525. JD Vance vs. the Pope and the Far-Right Funding Machine (Question Time)

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0:13Rory Stewart:The reality is that Vance and the administration are wrong. I mean, they're theologically illiterate. They are consistently portraying a worldview which is, well, in a lot of their actions, almost seems to be completely unbound by any kind of ethical principles. This is a deliberate thing of constantly wrapping up what they're doing in religious rhetoric. And if you are somebody like Pope Leo, who clearly can't stand what these people are doing to America and to the world, then you can see why he would get very, very offended. This episode is brought to you by Fuse Energy. Energy policy rarely stays in Westminster for long, usually arrives for the bill.

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3:42Rory Stewart:Welcome to the Rest This Politics Question Time with me, Rory Stewart. And me, Alistair Campbell. And we're going to talk Trump v. the Pope again, because he keeps rumbling on. We are going to have a bit of a deep dive into the well-organized funding of right-wing organizations against women's rights and other issues, which will take us into Hungary, which plays a big part in that. And then we'll maybe try and lighten up a bit because it's been a pretty heavy week. But Rory, where shall we start? Okay, so why don't we start with the first question, who's from Ellie, who's a TREP Plus member from Hong Kong.

4:20Rory Stewart:Hi, Alice and Rory, I really enjoyed your articles in the newsletter about Trump's response to the Pope. My question is, what does it say about the state of religion in politics when political figures feel comfortable lecturing religious leaders on their own theology? Is this just naked power politics, or does it reflect a genuine belief among the MAGA movement that they represent true Christianity better than the Pope does? And before I hand over to you, there are two examples of this, strongly from J.D. Vance, who of course is very, very proud of being a born-again Catholic. He managed to get in an argument with the last Pope about what he called the order of love, in which he tried to argue that Christianity was essentially about looking after your own family and people first and other people later.

5:10Rory Stewart:And now he's managed to get an argument with the current Pope about Augustinian just war theory, where he claims the Iran war is a just war. Over to you. Well, I was thinking about this. So, as you know, Roy, I love football, but I would not argue about football tactics with Pep Guardiola. I wouldn't argue with Margaret Atwood about how to construct a novel. And I would definitely not argue about theology with the Pope. And that is not because I believe in papal infallibility. I don't. But I know that to get where he is, he has had to devote his whole life to theology and to impressing a lot of people in the Catholic Church that he knows his stuff.

5:50J.D. Vance got to where he is because Donald Trump put him there. And as you say, he's become a Catholic. He's apparently writing a book about this wonderful conversion. And he genuinely thinks he can argue with the Pope on theology. So does Mike Johnson, the speaker. So does Pete Hexeth. And this is what happens, I think, with cults. You know how Sean Hannity, the kind of well-known MAGA broadcaster, saying, I no longer consider myself a Catholic because of this row going on between Trump and the Pope. In other words, if I have to choose the Pope or Trump, I'm going to go with Trump. And what's incredible about all of these people is that they seem to have real trouble with the Pope being an expert on scripture, but no trouble with Trump posting pictures of himself as Jesus, or frankly, being a deeply unchristian human being.

6:45And the other thing, don't forget, Roy, this all started, this particular chapter in this row started when Hex's deputy in the Pentagon, Elbridge Colby, met the Vatican's US envoy, a guy called Cardinal Christophe Pierre, and warned that the US military had the power to do whatever it wants in the world, and the Catholic Church better decide what side it's on. So it's just a form of the MAGA madness that we've seen. But there is a method to the madness. Now, you know, I've been, I think twice now, I did it again with Dominic Sambra when he stood in for you when you were away in the Galapagos. And these 14 tenets, if you like, of fascism that are posted up in the Holocaust Museum in Washington.

7:27Number eight, religion and government are intertwined. Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions. And maybe that's where you can pick up on the just war, because that's what has taken this to the next stage of this row.

7:57Rory Stewart:Well, one of the things that strikes me here is there's a difference between the Catholics and the administration and the evangelicals. So, as you pointed out, the Catholics in the administration, people like J.D. Vance, are already committed very, very strongly to a religion which would defer to the Pope on questions of theology. I mean, it's absolutely baked into the whole structure of the thing. And the whole idea of Hannity saying he's stopping being a Catholic because he can't sit with the Pope on this, or Vance saying the Pope should stay out of these theological matters and there's something he doesn't understand called just war theory is completely bizarre because it goes against the whole doctrine of the Catholic Church.

