Ingraham anti-christian bias 5

Right-wing media cheer Trump's anti-Christian bias task force after years of laying the groundwork

Right-wing commentators have spent years claiming that the Biden administration was “waging spiritual warfare against Christianity” and that “the left wants to drive Christians out of the public square”

Written by Payton Armstrong

Published

A task force created by President Donald Trump to eradicate alleged “anti-Christian bias” is drawing praise from right-wing media figures — some of whom have spent years baselessly claiming that Christians are a persecuted group in the United States, even though experts say there’s no such widespread bias.

Right-wing commentators celebrated Trump’s task force as “a cultural resurgency” and declared that “this is the counter-revolution against their color revolution that occurred in the summer of 2020.” 

In one instance, Christian nationalist media figure Lance Wallnau joined Steve Bannon’s podcast to praise the task force as the first step in the “recapturing of institutions,” naming education, media, business, and government among the institutions he wants to infuse with “the ideas of Western civilization, which is the ideas of Christian civilization.” This appears to be a reference to the Seven Mountain Mandate popularized by Wallnau, which instructs Christians to impose fundamentalist values on American society by conquering the “seven mountains” of cultural influence in American life: government, education, media, religion, family, business, and entertainment.

Experts have argued “there is no widespread anti-Christian bias in our society" and that Trump’s anti-Christian bias task force is actually “enshrining Christian privilege in our society.”

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  • Trump issued an executive order on “eradicating anti-Christian bias,” but experts say “there is no widespread anti-Christian bias in our society”

    • Trump first announced the task force during a speech at the National Prayer Breakfast in early February, saying it will “protect Christians” and bring “our country back together as one nation under God,” and he later issued an executive order listing examples of supposed bias under the Biden administration. The executive order — titled “Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias” — claimed that “the previous Administration engaged in an egregious pattern of targeting peaceful Christians, while ignoring violent, anti-Christian offenses.” The executive order claimed, “The Biden Department of Justice sought to squelch faith in the public square by bringing Federal criminal charges and obtaining in numerous cases multi-year prison sentences against nearly two dozen peaceful pro-life Christians for praying and demonstrating outside abortion facilities.” [The Hill, 2/6/25; White House, 2/6/25]
    • The Associated Press reported that “critics said Trump is claiming to see persecution in distorted case descriptions, a calendar coincidence and other situations that, while raising concerns, don’t add up to a pattern.” As noted by the Associated Press, “Christianity is by far the largest faith in America, and Christian conservatives have a strong grip on the levers of government.” [The Associated Press, 2/13/25]
    • On CNN, religious extremism expert Matthew Taylor argued “there is no widespread anti-Christian bias in our society,” noting that claims of anti-Christian persecution can “become a pretext for them persecuting actual minority groups.” Taylor urged that “we need to recognize that there is no widespread anti-Christian bias in our society,” and said, “It's striking that given the widespread realities of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, and as you said, mosques and synagogues tend to have more attacks than churches per capita, there's no task force on rooting out anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. Instead, this is enshrining Christian privilege in our society.” [CNN, CNN Newsroom, 2/9/25]
    • Multiple Republican-led states have moved to require Bible instruction or a display of the Ten Commandments in all public schools. Last year, Louisiana became the first state to require all public schools to display the Ten Commandments. Soon after, Oklahoma’s state superintendent directed all public schools to teach the Bible, including the Ten Commandments, and conservative media figures promoted the policy as a way to “impose Christian values” and encouraged other states to follow suit. At the start of the 2025 legislative session, Alabama Republican lawmakers proposed mandates to display the Ten Commandments in public schools and give students the “opportunity to participate in daily prayer” or risk losing some state funding. [PBS, 6/19/24; New York Times, 6/27/24; Media Matters, 7/8/24; AL.com, 2/15/25]
    • Right-wing media and extreme anti-LGBTQ groups have a long history of conflating criticism of anti-LGBTQ positions with anti-Christian hostility. They’ve said that Democratic senators have anti-Christian bias for questioning federal judicial nominees’ anti-LGBTQ statements or ties to bigoted groups, and they’ve described basic legal protections for LGBTQ people as anti-Christian. [Media Matters, 11/8/19, 5/20/14]

