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Hey, Tony Perkins and Fox News, the Johnson Amendment Does Not Stop Pastors or Churches From Preaching Religious Beliefs

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EDITORIAL: Stop Misinforming Americans: Part One

Tony Perkins and Fox News teamed up Thursday morning, just after President Donald Trump at the National Prayer Breakfast promised to “totally destroy” the Johnson Amendment, to misinform viewers about what the law does and does not do. While no one should be surprised the leader of a certified anti-gay hate group would be embraced by Fox News, it was an offensive display of the miseducation of America.

The Johnson Amendment, named for then-Senator Lyndon Johnson, is a half-century old law prohibiting churches, religious institutions, and some non-profits from endorsing political candidates. 

What it does not do is stop them from preaching their faith, from endorsing or opposing political or social issues, contrary to what Perkins and Fox News just claimed.

So, if a preacher, rabbi, priest, pastor, imam, or other religious leader, or even the CEO of a faith-based non-profit wants to denounce same-sex marriage, or even claim homosexuality is a sin, they can do that, with no concern the IRS will strip away their tax-exewmot status. And that’s really what this is all about: money. Many churches and other religious non-profits have become multi-million and multi-billion dollar corporations, thanks in part to the fact that they and their employees often pay zero taxes.

That tax-exempt status costs tax-paying citizens well over $80 billion a year. In other words, every man, woman, and child in America on average pays about $250 a year extra in taxes so churches don’t have to. More, actually, if you deduct the people who are tax-exempt.

Some say it’s a small price to pay for freedom of religion, but the religious right that opposes the Johnson Amendment want their cake and they want to eat it too – and they want taxpayers to pay for it.

So they lie, and they turn to platforms like Fox News to help them misinform Americans.

Here’s what a Fox News host said about the Johnson Amendment today:

“It essentially makes most churches and religious leaders feel that their hands are tied, that if they express any endorsement of any particular religious position or party pr person who’s running for office that they risk their tax-exempt status.”

Perkins immediately supported the Fox News host’s false statement, saying, “correct.”

It’s not.

Notice the word “feel.”

There law, which is very readily accessible on the IRS’ website, makes very clear what the rules are. And those who oppose the law most know that the IRS has almost never stripped a religious entity’s tax exempt status for violating the Johnson Amendment – and perhaps they should start.

For a decade this statement has lived on the IRS’ website: “…these organizations can engage in advocating for or against issues and, to a limited extent, ballot initiatives or other legislative activities.”

Also not correct is the claim of “most churches and religious leaders.” In fact, in light of President Trump’s announcement that he will “destroy” the Johnson Amendment, the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, which represents thousands of Southern Baptist Convention churches and individuals nationwide – one of the largest religious groups in the nation – issued a statement denouncing the president’s intention:

“Politicizing churches does them no favors. The promised repeal is an attack on the integrity of both our charitable organizations and campaign finance system.

Inviting churches to intervene in campaigns with tax-deductible dollars would fundamentally change our houses of worship. It would usher our partisan divisions into the pews and harm the church’s ability to provide refuge.

To change the law would hinder the church’s prophetic witness, threatening to turn pulpit prophets into political puppets.”

They know that repealing the Johnson Amendment is a sure-fire way to impoverish churches, especially smaller ones who struggle to stay afloat. 

But that’s really why Trump wants to repeal the law: he wants the cash to fuel his re-election, which he has already filed for.

Trump is no great Christian warrior. He is using the cause of “religious liberty” to line his campaign treasury and to get votes. How very un-Christian.

 

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‘I Didn’t Say That You Said That’: Trump Backpedals as ‘Obnoxious’ Reporter Corners Him

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December 8, 2025

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President Donald Trump tried to backpedal on last week’s promise to release full video of a second boat strike some are calling unlawful, when cornered by a reporter he subsequently denounced as “obnoxious” and “terrible.”

