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- [00:00]
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Charlie Sykes
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Peter Wehner
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Charlie Sykes
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- [01:13]
Charlie Sykes
@ediblearrangements.com I'm Charlie Sykes. Welcome back to the to the Contrary podcast. In my newsletter yesterday, I had to remind people that this is real life. This is not a parody that Donald Trump actually did back the idea of changing the name of Ice to Nice Orwell Blushes. I don't think it's actually going to happen, but it gives you an idea of the kind of the very, very strange world that we are in. In case you missed it, Donald Trump is also putting his face on certain passports. Hmm. Now of course there's kind of a pattern here. He's already put his name on the national park passes as they're minting a $1 Trump coin and he's gonna build the Arc de Trump. Yeah, I think we getting that. Also, did you notice that when the King visited the the White House official X account actually posted a picture of King Charles with Donald Trump with the caption two Kings with a crown emoji, which is a hell of a way of celebrating the 250th anniversary of our first no Kings Revolution. And of course, at 4am the President of the United States evidently in touch with his 12 year old self posted an AI image of himself cosplaying. No more Mr. Nice Guy holding a gun, looking like he's blowing up Iran. Which was kind of strange because this, he did this after the state dinner with King Charles. You think he'd be in a better mood. Or maybe he figured out that the real king had actually schooled the fake King. We're going to get to that in just a moment. And of course, in the midst of the war with Iran, we found out that Peter Hegseth was taking a joyride with with Kid Rock on an Apache helicopter because, of course, rules do not apply to anybody. That is a MAGA toady. And also, we have to talk about this. The Trump administration continuing its campaign of retribution, indicting James Comey, the former FBI director for seashells. Now, I describe that as both ludicrous and disgraceful. And we have to keep these ideas in our heads. At the same time that it's lacking, it's almost comically stupid, but also very, very dangerous. We have a lot of ground to cover today. And joining me on our podcast, our good friend Peter Wehner from the Trinity Forum, writer for the Atlantic. Peter, welcome back.
- [03:49]
Peter Wehner
Great to be with you, Charlie. Thanks for having me on.
- [03:51]
Charlie Sykes
Well, I want to talk about your piece that you had the American Pope versus the American President, something that I am like, I'm extremely interested in this. I think this is one of the extraordinary dynam of our time. But let's talk about some other things, including, including the James Comey indictment. I'm still trying to get my head around all of this. I think by now people have now seen that he posted an image of some seashells in the sand that read 8647. Now, the indictment, with a complete straight face, says that any reasonable person would look at that as a threat to murder Donald Trump, you know, 86 and 47, referring to, you know, Donald Trump being the 47th, except that 86 has been used for years as like, you know, get rid of somebody or I mean, just, I mean, like at a restaurant. It goes back to the 1930s. And ironically enough, a lot of the MAGA folks had been using that during the, during the Biden era. There are lots and lots of images of 86, 40, 46, Peter, it's so profoundly stupid and yet somewhat ominous and dangerous. So what was your reaction to this?
- [05:08]
Peter Wehner
Yeah, it was both. I agree it is incredibly stupid and it is ominous as well. I think what we're seeing, Charlie, when we kind of pull back is one Old thing and one new thing. I would say the old thing is the sociopathy that has really marked Donald Trump for his entire adult life, as best we can tell, in the narcissistic personality disorder that he almost certainly is struggling with. That's been a constant, and we've seen it manifest itself in all sorts of ways over the course of his life and over the course of his two terms in office. I'd say the new element is the mental decompensation and decomposition that is happening now, which I assume is age related, and that I think that's the newer element. And so he's never been a man with filters, but he's never been a man with less filters. And so I think he's just descending into this dark world and this world of sort of make believe, which on a human level, there's a certain poignancy to it. When it happens to a president of the United States, there's also a danger to it. And I think unlike Joe Biden, who I think was sending in a different way, there was an effort by the people around Biden to sort of hide him from the public and to minimize these. But because of the nature of who Trump is, the nature of the people he has around him, there's no one who's trying to hide this. So it's completely in the open. So we get these Insane tweets at 2 and 4am and everything else. So I think those two things are coming together. I think the latter can add
- [06:59]
Charlie Sykes
just
- [07:00]
Peter Wehner
a bizarre element to it. If, if it stays simply in the bizarre. You know, that's. We, we can shake our heads and think, when will this we or Twilight Zone era be over? The concern which you are alluding to, what makes this ominous is he's still present. He still has enormous power and people
- [07:24]
Charlie Sykes
willing to do his bidding. I mean, this is the thing. Clearly, Todd Blanche is the acting Attorney General who really wants to be the Attorney General. He's auditioning for this by going after Trump critics, silencing the critics one after another, but he's willing to do it in just the most, I mean, egregious way. And again, all of this in service of Donald Trump's ego and his, his, his, his toxic vendettas. And the entire Department of Justice is going, yes, sir, we will do your bidding. Even though we're going to be laughed out of court.
