Culture, Faith and Politics with Pat Kahnke

Eric Metaxas says the political left has become "satanic wickedness." A viral airplane evangelist turns a captive cabin into her personal stage. Both moments look like bold Christian witness — but Amy Hawk and I argue they're something else entirely: performance.

Dashcam footage tells a different story than the official DHS statement — and the gap between the two is the story. In this episode, I break down the case of a Northern Virginia mental health therapist stopped by ICE, the agency's public account of what happened, and what the actual video shows. This isn't a one-off. It's a pattern of official narratives that don't survive contact with the evidence — and a test of whether public shame is the last real check we have left on ICE abuse.

Many American Christians have never questioned the rapture — they just assumed it was always in the Bible. It wasn't. In this episode, I walk through why the modern rapture doctrine is a 19th-century invention rather than the historic Christian hope, and why it quietly trains believers to root for the world's destruction instead of its restoration. If you've ever felt like end times prophecy made you dread the world instead of love it, this one's for you.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer taught that stupidity is not a lack of intelligence — it's a moral choice to surrender independent judgment to a slogan, a tribe, or a leader. Today, Pat Kahnke and Adam Swenson trace that choice across every scale of American life: David French's diagnosis of a "fire of stupidity" fed by historical amnesia and group polarization; the tribal virtue-ethics turning zeal and cruelty into false righteousness; a foreign policy run on hope instead of facts; a state Republican Party in Minnesota that chose demonization over decency; and ICE agents wielding unaccountable force — including a gun drawn on a woman whose own dashcam contradicts the official story, and new electric-shock gloves being tested for compliance. This is stupidity, defined biblically and historically, now armed and unaccountable.

Whitney Lynn went viral for preaching to a captive airplane full of passengers — then claiming she was persecuted for it. But she's not some random street preacher. She's a MAGA "evangelist". In this clip from Tuesday's live stream with Ken Napzok, I walk through her own words — on camera, in her own post — and then break down why calling a bad flight "persecution" isn't just embarrassing, it's theologically hollow. This is what happens when evangelical Trump support curdles into a full-blown persecution complex: it cheapens the Gospel and it cheapens real suffering.

Republican senators keep telling us they have "concerns" about Trump's picks — and then confirming them anyway. Todd Blanche, Trump's own former personal lawyer, is now on track to become Attorney General of the United States. In this video, I break down why senators like Bill Cassidy know exactly what they're doing when they cave, what Blanche's history — including his role in controversial legal settlements — reveals about his fitness for the job, and why "institutional integrity" keeps losing to political self-preservation and future lobbying paydays.

This isn't just a Beltway story. It's a case study in what happens when the people meant to check power decide loyalty to Trump is worth more than the oath they took.

Maggie Haberman is one of the most connected reporters to Trump and his world and just released a new book with Jonathan Swan about the first year of Trump's second term. Pat Kahnke and Adam Swenson discuss issues raised during Haberman's recent appearance on the Ezra Klein podcast. We will ask, "Can the white Evangelicals who said Trump was chosen by God STILL justify that belief, given the fruit?"

Tim Whitaker (founder of The New Evangelicals, now host of Tim Whitaker Speaks and co-host of the Tim and April Show with April Ajoy) joined me and Ken Napzok for the most fun we've had on this channel in a long time — a full-blown Satanic Panic trivia showdown.

If you grew up in an evangelical home in the 80s or 90s, this is the nostalgia (and reckoning) you didn't know you needed. 

Todd Blanche's confirmation shows all Republicans are corrupt now. RFK Jr strikes again. And why are Evangelicals preaching on planes? Pat Kahnke discusses all this and more on Culture, Faith, and Politics, LIVE!

Jeanine Pirro prosecuted an innocent man — an Olympic athlete — for felony vandalism. Not because the evidence supported it. Because it served Donald Trump's narrative. Federal prosecutors eventually dropped the charges. And then Trump publicly humiliated her anyway. Isaiah 5 called this 2,700 years ago — those who "call evil good and good evil." Pirro's story is the illustration. The systemic problem is the sermon. This is what happens when loyalty to a man replaces fidelity to truth. It always ends this way. It will always end this way.