the MAGA people were up in arms because of all the anti-King, anti-whatever language, and they were like, "Oh, you're coming after Trump." And they're like, "Dude, it's the Declaration of Independence. You are seeing yourself here."

They didn't say something about foreigners versus citizens. They just said people born here are citizens. And you just feel that ethnocentrism and racism and cultural anxiety and everything else. You're like, "They're prioritizing foreigners." You're like, "That's just what they said, is that they're not foreigners." The category of what is foreign is precisely what is at question with the Constitution and birthright citizenship. And it just drives me crazy when they smuggle in these terms or the language is not even there, and it tells you everything about who they are and what they're after. And yeah, now I'm the one who's going to blow a gasket, so please continue, Brad.

Brad: So "we have an obligation to our people first," but they want to change the definition of "our people" to a smaller and smaller group. So who is "our people"? And what we've all said for years, Dan, is that you and I have said, "Well, that kind of sounds like 'our people' are people of European heritage who are Christian." And they would be like, "No, this is about citizens. This is about who's allowed to be here legally and not legally, and this and that."

And yet William Wolfe and Kevin Roberts are both like, "We have to defend ICE and CBP all the time." And you know, you and I have read all the articles that over 4,400 times the judges have said ICE is doing something that is illegal in terms of arresting people who are not needing to be arrested, detained, etc., and they're doing it anyway. They're leaving people to die on the street who are blind. I don't know.

All of this—and there's no outrage from Kevin Roberts or William Wolfe about the arrest, detainment, etc., of American citizens, people who have green cards, people who are here legally. None of that.

So the "our people" here is a lot of code for "who's the 'our'?" Is it just citizens? No, because we're trying to make it so that birthright citizenship is no longer there. And if you, the Catholic Church, say that's part of our social teaching, we as Catholics are going to tell you you're wrong. That's what's happening here.

There's a second part of the sentence that's really caught my attention: "We have an obligation to our people first, so that..."—why? Why?—"we can protect the very society that is so appealing for immigrants to migrate to in the first place."

Oh, like my brain explodes every time I think about it, Dan, because I'm like, all right, I have read Kevin Roberts' book, unfortunately for me, and he talks about America as a city on a hill, just like every Christian nationalist has for a long time now. They date that city on a hill in different ways. They imagine it in different forms. Ronald Reagan, Jack Kennedy, John Winthrop—they've all done the city on a hill thing. Fine.

But I want you to think about a Christian saying: "We are going to build a society that is so godly and so wonderful in terms of its civic structure and social ethos that a lot of people want to come here. And once we build that shining, beautiful city on a hill that is a Christian nation, the closest thing to God's image of human civilization on earth, we will know that we've done God's work by the tens of millions of people we will either have to rip from their homes, deny at the border when they're fleeing violence, or leave on the street because they're blind and can't get home to die. Then we will know we're a Christian country."

This logic and theology—ooh, God, it's airtight. It's just airtight if you're a deranged, cruel human being. Period. Other thoughts on Kevin Roberts here before we go to some of the tweets about the Catholic Conference of Bishops, because they're just too good.

Dan: Yeah, it just—I guess it leads into the Conference of Bishops. But number one, I've said this before. It's the analytics side of me. The other sort of stand back and try not to get so worked up is like, these cleavages between the Conference of Bishops and the Catholic wing of MAGA continues to be really fascinating to me, because the American Council of Bishops is not a liberal or progressive sort of wing of the Catholic Church. And I just find that really fascinating.

I also, Brad, I'm not Catholic, you're not Catholic. I think we both know theology and a fair amount about American religion and so forth. But neither of us are Catholic theologians. As a non-Catholic theologian, if I'm looking, I'm like, "Wow, who should I look to to understand Catholic theology? Am I gonna look at Kevin Roberts, or maybe look at the American Council of Bishops? Or JD Vance when he talks about the Ordo Amoris and the order of love, or whatever, and the Pope is like, 'Yeah, no, you got that wrong. Sorry, you misinterpreted it.'"

There's a kind of a clear line of authority within Catholic teaching and Catholic doctrine and when it comes to interpreting Catholic social thought and so on. And so if you're a rank-and-file Catholic like Kevin Roberts, and your argument is that the bishops are the ones who are screwing up Catholic teaching, I don't know that that's a thing worth paying attention to. I think—

Brad: Well, here are some quotes from people about this. So here's Matthew J. Petersen, a Claremont fellow, who says: "Many in leadership in the Catholic Church have lost the plot. The effect of their absurd assortments of Catholic teaching and immigration equals serious political figures will not take their politics seriously."

