Weekly Roundup: Did Donald Trump Threaten the Pope? + MAGA Turns on Trump

Straight White American Jesus

Axis Mundi Media: Bradley Onishi + Daniel Miller

News, Politics

4.7 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 10 April 2026

⏱️ 67 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this week's episode, Brad Onishi navigates a high-stakes intersection of nuclear brinkmanship and theological crisis. The discussion centers on the fallout of Operation Epic against Iran, specifically Pete Hegseth’s assertion that God deserves "all the glory" for the military strike. Brad deconstructs this "Fox News theology," forcing a confrontation with the classic problem of evil: if a victory is divine, how does one account for the collateral damage of a bombed girl’s school? This moral tension coincides with a potential fracture in the MAGA coalition, as even staunch media allies like Joe Rogan and Alex Jones begin to voice public concern over Trump’s threats to Iranian civilization and the looming specter of nuclear winter. The episode then shifts to an explosive diplomatic confrontation between the Pentagon and the Vatican. Guests Dr. Thomas Lecaque and Rebecca Bratten Weiss join the show to unpack a bombshell report detailing a meeting where Under Secretary Elbridge Colby allegedly pressured Cardinal Christopher Pierre to align with U.S. interests. By invoking the Avignon Papacy—a historical period where the papacy was essentially held captive by the French monarchy—the administration issued what Lecaque describes as a "mafia-style threat" to the Holy See. The panel explores the doomed fantasy of Catholic integralism and the burgeoning rift between those following the teachings of Jesus and those weaponizing faith for geopolitical dominance. Subscribe for $3.65: ⁠https://axismundi.supercast.com/⁠ Subscribe to our free newsletter: ⁠https://swaj.substack.com/⁠ Order American Caesar by Brad Onishi: ⁠https://static.macmillan.com/static/essentials/american-caesar-9781250427922/⁠ Donate to SWAJ: https://axismundi.supercast.com/donations/new Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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1:15.0	Welcome to Straight White American Jesus.
1:17.1	I'm Brad Onishi, author of American Caesar, how Theocrats and Tech Lords are turning America
1:23.1	into a monarchy, also the founder of Axis Moody Media.
1:31.3	This week is one of those weeks where you just don't know where to start. We began the week with a sense that Donald Trump might mire the world in nuclear winter,
1:37.3	threatening to destroy all of Iranian civilization.
1:41.3	We then moved into a place where the rift between the Pentagon and its evangelical
1:47.8	leader, Pete Hexeth, and the Vatican. And the Catholic Church grew ever wider due to a report
1:55.2	about a tense meeting between the Pope's representative to the United States and members of the Department of Defense.
2:04.5	We'll talk about every dimension of that and the explosive reports surrounding those meetings.
	...

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