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Tucker Carlson sometimes speaks plainly. Sometimes he speaks in code. When he broke with Donald Trump over the Iran war last week, he did both.

The day after Easter, during a monologue on his internet show, Carlson assailed Trump for defiling “the holiest day in Christian life” with a rabid social media post that threatened to bomb power plants and bridges—civilian targets—if Tehran did not open “the Fuckin’ Strait” and that mocked Islam. An outraged Carlson expressed many of the obvious criticisms. He proclaimed that Trump had “shattered” a “uniquely joyful and peaceful moment for Christians” and that Trump’s “vile” vow to conduct “a war crime” was “unacceptable…under moral law.”

He accused Trump of receiving a thrill by threatening such violence. He called the post “evil” and declared, “No decent person mocks other people’s religion… No president should mock Islam… This is a mockery of Christianity.” He also slammed Christian leaders, most notably evangelist Paula White, the director of the White House Faith Office, for daring to compare Trump to Jesus. “Did Jesus command the disciples to go out and kill people?” he sharply asked.

This was a harsh critique that people on the right and left, Democrats, Republicans, and independents, and folks of all faiths or none could share. Here was Carlson as a Christian peacenik anti-interventionist.

But there was something else going on in that 44-minute-long rant. Carlson opened with the fact that during his second inauguration, Trump did not place his hand on the Bible when he swore his oath to defend the Constitution. “That should have been maybe a clue that we need to pause and think about, what is this?” Carlson remarked. He suggested that Trump “didn’t put his hand on the Bible because he affirmatively rejects what’s inside that book, and what’s inside that book are limits on human behavior.” Trump, he said, was not accepting a basic premise of the Old and New Testament: “You are not God, and you cannot assume his powers.”

Hmmm, who might recoil at the Bible, who might be repulsed by the supposed Word of God? Carlson did not answer that. But when........

© Mother Jones