And I'm almost positive Matthew J. Petersen's a Catholic. I have not looked that up. That is what my memory tells me. I may be wrong, but it's not in front of me.

Ryan James Girdusky is a Catholic, and he is somebody who has 217,000 followers on Twitter. He's part of the 1776 Project PAC, which sounds like something Michael Scott invented, but I'll leave that there. "Vatican City doesn't grant birthright citizenship either." Okay, so it's a whataboutism. So—

Dan: Talk about criticizing the—

Brad: Chad Pecksnot, who is a Catholic theologian, Dan, and who works at Catholic U in DC: "Not a single European nation has birthright citizenship. Are they all immoral for not having it?"

So they're both doing the "what about everyone else?" Okay. And Chad—Chad, this is coming from a man named Brad. Okay, I just want to talk to you directly. This is from Brad to Chad, both of us with names that are just kind of cringy. Okay, man. My brother in Christ, from Brad to Chad: Do you want to be Europe or not? Yes or no.

I thought Europe was like a liberal hellhole with socialized medicine. Do you want to be Europe or not? Because we can talk about birthright citizenship in Europe, and we can talk about all the other things they do. But every time I talk about Europe, Chad, you're like, "Brad, I don't want to be Europe. We're a city on a hill. We're better than Europe. Europe sucks. Europe is this, Europe is that."

And because I kind of think Europe has some things right compared to us, but every time Chad says to Brad he doesn't want to hear about Europe, there's an issue. So do you want to be Europe or not, Chad? Okay, that's a question I have.

These are some of the tweets about this. I could keep going if you'd like. William Wolfe had his own tweet, even though he's not Catholic. So there's that. Any other thoughts here, Dan, before we briefly turn to a couple of other things?

Dan: I say the Europe piece is really telling. It really is. It's the same person. If you're like, "Everybody in Europe has universal healthcare," throw that one out and see—every time you do that, they're like, "I don't want to be Europe." "We're better. We're America." Yeah, bro. "I don't want to be Europe." You're like, "We're unique, we're different, we're singular, we're awesome, we're alpha, we're American."

You cite birthright citizenship, something that's distinctive about the US, and then all of a sudden they want to be European. Yeah, it's a really interesting point.

Brad: Okay, I actually haven't read what the Catholic Bishops wrote, so let's take a break, and we'll come back and do that.

All right, so here's what the Catholic Bishops wrote, Dan. Just to keep going, because I think this is worth keeping on for a minute:

"Children do nothing wrong by being born in the United States, yet this executive order renders them stateless. Depriving an innocent child of his citizenship based upon his parents' immigration status would be an especially outrageous punishment, one that this court has rejected as punishment even for people who have been proven guilty. At its core, this case is not solely a question about citizenship status or the 14th Amendment. It is a question of whether the law will affirm or deny the equal worth of those born within our common community, whether the law will protect the human dignity of all God's children."

Now, the word "human dignity" has a long and storied history in Vatican II and post-Vatican II Catholic doctrine, so I think that's worth talking about. The way that they're portraying birthright citizenship is: if you have a child whose parents are citizens of another country, and that child is born here, there's no guarantee that that child will then have citizenship or a home in that country of their parents' origin. There's a lot of arguments for birthright citizenship that we can't go into now.

But I want to read you something that Carl Benjamin wrote on Twitter. Carl Benjamin calls himself a "postmodern traditionalist." How does that sound, Dan Miller? Postmodern traditionalist.

Dan: You know what? I met a lot of postmodern traditionalists, Dan, when I was 23, just graduated from a Christian college, and we thought we were so smart.

Brad: It's the 1990s calling, and they want their cool terms back. God, when you were a hipster 23-year-old Christian college grad, you were like, "Yeah, man, I just drank Stella Artois, the best beer I've ever had." Okay there, Chad. Good one, Chad and Carl, hanging out in the Postmodern Traditionalist group. We're the second coming of the Inklings. Great job, Carl and Chad.

Dan: They were the second coming of the Inklings is the next T-shirt.