Video shows that Trump did promise to release the full video, telling reporters last Wednesday, “whatever they have, we’d certainly release.”

On Monday, ABC News Senior Political Correspondent Rachel Scott said to Trump, “Mr. President, you said you would have no problem with releasing the full video of that strike on September 2nd off the coast of Venezuela.”

READ MORE: GOP Struggles to Message on Affordability as House Republicans Kill Affordability Bill

“I didn’t say that,” Trump replied. “You said that, I didn’t say that.”

“This is ABC fake news,” the president added.

“You said that you would have no problem releasing the full — okay, well, Secretary Hegseth —” Scott continued.

“Whatever Hegseth wants to do is okay with me,” Trump said.

“He now says it’s under review,” she explained. “Are you ordering the secretary to release that full video?”

“Whatever he decides is okay with me,” Trump responded.

After the president claimed that every boat the U.S. military destroys saves 25,000 American lives, the reporter pressed him to confirm his position on releasing the video.

READ MORE: ‘Corrupt’: Kushner’s Role in Warner Brothers Discovery Takeover Bid Draws Fierce Blowback

“Didn’t I just tell you that?” he charged.

“You said that it was up to the secretary,” she responded.

“You are an obnoxious reporter in the whole place,” Trump said, attacking Scott. “Let me just tell you, you are an obnoxious, a terrible, actually a terrible reporter, and it’s always the same thing with you.”

READ MORE: White House: Trump to Spin ‘Positive’ News About Jobs as Layoffs Spike

 

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GOP Struggles to Message on Affordability as House Republicans Kill Affordability Bill

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December 8, 2025

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Republicans are taking heat on two fronts as they struggle to win the affordability messaging battle while killing affordability legislation.

“Republican lawmakers, aides and strategists tell NBC News they worry that high prices and their party’s poor messaging on affordability could cost them in the midterms,” the news network reported over the weekend.

Politico reported on Monday that “Republicans are divided over how to address growing cost-of-living concerns over health care, housing, student debt and more.”

READ MORE: ‘Corrupt’: Kushner’s Role in Warner Brothers Discovery Takeover Bid Draws Fierce Blowback

As President Donald Trump calls affordability a “hoax” and a “con job,” recent polls show his approval rating is underwater, and some say Republicans have not made the affordability crisis a central legislative focus.

Senate Republican Majority Leader John Thune appeared to suggest affordability is an issue to tackle down the road.

“We haven’t probably messaged as effectively as we should,” Leader Thune said in an interview, Politico noted. “I think we’ll have lots of opportunities now that we’re getting into an election year to talk about the things we’ve done and how they are going to lead to things being more affordable for the American people, probably starting with tax relief next year.”

One of the things Senate Republicans did was join with Democrats to pass out of committee — unanimously, some Democrats noted — a bill to improve housing availability and affordability.

House Republicans killed the legislation, known as the ROAD to Housing Act.

READ MORE: White House: Trump to Spin ‘Positive’ News About Jobs as Layoffs Spike

“Just this weekend, congressional leaders released a compromise version of the annual National Defense Authorization Act without housing legislation sought by Senate Banking Chair Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and ranking member Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), after House Financial Services Chair French Hill (R-Ark.) and other key House Republicans objected.”

Senate Democrats expressed outrage.

“Leave it to House Republicans to fumble a comprehensive, bipartisan housing package that passed out of the Senate committee UNANIMOUSLY!” decried U.S. Senator Tina Smith (D-MN).

“Unbelievable,” lamented U.S. Senator Mark Warner (D-VA). “House Republicans just killed our broadly bipartisan housing affordability bill, which would have been a great first step towards lowering skyrocketing rents & mortgages. Republicans are actively torpedoing progress towards lowering your rent.”

“Trump claims he wants to lower housing costs, but his allies in the House just axed a bipartisan bill that UNANIMOUSLY passed the Senate to do just that,” noted U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). “If Republicans keep blocking legislation to cut housing costs, Democrats will pass it ourselves when we take back Congress.”

