Trump admin 'destroying' US democracy with 'autocratic, terrorist version of Christian nationalism'

François Picard welcomes former US Assistant Secretary of Defense Jim Townsend and former US Air Force officer Michael (Mikey) Weinstein, founder and president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. Is American military power becoming an instrument of political and religious coercion, both at home and abroad? From the reported restrictions on Ukraine's access to Starlink satellite communications to the Trump administration's overtures towards Vladimir Putin and the growing controversy over religious ideology within the Pentagon, the two guests offer a stark assessment of the direction of American foreign and defence policy.

Townsend argues that the reported disruption of satellite communications represents something far more consequential than a dispute over technology. "This is a tool that the administration uses to coerce the Ukrainians," he says, questioning the suggestion that Elon Musk acted independently of the White House.

He is equally critical of Washington's diplomatic engagement with Moscow, describing Trump and Putin as "two strongmen stroking each other to get at things that they want." In Townsend's assessment, their increasingly transactional relationship, marked by diplomatic flattery, political calculations and reciprocal gestures, serves a common purpose: to intensify pressure on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky while advancing the respective interests of both leaders. What appears to be diplomacy, he suggests, risks becoming an exercise in coercion, with Ukraine's sovereignty caught in the middle.

Meanwhile, Weinstein warns that the promotion of what he describes as Christian nationalism within the armed forces threatens military cohesion, constitutional principles and the institutional integrity of the Pentagon.

"We are doing not momentary or gradual damage. We are doing generational damage," Weinstein warns.

Townsend echoes that assessment, arguing that the removal of experienced senior military officers has deprived the Pentagon of expertise that could take an entire generation to rebuild.

Together, their analyses raise a fundamental question: Are the Trump administration's policies merely reshaping America's strategic priorities, or are they transforming the institutional foundations of American military power and challenging the constitutional principles it is meant to defend?

And Weinstein offers an unequivocal warning about what he sees as the ideological forces driving that transformation:

"The Military Religious Freedom Foundation represents over 100,000 members of the military, active duty, reserve, guard, and veterans. We have hundreds more each month. I can tell you as the leader of this organization, because if anybody comes to us, they're well aware of the Christian nationalist push of the Trump so-called administration, the attempt to destroy our constitutional democratic republic and replace it with an autocratic, terrorist version of Christian nationalism."

Our guests

• Jim TOWNSEND Former US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for European and NATO Policy