  • During the Biden administration, right-wing media personalities baselessly claimed Christians were targeted by the government and “the left”

    • When Transgender Day of Visibility coincided with Easter in 2024, right-wing media figures — especially on Fox News and Newsmax — claimed that the Biden administration was attacking Christians. Right-wing media used the day to warn Christians that they were under attack after Biden’s statements recognizing Transgender Day of Visibility, with Fox’s Jesse Watters arguing that Biden is “waging spiritual warfare against Christianity.” Between Fox and Newsmax, the networks combined aired more than 4 hours of coverage and nearly 80 segments, slamming Biden for his “demonic” remarks which they said amounted to an “attack on Christian faith.” [Media Matters, 4/2/24, 4/2/24]
    • On his network, former Fox News star Tucker Carlson hosted anti-abortion protester Paul Vaughn — who was arrested for blocking access to a clinic — and falsely claimed that Vaughn was facing prison time for merely singing hymns and praying. Carlson said that Vaughn “had dared to pray and sing hymns in the hallway of an abortion clinic. In other words he did what the Biden administration really fears, he prayed. And for doing that, he faces 11 years in prison.” USA Today fact checked Carlson’s claim, noting that: “Vaughn was arrested for physically obstructing access to an abortion clinic, not for praying,” highlighting that “the law in question explicitly protects First Amendment speech and also includes language ensuring free access to houses of worship.” [Tucker Carlson Network, Tucker Carlson Uncensored, 3/26/24; USA Today, 4/1/24]
    • Carlson again falsely claimed that Vaughn was facing felony charges “from the Biden administration for praying at an abortion clinic and daring to sing hymns,” adding that “from the perspective of the people who run the country there’s really just one enemy, and that’s faithful Christians.” During a Tucker Carlson Uncensored clip posted on X, Carlson said: “If you’re interested in who they really hate, well, look at what's happening. So Christian churches across the country have been burning and no one in the government is doing anything about it. Look at how Christian churches were treated during Covid … we talked the other day to a guy who is facing 11 years in prison, federal felony charges from the Biden administration, for praying at an abortion clinic and daring to sing hymns. So if you are a faithful Christian — not a fake Christian, David French Christian, but an actual Christian, of the kind this country has always had, of the kind this country was created to harbor actually — you are seen as an enemy by the people who run it.” [Twitter/X, 4/18/24]
    • Fox host Laura Ingraham repeatedly lamented the supposed anti-Christian bias of the Biden administration, including in an interview with Vaughn where she suggested that “singing hymns and peacefully expressing your traditional Christian beliefs can get you thrown behind bars.” During the interview, Ingraham’s show displayed a chyron that read: “Liberals fighting to wipe out Christian values.” [FoxNews.com, 1/31/24]
    • Ingraham also complained that then-Attorney General Merrick Garland was not addressing a “growing anti-Christian bias in the United States and criminal activity geared towards Christians.” The chyron read “to the left, Christians are the emerging enemy” and Ingraham claimed that “pro-life centers across the country” and “churches have been attacked,” adding that to the left, “if you’re a Christian, a bible-believing Christian, you’re a terrorist.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 3/29/23]
    • Following a deadly shooting at a Christian private school in Nashville, Tennessee, Ingraham claimed the Biden White House and “the left” had been “ginning up anti-Christian sentiment” by allegedly teaching kids “to treat Christians as haters and mortal threats to their existence.” Ingraham told her audience: “Isn’t it also the case that the left in America — and even this White House — is ginning up, without saying the words necessarily, but ginning up anti-Christian sentiment by referring to trans activists as heroes and their bravery for standing up against the intolerant class, the haters. So these kids are learning to treat Christians as haters and mortal threats to their existence.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 4/11/23; Media Matters, 4/12/23]
    • Sean Davis, CEO of The Federalist, argued that by charging anti-abortion protesters under the FACE ACT, “the Biden regime clearly desires to make being a pro-life Christian a crime.” As documented by Media Matters, anti-abortion figures baselessly accused the Biden Department of Justice of weaponizing the FACE Act against protestors convicted of harassment at abortion clinics. [Twitter/X, 6/21/24; Media Matters, 6/11/24]

