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Peter Wehner

@peter-wehner.bsky.social
4.4K followers 244 following 46 posts

Senior Fellow at the Trinity Forum Writer for The New York Times and The Atlantic Worked in Reagan and Bush41 administrations and Bush43 White House

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Reposted by Peter Wehner
Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 31/10/2025
“.. for those of us who, in our younger years, revered America as a shining city upon a hill, .. this is quite a painful period. “..’America has lost its moral bearings; as a result, it has also lost its moral standing in the world.” @peter-wehner.bsky.social www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...
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Peter Wehner @peter-wehner.bsky.social · 13/08/2025
"It’s not so much that we know every ethical line [Christopher] Foyle draws is the exact right one; it’s rather that we know he’s doing the best he can to pursue justice....Foyle’s moral compass can’t be demagnetized." www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...
theatlantic.com
The Virtue of Integrity
The only way out of our wreckage is to rewrite the cultural script, to make excellence in character admired again.
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Peter Wehner @peter-wehner.bsky.social · 13/08/2025
"any number of regimes, though they fall short of the German Reich, act in ways that are morally problematic or even wicked. Collaboration and capitulation—the selling of a soul—take many forms, including in America." www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...
theatlantic.com
The Virtue of Integrity
The only way out of our wreckage is to rewrite the cultural script, to make excellence in character admired again.
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Peter Wehner @peter-wehner.bsky.social · 13/08/2025
Here's an example of disordered loves: When there are "large swaths of Christian fundamentalists and evangelicals, men and women who worship Jesus with their lips while giving priority to Trump and the MAGA movement in their heart." www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...
theatlantic.com
The Virtue of Integrity
The only way out of our wreckage is to rewrite the cultural script, to make excellence in character admired again.
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Peter Wehner @peter-wehner.bsky.social · 13/08/2025
The Virtue of Integrity. My latest in @theatlantic.com www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...
theatlantic.com
The Virtue of Integrity
The only way out of our wreckage is to rewrite the cultural script, to make excellence in character admired again.
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Insta Science @instascience.bsky.social · 05/08/2025
A peacock showing off its art.
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Paul Eric @pauleric70.bsky.social · 27/07/2025
Full Moon captured from space NASA ✨️
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Peter Wehner @peter-wehner.bsky.social · 16/07/2025
"For Trump to get on the wrong side of a MAGA conspiracy is highly unusual, and it explains why, for the first time, his base is upset with him. Trump is on the wrong side of what is, for them, sacred." www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...
theatlantic.com
Trump Discovers MAGA Has No ‘Off’ Switch
For the first time, the president finds himself at odds with his own movement.
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Peter Wehner @peter-wehner.bsky.social · 16/07/2025
"Trump has lit the flames of dozens of conspiracy theories during his time in politics...His transgressions, his lawlessness, even his cruelty were vivifying to his supporters. Having created that movement, Trump is discovering there’s no 'off' switch." www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...
theatlantic.com
Trump Discovers MAGA Has No ‘Off’ Switch
For the first time, the president finds himself at odds with his own movement.
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Peter Wehner @peter-wehner.bsky.social · 16/07/2025
Trump Discovers MAGA Has No ‘Off’ Switch www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...
theatlantic.com
Trump Discovers MAGA Has No ‘Off’ Switch
For the first time, the president finds himself at odds with his own movement.
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Chris Davis @revchrisdavis.bsky.social · 07/07/2025
I was grateful to be part of this article and for the excellent work @peter-wehner.bsky.social did on it.
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Jay Nordlinger @jaynordlinger.bsky.social · 06/07/2025
By @peter-wehner.bsky.social, an important article. I like to think that, if Americans knew about PEPFAR, they would support it, and even be proud of it. Not all of them, obviously -- but the great majority. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...
theatlantic.com
Why Evangelicals Turned Their Back on PEPFAR
A religious movement that has so often taken public stands has been unusually quiet since Trump gutted the program to combat AIDS in Africa.
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Ray Glennon OFS @rayglennon.bsky.social · 06/07/2025
An important, compelling, and ultimately damning piece by @peter-wehner.bsky.social. The views Wehner attributes to right-leaning evangelicals regrettably apply to many Catholics as well. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...
theatlantic.com
Why Evangelicals Turned Their Back on PEPFAR
A religious movement that has so often taken public stands has been unusually quiet since Trump gutted the program to combat AIDS in Africa.
