Trump Team Ramps Up Religion in Government—and Employees Are Worried

The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution explicitly protects freedom of religion, preventing the government from prohibiting the free exercise of one’s own beliefs, and forbidding the government from establishing an official religion or from favoring one over another.

Earlier this month, the Trump administration flagrantly defied it.

On Easter Sunday, Brooke Rollins, the secretary of the Department of Agriculture, sent out a blatantly Christian email to some 100,000 government employees. The subject line read: “He has risen!”

“Happy Easter—He is Risen indeed!” starts the email, obtained by The Washington Post. “Today we celebrate the greatest story ever told, the foundation of our faith, and the abiding hope of all mankind.

“From the foot of the Cross on Good Friday to the stone rolled away from the now empty tomb, sin has been destroyed,” continues the email, signed by the secretary. “Jesus has been raised from the dead. And God has granted each of us victory and new life. And where there is life—risen life—there is hope.”

Staffers were shocked by the constitutional violation.

“This has never happened before,” one government employee, who described the email as “grotesque,” told Wired. “I have never gotten a message like this from anyone.”

The same employee noted that such a message wouldn’t even be expected from military chaplains, commissioned officers who provide religious services.

Another employee, a 15-year veteran of the department, told the Post, “I have never seen that overtly of a religious email in all my years of government service.... It’s a separation of state and religion for a reason.”

Yet another employee found it telling that Rollins was “forcing religion down everybody’s throat,” noting that non-Christian USDA employees had expressed concern about their futures in the department.

A USDA spokesperson insisted to Wired that Rollins was “within her rights” to issue an Easter-themed missive.

But the note was just one of many breaches by the Trump administration of America’s longstanding religious freedom. Weeks into his second term, Donald Trump signed an executive order establishing the official White House Faith Office, led by televangelist pastor Paula White-Cain. That same week, Trump issued another executive order to “end the anti-Christian weaponization of government.”

Months later in July, the Office of Personnel Management issued a similar memo, effectively allowing federal employees to attempt to convert their colleagues in the workplace and encourage them to pray in the workplace.

The Department of Labor also established its own faith office, where its religious leader, Kenneth Wolfe, hosts monthly worship services.

“Generally, people who are working for the government understand that their job is to work on behalf of all Americans,” an unnamed source at the Labor Department told Wired. “And this is something very different. This is very explicitly Christian, and even within the realm of Christianity, a very narrow representation of that.”

“People are uncomfortable. I know several who are offended and angry,” they continued. “These [worship services] are very Christian in nature.”

The evangelical infusions have been unabashed and shameless. In January, the niece of Martin Luther King Jr. and the senior adviser on faith and community outreach at USDA, Alveda King, told DOL employees that “we have different denominations, different faiths, and some have no faith.”

“Those are the ones I would be more concerned about,” King emphasized.

In March, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth urged Americans to pray “every day” on their knees “in the name of Jesus Christ.” Employees say the hyper-fixation on Christianity has made the federal government a very uncomfortable place to work, spurring an environment in which staffers fear religion-based retaliation. Another staffer told Wired plainly that the “vibes are bad.”

“They always spend a lot of time carrying on like, ‘No one’s forcing you to pray, these are voluntary,’” they said. “But it’s happening in the middle of a government workplace.”

Republican Senator Roger Marshall wants Americans to stop complaining about gas prices because they’re necessary for “national security.”

Speaking on Newsmax’s Wake Up America Tuesday morning, Marshall was asked about the Iran war, and the Kansas politician was dismissive of its negative economic effects on the American people.

“I’m sorry the gas prices are going up, but help is on its way, and your national security, yes, is even more important than your pocketbook,” Marshall said.

Marshall doubled down when asked how long Americans would be paying higher energy costs, saying, “I think back to my grandparents and their generation that served in World War II.”

“Could you imagine trying to tell the president, ‘Look, you only got so many days to defeat Hitler or defeat Japan?’ We have to do it till we get the outcome that we want. I hope it’s weeks and not months, but at the end of the day, Americans are going to be safer,” Marshall said.

