Overview

• Speaking at the Museum of the Bible on Monday, President Trump condemned Sen. Tim Kaine’s comments and said the Virginia senator should be ashamed.
• During last week’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, Kaine called the claim that rights come from the Creator “extremely troubling” and compared it to Iran’s theocratic framework.
• The clash unfolded at Riley Barnes’s confirmation to lead the State Department’s democracy, human rights and labor bureau, after Barnes asserted that rights come from God rather than government.
• Conservative figures and religious leaders blasted Kaine’s stance, with Sen. Ted Cruz and Bishop Robert Barron citing the Declaration of Independence to defend the concept of inalienable rights.
• Some reporting links the dispute to State Department human‑rights reporting priorities, including a reported deemphasis of abortion and LGBTQ issues in the annual country reports.