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Meaux Blue @meauxb.bsky.social · 06/07/2025
I just read this article. Great work fr @peter-wehner.bsky.social.
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The Atlantic @theatlantic.com · 06/07/2025
Evangelicals in America "have mostly turned their eyes away from what is happening on the African continent" since Trump slashed PEPFAR, Peter Wehner writes. "They have other things to do. They have culture wars to fight":
bit.ly
Why Evangelicals Turned Their Back on PEPFAR
A religious movement that has so often taken public stands has been unusually quiet since Trump gutted the program to combat AIDS in Africa.
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Will (Faithful Politics) @faithfulpolitics.bsky.social · 14/06/2025
In this sobering conversation, @peter-wehner.bsky.social —former Bush advisor and longtime conservative—explains how Trump’s executive orders have effectively dismantled PEPFAR, the lifesaving global AIDS relief program. 🎧 Watch now: youtu.be/Y_srO5k5-Yo
youtu.be
How Trump Dismantled the World’s Most Life-Saving Aid Program with Peter Wehner
YouTube video by Faithful Politics Podcast
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Randall Stephens @randalljstephens.bsky.social · 08/06/2025
From a week and a half ago: “As of Monday, the model shows, about 96,000 adults and 200,000 children have died because of the administration’s cutbacks to funding for aid groups and support organizations. The overall death count grows by 103 people an hour.” www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...
washingtonpost.com
Analysis | Rubio’s claim that it’s ‘a lie’ that people have died from foreign-aid cuts
The secretary of state rejected convincing evidence documented in news reports and by disease modelers.
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Peter Wehner @peter-wehner.bsky.social · 08/06/2025
"I found recently in the work of a 17th-century Welsh Catholic writer Augustine Baker a wonderful image: the soul without God, the soul cut off from God, is like a whale stuck in a pond. It longs for the ocean, he said. It can’t be in the depths where it belongs." www.nytimes.com/2025/06/08/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | Jesus Has ‘More to Say Than Any Human Language Can Carry’: A Q&A With Rowan Williams
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Peter Wehner @peter-wehner.bsky.social · 08/06/2025
"But very often the God who’s being attacked and questioned by the Dawkinses and the Graylings and the Pullmans of this world is a God I don’t believe in, either." Rowan Williams in his @nytimes.com with me. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/08/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | Jesus Has ‘More to Say Than Any Human Language Can Carry’: A Q&A With Rowan Williams
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Peter Wehner @peter-wehner.bsky.social · 08/06/2025
Rowan Williams is among the most important religious thinkers in the world. I spoke to him about his faith journey; why God allows innocents to suffer; the New Atheists & Dostoyevsky; what makes Jesus a compelling figure & what it means to pastor people through grief. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/08/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | Jesus Has ‘More to Say Than Any Human Language Can Carry’: A Q&A With Rowan Williams
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Peter Wehner @peter-wehner.bsky.social · 08/06/2025
Jesus Has ‘More to Say Than Any Human Language Can Carry’: A Q&A With Rowan Williams www.nytimes.com/2025/06/08/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | Jesus Has ‘More to Say Than Any Human Language Can Carry’: A Q&A With Rowan Williams
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Peter Wehner @peter-wehner.bsky.social · 04/06/2025
"We must stand up against the bully in the Oval Office." By John Danforth, a Republican/former Senator who has maintained his principles and integrity. That makes him a rarity these days. www.kansascity.com/opinion/read...
kansascity.com
John Danforth: We must stand up against the bully in the Oval Office | Opinion
The longtime Missouri GOP senator knows Donald Trump relishes being called a strongman. That’s the wrong word. | Opinion
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Will Saletan @saletan.bsky.social · 02/06/2025
They don’t know what they’re doing. The market-tanking tariffs, the oops-we-screwed-up cuts to nuclear security and infectious disease control, the whoops-did-we-give-the-editor-of-the-Atlantic-our-war-plans episode … and now this. They’re idiots. They don’t know what they’re doing.
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Paul Eric @pauleric70.bsky.social · 02/06/2025
This vibrant Hubble image of the globular cluster Terzan 12 shows how interstellar dust in the Milky Way scatters light, reddening the cluster's stars and highlighting the complex interplay between starlight, age, and cosmic dust Spectacular 💫😲💫💙💫✨💫 Credit: NASA, ESA, ESA/Hubble, Roger Cohen (RU)
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Peter Wehner @peter-wehner.bsky.social · 22/04/2025
I had a delightful, wide-ranging conversation with @monacharen.bsky.social on her superb podcast The Mona Charen Show. Among other things, we talked about the modern history of conservatism/the GOP and ways to understand evangelicalism and what's gone terribly wrong.
