“They weren’t interested in being on the side of God so much as they are insistent that God is on their side.” — Peter Wehner

According to Peter Wehner, something has gone terribly wrong in America. And that something, Wehner has been warning us for more than ten years, is Donald Trump. In his latest Atlantic piece, “Hegseth’s Unholy War,” Wehner argues that the Bible, in Hegseth’s Crusader-like hands, has been weaponized into theological cover for bloodlust. Something has gone terribly wrong with the intersection of faith and American politics. The evangelical church has largely become a defamation of Jesus. Thus the significance of Pope Leo XIV’s public opposition to Trump — not a social media spat, but a moral war that has been brewing for some time.

In a recent New York Times op-ed co-authored with Jonathan Rauch, Wehner argued that the Trump administration has reached its psychotic stage. Having filled key institutions with Hegseth-style lackeys and hoodlums, this psychosis is now infecting not just the federal government but the whole world. Thus Iran — the kind of fiasco you wouldn’t expect from middle schoolers planning a field trip. His fear: as Trump is humiliated by both the Papacy and Tehran, the President of the United States will have what psychologists call an extinction burst — a five-year-old’s out-of-control tantrum. Yes, something has indeed gone terribly wrong in America.

Five Takeaways

• Hegseth’s Unholy War. Praying for “overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy” in the name of Jesus Christ, Prince of Peace. Not interested in being on the side of God — insistent that God is on his side. A bloodlust validated by scripture. The Bible as a weapon aimed outward.

• Something Has Gone Terribly Wrong. The evangelical church has become, by and large, an awful depiction of the Christian faith. Franklin Graham, Tony Perkins, Robert Jeffress: vocal Trump supporters using the name of Jesus to validate cruelty. A watching world has drawn its conclusions. You act worse than the people you criticize.

• Pope Leo XIV vs. Trump. A moral man against an amoral one. A person of faith against a person of no faith. An institution-builder against an institution-destroyer. Wehner credits Leo with performing a necessary function that almost no one else in American public life can perform — confronting Trump on explicitly moral terms with unblemished authority.

• Vance: The Mask He Wears. Hegseth is, in some sense, a true believer. Vance’s conversion was transparently cynical. But when you live a life at odds with what you truly believe, cognitive dissonance is painful — and the mind mitigates that pain by beginning to believe what you say. You become the mask you wear.

• The Republican Party Has Become a Dark Force. Without the Republican Party, none of this could have happened. Mike Johnson: pathetic and disreputable. Vance, Rubio, Graham: people who knew better, made a deal with the devil, convinced themselves they could do more good than harm. The roots of MAGA go too deep for a snapback. History will get it right.

About the Guest

Peter Wehner is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He served in three Republican administrations and is the author of The Death of Politics.

References

“Hegseth’s Unholy War” by Peter Wehner, The Atlantic, April 2026
“The Trump Administration Is in a Psychotic State” by Peter Wehner and Jonathan Rauch, The Atlantic, April 2026

About Keen On America

Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen.

Website: https://keenon.tv/ Substack: https://keenon.substack.com/ YouTube: https://youtube.com/@KeenOnShow

Chapters:

00:00:31 Trump vs. the pope: from Attila the Hun to Donald Trump
00:01:59 Hegseth as crusader: bloodlust and unresolved resentments
00:03:28 Moral unseriousness in a serious position
00:06:51 Hegseth vs. McNamara
00:09:33 The silence of evangelicals who know better
00:12:59 Constantine’s costly legacy
00:16:26 The Barmen Declaration and the Minneapolis moment
00:21:49 Pope Leo XIV vs. Trump: the elements of a real drama
00:30:00 JD Vance warns the pope: becoming the mask you wear
00:33:33 Tucker Carlson apologizes: the crack-up begins
00:35:31 Trump 2.0: psychotic state, no guardrails, extinction burst
00:40:24 Cheap grace: what happens to the evangelicals when this ends
00:44:47 Senior military contempt for Hegseth
00:48:19 The Republican Party: a dark force on Am