- [08:04]
Peter Wehner
Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, they're doing it in the name of his, of his pathologies. And in some respects, I think, I wonder Whether it's even worse than that, which is, I think there are some people like Kash Patel, when they feel like their job is on the line, are actually auditioning for their job the way that they audition for their job when to Trump is try to be more outrageous than even he is and to do things that maybe he hadn't thought about that are unbelievably outrageous, lawless, cruel and all the rest. So that combination is really dangerous. I mean, both you and I were critics of Trump in the first term and we felt like not nearly enough people stood up to him, particularly in the Republican Party. And I think that critique has held up quite well over time. On the other hand, we are seeing the, the importance of having certain people like John Kelly and Secretary of Defense and people Joint Chiefs of Staff and elsewhere, even Bill Barr we saw with Mike Pence and I was critics of both of theirs.
- [09:10]
Charlie Sykes
Who knew?
- [09:11]
Peter Wehner
Yeah. But at certain key moments, they refused to do Trump's bidding. And that did insulate the country from some of the worst and most bizarre actions by Trump.
- [09:25]
Charlie Sykes
Well, I just wanna go back in case people are there's any ambiguity. I would love to have conversations with MAGA adjacent relatives or friends about this indictment of Jim Comey. And look, it's not about whether you like Jim Comey or not. It's like whether or not you think that he should be charged with felonies for taking a picture of seashells and then putting it out on Instagram. I mean, he said that he was doing a beach walk and he saw them. He thought they were kind of cool. Never occurred to him anybody would think it was violent. I went to Merriam Webster Dictionary. You can find this on my newsletter. 86 is slang, meaning to throw out, get rid of or refuse service to. It comes from a 1930s soda counter slang, meaning that an item was sold out. There's various anecdotal evidence about why the term 86 was used. The most common theory is that it was rhyming slang for nicks. Walter Winchell back in 1933 said a Hollywood soda jerk forwards his glossary of soda fountain lingo. Shoot one, draw one is one Coke, one coffee, shoot one in the red means a cherry Coke. An echo is a repeat order. 86 means they're all out of it. So in other words, it is not a super secret code for murder or kill or assassination. And I pity the poor schmuck lawyer who's going to try to make this case before a judge or a jury if it for some Reason he got that far. But of course, the great irony is all of the MYGA folks who are using the same thing and posting pictures of themselves with 86, 46. And there was that one moment where Donald Trump actually posted a video of a pickup truck. And in the back of the pickup truck, there's an image of Joe Biden hogtied and gagged. And so, you know, this notion that, well, we are now going to criminally charge James Comey. Okay, so let's leave that aside, except that what's very obvious is that you have the Department of Justice, you have the FBI willing to do whatever Donald Trump wants, no matter how crazy, no matter how stupid. You would hope grand juries would have seen through this, but they don't. Okay, so, Peter, before we get to the Pope, the king's visit here, I thought was, I'll admit to you, I had very mixed feelings. I was kind of hoping he didn't come. I hope that they would have canceled it. But the king came and did some rather remarkable things. He spoke truth to power, but in such a deft way that I'm not sure that Donald Trump fully understood what was going on. Donald Trump was all caught up with the optics of, you know, being around the king. But this was a moment, Peter, where I kind of thought the world was upside down, where the King of England comes here and reminds America about republican values. Can I just play a small soundbite of King Charles III speaking before Congress? And he got a bipartisan standing ovation for this, but this is what he said.
- [12:28]
King Charles III
The U.S. supreme Court Historical Society has calculated that Magna Carta is cited in at least 160 Supreme Court cases since 1789, not least as the foundation of the principle that executive power is subject to checks and balances. Distinguished members of the 119th Congress. It is here in these very holes that this spirit of liberty and the promise of America's founders is present in every session and every vote cast not by the will of one, but by the deliberation of many representing the living mosaic of the United States.
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Charlie Sykes
So, Peter, world turned upside down. The king talking about the principle that executive power is subject to checks and balances. Interesting coming from the King of England.
- [13:32]
Peter Wehner
Yeah, beautifully done. Beautifully done. Yeah. My feelings were the same as yours leading into. Into the. Into the visit and wasn't paying particular attention because there's so many other things going on. But that was an important moment. And it's. It strikes me the significance of having certain figures at certain times say certain important things. And to say it with a different register, at a different frequency. Sometimes there are are very direct language and direct criticisms, and other times there's a subtlety and a nuance, and that's important, too. But when you live in the world that we live in, when the most powerful person in the world is occupying space, in the Twilight Zone, in this world of unreality, it's extremely important that from time to time, there are people with public voices who do speak the truth and who reminds the rest of us that the reality matters, that we're not going insane
- [14:37]
Charlie Sykes
and who we are and where we came from. I mean, the historic. What Donald Trump is breaking down, there's such a long history of centuries getting to the point where checks and balances is not just an annoyance. The fact that here you have. And again, this irony that the King of England is coming here and talking about this long tradition of why we do not let one person make the decision. I thought it was chef's kiss. Beautiful. I think the Democrats of the room got it. The Republicans applauded. But I think there's gonna be a delayed reaction when Trump finally figures out what the King did there. I don't know.
