MSNBC host hits back at conservative's downplay of GOP embrace of Christian nationalism
Conservative David Drucker downplayed a recent interview with an influential Christian nationalist pastor embraced by President Donald Trump's White House.
CNN spoke to Doug Wilson, who advocates removing women's right to vote. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth then posted it on social media, promoting his personal pastor and ally.
Drucker said he can understand people who are unnerved by seeing such a high-ranking official advocate for anti-women policies, but that those thoughts aren't making their way into actual Republican policy.
"I think this only becomes a problem if the White House appears to be moving in that direction. We don't see any indication, to say the least, from this White House where women occupy top cabinet positions. So, I understand the concern about this. I understand why it interests people," Drucker said.
However, it's not part of GOP policy, he claimed.
"But look, we're a big country. There are lots of religious denominations, lots of religions, lots of ways of looking at the world. Not all of them are preferable. Not everybody likes what everybody else does. You know, the question is, does it intrude into public policy? There's just no, you know, no evidence that this is intruding into public policy," said Drucker.
MSNBC host Symone Sanders-Townsend issued a swift fact-check.
She noted that Wilson is "someone that he identifies with in terms of that ideology."
"When Pete Hegseth was going through his confirmation process, he talked about that, he feels like women need to be combat-ready, and that maybe there are roles that women are great at in the military, but maybe not combat readiness. And he's like threading the needle," said Sanders-Townsend.
Russle Vought was another Cabinet official, she said, who helped craft "Project 2025," which was "based upon, like a conservative Christian view of what the government should look like, and infusing this government into a theocracy that literally they wrote in Project 2025."
She said that Vought is on record trying to find ways to infuse "Under God" into the government from the second Trump puts his hand on the Bible.
"So, this conservative Christian nationalist idea, it's not just prayers in school, right? And Bibles and the Ten Commandments in public schools. It shows up in some of these other ways that we have already seen. And so while it may not be as overt as what was in the CNN video, as David noted, it is there, and there are people within the United States government, because 'Project 2025' recruited them, who believe in this and who have been instituted at every single level," said Sanders-Townsend.
She noted that Vice President JD Vance is one of those.
See the clip below or at the link here.
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