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just for our listeners. Good

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morning, I'm Taylor Wilson and today is Monday,

0:30

March 11, 2024. This

0:33

is The Excerpt. Today

0:39

a look at Christian nationalism and Donald

0:41

Trump. Plus, what did the GOP know

0:44

about a Russian assets role in the

0:46

Biden impeachment probe and AI

0:48

deepfakes are showing up in the 2024 election?

0:53

The idea of Christian nationalism in America

0:55

has existed for some time. But

0:58

experts say the movement's new shape and

1:00

embrace of the Trump campaign are raising

1:02

new questions. I spoke with

1:04

USA Today national correspondent Will Carless for

1:07

more. Will, thanks for hopping on The

1:09

Excerpt tonight. Thanks for having me on.

1:11

So, Will, let's just try to establish

1:13

a definition here. What is Christian nationalism

1:15

and what's its history in America? So,

1:18

Christian nationalism in one form or another

1:20

has been around for pretty much since

1:22

the birth of the United States. There's

1:24

always been a faction of America

1:27

that believes in this idea. And

1:29

essentially the idea is that America

1:31

is a country that was created

1:34

by God and created for

1:36

Christians. And that it is the

1:38

natural home of Christians. This is a

1:41

sort of a manifest destiny idea, basically.

1:43

But in its most modern form, and

1:45

what's got a lot of people concerned

1:47

about Christian nationalism, is this

1:50

debate over who Americans are. And

1:52

so increasingly in modern America, Christian

1:54

nationalism tends to think of America

1:56

as being a place for particularly

1:59

white people. cisgendered

2:01

Americans and that

2:03

other people sort of aren't necessarily allowed

2:06

in or allowed to be part of

2:08

the country. Yeah, so in this modern

2:10

version of America, how has Donald

2:13

Trump ramped up religious rhetoric and

2:15

even embraced this Christian nationalist movement?

2:17

Donald Trump, like pretty much every

2:19

presidential candidate, has courted the evangelical

2:21

vote, has courted the Christian vote,

2:23

has sort of expressed Christian viewpoints,

2:26

even though a lot of people

2:28

would argue that he hasn't necessarily

2:30

lived a very Christian lifestyle. It's

2:33

kind of impossible to become a president

2:35

in the United States without appealing to

2:37

Christian voters and to evangelicals. What

2:40

Trump has done, however, since losing

2:42

the election in 2020 is to

2:44

become more overtly Christian nationalistic. He

2:46

started to use some of the

2:49

signals and dog whistles of the

2:51

Christian nationalist movement. So, for example,

2:53

just a couple of weeks ago,

2:55

he talked about not allowing the

2:58

liberal left to tear down the

3:00

crosses that are across the United States.

3:02

Not that anyone was ever suggesting that

3:04

that was going to happen, but he's

3:06

saying, I'm never going to let that

3:09

happen. I'm going to take bullets for

3:11

Christianity, he says, all of these things.

3:13

That's all language that is very much

3:15

used in the Christian nationalist movement. You

3:17

know, a lot of people think that

3:19

he knows exactly what he's saying and

3:21

who he's saying it to. You know,

3:23

well, an interesting question that your piece

3:25

approaches is whether Christian nationalism is actually

3:28

Christian. How tricky is

3:30

this debate? And are there Christians put off

3:32

by this kind of Christian nationalist rhetoric we've

3:34

been talking about? So if

3:36

you look at the sort of broad

3:38

swathes of what we call Christianity, there's

3:41

certainly a large portion of that belief

3:43

system that would see Christian nationalism as

3:45

a reticle, right? I mean, they would

3:47

say it's not okay for Trump, for

3:49

example, to say that he has been

3:52

chosen by God, that in fact, that

3:54

is blasphemous, that it's not okay for

3:56

Trump to use imagery that

3:58

depicts Jesus Christ. for his

4:00

own purposes and his own social media, his

4:03

own campaign. What we're looking

4:05

at when it comes to Christian nationalism,

4:07

we have to be very careful that

4:09

we're talking about a subset of Christianity,

4:11

and arguably not even of Christianity, right?

4:14

A subset of people who like

4:16

to use Christian dogma, Christian language, but a

4:18

lot of Christians would sort of look at

4:21

them and say, that's not Christian, that's not

4:23

what we believe in at all. So

4:25

in this election year, Will, what

4:27

would Trump's ties to Christian nationalism

4:30

mean for the country as a whole? If

4:32

he were to win the election this fall,

4:34

and also if he were to lose it?