- [15:16]
Peter Wehner
Yeah, I suspect. I suspect you're right. Lincoln had that phrase, the mystic cords of memory. Yeah, that's some of what I think you're alluding to, which is that those memories and those chords of memory are important for countries, and you can lose them, or at least you can lose them temporarily. And so one of the tasks of statesmen and of people in this time is to remind others what the best traditions, what the best memories of countries are. And I think that that's what the King was doing. And as you say, there's of course, the irony that the person who has the tit title king is essentially making the case for no kings, at least in the United States. So there's that element to it as well. Well done, King Charles.
- [16:06]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah, well, let me just play one more sound bite, because also, you know, standing before the Congress of the United States, knowing that he was going to be hanging out with Donald Trump, he actually, speaking of history, reminded Americans about the role of NATO and then talked about the importance of standing up for Ukraine. Listen to the king.
- [16:30]
King Charles III
In the immediate aftermath of 9 11, when NATO invoked Article 5 for the first time and the United Nations Security Council was united in the face of terror, we answered the call together, as our people have done so for more than a century, shoulder to shoulder through two world wars, the Cold War, Afghanistan, and moments that have defined our shared security. Today, Mr. Speaker, that same unyielding resolve is needed for the defence of Ukraine and her most courageous people. It is needed in order to secure a truly just and lasting peace.
- [17:24]
Charlie Sykes
So I thought that that was again, deftly done, but very pointed, because Donald Trump has been aggressively downplaying the role of NATO, saying NATO has never been there. He's reminding Americans and President Trump that NATO actually did come to the defense of the United States. And once again, this long tradition of joint security and then ties it back together to the need to stand with Ukraine at the very moment that Donald Trump is rather aggressively abandoning Ukraine. Again, you know, King's not supposed to be political or partisan, and he was not. But that was pointed, don't you think? I mean, he got that in there.
- [18:03]
Peter Wehner
I agree. I think he was picking his shots and I think he picked the right shots in terms of the case that he made, the way that he did it, the manner in which he. He did it, there was a directness in his language, but it was not remotely offensive. And again, it was a summoning to something that once was, and in this case, the NATO alliance. And I do think that when the wreckage of the Trump years is assessed, and there'll be a lot of it, and it'll take a lot of time, potentially the destruction, the dismantling of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO is going to be relatively high on that list. I mean, this was one of the greatest military alliances in human history. And of course, for as long as you and I had been Republicans, Republican Party, Republican presidents were tremendous supporters of NATO. They recognized what a force it was, a moral force in the world, but also how it was enormously valuable to the United States and the self interest of the United States. And there was really nothing wrong with the NATO alliance. I mean, one could argue whether the European countries should spend more or less on their defense budgets. That's a small argument that could have been settled relatively easily. But to come in as Trump did, who's kind of institutional arsonist, and to burn it down, to break it apart, or at least to be on the verge of that, that's the kind of thing that has huge ramifications. And I also think Europeans have made this case, probably made it to you, which is, you know, the first Trump term, they were willing to say, look, this is a parenthesis in the American story, right? It's that second time that the public saw Trump, what he was, who he is, and said yes to it. That now I think the NATO countries have come to the conclusion. I think it's a reasonable conclusion, which is the United States is not a trustworthy ally.
- [20:03]
Charlie Sykes
No.
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Peter Wehner
It could be that whoever follows Trump tries to repair the alliance, and maybe to some extent they will. But I don't think the NATO countries can ever again be in a position of having a firm confidence that the United States will be there when it matters.
- [20:21]
Charlie Sykes
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- [21:29]
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- [22:01]
Charlie Sykes
Speaking of being an institutional arsonist, we can't pass over Donald Trump's larger attack on other fundamental principles, like, for example, free speech. This may seem like a little bit of a diversion, and maybe it relates to the James Comey thing, but I just found it really ironic. And I was very, very critical of the White House Correspondents Dinner for inviting Donald Trump to be a guest of honor this is an event that was supposed to be a celebration of the First Amendment. There have been other presidents who have assaulted free speech. Nobody quite as aggressively as Donald Trump. Of course, we know how that ended. We know the near tragedy. But I also think it's worth noting that one of the, you know, one part of the fallout from this, there's been actually two parts. The, you know, siccing of the FCC against Disney and ABC because Jimmy Kimmel told a joke using the cudgel of the government to go after these media companies because, you know, it's like you guys at the correspondence dinner, you understand this. But also, and I want you to address it because you've written about this very eloquently and extensively, the conflation of language with violence, the sense that this now becomes a pretext to tell people to shut up and stop criticizing the president. So your thoughts on this? And I think part of the problem was that, and people on the left, I think, went too far in saying that sometimes speech can be violence. It is important, right, to say that speech itself is not violence. It can be irresponsible. But this cannot be a pretext to shut people up, to stop criticizing the president.