This is all rather callous to say with gas prices averaging $4 per gallon across the country and more than $5 per gallon in places like California and Oregon, all because of a war of choice that had nothing to do with any imminent threats to the U.S. The latest threats to national security were actually caused by President Trump’s decision to bomb Iran, and Marshall is stubbornly defending the war out of loyalty to him.

Pope Leo XIV warned on Tuesday that democracy risks becoming a “majoritarian tyranny” if not rooted in moral law.

The warning came in a letter addressed to the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences.

“Far from being a mere procedure, democracy recognizes the dignity of every person and calls each citizen to participate responsibly in the pursuit of the common good,” Leo wrote. “Democracy remains healthy, however, only when rooted in the moral law and a true vision of the human person. Lacking this foundation, it risks becoming either a majoritarian tyranny or a mask for the dominance of economic and technological elites.”

While the statement didn’t mention President Trump by name, it’s hard not to see Leo’s warning as the latest installment of their ideological feud. Trump says the pope, of all people, is “weak on crime,” and doesn’t understand why his Holiness is opposed to an illegal and deadly war on Iran. Leo has responded with the case for a democracy rooted in Catholic social teaching that “regards power not as an end in itself, but as a means ordered toward the common good.”

The letter also comes just a day after the pope stated that he was not a politician and had “no fear” of the Trump administration. Read his letter here.

President Donald Trump has finally weighed in on that FEMA official who claims he teleported to a Waffle House—and it’s a doozy.

Gregg Phillips, who serves as associate administrator for the Office of Response and Recovery at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, has repeatedly doubled down on claims that he was instantaneously transported 50 miles to one of the popular chain restaurant’s locations.

In a brief interview with CNN’s KFile, Trump was directly asked about Phillips’s wild journey.

“What does teleport mean? Was he kidding?” Trump said.

After being assured that Phillips was very much not kidding, Trump replied: “I don’t know anything about him teleporting.… It just sounds a little strange, but I know nothing about teleporting or him, but I’ll find out about it right now.”

Trump’s apparent disbelief underscores just how little the president knows—or cares—about anyone who works for him. Phillips has made a slew of outrageous claims in the past. He previously claimed to have spoken with God and with Satan, and claimed that he was “already dead” but was kept around to do God’s work. Phillips has said that many of these instances occurred while he was undergoing self-directed treatment for metastatic bone cancer, using ivermectin and fenbendazole.

After a 2025 incident where he said he collapsed at a Lowes and came to in a McDonald’s parking lot, with 15,000 steps logged in his health app and a Big Mac in his lap, he insisted: “The whole space and time thing, continuum, got all—it fell with me.”

“This isn’t a health thing. This isn’t the cancer. This isn’t me. This is a spiritual thing,” he said.

But one of his rather outrageous claims may have been exactly what kept him in Trump’s circles. Phillips is a major proponent of the “Big Lie,” the conspiracy theory that Trump only lost the 2020 election because it was rigged against him.

Since Phillips’s outlandish claims first began to circulate in March, FEMA’s No. 3 official has been relegated to the sidelines of his own agency—enraging Phillips, multiple insiders at FEMA told CNN.

Turns out the Hungarian government has been bankrolling the Conservative Political Action Conference for years.

Péter Magyar, who unseated Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán Sunday in a landslide, told reporters Monday that the outbound leader had diverted Hungarian taxpayer funds toward financing the American Republican conference.

Magyar noted that his government will be investigating Orbán’s expenditures, and will no longer finance CPAC or other right-wing institutions abroad.

“I believe the state should never have financed them in the first place, it was a crime,” Magyar said, according to an English translation of his remarks. “Mixing party financing with government spending from the state budget is, in my view, a criminal offense, and this will have to be investigated by the future authorities, including the National Office for the Recovery and Protection of Public Assets, since those budgetary funds were not meant to finance party events.”

The Trump administration fervently advocated for Orbán in the run-up to the election. Vice President JD Vance and State Secretary Marco Rubio both traveled to Budapest to campaign for him, while Donald Trump repeatedly praised the authoritarian, far-right politician. All three American politicians endorsed Orbán, as did CPAC chairman Matt Schlapp.

Under Orbán’s 16-year rule, Hungary became an “illiberal state” with feigned elections. Orbán dismantled democratic checks and balances, silenced and controlled the news media, and weakened the country’s judiciary system.