8:38Rory Stewart:The second thing, though, that has been really striking is you began by making the move, which I think many people feel, which is an appeal to the naked authority of the Pope, you know, the guys like Pep Guardiola in relation to football. What isn't happening so much is a real engagement with the substance. There's a lot of Vance said, Pope said, Pope's more important. Actually, the reality is that Vance and the administration are wrong. I mean, they're theologically illiterate. They are consistently portraying a worldview, which is, well, in a lot of their actions almost seems to be completely unbound by any kind of ethical principles.

9:21Rory Stewart:There's no sense of empathy. There's no sense of caring for the vulnerable. I mean, if Christ's message is about anything, I mean, I guess the repeated theme of the Gospels again and again is that this is someone who is perpetually reaching out to the most marginalized people in society. Maybe that's a two-piece way of putting it, but I mean, he's deliberately reaching out to lepers, to prostitutes, to rejected tax collectors, to Samaritans who are a real sort of minority group that are hated by the majority. And that's what the Pope has been doing in saying he's not going to go to the 250th anniversary.

10:03Rory Stewart:Instead, he's going to greet refugees on the Greek islands. He was bathing feet during Easter week, including the feet of Muslims. He's done a big publicized tour to the Muslim world. And this is really the Pope reminding us that Christianity properly understood it's about forgiveness, it's about sinners, and it's about grace. And actually, what the Pope is communicating, and a lot of people in the Anglican Church here in Britain, is much more thoughtful compassion and respect for Islam than we're getting out of this so-called Christian right, who are increasingly creating this Judeo-Christian stuff.

10:48Over to you. Yeah. And also bear in mind that Pete Hexerth has said, I think this is what must have provoked, in part, provoked the Pope into feeling he had to speak out, when he said this is a war for Jesus. And that goes back to what we talked about in a previous episode about George Bush, I think, genuinely made a mistake when he said, you know, about the crusade, this is a crusade. You have to be very, very careful with the language. And I think the MAGA people, the Hexerth the Vances, the Trumps, they are being careful with their language in that they're being very, very deliberate about this.

11:18And I do think it relates to basically saying there is only one power in this country, and it is Donald Trump, and it is those who follow Donald Trump. I don't think the Jesus thing was a mistake. I think it was when he posted the picture of himself as Jesus. It's all part of the same kind of crazy stuff. And on the just war, where you said that they're just wrong. I looked it up and found this explanation in one of the old books of the Catholic Church. And it says, a constant tenet of the thousand-year tradition of just war theory is a nation can only legitimately take up the sword in self-defense once all peace efforts have failed.

11:57That is, to be a just war, it must be a defense against another who actively wages war. And that's why Pope Leo said he, God, does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war. Now, I can see why that would rile up Trump. It's because that essentially is almost saying that Iran, in the current set of circumstances, has a greater justification to defend itself because it has come under attack. So that, I think, goes to the heart of it. But So, you know, where you're absolutely right. Of course, this is interesting territory for you because, I mean, when was it you got into a real row with J.D.

12:39Vance, none other than J.D. Vance, when you – that was over Ordo Amoris, wasn't it?

12:44Rory Stewart:That was right at the beginning of his thing. So, that was him effectively saying at the moment when the U.S. was deciding to cut all its overseas aid. Yeah. He tried to say, this makes perfect sense because as a Christian, I basically believe we should look after our families and our own people first and bugger the rest of them. And what was so weird about that is that that insight is not a Christian insight. That Vant's view is really the view of Genghis Khan. I mean, you don't really need Jesus to come along and say, put your family first, right? That's kind of mafia stuff. In fact, Christ's message in the parable of the Good Samaritan is exactly the reverse.

13:25Rory Stewart:It's exactly about not putting your own first, but reaching out to the people who are excluded. On your Augustine point, there's this big distinction which people talk about, which Augustine makes between the jus ad bellum, which is the justice of going to war, and the jus in bello, which is how you conduct yourself in the war. So one of them is about, are you making the correct moral arguments for going to war in the first place? And the second thing is, are you doing your very best to protect civilians, et cetera, follow the rules of war? And these things go right back to the early Middle Ages.