- [23:44]
Peter Wehner
Yeah, I think you've articulated that really, really well. I mean, you know, so many things in life, it comes down to discernment. You can't yell fire in a crowded theater. We understand that. And there are some kinds of speech at some moments can be interpreted as provoking violence, and that needs to be addressed. But that's rare. And the bar has to be exceedingly high to clear it, to make that, to make that judgment. In this case, it's just easy. I mean, this is just transparent. You've got a person with these sociopathic tendencies who I think at his core, you know, as you try and understand Donald Trump and say, what is it most fundamentally that defines him? What are the things that are most core to his personality? And right at the center is this sense of vengeance. That is a kind of energy element to him. It gets him up in the morning, it keeps him up at night, and he goes to sleep, perseverating on the people that he hates, perseverating on the people that he wants to destroy. And he's going to go to his grave with that feeling, and he's using any pretext he can to destroy the people he wants to. And we saw that with the Comey indictment, as you said, it's farcical. It's going to get laughed out. The important thing to take for people I think is this is what drives him. You see it with Jimmy Kimmel and you saw it with others in the media that he's trying to destroy. That's another sort of insight into what's core about him. And then you saw it in a different way when Robert Mueller died and when Rob Reiner died. And he actively celebrated their death in the immediate aftermath of it in a way that's just monstrous and cruel. But again, I think for us as observers of the scene is to say, okay, this is what's most central to who this man is. And that's, I think, what you're getting at when it comes to free speech.
- [25:50]
Charlie Sykes
Well, and it's not just destroy, it's also to silence and intimidate. Right. Because I don't know that Donald Trump thinks that he's gonna throw Jim Comey in jail, but he thinks he can ruin his life. He thinks that he can harass people and he thinks that other people will look around and go, you know what, maybe I ought to self censor. And by the way, he's had tremendous success about that. Right. Is to basically say, if you criticize me, there will be a price. Of course, now, the incredible hypocrisy of all of this, because, you know, Trump ran as the free speech candidate, remember when the right was saying that we are going to eliminate cancel culture. They get into power, what do they do? They impose not just an aggressive cancel culture on the right, but are willing to use so many of the instruments of power of the state to silence and bully people, including, and not just, I mean, so comedians, reporters, other sorts of critics, anyone who has taken a stand against him. And isn't that part of the, this culture of authoritarianism, that you don't need to arrest everyone, you don't need to throw everybody in jail, you just need to make people afraid. And he has weaponized that fear.
- [27:03]
Peter Wehner
Yeah, I completely agree. It's not that he has to get away with all of these things. It's the message that it sends and that people, in anticipation of him and the federal government going after them, change the way that they act or they do his bidding. And as you said, you can go through a whole series of institutions and domains and see how people have, have changed how they approach things. I mean, you know, I live in the Washington, D.C. area. You see what happened with the Washington Post and Jeff Bezos. You can go after thing after thing after thing, law firms and so forth. This is the power of intimidation. And that's why it's extremely important to have people who aren't intimidated, who are willing to stand up to him. And James Comey, to his credit, I think, has taken the right posture, which is to say, I'm not afraid. He shouldn't be afraid, and he's going to win these cases. But his life is complicated because he's a target of Trump. But we need people at this moment to fight in whatever ways that they can to preserve this republic and the ideals of the republic. And that requires, in this moment for people in various ways and. And who are part of various institutions not to be intimidated and speak truth and speak truth to power.
- [28:30]
Charlie Sykes
Now, speaking of which, someone who is not going to be intimidated, who is not going to be bullied, who will continue to speak truth to power, is the American Pope. I just find this extraordinary. Now, you wrote in the Atlantic this week, American presidents and popes have clashed before, but the battle of words and wills between Donald Trump and Pope Leo XIV is unprecedented. And I thought you made some really interesting points, like this archetypal contrast of character. You know, we talk about polar opposites. You know, the pope, deeply religious man, you know, shaped by Augustinian disciplines of humility, reflection, and service. In contrast. Well, we know of Donald Trump. So talk to me about why this is so different than any of the other president versus pope tensions that we've experienced in the past.