The day of the election, CPAC’s official account released a statement in full support of its apparent antidemocratic fundraiser.

“CPAC is closely watching this very important election in Hungary today. We stand firmly with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and the Hungarian people as they vote,” the statement read. “We have proudly held CPAC Hungary five times, and each gathering has been wildly successful, bringing together conservatives from across Europe and the United States to champion sovereignty, family, and national identity.

“He is a true example of a leader with strong conservative values who has courageously stood up to elitists and globalists from the EU and beyond to protect what is right for his country,” it continued. “We are with you, Hungary.”

Not only did Orbán lose on Sunday, but his party did, as well. Orbán’s Fidesz won just 55 seats in Hungary’s 199-seat National Assembly. Magyar’s Tisza party won 138.

The DoorDash driver who took part in a bizarre event at the White House about President Trump’s “no tax on tips” program has testified before Congress in the past, and her numbers don’t add up.

Sharon Simmons was described as a “DoorDash grandma” delivering McDonald’s to the White House Monday, and she said that not having to pay taxes on the tips she receives as a driver allowed her to pay for her husband’s cancer treatments. But in three different interviews on Monday, Simmons presented conflicting numbers on how much she saved from untaxed tips.

“I figure that I’m probably going to be saving about $3,000 to $4,000,” Simmons told Fox News Digital. In another interview with Fox’s America Reports, she said half of her income came from tips, and at the White House, she said she made about $11,000 in tips. That would make her income $22,000, a salary so low that the standard deduction is what helped her—not Trump’s “no tax on tips” rule.

On top of that, footage resurfaced of Simmons testifying before Congress last July, in which she extolled the benefits of Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” claiming that it would help her as a caregiver and mother. Republican Representative David Kustoff had posted her testimony to his X account.

This makes it obvious the event was staged, as were the mathematically incorrect talking points. A DoorDash communications employee, Julian Fels, seemed to be crashing out as this came to light, claiming on X that while the event was planned between DoorDash and the White House, Simmons is a real DoorDash employee.

One X user pointed out that because Simmons is not actually a D.C. resident and was flown to Washington from Arkansas, she was receiving compensation and may be considered an “undisclosed lobbyist.” It’s clear the White House’s feel-good event Monday wasn’t what it appeared to be.

President Donald Trump lashed out at his own supporter after he had to remove his blasphemous AI post depicting him as Jesus Christ.

Trump removed the post Monday after receiving a 24-hour tidal wave of backlash from his MAGA supporters, including Riley Gaines, an anti-trans activist and right-wing commentator who had struggled to make sense of the president’s post.

“Why? Seriously, I cannot understand why he’d post this. Is he looking for a response? Does he actually think this?” Gaines wrote on X Monday. “Either way, two things are true. 1) a little humility would serve him well 2) God shall not be mocked.”

When asked that afternoon if he took the post down because of Gaines’s and others’ criticism, Trump said: “I didn’t listen to Riley Gaines. I’m not a big fan of Riley, actually.”

Gaines’s response to being called out by the president was predictably sycophantic.

“I love the President and I’m so grateful he’s in the Oval Office. Of course, I’ll continue to support him and the America First agenda,” she wrote on X. “At the end of the day, I do nothing for the approval of man. Our purpose on this earth is to glorify Him in all we do. The truth social post missed the mark. It’s now deleted. Amazing!

“I know with the President it’s really not personal,” Gaines added.

So, even after Trump slighted her, Gaines still managed to find a way to exalt him. Forgiveness is a virtue, but this is just embarrassing.

Trump has offered limp excuses for the post and claimed he had to remove it because it was confusing to people. But despite his dismissals, it seems clear that some dregs of backlash did reach their way into the Oval Office.

Donald Trump has become his party’s golden calf.

Republican lawmakers and politicians are turning on the Catholic Church to defend the president’s warmongering.

Speaking with Fox News Monday night, Senator Lindsey Graham spoke directly to Pope Leo XIV, telling him that he was “miscalculating” by advocating for world peace.

Last week, reports emerged that the Pentagon had openly threatened a Vatican ambassador in January, days after the pope made antiwar remarks during his State of the World address. In the days since that report, Trump has fired off several antagonistic comments against the leader of the Catholic Church, repeatedly attempting to sour the pope’s reputation by claiming that Leo is “terrible for foreign policy” and “weak on crime.” That is, despite the fact that religious leaders are neither responsible for foreign policy nor in charge of lowering crime rates.