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@CoffeeShopRabbi.com @rruth.bsky.social · 18/04/2025
An exhausting list, but very useful for specifics about which to phone elected officials. @peter-wehner.bsky.social is very matter of fact. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...
theatlantic.com
America’s Mad King
The president has grown more impulsive, more vindictive, and more anarchic.
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The Atlantic @theatlantic.com · 05/04/2025
After the national-security breach on Signal, Trump’s administration “again wants you to believe that two and two make five,” writes Peter Wehner. “When there is no objective truth, when everyone gets to make up their own reality,” authoritarians thrive.
bit.ly
Trump Is Gaslighting Us
Trump is an agent of chaos, and chaos has a human cost.
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Peter Wehner @peter-wehner.bsky.social · 05/04/2025
"As disinformation increases, and as more and more individuals and institutions go silent, it becomes ever more important for truth tellers to speak up, if only to assure those who don’t believe the propaganda that they’re not losing their mind." www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...
theatlantic.com
Trump Is Gaslighting Us
Trump is an agent of chaos, and chaos has a human cost.
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Tim Miller @timmiller.bsky.social · 25/03/2025
Today's Pod: Jeffrey Goldberg on the Houthi Small Group heard round the world. Then @peter-wehner.bsky.social on Trump's revenge tour, how American christians have turned to vice in service to Trump, PEPFAR, the White House's anti-immigrant snuff films & more. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/j...
podcasts.apple.com
Jeffrey Goldberg and Peter Wehner: What's Going on with Our National Security?
Podcast Episode · The Bulwark Podcast · 03/25/2025 · 1h 1m
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Peter Wehner @peter-wehner.bsky.social · 24/03/2025
This is the kind of competence and wisdom that embodies MAGA world; and especially Trump & Company. Only the best... www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...
theatlantic.com
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans
U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat about upcoming military strikes in Yemen. I didn’t think it could be real. Then the bombs started falling.
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👻 Spooky Elle 🎃🧙🏼‍♀️🍄 @hecatestorch.bsky.social · 21/03/2025
Just found out NIH has officially canceled our grant, a longitudinal study of Alzheimer's disease in Black Americans. I cannot even put into words how angry I am. The truth is they are canceling it because it has Black in the title. That's it, there is no other reason to do this.
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Peter Wehner @peter-wehner.bsky.social · 20/03/2025
"There is an important psychological component to all of this as well. Trump’s vindictiveness—relentless, crude, and capricious—has reshaped the emotional wiring of many otherwise good and decent people." www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...
theatlantic.com
Trump’s Appetite for Revenge Is Insatiable
The president is making good on his campaign promise.
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Peter Wehner @peter-wehner.bsky.social · 20/03/2025
"Jonathan Rauch wrote to me that one thing that’s surprised him is, among Trump’s supporters, 'the sheer energy that’s generated by transgression. The joy of breaking stuff and hurting people. It’s a million-volt battery.'" www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...
theatlantic.com
Trump’s Appetite for Revenge Is Insatiable
The president is making good on his campaign promise.
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Peter Wehner @peter-wehner.bsky.social · 20/03/2025
"There is only one thing I will not concede: that it might be meaningless to strive in a good cause." www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...
theatlantic.com
Trump’s Appetite for Revenge Is Insatiable
The president is making good on his campaign promise.
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Peter Wehner @peter-wehner.bsky.social · 20/03/2025
"the great civic danger posed by Trump: the habits of his heart become the habits of our hearts; his code of conduct becomes ours. That we delight in mistreating others almost as much as he does. That vengeance becomes nearly as important to us as it is to him." www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...
theatlantic.com
Trump’s Appetite for Revenge Is Insatiable
The president is making good on his campaign promise.
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Emily Belz @emilybelz.bsky.social · 19/03/2025
Amy Grant signs a letter to Congress calling for the preservation of PEPFAR - "Twenty million souls for whom 'America' means generosity, compassion and life."
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Jon Rauch @jonrauch.bsky.social · 18/03/2025
Worthwhile, detailed analysis. TLDR: 1, low-information, low-propensity voters trend strongly Trump/GOP, which is new; 2, Dems don't know how to reach them; 3, young men are a huge problem for Dems (but you knew that); 4, voters are pissed off at Elon, an opportunity. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/18/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | Democrats Need to Face Why Trump Won
The Democratic pollster David Shor walks through what voter data reveals about the 2024 election — and how the American electorate is shifting.
