The Excerpt podcast: As Trump support merges with Christian nationalism, extremism grows

On Monday's episode of The Excerpt podcast: USA TODAY National Correspondent Will Carless discusses the merging of Christian nationalism with Trump support. Democrats want to know why the GOP used Russia's Alexander Smirnov in the Biden impeachment probe. USA TODAY Democracy Reporter Erin Mansfield looks at the rise of AI deepfakes this election cycle. A ban on menthol cigarettes pits tobacco-control groups who want to reduce smoking deaths against civil rights groups concerned about over-policing. 'Oppenheimer' wins big at the Oscars.

Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it.  This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.

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Taylor Wilson:

Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson. And today is Monday, March 11th, 2024. This is The Excerpt.

Today, a look at Christian nationalism and Donald Trump. Plus, what did the GOP know about a Russian asset's role in the Biden impeachment probe? And, AI deepfakes are showing up in the 2024 election.

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The idea of Christian nationalism in America has existed for some time, but experts say the movement's new shape and embrace of the Trump campaign are raising new questions. I spoke with USA Today national correspondent Will Carless for more.

Will, thanks for hopping on The Excerpt tonight.

Will Carless:

Thanks for having me on.

Taylor Wilson:

So Will, let's just try to establish a definition here. What is Christian nationalism and what's its history in America?

Will Carless:

So Christian nationalism in one form or another has been around for pretty much since the birth of the United States. There's always been a faction of America that believes in this idea. And essentially, the idea is that America is a country that was created by God and created for Christians and that it is the natural home of Christians. This is sort of a manifest destiny idea basically. But in its most modern form, and what's got a lot of people concerned about Christian nationalism, is this debate over who Americans are. And so increasingly, in modern America, Christian nationalism tends to think of America as being a place for particularly white cisgendered Americans and that other people aren't necessarily allowed in or allowed to be part of the country.

Taylor Wilson:

Yeah. So in this modern version of America, how has Donald Trump ramped up religious rhetoric and even embraced this Christian nationalist movement?

Will Carless:

Donald Trump, like pretty much every presidential candidate, has courted the evangelical vote, has courted the Christian vote, has sort of expressed Christian viewpoints even though a lot of people would argue that he hasn't necessarily lived a very Christian lifestyle. It's kind of impossible to become a president in the United States without appealing to Christian voters and to evangelicals.

What Trump has done, however, since losing the election in 2020, is to become more overtly Christian nationalistic. He started to use some of the signals and dog whistles of the Christian nationalist movement. So for example, just a couple of weeks ago, he talked about not allowing the liberal left to tear down the crosses that are across the United States. Not that anyone was ever suggesting that that was going to happen, but he's saying, "I'm never going to let that happen. I'm going to take bullets for Christianity," he says all of these things. That's all language that is very much used in the Christian nationalist movement. A lot of people think that he knows exactly what he's saying and who he he's saying it to.

Taylor Wilson:

Well, an interesting question that your piece approaches is whether Christian nationalism is actually Christian. How tricky is this debate and are there Christians put off by this kind of Christian nationalist rhetoric we've been talking about?

Will Carless:

So if you look at the sort of broad swathe of what we call Christianity, there's certainly a large portion of that belief system that would see Christian nationalism as theoretical, right? I mean, they would say it's not okay for Trump, for example, to say that he has been chosen by God, that in fact that is blasphemous, that it's not okay for Trump to use imagery that depicts Jesus Christ for his own purposes and his own social media, his own campaign. What we are looking at when it comes to Christian nationalism, we have to be very careful that we're talking about a subset of Christianity. And arguably not even of Christianity, right? A subset of people who like to use Christian dogma, Christian language, but a lot of Christians would sort of look at them and say, "That's not Christian. That's not what we believe in at all."

Taylor Wilson:

And so in this election year, Will, what would Trump's ties to Christian nationalism mean for the country as a whole if he were to win the election this fall and also if he were to lose it?

Will Carless:

Let's start with losing it. The main reason that I wrote this story as an extremism reporter is that people who watch the world of extremists in America are extremely concerned about what this faction does. Let's be clear, we're talking about the very extremist faction of Christian nationalists. In fact, one of the experts I talked to describe these people as Demonologists. And this is people who essentially make the argument that liberals and that the Democratic Party are literally Satan, or literally demons who have come to interrupt God's design for America. And that design very much in their minds involves the President Trump.

If Donald Trump loses, you now have a group of people who believe that essentially God's will has been interrupted. Or in the case where he makes the argument that the election was false or was stolen, that that has actually been taken away. That leaves people who are willing to resort to desperate measures. Things like terrorism, things like the January 6th insurrection, which had a lot of Christian nationalists at it.

Now, if Trump wins, the argument is, you have people entering government alongside Trump, possibly even serving in his cabinet who have these very extremist rules about the separation of church and state, for example, about women's rights, about LGBTQ rights. And these people are now holding some of the highest positions in government. A lot of people who know this movement very well are extremely concerned about those people holding such positions of power.

Taylor Wilson:

All right, Will Carless covers extremism and emerging issues for USA Today. Will, I always appreciate your insight when you're on. Thanks for making the time.

Will Carless:

Thanks for having me.

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Taylor Wilson:

Some house Democrats told USA Today that the Department of Justice needs to investigate what leading Republican impeachment advocates of President Joe Biden knew about false claims made by former FBI informant Alexander Smirnoff. He claimed the president and his son Hunter Biden took $5 million bribes from the Ukrainian Energy Company, Burisma. And House Republicans deemed that a crucial piece of evidence against the president in their ongoing impeachment investigation. But Smirnoff was then indicted by a federal grand jury last month for lying to the FBI about the allegations just weeks before the 2020 presidential election. The House GOP quietly scrubbed a reference to Smirnoff's alleged smear of Biden from their impeachment website. And federal authorities revealed that Smirnoff got the false claim from his contacts in Russian intelligence. You can read more with a link in today's show notes.