Graham went on to compare Iran’s ayatollah to Nazi Germany, claiming that the religious order really did not “get” the level of “evil” that Trump was contending with in Iran.

Also Monday night, in a roundtable on CNN, prominent Republican donor Hal Lambert claimed that the clash was “all about trying to hurt President Trump’s Catholic vote for Republicans during the midterms,” citing former Obama strategist David Axelrod’s visit last week to the Vatican.

The Catholic Church has 1.42 billion baptized members around the world, with more than 70 million in the U.S. Roughly 20 percent of Americans identify as Catholic, making it the second-most-popular religion in the country behind Protestantism.

Vice President JD Vance—who converted to Catholicism in 2019—tried to squash the beef, telling Fox News that “it’s a good thing” that the White House and the Holy See are at odds with each other.

“We’re always going to have disagreements on matter of public policy,” Vance said. “We certainly have a good relationship with the Vatican, but we’re also going to disagree on substantive questions from time to time, and I don’t think it’s particularly newsworthy.”

It’s not clear how “good” that relationship is, however. Many in the Vatican reportedly interpreted the Pentagon meeting as a threat to use military force against the religious order. The church has since rejected the White House’s invitation to host the pope for America’s 250th anniversary on July 4.

But feuding with a peace-loving pope has not been Trump’s only recent Christian faux pas. Over the weekend, Trump posted an AI-generated image of himself as Jesus Christ to Truth Social, setting off sparks among even some of his most ardent supporters. Several Floridians interviewed by MS NOW on Monday said that they were “disgusted” and “ashamed” of the image, which depicts Trump as a haloed messiah.

“That’s a disgrace. I’m very upset about that. I mean, how egotistical can you possibly be?” said John North, a medical lab worker. “I’m ashamed that he would actually do that. A man I voted for and trust. How could he do that? I mean, people are going to see this at work. I’m upset about that.”

Trump has since deleted the post, telling reporters at the White House that he thought it illustrated him as a doctor healing people.

Senator Ted Cruz refused to pick a side in President Trump’s petty tiff with Pope Leo XIV.

“Are you on the pope’s side or the president’s side?” a TMZ reporter asked Cruz on Monday evening.

“You know what, I’m quite confident that both the pope and the president can speak for themselves,” Cruz replied.

“Well, they are going through a very public sort of beef right now—”

“I understand you wanna get me in the middle of that,” Cruz interrupted. “I trust both of them to express their own views.”

TMZ then proceeded to ask Cruz various questions regarding Trump’s attack, all of which Cruz rebuffed. “Every way you ask the question you’re gonna get the same answer.”

This beef with the pope—in which Trump called him “weak on crime” and accused him of wanting Iran to have a nuclear weapon—comes while Trump and his base are still reeling from the president’s AI post depicting himself as Jesus Christ. Cruz, a devout Southern Baptist, hasn’t commented on that either.

Vice President JD Vance thinks economic terrorism is OK—as long as President Donald Trump’s the one doing it.

Speaking to Fox News Monday night, the vice president made a startling admission about how Donald Trump intended to end the war in Iran.

“When it comes to weapons of war, what they have done is engage in this act of economic terrorism against the entire world. They’ve basically threatened any ship that’s moving through the Strait of Hormuz. Well, as the president of the United States showed, two can play at that game,” Vance said.

“And if the Iranians are going to try and engage in economic terrorism, we’re going to abide by a simple principle: that no Iranian ships are going to get out either,” Vance said.

Still, the vice president insisted that Trump only wanted to see Iranians “thrive and succeed,” as if the president had not threatened to end their entire civilization a little more than a week ago.

Trump’s naval blockade on Iranian ports began Monday. A sustained military blockade would be incredibly expensive and require a large number of warships, and U.S. allies have made it very clear they have no intention of helping out. While it may seem like a quick fix, taking Iranian oil off the market will only squeeze the market, causing energy prices to surge higher. Gas prices in the U.S. have surged beyond $4 a gallon, as crude oil has climbed to over $100 per barrel.