Brad: Yeah. Oh, that's the second coming of the Inklings. Carl and Chad. Look out. Look out, C.S. Lewis. God, shaking in their boots. Carl and Chad are coming. Look out.

All right, so here's what Carl tweeted: "They were brought here against our will. So why is it wrong to send them home? Is it only okay to impose this on us and not the other way around?"

His concern is the same as Kevin Roberts: "What about us? What about me? What about citizens?" And the argument they're making is that the country's so disordered, it's so chaotic, it's so terrible, that what is happening to them is a travesty against humanity. "They were brought here against our will."

And once again, the logic here, the theologic—is one that says we've built such a great society that God must be so proud of us, and he'll be even more proud of us for sending away the millions of people trying to flee violence and wreckage and poverty by coming to the society that reflects God's image so great. "God, aren't we so amazing? Look how many people we had to turn away. Look how much we don't care about them. Aren't you proud of me, Jesus? What would Jesus do? I hope it's this."

We're not going to get to the Ellisons today, so we might as well just—you know, what else do you want to say about this? Because if you let me keep talking, we will be off the air. This will be the last episode, because we're gonna get sued.

Dan: Just briefly, when they talk about "taking my country back," I always feel like asking that guy, like, "Okay, what did they do to you?" Like, just name—it's not your fucking country anyway, Chad. Thank you very much. Sorry. And name it. Name the ways that you suffered because somebody from somewhere else came here. There's nothing. There's just nothing there. There's nothing there.

When all this "I want my country back"—nobody took it from you. Number one. Number two, to your point, it's not yours. But number three, it's part of yours. It's part of 340 million other people's. Sorry. That's what I meant. You have—

Brad: Go ahead.

Dan: One 340 millionth of the country. So let's talk about that.

The other piece is this: we talk about the—don't quote the Bible a lot, but there's this vision at the end of the Bible, in the book of Revelation, where John is given this fantastical vision of kind of the way that God ultimately wants things to be, the way that God will make everything. And so it's just this utopian kind of vision, and it includes this vision of people of every tribe and every nation and every people.

So I don't care who the Christian is, if you want to play this game, as you're saying, that being a good Christian nation means keeping everybody out, I'm sorry—the utopian vision that motivates everything, even at the end of this really violent book, at the end of the Bible, the violence culminates in the inclusion of everyone. That's the vision.

So it's not just your nation. It's a calling to be the nation to all people. So if you want to talk about America as the beacon on the hill and as the place that is calling to everybody and all of that, then that's what it is. If you want a Christian vision, explain how that one fits in when you have this biblical, utopian vision of a society that's composed of every tribe and every nation and every people.

Brad: All right, last thing, and then we'll sign off. Dan Miller's got to go. He's important, man. He's got like 15 meetings today.

So Kevin Roberts is always talking about "our country." I've read Kevin Roberts' book, unfortunately for me. I've actually read it more than once because of the book I wrote, American Caesar. And guess what, Dan? Guess what? Thirty-one times in his book, Dawn's Early Light, does Kevin Roberts talk about how he's proud of his Cajun heritage.

You know, Kevin, I just thought you were proud of being an American. What is it with this identity politics, Kevin? Why the hyphenated American stuff? Why? What does being Cajun have to do with this, dawg? I just thought you were just a Christian American man. Why you gotta be talking all the time about things that divide us and splinter us and are specific to you and your culture and where you came from, bro?

Isn't Cajun just another word for French? Is that what you are? You just telling me about being French or something? Come on, Kevin, let's be Americans. Why are you trying to invade my monoculture with your Cajun-ness? All of that spice and delicious food? I mean, come on. All of the music and the ways that your culture contributes to the beauty of the fabric of—wait a minute. It's almost like sometimes people's cultures, the things they've developed over time, add to a fabric of the United States that's a mosaic of pluralistic beauty, diverse wonder, a chance to share with my neighbors stories, traditions, rituals that I didn't know about, but make my life fuller, more meaningful.

It's weird, Kevin, that I would take that from your book, but somehow I did. You're welcome. If you'd like me to blurb the next one, give me a call.

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All right, y'all. Love you. We'll catch you next time. I'm gonna go put a cold damn towel over my head, try not to lose my job or put incendiary things online. Dan, how about you?

Dan: I'm just ready to sleep, Brad. That's it. I'm just ready to sleep.

Brad: All right. Talk to you later. Thanks, Brad.