  • Right-wing media spent years launching hyperbolic accusations of Christian persecution, especially amid growing LGBTQ inclusion

    • When the European parliament displayed an LGBTQ Jesus, Steve Bannon lamented that “the Judeo-Christian West” is “anti-Christian by its leadership,” suggesting there will be “Diocletian” level persecution. He warned: “If you're prepared to accept it, it's going to get first-century Rome anti— it's going to get Diocletian. You're going to get to Diocletian anti-Christian and you're going to get there pretty quickly.” [Real America’s Voice, War Room, 5/5/23; FoxNews.com, 5/7/23]
    • While hosting Jack Phillips — a Colorado baker who had been sued for refusing to make a trans-themed cake — Fox’s Laura Ingraham declared that “the left wants to drive Christians out of the public square.” Ingraham added: “You don't even have a right to have a small business if you're a Christian today. You certainly don't have any conscience right, you have no religious rights, you have no First Amendment rights, if you clash with what they believe to be, you know, the supremely protected among us.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 1/30/23; Associated Press, 10/8/24]
    • Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk has relentlessly claimed that Christian values in the U.S. are under attack, claiming that they could be thrown in prison. At a 2023 TPUSA pastor’s summit, Kirk warned pastors that “if we continue theological disputes and don't focus on liberty, then we're going to be having those theological disputes from prison.” Ahead of the 2024 election, Kirk claimed that pro-choice Democrats would “create a secret police that will audit, intimidate, raid every single” pregnancy center in the U.S., saying that when that happens, “we'll be like, wow, I really wish that we Christians would have bought ourselves a little more time so that our nonprofits, our leaders, wouldn't go to federal prison.” [NPR, 10/24/24; Media Matters, 4/27/23; Real America’s Voice, The Charlie Kirk Show, 8/16/24]
    • Tucker Carlson suggested that the “trans movement is targeting Christians,” citing the Covenant school shooting. Carlson claimed that “the trans movement is the mirror image of Christianity and therefore its natural enemy,” declaring that “Christianity and transgender orthodoxy” are on a “collision course” and claiming that “one side is likely to draw blood before the other side.” [Rolling Stone, 3/28/23]
    • On Fox News, Oklahoma state superintendent Ryan Walters lamented that a Harris/Walz administration would “trans the kids“ and “push all faith out of the public square,” as now-White House faith director Paula White-Cain bragged that Trump was “promising in his second term to do even more for Christians as he shares the same values.” White-Cain called for national “revival” and “turning our hearts back to God” and Walters declared that a Harris/Walz administration would be the “most anti-Christian administration in American history.” [FoxNews.com, 8/10/24; Religion News Service, 2/21/25]
    • On Sebastian Gorka’s Salem Media podcast, Breitbart’s Thomas Williams said that the U.S. is a “post-Christian society, but in many ways an anti-Christian society.” Gorka — who is now the counterterrorism chief in Trump’s administration — replied, “right,” and Williams added, “We are a Judeo-Christian nation by its foundation, and in the value system that understands what the family is, what society is.” [Salem Media, America First with Sebastian Gorka, 6/14/23; CBS News, 1/7/25]
    • Fox host Emily Compagno labeled the U.S. an “anti-Christian, anti-Judeo-Christian society.” Compagno cited backlash to a graduation speech from Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker that reportedly attacked the LGBTQ community and told “women to forget about a career and serve their man instead.” [Fox News, Gutfeld!, 6/11/24; OutSports, 5/13/24]
    • Former Trump DOJ official Jeff Clark told Bannon that a second Trump administration needed a “beefed up” religious liberty task force to fight anti-Christian sentiment in the U.S., citing a story he heard about a “school district that was prohibiting bus drivers even from wearing Christmas regalia.” Responding to a campaign speech where Trump pledged to create an anti-Christian bias task force if elected, Clark said: “That's wonderful to announce, especially in an increasingly anti-Christian world. I mean, I'd seen a story about a school district that was prohibiting bus drivers even from wearing Christmas regalia to entertain the students a little bit. I mean things have gone into bonkers land. And look, in the first Trump term, we did have a religious liberty task force. And I think we need an even more beefed up one.” [Real America’s Voice, War Room, 12/20/23; Fox News, 12/19/23]

