MS NOW’s Katy Tur fretted that Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) was subordinating the Declaration of Independence to God by restating the former’s most famous line, which refers to the latter.

During a Monday afternoon conversation about the Rededicate 250 event held on the National Mall over the weekend, Tur posed the following question to The Atlantic‘s McKay Coppins:

What about this passage from Mike Johnson, declaring that “our rights do not derive from government. They come from you, our Creator, and Heavenly Father.” Is this him putting God over the Declaration of Independence?

Coppins seemed somewhat puzzled by the question.

“Well, you know, I actually think that idea is not wholly uncommon. I mean, the idea that we have certain inalienable rights that come from God can be read in a fairly benign way, which is basically that we have innate human rights that our constitution and our government, our democratic government, are meant to codify, right? That idea is not totally abnormal,” he replied. “I think that the thing that, you know, might alarm some people is some of the rhetoric that we heard at this rally, that we are in a spiritual battle, right? That the forces of good and evil are at work here, and that partisan politics is injected directly into the spiritual biblical rhetoric. We have heard that for the last couple of years. It’s been ratcheted up more and more, especially since Donald Trump lost in 2020. And it can lead to some pretty dangerous places if it’s not kept in check.”

What was left unsaid is that the second and most famous line of the Declaration of Independence reads: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Despite Coppins’s gentle pushback, Tur went on to prompt another panelist to sound the alarm over Johnson’s comments.

“Well, in the context of this rally, and with Mike Johnson, and the movement, and the move toward Christian nationalism being more embedded in this culture, it’s not as benign when you put it into that context,” she insisted. “I mean, the idea that the rights divine, or are divined from a higher power, you can say that across multiple religions, yes, but this is not representing multiple religions.”

Watch above via MS NOW.

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!