- [29:24]
Peter Wehner
Yeah, I was struck by this archetypal clash because they were really polar opposites. That really jumped out at me. A man, as you were describing, who was deeply religious, shaped by the Augustinian tradition. And Donald Trump is such a thoroughly secular person and has really nothing but. But contempt about faith. The contrast between immoral and moral, the contrast between a person who is the leader of an institution and cares about the institution, wants to preserve it, versus a person who takes delight in destroying institutions. So that was part of it, which is the nature of the clash. And the other thing that struck me about this is that Pope Leo is a strong figure. He has no fear of Donald Trump. He's able to make direct criticisms, but never dehumanize. I had this sense with Pope Leo and Trump in this clash isn't just that Pope Leo is, in a sense, besting Donald Trump, but that he's transcending him. And that Donald Trump knows how to attack and to break politicians, but he doesn't know how to attack and to break prophetic voices. And that, I think, is what makes this moment important and why I think it's vivifying.
- [30:56]
Charlie Sykes
Okay, this is one of the central points you make Is that the prophetic voice? It is a prophetic voices versus political power. So talk to me about this. I mean, you describe the Pope's prophetic stance allows him to speak as somebody who's liberated and confident and who cannot be intimidated. So the entire rules are different from the normal opponents of Donald Trump. It's a completely different formula, isn't it?
- [31:25]
Peter Wehner
Yeah, really. It really is. And I think Trump senses that. That's why his attack on the Pope as being weak on crime, even by Trumpian standards, was so absurd. I mean, what is it supposed to mean? What it means in the deeper sense is that Trump doesn't really know how to go at the pop, as I described in the essay. He's punching at shadows. And that's very important. The other thing that I found important in encouraging as a non Catholic Christian is that Pope Leo is not willing to subordinate his faith and the gospel in order to go up to political power. That's important in any time, in any era. I'd say it's particularly important now because so many people within the evangelical and fundamentalist world have done the opposite, right? They've jettisoned moral values, the ethic of Jesus, their supposed commitment to the gospel in order to be a courtier for Trump, to be a bootlooker. You can look at people like, say, Mike Johnson, speaker of the House.
- [32:30]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah, I know.
- [32:32]
Peter Wehner
Very showy about his, very outspoken about his evangelical faith. And you watch him and you see him day after day, act after acting, you know, to take, take, take a, a, a pickaxe to sort of the foundation of his faith. And it's, it's so transparent. And this has happened time after time after time. You see it in a whole range of people from Ralph Reed and Al Mohler to Franklin Graham to Robert Jeffress to Eric Batex. I mean, I could go through that entire litany of people, and these are people who on one level have known better, and yet they've given all of that up and rationalized it in order to bow before the King. And the Pope will not do that. And that's a very, very important thing for people of faith and non faith to see.
- [33:25]
Charlie Sykes
Well, and you talk about what the relationship between the church and the state ought to be, and there seems to be a lot of confusion about that. I mean, what you point out is that the Christian church is not supposed to be the tool or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the. And I mean, there's two different viewpoints there between the folks you've mentioned and the kinds of things that. What the Pope seems to think that he wants to be the conscience of the state. Talk to me about that.
- [33:53]
Peter Wehner
Yeah, that's right. I mean, that line is from Martin Luther King Jr. Speech about being not the master of the servant, but the conscience of the state. And it's extremely powerful because I think it embodies what I think is a Christian truth, which is that people of faith need to be involved in public life because there are human ramifications to what happens in public life. And if you look away, there can be profound human consequences, negative human consequences, when politics breaks apart. We've seen that, obviously, throughout human history. So you would say as a Christian, there's an incarnational truth, right, which is that for people of the Christian faith, it's the idea that God, through Jesus, entered history, entered this drama, and has an interest in it. So that's on the one hand. On the other hand, it's this notion that we're citizens of another kingdom, that we're pilgrims and sojourners, that this is not really our home, and that this church is never meant to be particularly comfortable and cozy up to the state. And I would say Christian history has validated that. I mean, it's a complicated story, but I would say to my evangelical and fundamentalist friends that just if you look historically, when the Church spread like wildfire, it was in the first several centuries of Christ and several centuries afterward, and the Church had no political power at all. And in some respects, it had almost no cultural power. In another respect, it had tremendous cultural power. Power because the lives that the people of the Church led, primarily lives of compassion, taking in the poor and the dispossessed and the orphans. It was such a powerful testimony to people to say our community is a community of love and compassion and gives meaning and purpose to life. And that is what really brought a lot of people into the faith. When the Church began to fuse itself with the state, Constantine being the. The earliest and most obvious and conspicuous example, a lot went wrong and throughout human history. And this is true of the Catholic Church, too. And I'm sure Pope Leo would acknowledge that an awful lot of harm has been done both within the world and to the Christian witness when that fusion has gone on. What we're seeing now in America in the 21st century with Trump and the evangelical world is the latest version of an old and ugly story. And I think in this case, Pope Leo, in a way that's not direct, but I think it's pretty clear to a lot of us is saying there's a better and different way, and he's embodying that well.
