Just three weeks ago, New York’s junior senator, Kirsten Gillibrand, popped up as a guest in an unexpected place: Holy Post, a popular Christian podcast colaunched by Phil Vischer, the VeggieTales cocreator whose animated takes on Bible stories made him an evangelical icon. Gillibrand’s appearance was part of her effort to rebrand herself as a faith-driven Democratic politician.
“I love discussing my faith, in particular how it informs my work and makes me a better senator. It’s important to me and I was excited to share it with the Holy Post and its audience,” the senator tells Vanity Fair.
Gillibrand broke down her reasoning during the podcast interview itself. “I asked my staff, ‘Please find venues and platforms and stages I can be on to talk about faith and to talk about how faith motivates me as a public servant, as a lawmaker, and as somebody in public life,’” the senator told podcast cohost Skye Jethani. She emphasized that, counter to claims from the right, she doesn’t believe Democrats are out of step with Christian values and language: “‘Love your neighbor’ I see as much more aligned with the brand of who the Democratic Party is than who the party of [Donald] Trump is today.”
Gillibrand’s faith isn’t news—she has attended a bipartisan Bible study on Capitol Hill since at least 2017—but she seemingly has a more vibrant religious life than she has previously let on. In her conversation with Jethani, she mentioned that she often travels to churches around New York State to give sermons on Sundays, adding that she has wanted to write a book about her faith but has had trouble finding a publisher.
Jethani, who previously served as a pastor and also writes an online devotional series called With God Daily, has been cohosting the podcast with Vischer for more than a decade. The media company, which has 112,000 subscribers on YouTube, is a small but influential outpost in the world of conservative Christians who have bristled at Trump’s takeover of the Republican Party, but have felt hesitant to consider themselves Democrats. Before the 2024 election, Vischer, Jethani, and their cohost, Kaitlyn Schiess, a popular Christian speaker and author, all discussed the idea of rethinking the Christian approach to voting. In the months since, they have criticized Trump without throwing their allegiances completely to his Democratic opponents.
Jethani tells Vanity Fair that he thinks Holy Post’s anti-Trump reputation might have attracted the attention of Gillibrand’s team. “We have been very, very critical of Donald Trump, and that’s partly because we come out of an evangelical community that has sold its soul in many ways to this person,” he says. “I think some people who come to our podcast go, Oh, finally here are some Christians talking about Trump in a significant and critical way. They make assumptions, therefore, that we are completely on board with everything that the Democrats say and do and stand for, and we’re not. We have critiques there as well.”
Jethani says he hopes that politicians will be circumspect about the lessons learned from 2024 and the impact of Joe Rogan’s platform. “The Joe Rogan lesson is not ‘do more podcasts.’ The Joe Rogan lesson is that people want long-form conversations with their political leaders and candidates that are not just a series of talking points. That’s easier to do on a podcast than a televised interview or a radio interview because of the format,” he says. “I agree with Senator Gillibrand that [Democrats] do have a messaging problem and getting on more podcasts would help, but then they also have to let their guard down in those settings, which I understand is risky and dangerous for a political leader.”
The stakes were high when Jethani asked Gillibrand about abortion, an issue on which the hosts of Holy Post have found themselves at odds with Democrats. “I know Senator Gillibrand’s position and I had no interest in challenging her on that,” he told VF. “I know the plank of the Democratic Party, and I know that it’s a fool’s errand to say, ‘We’re just going to sweep that away and change it.’ My concern is: Is this party open to people who don’t share their perspective entirely being a part of the party?”
Gillibrand’s answer on the podcast was definitely in line with Democratic rhetoric on abortion dating back decades. “I think it’s important that we as a party believe in bodily autonomy and equality and civil rights and civil liberties. And literally making health care decisions for women on any level is antithetical to that value. I think that value is a preeminent value,” she answered. “But if any candidate has their own view about whether they would ever seek an abortion or whether they would urge a family member to seek or not seek an abortion, that is entirely their right to have whatever beliefs they have. I would argue strongly, however, that trying to assert your beliefs on someone else is morally wrong and not consistent with, certainly, my faith, and it’s not consistent with the Constitution.”
Still, her emphasis on civil liberties left Jethani and his cohosts groaning in their debrief of the interview. Jethani tells VF that he bristled because of the presumption that his position entailed “trying to impose this on other people for nefarious reasons.”
Ultimately, though, Gillibrand’s decision to highlight individual rights might have been a misstep. In the years following the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, some advocates have spearheaded a new approach for responding to the deadly outcomes of the post-Roe world. In 2024, Democratic strategists hoped the party would make inroads among voters who had previously considered themselves pro-life, and Kamala Harris was an ideal messenger for the moment. During her speech at the Democratic National Convention last August, and during remarks at a high-profile Texas campaign rally in October, the former vice president spoke movingly of women whose lives were endangered or lost because they couldn’t access a timely abortion. It was an issue Harris cared about deeply, which stood out in a campaign that otherwise played it safe.
Though Gillibrand gestured at health care, she ultimately brought the abortion conversation back to her personal faith, arguing that she sees the separation of church and state to be her fundamental value. “Churches who want to protect life as a sacred life, they need to be evangelizing. They need to be spreading their message,” she said. “That is the role of the church, to convince people that their view of these issues is the right view. But I do not think it is right for a politician to impose that view.”
It was an understandable answer coming from a lawyer. Still, it provided little information about her own beliefs and how her experiences in a faith community have informed them, and those are things a Christian listener would want to know. America is full of faith traditions and congregations that see reproductive justice as an important part of their political theology, and some of the moment’s most robust challenges to the post-Dobbs abortion landscape have been coming from organizations associated with Reform Judaism.
Jethani says he’s worried her answer is a sign that Democrats are still struggling with speaking to “sincerely religious” people on a variety of issues. “I totally respect Senator Gillibrand’s view on abortion. I might disagree with it in some parts, but I respect it,” he says. “I think the rhetoric that’s come from the left is that religious voters who are pro-life don’t deserve respect. That is what needs to be combated. And to simply say, ‘You’re welcomed here and we value you, we respect your point of view, and we’re open to a conversation even though we think the pressing need right now is to protect women’s rights for reproductive health.’ I think that’s a much more hospitable posture to take than what we’ve been hearing.”
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