14:01Rory Stewart:And one of the things that we will get attacked by, obviously, is people will then jump up and down and say, how about the Iraq war? Of course, it's true that in the Iraq war and in many other things that people have done over the last hundreds of years. We have done things which may have been hypocritical, may have been poorly justified, may in many cases have been wrong. But there's all the difference in the world between a situation where governments tried to make arguments for going to war in good faith or bad faith, tried to go to the United Nations, tried to explain what threat they thought they were facing and the new world of Trump, where you don't even have the pretense, you don't even have the hypocrisy.

14:51Rory Stewart:And people would say, well, okay, maybe getting rid of hypocrisy is a good thing. It isn't. The hypocrisy, if that's what you want to call it, in other words, all our attempts in the past to try to make legal arguments for these wars is what allowed other people to challenge these wars on their own terms. If you move into a world in which you make no moral arguments at all, and that's what's so weird about what Vance is saying, I mean, of course, they're not making Augustinian just war theory arguments. We don't even know why they went to war. One of the things we discussed in the main podcast, of course, how do you get a peace deal when you can't even define why you've gone to war in the first place, right?

15:28Rory Stewart:That's really the heart of the whole thing. And whether you're talking about Sudan, or whether you're talking about Iran, or whether you're talking about what's happening inside the United States, the fundamental thing that's going on with Trump is the complete lack of any kind of legal or moral principle, which makes it impossible actually to resolve things or indeed argue against them because they're not making arguments. Yeah. There's a couple of things that just underline this point that it's all about him. So, for example, when he was quizzed by a journalist the other day and somebody mentioned the gospel.

16:01The Pope was explaining the gospel. And Trump's response was this. She made a note. I'm all about the gospel. His brother is MAGA all the way. The Pope's brother. So I'm all about the gospel. His brother is MAGA all the way. And then the next thing is that they cancelled an£11 million fund, which, OK, in the overall budget of the administration is tiny, but it was for a charity that deal, the Catholic church charity that deals with children of immigrants, helps children of immigrants. So, and then you have Hexoth say, I don't know if you saw his latest rant at the media says the press of the Pharisees.

16:44Again, making you think that Trump is Jesus, right? The Pharisees are the people who tried to always to undermine Jesus and you, the press, you're always trying to undermine Trump. And I think this is a kind of form of madness. And of course, they have wrapped themselves in this. I don't know what they really believe. And I don't want to question their beliefs. Beliefs are a very, very personal thing. And, you know, Texas talks constantly about going to church every day. The reason he read out that fake Bible verse was he claims that he heard something, the sermons... Remind us of the fake Bible verse.

17:20He took it from Reservoir Dogs or something. No, Pulp Fiction. It was a speech by Samuel Jackson. Just explain to the audience because they don't know about this. This was in a briefing. And he was basically read out this thing from the Bible. It was a room full of military. Somebody has done a brilliant splicey of Samuel Jackson, who I think is playing a murderer. and he's sort of doing this incredibly sort of, you know, fire and brimstone reading of what sounds like the Bible, but it's not the Bible. But P. Hanks, and somebody's put this in front of him, this will fit the moment. But then he also said that this was the prayer that he says was used by the search and rescue team that saved the downed airman in Iran a few weeks ago.

18:12And this was the same thing when he said, this is the guy who was downed on Friday and rose on Sunday. So to go back to my point about the Holocaust Museum point eight, this is a deliberate thing of constantly wrapping up what they're doing in religious rhetoric. And if you are somebody like Pope Leo, who clearly, clearly can't stand what these people are doing to America and to the world, then you can see why he would get very, very offended.

18:40Rory Stewart:One of the things that's so slippery about this, and one of the reasons why it's so disturbing is that the very same members of the Christian right, and we're seeing this with the far right across Europe, who are creating these Judeo-Christian coalitions against Islam, their technique is basically to claim that every Muslim in the world, of whom there are two billion people, fifth of the world's population, quarter of the world's population almost, somehow are supposed to believe all the most extreme verses of the Quran. I mean, if this were true, the world would be mayhem. Of course, it's not true.