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Jill Lawrence @jilldlawrence.bsky.social · 13/03/2025
The story so far:
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Asha Rangappa @asharangappa.bsky.social · 11/03/2025
Please note that rogue countries, like China, actively monitor and harass dissidents here. This is a trial balloon. If this is OK, there is nothing stopping the Trump admin from handing over “troublemakers” to countries who are “willing to make a deal”
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Michelle Boorstein @michelleboorstein.bsky.social · 05/03/2025
"The roots didn’t go deep, the affections of the heart were not won over. Then the wind came and just blew a lot of it away." Writer @peter-wehner.bsky.social on a lack of "love of Jesus" that led many US Christians to make politics and Trump their religion faithangle.podbean.com/e/jon-rauch-...
faithangle.podbean.com
Jon Rauch and Pete Wehner: Christianity and Democracy in America | Faith Angle
Journalist Jon Rauch’s smart new book from Yale University Press, Cross Purposes: Christianity’s Broken Bargain With Democracy, offers three provocative and insightful essays. Though an outsider to Ch...
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susiesm.bsky.social @susiesm.bsky.social · 03/03/2025
I thought this piece was beautifully expressed both through your questions and Professor Wolterstorff’s responses.
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Bryan Jarrell @spiritualangle.bsky.social · 03/03/2025
A beautiful and hard found faith. Philosophy, death, grief, worldview... creation, resurrection. As good a public witness to actual, lived Christian experience as I've read anywhere.
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Peter Wehner @peter-wehner.bsky.social · 02/03/2025
Thanks @brianzahnd.bsky.social. I'm grateful, too, for your insights into faith and ministry of grace.
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Peter Wehner @peter-wehner.bsky.social · 02/03/2025
Thanks so much @davidfrenchjag.bsky.social. Nick Wolterstorff's life has embodied integrity, grace and a commitment to justice. And he's shown us how to redeem grief. It was said of Frederick Buechner that he was a good steward of his pain. The same is true of Nick.
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Peter Wehner @peter-wehner.bsky.social · 02/03/2025
"You said [your son] Eric’s death belongs 'within my story. I struggle indeed to go beyond merely owning my grief toward owning it redemptively.' What does it mean to own grief redemptively?" www.nytimes.com/2025/03/02/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | ‘God’s Not Doing Everything, but There’s Something Mysterious’: A Q&A With Nick Wolterstorff
A Q&A with the theologian Nick Wolterstorff.
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Peter Wehner @peter-wehner.bsky.social · 02/03/2025
"How important has philosophy been in your journey toward belief in God? Has your mastery of philosophy made your journey to the Christian faith easier or harder or both?" My @nytimes.com interview with the philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff www.nytimes.com/2025/03/02/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | ‘God’s Not Doing Everything, but There’s Something Mysterious’: A Q&A With Nick Wolterstorff
A Q&A with the theologian Nick Wolterstorff.
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Peter Wehner @peter-wehner.bsky.social · 02/03/2025
"My problem was not with grief with a capital G. My problem was that Eric was dead." My interview with the estimable Christian philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff www.nytimes.com/2025/03/02/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | ‘God’s Not Doing Everything, but There’s Something Mysterious’: A Q&A With Nick Wolterstorff
A Q&A with the theologian Nick Wolterstorff.
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Yashar Ali 🐘 @yasharali.bsky.social · 24/02/2025
The Deputy Director of the FBI
Dan Bongino & @dbongino
The irony about this for the scumbag commie libs, is that the cold civil war they're pushing for will end really badly for them.
Libs are the biggest pussies l've ever seen and they use others to do their dirty work.
Their mommas are still doing their laundry for them as they celebrate tonight that their long sought goal of the destruction of the Republic, has been reached.
But they're not ready for what comes next. They never have been. It's all revolutionary cosplay with them. Not anymore, as it's all real now. You assholes wanted it.
Now you've got it. Good luck.
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Peter Wehner @peter-wehner.bsky.social · 23/02/2025
Vance and Musk "are not just 'trolling the libs'; they are giving their public backing to a movement that represents the core convictions of MAGA world. They see in the AfD an undiluted version of MAGA." www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...
theatlantic.com
MAGA Has Found a New Model
The leading figures of the Trump administration have fallen for a far-right party in Germany.
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