- [36:41]
Charlie Sykes
And you explain that Leo's actions are rooted in the Augustinian tradition, which is skeptical of worldly power and emphasizes the preferential choice for the poor. So talk to me about. I'm not that familiar with this particular tradition. So any. Clearly this. In order to understand the Pope, you need to understand this Augustinian tradition that you describe.
- [37:06]
Peter Wehner
Yeah, I mean, you touched on it, which is. There are certain inclinations, tropisms that the Augustinian tradition has. It's one of meditation and social action and that kind of combination, which is. It's not mere mind, monasteries, not withdrawal from the world. Very important amount of. There's a lot of importance placed on the spiritual disciplines, prayer and meditation. So those things are really focused, I would say, on the interior of the soul, the cultivation of the soul in the deepest sense. And with the soul being shaped in those ways, the order of the love is being shaped in a certain way, then they go into the world and they act as witnesses to the world and they act as healers of the breach. That's the tradition that Leo comes from. And I think his life has really borne testimony to that. He spent several decades in Peru, including during the Shining Path terrorism time that Peru was struggling with, and many people fled and he did not, which again underscores us certain courage that he has. And I think that notion within Catholicism of a preferential treatment for the poor, and it doesn't mean that you're indifferent to people who are not poor, but it does mean that the people who are most often overlooked in life by others is high on the list of the concerns. And you saw that in the ministry of Leo when he was in Peru. And that is some of the best of the Catholic tradition, in my estimation.
- [38:58]
Charlie Sykes
So I'm going to use a word that I. That I'm going to regret using, and it's probably an inappropriate word, so I apologize in advance for it. But it seems as if given his worldview and his personality, that there's something about the Christianity or the faux Christianity of a Peter Hegseth and a JD Vance that triggers him, that he feels he has been so outspoken and so direct in pushing back. When Hegseth is invoking God, you know, as the. You know, to justify the war, or when JD Vance talks about the order of loves, that to justify mass deportations and cutting off aid to people around the world, this seems to offend him at a really visceral, deep level. I should have said that rather than triggering. But this is where, I think this is where he's really found his voice. Right. In contrast to. No, I'm sorry, Mr. Vance, that is not what Christianity is about. I'm sorry, Mr. Hegseth. You know, invoking God's name to justify violence. God is not hearing those prayers. I mean, these are really strong reactions from this Pope.
- [40:08]
Peter Wehner
Yeah, you're picking up on exactly the right thing, I think, to pick up on. It's. It's not simply what the Trump administration is doing, which is problematic enough. It's the manner in which they're doing it. They're defaming the name of Jesus by invoking the name of Jesus to do their work. And I think a person of the Christian faith, in this case leader of The Catholic Church, 1.4 billion people, when he sees that happening, he's saying, enough is enough. What you're doing is wrong, and what you're doing in the name of Jesus is particularly wrong. And I have to speak out against that.
- [40:51]
Charlie Sykes
So you're also talking about the contrast between these, between the Trump administration and the Pope is the difference between moral reasoning versus political combat. And you point out, you know, when the President uses personal insults, which is his go to thing, the Pope relies on moral language, you know, the church's social teaching and scriptures. So sometimes it feels like they're talking to each other from different planets. Just an entirely different lexicon, aren't they?
- [41:24]
Peter Wehner
Yeah, it's an entirely different lexicon because it's an entirely different soul and psyche that are using the words. I think what the Pope has done, and it's not always an easy balance to get right, is, is he's speaking directly and critically, but not disrespectfully. And he's not dehumanizing Trump, and he's not even personalizing it in some respects. He was on the plane when they were asking him about it, and he went out of his way to say, look, this is not a personal battle that I'm having with the President. He's simply trying to stand up for a certain ethic and a faith that he represents. So I do think that, that, that is a lot of what is going, going on here. This is a person of deep convictions, deep morality, deep civility, and they are fused together in a beautiful way in him. And again, I think this is why Trump is so discombobulated in knowing how to go at, at Pope Leo, because Pope Leo occupies a space and lives in a world that's entirely alien to Donald Trump. And I would say that the very things that Pope Leo most cherishes are the things that Donald Trump most disdains.
- [42:49]
Charlie Sykes
And yet, even though he comes from a completely alien world, he's also an American. And this seems to be. You can't escape the fact that this is taking place because you're talking about an American pope from Chicago who understands American culture, who understands American politics, and who. Who speaks in a way that I'm really kind of struck by, because I've gotten used to pope speaking in sort of this Latinate, convoluted way. Well, is he really saying that? What is he actually trying to say? And this pope, when he speaks, you know exactly what he's talking about. It is really, really direct. And this is one thing that maybe Trump had a point when he says, you know, you wouldn't be pope if it wasn't for me, by what she's saying, is that, I mean, what do you think of that? That the Church at a certain time does understand what is the moment in history. And to choose a Polish pope when they did, to choose this American pope when they did it seems highly relevant. What do you think? I mean, to have an American pope challenging the American president is completely different than anything we've ever seen before.
