The nation's newest campaign finance regulator is inserting himself into the never-ending debate about separating church and state, and causing a stir by accusing Roman Catholic bishops of hiding behind their church's nonprofit status to avoid endorsing candidates.
Trey Trainor, a Catholic who was confirmed for a long-vacant seat on the Federal Election Commission in May, also said in an interview with the conservative website Church Militant released on Wednesday (and a followup interview with the Religion News Service) that separation of church and state is a "fallacy" and that this year's election amounts to a "spiritual war."
None of these comments would appear to have any bearing on Trainor's role overseeing the federal rules that govern the flow of money into politics, but they quickly attracted criticism.
All nonprofits are prohibited by federal law from taking part in political campaigns, and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops states in its "Political Activity Guidelines" that this precludes supporting or opposing specific candidates.
Trainor said he believes church officials are motivated by a fear of losing their tax status and the tax dollars that go to Catholic social service agencies.
"The bishops are using their nonprofit status as a shield to hide behind from having to make a decision about who to support," said Trainor, a longtime Republican campaign lawyer in Texas who is the only person President Trump has put on the FEC.
He said the bishops have nothing to fear about their tax status because Trump issued an executive order in 2017 directing the Treasury not to pursue legal action against religious organizations that speak out about politics. The actual impact of that order has been heavily debated but even Trainor agreed that it does not change the law on the books.
Fellow FEC Commissioner Ellen Weintraub is among those who disputed Trainor's views about limits on religious groups' political activity.
"My colleague is not correct," Weintraub, a Democrat who recently turned over the rotating job of FEC chairman to Trainor, said in a statement to RNS. She said the "statute remains the law of the land and cannot be undone with an executive order."
John Gehring, Catholic program director with the progressive group Faith in Public Life, tweeted that Trainor's comments were a "brazen use of federal power to encourage Catholic leaders to endorse Trump."
While their clergy have avoided endorsing candidates, some Catholics argue that followers of the faith should not vote for Democrats because of their support for abortion rights — most prominently Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, who is Catholic.
A Lacrosse, Wis., priest sparked controversy when he posted a video last month saying: "You cannot be a Catholic and a Democrat. Period." His bishop promised last week to "correct" the priest but a bishop in Texas stated his support for what the Wisconsin priest said.
Trainor's comment about the separation of church and state was based on the conservative legal view that the prohibition against government-sponsored religion in the Constitution is not meant to preclude people from expressing and acting on their faith in the public square.
And in his interview with RNS, he expanded on his comment that the election is a spiritual war.
"What we see going on around the country is complete anarchy in places where the rule of law has been completely abrogated," Trainor said. "So it is a spiritual war in that it is striking at the underlying foundations of our constitutional republic. It's getting rid of the Christian moral principles that are the basis of the foundation of the country."
The dustup comes at a time when Trainor is somewhat underemployed. Just a month after he joined the FEC one of his new colleagues resigned, leaving just three commissioners on the job — one short of a quorum, meaning the regulators have not been able to take any enforcement actions during the height of campaign season.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.