4:37

Let's start with losing it. The main reason

4:39

that I wrote this story as an extremism

4:41

reporter is that people who watched the world

4:43

of extremists in America are extremely concerned about

4:46

what this faction does. Let's

4:48

be clear, we're talking about the

4:50

very extremist kind of faction of

4:52

Christian nationalists. In fact, one of

4:54

the experts I talked to described

4:56

these people is demonologists. And

4:59

this is people who essentially make

5:01

the argument that liberals and that

5:03

the Democratic Party are literally

5:06

Satan or literally demons who

5:08

have come to interrupt God's

5:10

design for America. And

5:12

that design very much in their

5:15

minds involves a President Trump. If

5:17

Donald Trump loses, you now

5:19

have a group of people who believe that

5:21

essentially God's will has been interrupted,

5:23

or in the case where he makes the

5:25

argument that the election was false or was

5:27

stolen, that that has actually been taken away.

5:30

That leaves people who are willing to

5:32

kind of resort to desperate measures, things

5:34

like terrorism, things like the January 6th

5:36

insurrection, which had a lot of Christian

5:39

nationalists at it. Now, if

5:41

Trump wins, the argument

5:43

is you have people entering

5:45

government alongside Trump, possibly

5:48

even serving in his cabinet, who

5:50

have these very extremist rules about

5:52

the separation of church and state,

5:55

for example, about women's rights, about

5:57

LGBTQ rights. And These

5:59

people are now holding the table. holding

6:01

some of the highest positions and government.

6:03

And a lot of people who know

6:05

this movement very well are extremely concerned

6:07

about those people holding such positions of

6:09

power. Or I will. Carla's covers extremism

6:11

and emerging issues for Usa Today. Will

6:13

I always appreciate your insight when you're

6:15

on like to make him a time.

6:17

Thanks I have me. Some.

6:23

House Democrats told Usa Today that

6:25

the Department of Justice needs to

6:27

investigate would leading Republican impeachment advocates

6:29

of President Joe Biden knew about

6:31

false claims made by former F

6:33

B I and foreman Alexander Smirnoff.

6:35

He claimed the President and his

6:37

son Hunter Biden took five million

6:40

dollar bribes from Ukrainian energy company

6:42

Burris Mom and House Republicans deemed

6:44

bad a crucial piece of evidence

6:46

against the President in their ongoing

6:48

impeachment investigation. But Smirnoff was then

6:50

indicted by a Federal Grand jury

6:52

last. Month for lying to the F

6:55

B I about the allegations just weeks

6:57

before the Twenty Twenty Presidential election. The

6:59

How C O P quietly scrub the

7:01

reference to Smear Knots alleged smear of

7:04

Biden from their impeachment website and Federal

7:06

authorities revealed that Smirnoff got the false

7:08

claim from his contacts in Russian Intelligence.

7:11

You can read more with a link

7:13

in Today's Show Notes. Ai

7:19

Deep Six have clearly become a part

7:21

of the Twenty Twenty Four election. so

7:23

will the Federal Government stepped in to

7:26

regulate them. I spoke with Usa Today

7:28

Democracy Reporter in Mansfield to learn more.