- [43:54]
Peter Wehner
It is. Obviously, I wasn't at the conclave, so I don't know all the factors that went into it.
- [44:00]
Charlie Sykes
No, neither was I.
- [44:01]
Peter Wehner
If it turned out that Donald Trump is the reason that Pope Leo was. Was elected pope, then it's one thing that I'm going to credit Donald Trump for doing. That was good doing his. During the Trump. The Trump era. I. I do agree with you. The fact that he's an American pope is. Is important in. In at least two respects. One is what. What you mentioned, which is sometimes with popes, there's a language barrier. What they say has to get translated, and sometimes it gets mistranslated. And so there is the fact that you can hear Pope Leo speak very directly, very clearly in English, and everybody knows exactly what he says. The other thing, and I think the deeper thing here, is that this is a person from the south side of Chicago. He is an American. And when he does criticize America, it comes from a place of devotion and love. And that matters, too. He is not an outsider speaking to a country and to a culture and to a political culture that he just doesn't understand. He understands it. In fact, it's precisely because he understands it that I think he feels a particular obligation to speak out the way he has
- [45:19]
Charlie Sykes
I'm sure you get these same questions people will ask you, well, how does X, Y or Z play out? What does the Trump base think about X, Y or Z? And I often won't know because it's like, how do you predict? We've been doing this for 10 years and there have been so many sort of false springs. But what is your sense now, sort of slightly changing the focus of this? Not only did Donald Trump pick a fight with the Pope, but at the very same time he was amplifying these memes that, that compared himself, himself, Donald Trump to Jesus Christ. There were people like Franklin Graham who came out and defended that, like, oh, that's not a problem. My sense is, though, that that bothered evangelical Christians, conservative Christians, even mega Christians, more than the run of the mill Trumpian outrage. Give me your sense. Because there is there, there must be some sort of a mystical line there. And when a politician begins to cross that line into regarding themselves as divinity, that is going to have a reaction. So did that hurt Donald Trump? Did that cause some evangelicals to think that, ooh, maybe this has gone off the rails?
- [46:39]
Peter Wehner
Yeah, I think there were two things at work. Some of it is what you're, what you're alluding to. There was a way in which just essentially, you know, sending out on social media the idea that he's, he, he is Christ himself probably did touch, touch something of a nerve for, for some of them. Although, as you said, there were, there, there were some acolytes like Franklin Graham who, you know, went out of their way to defend him. But I, I do think it, of course, I, I think, think the deeper thing that is happening is that Trump is beginning to get the stench of being a loser. And I think that sense, even if it's in somewhat inchoate sense among a lot of his supporters, frees them up to make criticisms or to react critically to him in a way that would not have been the case during the election year or if things were going extremely well for him. You and I have seen some version of this play out in politics our entire life, which is when a president begins to fall into polls or when he begins to collapse in the polls. People want to distance themselves for all sorts of reasons from that president and that presidency. And I do think that we're in a moment now, and both you and I, I think, have been pretty careful at trying not to over interpret events during the Trump era. This happens all the time. You know, people say, no, gosh, when, when, when he attacked John McCain, he was being a war criminal.
- [48:10]
Charlie Sykes
That's it.
- [48:10]
Peter Wehner
That's it. Right. And no, it wasn't it. And so, right, the, the insurrection. Right. We go through. Through the entire list.
- [48:19]
Charlie Sykes
We have PTSD on that.
- [48:20]
Peter Wehner
Right, Right, exactly.
- [48:21]
Charlie Sykes
This is the turning point. The walls are closing in.
- [48:24]
Peter Wehner
Right. I do think we're at a time. I don't think it's an inflection point exactly. But I do think we're in a different moment there. There is no question that Trump, Trump is weakening, that outside circumstances are changing. He cannot control them, which raises its own concerns about how he psychologically reacts to that. But he is in a dark and deep place right now, and he's not really going to come out of it. He's been on the scene for 10 years, a little bit over 10 years. His act may be tiring. And so I think what you're seeing, and we've seen this now with Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly and Candace Owen.
- [49:06]
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- [49:06]
Peter Wehner
The Iran war was kind of the proximate cause for the, for the break. But that's not really at the deepest level, what's going on. I think what's going on is that they feel like that Trump is sort of stumbling toward the. Toward the finish line of his. Of his second term, and they want to break from that. They don't want to get. They don't want to get, you know, pulled down as he goes. Goes down. So I think some of that is happening within the evangelical world. Having said that, Trump's approval rating is still 80% in the Republican Party, still a revered figure among most evangelicals. And quite honestly, for an awful lot of the evangelicals, they view him as something close to the Christ child. So what Trump sent out is simply signaling to them what on some emotional level and theological level, level, they already believe.