  • Right-wing media heaped praise on Trump’s task force, celebrating Trump “proudly defending our heritage as inheriting the values of the Bible”

    • Charlie Kirk applauded the task force’s creation, declaring that “this is the counter-revolution against their color revolution that occurred in the summer of 2020.” He said, “We are proudly defending our heritage as inheriting the values of the Bible,” adding, “This is a cultural resurgency. No longer should you be afraid to share your faith. No longer should you be afraid to share your political values. This is the counter-revolution against their color revolution that occurred in the summer of 2020, and it is ascendant.” [Real America’s Voice, The Charlie Kirk Show, 2/6/25]
    • On her show, Ingraham celebrated that “we have a president who believes our nation has a divine destiny” and displayed a chyron declaring: “Trump restores faith in America.” Ingraham then hosted a teacher, Marisol Arroyo-Castro, who claimed she had been suspended for having a crucifix in her classroom. Ingraham told Arroyo-Castro that “they see you and your presence as a threat,” and said, “I don’t think it’s constitutional.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 2/6/25; CT Insider, 1/30/25]
    • Praising the task force announcement, right-wing commentator Michael Knowles said, “I love that he [Trump] is saying anti-Christian hostility, anti-Christian bias in the government” rather than “squish Republicans” who say “we want to just generally and universally speaking protect all religions.” Knowles elaborated, saying, “There aren't really threats against all general religions kind of broadly, man. That's not the problem. America wasn't founded on the principles of just kind of all the religions generally, universally, man. The specific problem that we saw explode during the Biden administration was bias against Christians. … That's the problem that has to be addressed, and that's the specific problem Trump is addressing, and I love it.” [Daily Wire, The Michael Knowles Show, 2/7/25]
    • Steve Bannon celebrated the announcement and hosted media figure Lance Wallnau — a “prophet” and self-described Christian nationalist — with the two discussing right-wing Christians’ “recapturing of institutions” including “education, of media, of business, of government.” Bannon and Wallnau discussed how the task force can be used “to seize the institutions of the federal government” with “the ideas of Western civilization, which is the ideas of Christian civilization.” Wallnau said that “there are three arteries that make this happen: legislation, litigation, and the shaping of public opinion,” adding, “because people like you, as long as we can shape the public opinion, the secret sauce is you've got to work with the awakening that's happening and move with it in such a way that you litigate and you legislate, but never get too far ahead of public persuasion.” [Real America’s Voice, War Room, 2/7/25; Media Matters; 9/27/24; Rolling Stone, 9/29/22]

    From the February 7, 2025, edition of Real America's Voice's War Room

    • After Trump’s speech announcing his intent to create a task force, Bannon suggested that the president needs to “make sure they're going throughout the government because the administrative state is absolutely anti-Christian,” claiming that “the deep state is demonic.” Real America's Voice's chief White House correspondent Brian Glenn added, “Certainly we have seen how demonic this previous administration has been in terms of allowing religious freedom.” [Real America’s Voice, War Room, 2/6/25]
    • Fox host Jeanine Pirro praised the task force’s creation and attacked the FBI and the Biden administration for supposedly targeting Catholics, a claim that was found to be baseless after an internal investigation. Pirro noted that Trump “went to two prayer breakfasts this morning and he talked about eradicating anti-Christian bias,” and complained about “when the FBI director Christopher Wray came out and really told us no one at the FBI was targeting Christians and Senator Hawley came out and they found that leaked memo that the FBI was investigating Catholics and priests were gone to so they could then inform on parishioners who were considered domestic terrorists.” The New York Times reported that “Republicans claimed the bureau’s memo was evidence of an anti-conservative strain among F.B.I. ranks, but an internal investigation failed to uncover any ‘malicious intent.’” [Fox News, The Five, 2/6/25; New York Times, 4/18/24]