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AI deepfakes have clearly become a part of the 2024 election. So will the federal government step in to regulate them? I spoke with USA Today democracy reporter, Erin Mansfield, to learn more.

Erin, thanks for joining me today on The Excerpt.

Erin Mansfield:

Thanks for having me.

Taylor Wilson:

So Erin, how have we already seen AI campaign deepfakes play out this election cycle?

Erin Mansfield:

So in the Republican primary, we saw Donald Trump's campaign host an audio clip that made it look like Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, was in a Twitter space speaking with several controversial figures including Adolf Hitler. And then we also saw DeSantis campaign circulate a picture that made it look like Trump was hugging Anthony Fauci. Those are examples on the right. On left, NBC News found this, but right before the New Hampshire primary, a very little known candidate who was opposing Joe Biden benefited when somebody used the deepfake of his voice to tell voters not to show up. That campaign did not directly do that deepfake and said they would've fired the contractor if they'd have known about it. That's what they told NBC News. But I mean the damage is done and it's obvious that this is happening.

Taylor Wilson:

Is this illegal, Erin? Or what current regulations are in place here?

Erin Mansfield:

There's no broad law against it on the federal level. Now in New Hampshire, there were concerns from the State Attorney General. It seems like there were some fines from the Federal Communication Commission. But in terms of the regulation that a lot of people on both sides of the aisle would like to see, that has not come through Congress and it hasn't come through the Federal Election Commission. Nothing is on the books federally yet. The states are starting to put things on the books. They're starting to pass laws that say if you use AI in your ad, you have to have a disclosure on it. We're also seeing some tech companies put in their own policies, which obviously don't have the weight of a federal law, but it does show that they know that this is either a problem or a potential problem.

Good government advocates have petitioned the Federal Election Commission to update its regulation. It's actually already against FEC rules for someone from one campaign to pretend that they work for their opponent's campaign and say a bunch of bad things to try to make the opponent look bad. That's a kind of fraudulent misrepresentation that's far beyond any of the more run-of-the-mill political twisting of words. And what good government groups are saying, especially public citizen, which is leading this effort, is that, "Well, you already have these regulations on your books against fraudulent misrepresentation. How much more fraudulent can it be to have a computer pretend to be the candidate and say ridiculous things to make it look like they believe things they don't?" And that's basically it's in a bureaucratic rulemaking process. The head of the Federal Election Commission told me in a statement, he thinks that rulemaking will be done later this year. I don't have an exact date on that. We're going to see ourselves going through the bulk of this campaign without a meaningful federal regulation stopping us.

Taylor Wilson:

And Erin, you touched on the tech companies, and they're obviously at the heart of a lot of this conversation. What is their role in all this? How are they responding? Where do they stand here?

Erin Mansfield:

Well, so I talked to spokespeople for Facebook and for Google, Facebook's parent companies called Meta. And they have policies, they have efforts that they're taking. Google, for example, unveiled some policies back in the fall. YouTube said back in the fall they were going to implement some updates that made it sound like there would be some kind of automated disclaimers. And then Facebook has ad policies that doesn't allow fraudulent misrepresentation. And they say that that includes if it's created by AI. It does seem like something that people who are involved in tech really understand the dangers of it. I spoke to an AI researcher at the University of California at Berkeley who spoke about how it is a real danger if you don't know what's a human being and what's not.

Taylor Wilson:

All right. USA Today democracy reporter, Erin Mansfield. Really interesting insight here. Thanks, Erin.

Erin Mansfield:

Thank you.

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Taylor Wilson:

A measure to ban menthols and other flavored tobacco products is on the table in New York as the Biden administration is stalling on a separate plan to ban menthols nationwide. Both the New York and federal ban face opposition from the tobacco industry and civil rights groups who fear a ban will lead to a crackdown on vendors and smokers. Some say a menthol ban would address an injustice, bringing respite to Black smokers who were targeted for decades by companies selling menthol cigarettes. Menthols produce a minty cooling sensation, believed to make them more addictive than other tobacco products.

Studies show menthol use disproportionately affected Black smokers who are more likely than white smokers to choose them. Black people are also more likely than white people to die from lung cancer. But the counter argument to menthol bans for many also centers on upholding Black people's rights. Organizations like Reverend Al Sharpton's National Action Network and the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives say a ban would criminalize menthol smokers because it would unfairly police people who sell and use them. Menthol was excluded from an earlier federal flavor ban. You could read more about what's next for this conversation with a link in today's show notes.

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Hollywood's Biggest Night is in the books, the atomic bomb biopic Oppenheimer entered the night with the most nominations and left with the most awards. It grabbed seven wins out of 13 nominations, including for Best Picture and Best Actor for star Killian Murphy. Poor Things picked up four wins, including Emma Stone's win for best actress. She was shocked by the victory and told viewers during her speech that her dress was broken. Something she said likely happened during Ryan Gosling's performance of I'm Just Ken. The hit song from Barbie. And The Night had plenty of other highlight moments like when John Cena presented an award in the nude. You can read more and find a full list of winners in the entertainment section on usatoday.com.

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Thanks for listening to The Excerpt. You can get the podcast wherever you get your pods. And if you're on a smart speaker, just ask for The Excerpt. I'm Taylor Wilson, back tomorrow with more of The Excerpt from USA TODAY.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: The Excerpt podcast: Trump support merges with Christian nationalism