- [50:02]
Charlie Sykes
I mean, I probably overuse this, but every once in a while, when he'll do something, you go, you know, what would Jesus do? Well, he wouldn't do this, he wouldn't do that. And what are you saying now, by the way? I occasionally will mention things I watch on television, and I'm really reluctant to do it this time because I want to make it very clear, Peter, and to the listeners, I am not recommending that you go out and watch this show unless you are fully prepared for it. Do not watch this show with your children. Do not watch this show with children. Even in the next room when you are watching this show. Okay. Have I made this very clear? Made clear, but one of the sharpest political satires out there is the boys on prime video, which I'm sure you're not watching, Peter. It is hyper, hyper violent. It is very, very crude in many, many ways. But the political satire is really biting. And the character, the character who plays Homelander is very clearly a Trump like figure. And they are not terribly subtle in showing, you know, how Homelander becomes more and more fascistic, more and more arrogant, more and more vicious. In the current season, which had to have been done, written and produced before the events of, you know, the last several months, Homelander decides, the Trump character decides that it's not enough that he simply be a prophet of God aligned with this right wing Christian nationalist church, that he in fact has to be God himself. And there's that moment where you go, so they saw the trajectory, they saw the arc where this was going, where Homelander declares, and then of course, he sits down with the evangelical church and they all like, have the whiteboard. How do they convince their followers that in fact Homelander is the real God? Does that mean that the previous God? And it's like, wow. But again, do not be misled by me into going and watching something that you're not prepared for. But I thought it was interesting that they, though the producers of that show thought that the arc was going to be where Trump, his megalomania was going to grow and become more and more tumescent to the point where he would reach for divinity. And so we're seeing that, that gap between satire and reality becoming, you know, closer and closer and closer.
- [52:24]
Peter Wehner
Yeah, well, I guess we've got two prophetic voices. We've got the show you're referring to in the Pope.
- [52:30]
Charlie Sykes
So in a different way, that feels blasphemous that I even said, okay, let's end on a profound note, because I feel we need a palate cleanser. After having done that, you end with it with a very, very eloquent discussion of transcendence in a broken world, drawing on T.S. eliot, which I thought was especially given we're looking around and seeing this broken world around us, that even in sordid particulars, that an eternal design can appear. Talk to me about what you and T.S. eliot were getting at.
- [53:08]
Peter Wehner
Yeah, it was an insight of Eliot and a character in which that line was used, in which there was great brokenness in the world. And yet even within it, even within the sordid particulars, there is a design, there is a grand design. And I think that that is true. I mean, I think that as a person of faith, it is true that we live in a world that is in many respects broken, but it's also a world that in many respects is beautiful. And both of those things can exist in at the same time. And the great human drama is to live within that drama and to see both the beauty and the brokenness play itself out and then sometimes compete against each other to live in a temporal
- [54:01]
Charlie Sykes
world as a citizen of an eternal society. That there are these, there is that duality. And this is what the Pope is. And this is why I think people on the outside, I don't fully understand the role the Pope plays and why Donald Trump cannot solve the problem that is Pope Leo xiv.
- [54:21]
Peter Wehner
Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, we are in a temporal moment and we believe as people of faith that there's an eternity to come, but that temporal moment matters and human lives are being elevated and honored or being disparaged and brutalized within that sort of temporal period. And that we are called as agents of a different kingdom to care about that. And we have roles within that drama playing, playing, playing itself out and, and we can't withdraw. I, I quoted the end of that essay. You know, Glenn Tinder was a political scientist and political philosopher, wrote a, a book about, called the Political Meaning of Christianity. And that was part of what he was, he was getting at, which is we don't have the luxury of checking out of what's unfolding in this, in this world, but neither would love to, neither can we be trapped by it. And in the end, there's an author to this story and there's a beginning and a middle and an end and it ends beautifully. And all things are made new again and to live within that tension, which is this is playing out and it matters, but it's not all up to us. And ultimately all things are made new again and keeps us from getting discouraged and hopefully gives us courage in the journey.
- [56:11]
Charlie Sykes
What a great way to end. I do not want to have any spoilers after that. The article is the American Pope versus the American President in the Atlantic. I will post a link to it a gift link on my newsletter. Peter Wehner, Once again, thank you so much for all of your time and your insight site.
- [56:29]
Peter Wehner
Thanks so much Charlie. It's always a delight and a privilege to be with you.
- [56:33]
Charlie Sykes
And thank you all for listening to this episode of to the Contrary podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes and once again I want to stress and remind you that we are not the crazy ones. Thank you.
- [56:58]
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Charlie Sykes
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Charlie Sykes
It did, actually.
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Charlie Sykes
It.
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