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New GOP Speaker: Separation of Church and State Is Only a ‘Shield for People of Faith’
Experts are digging into the background of the new Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson of Louisiana, a little-known backbencher who has never headed a congressional committee but rose to become the third most-powerful elected official in the U.S. government Wednesday after two other Republicans failed to garner enough votes to win the gavel.
MSNBC’s Sarah Posner calls Johnson “the most unabashedly Christian nationalist speaker in history.” His Christian nationalism, previously known to few, is coming to light, especially when he told members of Congress in his first remarks after being elected Speaker that “Scripture is very clear” that they were “ordained” by God.
In a September, 2022 episode of his weekly podcast with his wife, “Truth Be Told With Mike and Kelly Johnson,” now-speaker Johnson claimed there is no wall to separate church and state, but rather, the Constitution erects a wall to protect religious people from the state.
The First Amendment, Johnson said, was “intended to create a shield for people of faith.”
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“But the sad irony is that over the last 60, 70, 80 years, radical progressives and leftists and atheist organizations have twisted the meaning of it,” Johnson continued. “And now they regard the First Amendment as a weapon to be wielded against the people of faith when it was supposed to be their shield.”
“See, the majority of the founders, having personally witnessed the abuses of the Church of England, were determined to prevent the official establishment of any single national denomination of religion. However, they very deliberately listed religious liberty the free exercise of religion of course, as the first freedom protected by the Bill of Rights, and here’s the key: They did that because they wanted everyone to really live out their faith as that would ensure a robust presence, moral virtue in the public square, and the free marketplace of ideas.”
Johnson also said, “If anybody tries to convince you that your biblical beliefs or your religious viewpoint needs to be separated from public affairs, you should politely remind them to review their history. And importantly, you should not back down.”
A 2021 Pew Research poll found, “even among White evangelical Protestants and highly religious Christians, fewer than half say the U.S. should abandon its adherence to the separation of church and state (34% and 31%, respectively) or declare the country a Christian nation (35% and 29%).”
Still, the claim the wall of separation exists only to protect people of faith is not new for Johnson.
In a 2016 broadcast of the “Disciple’s Voice of Hope with Alex T. Ray,” Johnson made very similar remarks.
“What’s happened, Alex over the last 60, 70 years, is that our generation has been convinced that there’s a separation of church and state. You heard that term all the time. And most people think that that’s part of the Constitution, but it’s not – remember, I’m a member of a constitutional lawyer.”
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“Now, what we always point out is that the phrase comes from a letter, it was a private letter Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptist Association in Connecticut, 1801. They write a letter and they say, ‘Mr. President, we’re so concerned that the government is going to come in and encroach upon our religious freedom, our freedom in the church to worship and to pray and to share the gospel, to share the truth as we understand and live in accordance with the dictates of our own conscience. Mr. President, what can you tell us? Is this a legitimate concern?’ So he writes back and he says, ‘Oh, listen, listen, my friends, my fellow countrymen, you have no concern, because we’ve given you the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights begins with religious freedom as the first and most fundamental liberty that we acknowledge that were granted by God, the right of conscience, the right to believe what you will, and to worship and pass it on your children.'”
“He says, ‘don’t worry there’s an impregnable wall of separation between church and state.’ In other words, the government is not going to encroach on the church and tell you what to believe or how to worship or take away your property or your rights or your right to get together and do and perpetuate your faith. And so he says, ‘Don’t worry, the First Amendment is like a shield to protect people of faith.’ But here’s what’s happened over the last several decades, that shield has been turned into a weapon to be used against people of faith.”
Johnson then portrays those who support the separation of church as condescending, and says, “so now they’ve convinced our generation because they say it enough, people begin to believe it and say, ‘Oh, no, there’s a difference between your religious life and real life,’ right? So they say, ‘on Sunday mornings, you guys get together, y’all go you know, go pray, you worship, you go to your little church building there. You get in your safe four walls, and you do your warm, fuzzy religious thing. You do your touchy feely, emotional, all the hand-raising and praising – you do all that stuff on Sunday. But don’t bring those ideas into the public square. Don’t bring those ideas Monday morning to the workplace at the water-cooler, don’t do that because you got to keep that separate over here,’ having heard separation of church and state.”
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“Well, now wait a minute, the founders said religion and morality are the indispensable support to the whole Republic. Now you’re telling me I can’t even bring it in just one argument in the public policy arena? That’s crazy. It’s anathema. It’s, it’s opposite. It’s the opposite of how we were founded as a country and I’m telling you we’re losing those foundations at our peril.”
Watch Johnson from 2016 below or at this link.
Mike Johnson says separation of church and state is “the opposite of how we were founded as a country” and claims it’s not in the Constitution (it is).
This is the new Speaker of the House. pic.twitter.com/NKZywGZxQx
— Sawyer Hackett (@SawyerHackett) October 26, 2023
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