7:30

Air. And thanks for joining me today

7:33

on the excerpt. Thanks for having

7:35

me so Erin! How are we

7:37

already see a I Campaigned Defects

7:39

play out this election cycle? So

7:41

in the Republican Primary we saw

7:43

Donald Trump's campaign post and audio

7:45

clip. That made it look like

7:48

Rhonda Santa, the Governor of Florida,

7:50

was in a twitter space speaking

7:52

with the several controversial figures including

7:54

Adolf Hitler. And then we also

7:57

saw. The. sand his campaign circular

7:59

a picture that made it look

8:01

like Trump was hugging

8:03

Anthony Fauci. Those are

8:05

examples on the right. On the left, NBC

8:07

News found this, but right before the New

8:11

Hampshire primary, a very little known

8:13

candidate who was opposing Joe Biden

8:16

benefited when somebody used the deep fake of

8:18

his voice to tell voters not to show

8:20

up. That campaign did not directly

8:23

do that deep fake and said they would

8:25

have fired the contractor if they'd known about

8:27

it. That's what they told NBC News. But

8:30

I mean, the damage is done, and it's obvious

8:32

that this is happening. And you

8:34

know, is this illegal, Erin, or what

8:36

current regulations are in place here? There's

8:38

no broad law against it on the federal

8:41

level. Now, in New Hampshire, there were concerns

8:43

from the state attorney general. It seems like

8:45

there were some fines from the Federal Communication

8:48

Commission. But in terms

8:50

of the regulation that a lot of

8:52

people on both sides of the aisle

8:54

would like to see, that has not

8:56

come through Congress, and it hasn't come

8:58

through the Federal Election Commission. Nothing

9:00

is on the books federally yet. The states are

9:03

starting to put things on the books. They're starting

9:05

to pass laws that say

9:08

if you use AI in your ad,

9:10

you have to have a disclosure on

9:12

it. We're also seeing some tech companies

9:14

put in their own policies, which obviously

9:16

don't have the weight of a federal

9:19

law. But it does show

9:21

that they know that this is either a problem or

9:23

a potential problem. Most government

9:25

advocates have petitioned

9:27

the Federal Election Commission to

9:30

update its regulation. It's actually

9:32

already against FEC

9:34

rules for someone from one

9:36

campaign to pretend that they

9:38

work for their opponent's campaign and say

9:40

a bunch of bad things to try to

9:43

make the opponent look bad. That's

9:45

a kind of fraudulent misrepresentation. That's

9:47

far beyond any of the more run-of-the-mill

9:49

political twisting of words. And

9:52

what the government groups are saying, especially

9:54

public citizen, which is leading this effort,

9:57

is that, well, you already have these... regulations

10:00

on your books against fraudulent

10:02

misrepresentation, how much more

10:04

fraudulent can it be to have a

10:07

computer pretend to be the candidate and

10:09

say ridiculous things to make it look

10:11

like they believe things they don't? And

10:14

that's basically, it's in a bureaucratic

10:16

rulemaking process. The head of the

10:18

Federal Election Commission told me

10:20

in a statement, he thinks that rulemaking will be

10:22

done later this year. I don't

10:25

have an exact date on that. We're going

10:27

to see ourselves going through the bulk

10:29

of this campaign without a

10:32

meaningful federal regulation stopping them.

10:35

And Aaron, you touched on the tech companies

10:37

and they're obviously at the heart of a

10:39

lot of this conversation. What is their role

10:41

in all this? How are they responding? Where

10:43

do they stand here? Well, so I talked

10:46

to spokespeople for Facebook and for

10:48

Google. Facebook's parent company is called

10:50

Meta and they have policies. They

10:52

have efforts that they're taking.

10:54

Google, for example, unveiled some

10:57

policies back in the fall. YouTube

10:59

said back in the fall they

11:01

were going to implement some updates

11:04

that made it sound like there would be some kind

11:06

of automated disclaimers. And then

11:08

Facebook has ad policies that doesn't

11:10

allow fraudulent misrepresentation. And they say

11:13

that that includes if it's

11:15

created by AI. It does

11:17

seem like something that people who are involved

11:19

in tech really understand the dangers of it.

11:21

I spoke to an AI researcher at the

11:23

University of California at Berkeley who

11:25

spoke about how it is a real danger

11:28

if you don't know what's a human being and

11:30

what's not. All right. USA

11:32

Today democracy reporter, Aaron Mansfield. Really

11:34

interesting insight here. Thanks, Aaron. Thank

11:36

you. A

11:40

measure to ban menthols and other flavored

11:42

tobacco products is on the table in

11:45

New York as the Biden administration is

11:47

stalling on a separate plan to ban

11:49

menthols nationwide. Both the New York

11:52

and federal ban face opposition from the

11:54

tobacco industry and civil rights

11:56

groups. Sufera ban will lead to a crackdown

11:58

on vendors and smokers. Some

12:00

say a menthol ban would address an

12:02

injustice, bringing respite to black smokers who

12:05

were targeted for decades by companies selling

12:07

menthol cigarettes. Menthols produce

12:09

a minty, cooling sensation believed to

12:11

make them more addictive than other

12:13

tobacco products. Studies show menthol

12:16

use has disproportionately affected black smokers who

12:18

are more likely than white smokers to

12:20

choose them. Black people are

12:22

also more likely than white people to die from

12:24

lung cancer. But the counter argument

12:26

to menthol bans for many also centers on

12:28

upholding black people's rights. Organizations

12:31

like Reverend Al Sharpton's National Action

12:33

Network and the National Organization of

12:35

Black Law Enforcement Executives say a

12:38

ban would criminalize menthol smokers because

12:40

it would unfairly police people who

12:42

sell and use them. Menthol

12:45

was excluded from an earlier federal flavor

12:47

ban. You can read more

12:49

about what's next for this conversation with a

12:51

link in today's show notes. Hollywood's

12:57

biggest night is in the books. The

12:59

atomic bomb biopic Oppenheimer entered the night

13:01

with the most nominations and left with

13:04

the most awards. It

13:06

grabbed seven wins out of 13 nominations,

13:08

including for Best Picture and Best Actor

13:10

for star Killian Murphy. Poor

13:13

Things picked up four wins, including Emma

13:15

Stone's win for Best Actress. She

13:18

was shocked by the victory and told viewers during

13:20

her speech that her dress was broken. Something

13:23

she said likely happened during Ryan Gosling's

13:25

performance of I'm Just Ken, the hit

13:27

song from Barbie. And the

13:29

night had plenty of other highlight moments like

13:32

when John Cena presented an award in the

13:34

nude. You can read more and find

13:36

a full list of winners in the entertainment section on

13:39

usatoday.com. Thanks

13:41

for listening to The Exert. You can get

13:43

the podcast wherever you get your pods. And

13:46

if you're on a smart speaker, just ask for The Exert.

13:49

I'm Taylor Wilson, back tomorrow with more

13:51

of The Exert from USA Today. If

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