The communications director for U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), James Singer, summed it up: “It’s not the message, it’s the policies.”

Economist and economics professor Justin Wolfers told CNN, “When we talk about affordability, so much of what’s going on with prices is in fact a direct result of public policy. We’ve seen tariffs that have raised costs. We’ve seen a big rise in deportations, which are making it difficult for farmers to bring in their crops. We’ve seen health insurance premiums rise as Congress has fiddled with Obamacare subsidies.”

READ MORE: ‘Chance Some of This Backfires’: GOP Grows Anxious Over Trump’s Redistricting Gambit

 

Image via Reuters

 

 

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‘Corrupt’: Kushner’s Role in Warner Brothers Discovery Takeover Bid Draws Fierce Blowback

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December 8, 2025

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On Sunday, President Donald Trump declared that he will “be involved” in the federal government’s decision on whether to allow the streaming service Netflix to buy mass media and entertainment conglomerate Warner Brothers Discovery. On Monday, Paramount Skydance, another mass media and entertainment conglomerate, announced a hostile takeover bid for WBD — with news soon following that Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner’s private equity firm is part of the Paramount offer.

“Paramount is telling WBD shareholders that it has a smoother path to regulatory approval than does Netflix, and Kushner’s involvement only strengthens that case,” Axios reported. “Paramount is led by David Ellison, whose billionaire father Larry is a major supporter of President Trump.”

Axios added that Kushner’s firm, Affinity Partners, “was not mentioned in Paramount’s press release on Monday morning about its $108 billion bid, nor were participating sovereign wealth funds from Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi and Qatar.”

READ MORE: White House: Trump to Spin ‘Positive’ News About Jobs as Layoffs Spike

Fortune reported that “Affinity and the other outside financing partners have agreed to forgo any governance rights, which Paramount said means the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States would have no jurisdiction over the transaction.”

But Axios’ Sarah Fischer wrote on social media: “Ask yourself, why would anyone want to put money into an investment of this caliber and have no governance rights or board seats?”

“Essentially,” she added, “people want to have control/access/political power behind the scenes.”

“Reality is,” Fischer explained, this hostile takeover is a good explanation “of how capitalism/democracy can be exploited for political gain,” with “Paramount essentially betting our open system incentivizes shareholders to take [the] best financial deal even if it means giving soft power” to three sovereign wealth funds, the President, and his son-in-law.

READ MORE: ‘Chance Some of This Backfires’: GOP Grows Anxious Over Trump’s Redistricting Gambit

Critics are blasting Kushner’s and Trump’s involvement.

U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) remarked, “Donald Trump said he’ll ‘be involved in’ deciding if Netflix can buy Warner Bros. Is that an open invite for CEOs to curry favor with Trump in exchange for merger approvals? It should be an independent decision by the Department of Justice based on the law and facts.”

Award-winning journalist Sophia A. Nelson, responding to trump’s remarks, observed: “This is ridiculous. Corrupt. And NOT what a President gets involved in.”

Professor, investor, and marketing executive Adam Cochran wrote: “Trump is talking about him personally being involved in deciding the fate of the Netflix-Warner Brothers deal, and how it’s ‘bad.’ Meanwhile his son-in-law is financing the competing offer. There has truly never been a more corrupt administration in US history!”

Alexander Vindman, former Director of European Affairs for the United States National Security Council (NSC), wrote: “F– NO to another corrupt Trump deal. Nepobaby, Jared’s, involvement would deliver CNN to MAGA.”

NewsNation’s Kurt Bardella, a communications advisor and media relations consultant, asked: “Alexa, what is a ‘conflict-of-interest’?”

READ MORE: Trump’s Ballroom Seen as ‘Key Evidence’ He’s Out of Touch as Cost of Living Spikes

 

Image via Reuters 

 

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