Trump’s Holy War Abroad and at Home
The Intercept Briefing
The Intercept
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 3 April 2026
⏱️ 41 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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Show description: After more than a month into the U.S.–Israel conflict with Iran, President Donald Trump addressed the nation directly for the first time on Wednesday about why he dragged the country into an unprovoked illegal war. During his wide-ranging speech, Trump made numerous false claims, including repeatedly emphasizing the nuclear threat Iran posed.
The reasons the Trump administration have given for partnering with Israel in this war have been varying and at times include religious undertones, especially from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Hegseth regularly infuses Christian right rhetoric in how he speaks about the war on Iran and the military more broadly.
During a recent religious service at the Pentagon, Hegseth prayed for God to give U.S. troops “wisdom in every decision, endurance for the trial ahead, unbreakable unity, and overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy.”
“Hegseth belongs to a denomination called the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches. ... [He] believes that he is carrying out a spiritual and actual war to vanquish a Christian nation's enemies and protect and promote a Christian nation,” explains investigative journalist Sarah Posner, who covers the religious right, on The Intercept Briefing. “For Hegseth, biblical law is the only law he feels obligated to obey. The law of war, international law governing military conflicts, and human rights and civilian rights in war — he believes don't apply to him.”
This week on the podcast, Posner speaks to host Jessica Washington about how various factions of the Christian right are shaping U.S. foreign and domestic policies.
“I don't think the mainstream media has ever taken the Christian right seriously enough. They have consistently viewed Trump's relationship with white evangelicals as ranging from harmless to purely transactional. When in fact, I think that they're very deeply ideologically embedded with one another,” she says.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I don't know what's happening. |
| 0:02.8 | Somebody kicked in the door and shot my girlfriend. |
| 0:06.0 | Louisville police shot and killed 26-year-old Brianna Taylor in her apartment during what her family calls a botched drug raid. |
| 0:13.6 | Before Brianna Taylor, there was Catherine Johnston. |
| 0:16.1 | Atlanta police officers shot and killed 92-year-old Catherine Johnston. |
| 0:19.9 | And Donald Scott. |
| 0:22.8 | Donald Scott died in his living room. |
| 0:27.7 | It all began as a metaphor to demonstrate the country's commitment to defeating drug addiction. |
| 0:31.9 | America's public enemy number one is drug abuse. |
| 0:39.6 | But the war on drugs metaphor quickly became all too literal, complete with helicopters, military vehicles designed for abuse on a battlefield, and the suspension of basic civil liberties protections. |
| 0:43.8 | And the judge were just signed a no-knock-one. |
| 0:46.3 | They were kicking people's doors and violating people's rights. |
| 0:49.3 | The goal was to eliminate the enemy, And the people were the enemy. |
| 0:55.7 | This is collateral damage. |
| 0:57.6 | Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. |
| 1:04.9 | Welcome to The Intercept Briefing. |
| 1:06.8 | I'm Jessica Washington, politics reporter at The Intercept. |
| 1:10.5 | And I'm Michaela Lacey, senior politics reporter at The Intercept and co-host of The Intercept |
| 1:14.9 | Briefing with Jesse. |
| 1:16.2 | Before we jump into the news of the week, we have some news too. |
| 1:19.9 | The Intercept briefing has been nominated for a Webby Award for Best News and Politics |
| 1:24.3 | Podcasts. Help us win by voting for us, please. Yes, definitely vote for us. If you |
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