19:16Rory Stewart:Of course, it's not true that billions of Muslims believe the most extreme verse of the Quran. And yet, what you're seeing with Hexeth is he's quoting some of the most extreme lines from the Old Testament. And you can see the same with some of the religious Zionists in Israel, quoting very, very extreme lines. So, it suits them. John Cleese just did this on Twitter, saying, oh, all Muslims are a bunch of genocidal maniacs because here is a line from the Quran about killing non-believers. And then they reserve the right to say, oh, when it suits them to quote these blood curdling lines from the Old Testament, right in the heart of the Jewish Christian tradition.

20:00Rory Stewart:And then when it suits them to distance themselves from it and say, of course, you know, we don't really believe in that stuff anymore. Instead of realizing that all these religions, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, are about living people, living difficult, spiritual, sinful, moral lives, struggling with ancient texts in different ways, interpreting them in very sophisticated ways that the Pope intuitively understands. That's why he's comfortable sitting with Muslim clerics, or indeed, sitting with Jewish scholars, and why we have to get away from this kind of social media fundamentalism. I'm very grateful to one of our listeners called Stephen Rogers, who's down in Bristol.

20:41And after the episode with Dominic, he wrote to me and said that the poster you're quoting from the Washington Holocaust Museum was actually from an essay by a guy called Lawrence W. Britt called Fascism Anyone. He said, even more interesting, Lawrence W. Britt wrote a novel in 1997, which was called June 2004. And he said, I think you'd find it very, very interesting. The trouble is it's out of print. If you've struggled to find one, I'll send you mine. It's out of print. Couldn't find anywhere. He sent it to me. And honestly, it suddenly needs to bring it back into print. So it was published in 1998.

21:21It's called June 2004. I've now finished it. I won't give away the whole story, but essentially the story is this. On the back of an economic crash, a very right-wing, charismatic celebrity politician takes over and suborns and transforms the Republican Party. He becomes president. He oversees the most chilling centralization of power. He reforms communications law so that his backers have control of TV networks. He politicizes the Department of Justice to go after his critics and his enemies. He gives the police more power. He uses the military to enforce domestic political decisions, and then eventually accelerates to the kind of crimes and cover up that become exposed.

22:08And you think these are now so bad, he can't survive. And he does. It's really, really chilly. So it's June 2004. It was just 20 years ahead of its time. But Stephen, thank you for sending that to me. I don't know if Lawrence W. Britt is still alive. I think he is, but he should update it for the modern age. It's absolutely brilliant. Thank you.

22:30Rory Stewart:Next question, Amanda, who's from Rye in Sussex. You've talked a lot about Project 2025 as an American phenomenon, but a recent report shows it's actually part of a transatlantic movement. Project 2025, just to remind people, is that extraordinary document created by the Heritage Foundation, which was very important in the election campaign for Trump because the Democrats were saying, look at this, this is all the stuff, this very dangerous stuff that Trump's going to do. And Trump was absolutely denying it. I haven't really heard of this document. This isn't really my program. And since he's come into the office, a great deal of it has now been implemented.

23:06Rory Stewart:It now becomes apparent that this pretty close to his manifesto. Why aren't we talking, Amanda from Wright asks, about this as a coordinated international authoritarian project, what can democracies actually do to counter it? So over to you on this report. So one of the reasons that Viktor Orban, who we talked about a lot last week, is such a big global figure, is because he was the first, I think, fully to understand that if you were going to change minds on big cultural issues, then you had to internationalize campaigns. He understood the importance of propaganda. He understood the need for networks.

23:42He understood the need for money to fund it all. He was the key to Steve Bannon's operation in the States and around the world. He's the key to the rise of Nigel Farage. He's the key to far-right parties and campaigns everywhere. And I've always felt that the right has always been better than the left at this, this international organization. So just to say this one report written by this guy, Neil Datta, Executive Director of the European Parliamentary Forum on Sexual and Reproductive Rights. So his report covers just four years, 2019-2023, and it calculates at$1.18 billion, the money that has flowed into over 270 organizations, variously opposing gender equality, LGBTQ, abortion, contraception and planning, children's rights to education about sexuality and health.