Pete Wehner: What Happens When Morality Leaves U.S. Foreign Policy? Venezuela, Greenland, and "Might Makes Right"

Good Faith

Religion & Spirituality, Christianity

4.8 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 15 January 2026

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Can Christian Americans Resist Authoritarian Drift?

Pete Wehner—The Atlantic columnist and former Reagan and Bush administration staff member—joins host Curtis Chang to ask the uncomfortable question: in Trump's America, is morality a loser that's been replaced by the "law of the jungle"—especially in U.S. foreign policy? From Venezuela to a looming Greenland/Denmark showdown that could fracture NATO, Wehner argues we're watching "might makes right" go mainstream. The antidote, he says, isn't vibes—it's resistance: stop living within the lie and start living within the truth.

00:04:23 - Explaining the U.S. Foreign Policy Shift

00:06:36 - What Is America's Moral Aspiration in Foreign Policy?

00:07:57 - Trump's "Will to Power" Ethic

00:11:34 - Do We Have Historical Amnesia?

00:16:36 - Contrasting Trump and PEPFAR

00:19:09 - The Disconnect Between Christian Identity and Policy

00:26:34 - Demagogues and Moral Erosion

00:34:19 - President Trump's Unique Amorality

00:37:10 - Primacy of Human Dignity and Christian Ethics

00:41:01 - Venezuela, Greenland, and Moral Implications

00:44:02 - The Value of Beauty and Creation

00:47:14 - What Are the Limits and Possibilities of Action

More about the Religious Landscape Study pewresearch.org/rls

Mentioned In This Episode:

Pete Wehner's article Trump's Folly
More about PEPFAR (President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief)
Anne Applebaum's Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism
William Galston's Anger, Fear, Domination: Dark Passions and the Power of Political Speech
Jeane Kirkpatrick's essay Dictatorships and Double Standards (Commentary)
Václav Havel's The Power of the Powerless
David Brooks' article America Needs a Mass Movement—Now Without one, America may sink into autocracy for decades (The Atlantic)
C.S. Lewis' idea of active obedience is found in Mere Christianity
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich"
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's Nobel Prize Lecture (literature, 1970)

More from Pete Wehner:

Pete Wehner's articles at The Atlantic
Pete Wehner's opinion pieces at The New York Times

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Transcript

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0:00.0	There are countries which have had a lot worse situations
0:04.2	than we have more authoritarian than we are right now
0:07.4	or that are totalitarian that have thrown off those shackles
0:11.0	and they did it through courage, through wisdom,
0:14.8	but because ultimately there were people that said,
0:17.6	I will not live within the lie, I'm going to live within the truth.
0:20.6	That's what Solich Netson was saying. And in his own way, that's what Jesus said as well.
0:46.6	Welcome to the Good Faith podcast. I'm your host, Curtis Chang. The Good Faith podcast is where friends who follow Jesus help each other make sense of the world. The podcast is a production of a 501c3
0:54.1	nonpartisan organization.
0:56.0	Now, when we hear at Good Faith say that our mission is to make sense of the world, we truly
1:03.0	mean that in terms of the world. We may spend more time on what happens in the United States,
1:10.0	but I know we have listeners that I really value from around the globe, and we especially recognize the importance of making sense of how the United States interacts with the rest of the world.
1:22.5	In that vein, we are living right now in a dramatically shifting, and let me lay my cards out on the
1:28.4	table, very deeply troubling moment in how the U.S. is relating to the rest of the world.
1:35.5	So to help us make sense of this moment, I turn to a favorite guest of the Good Faith podcast, Pete
1:42.8	Wainer. Pete is a columnist at the Atlantic, the New York
1:46.6	Times, and a number of other influential outlets. He brings a really unique perspective because
1:52.2	he previously served as an official in the administrations of three Republican presidents,
1:58.1	Reagan and the two Bush administrations.
2:02.8	Here's my conversation with Pete.
2:07.8	Pete, welcome back to the Good Faith podcast.
2:09.5	It's great to be with you, Curtis.
	...

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