Recent media outrage over President Donald Trump has exposed a deeper double standard, argued Mehek Cooke, The Daily Signal’s senior national security and legal analyst, in a television interview.
Appearing on BBC News on Monday, Cooke responded to controversy over a White House social media image that some critics said depicted Trump as Jesus, arguing the reaction exposed a familiar pattern of selective outrage. She said the press fixates on imagery and tone while failing to respond with the same urgency when Christians face real threats.
“There’s this moral outrage in the media today any time the White House puts something up, even in jest,” Cooke said. “But the same mainstream media never stands up for Christians.”
Cooke pointed to a recent incident in Minneapolis in which rioters disrupted a Sunday church service. She said the lack of sustained coverage highlighted what she described as selective moral concern.
“I don’t play this humor game,” Cooke said, arguing that media narratives often inflate symbolism while ignoring real violence.
Cooke also addressed recent remarks from Pope Leo XIV criticizing war and warning against the use of religion to justify conflict. She argued that religious criticism of the White House over the Iran war often drowns out the nuances of Catholic doctrine and national security realities.
While she acknowledged the importance of moral leadership and concern for human suffering, Cooke said the pope crossed a line by weighing in on U.S. military and intelligence decisions.
“It’s one thing to talk about the human cost of war,” she said. “It’s another thing to take your pope hat off and act like the president of the United States and talk about military and intelligence that he has no business talking about.”
A recent convert to Catholicism, Cooke emphasized that Church teaching includes just war doctrine, which allows for the use of force under certain conditions when innocent lives are threatened and when national defense is at stake.
“When you see America being threatened, leaders have a responsibility to act,” Cooke said, adding that Trump’s decisions reflected that.
Cooke also criticized what she described as an imbalance in how global suffering is discussed, noting that decades of Iranian aggression, including hostage-taking and attacks on Americans, are often overlooked.
“The pope is a pastor, not a strategist,” Cooke said. “He doesn’t have the intelligence. He doesn’t have the information.”
While Cooke said the Church plays a critical role in reminding the world of war’s human cost, she concluded that moral authority must remain within its proper bounds—especially when national security is at stake.
