Fox News host Carley Shimkus on Fox News' "Outnumbered" on December 23, 2025 (Image: Screengrab via Fox News / X / @acyn)
A Fox News host is under fire over her unique take on whether or not America is s Christian nation.
Carley Shimkus, co-host of “Fox & Friends First,” came to the defense of Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Tuesday. The Arkansas Republican had declared Friday, the day after Christmas, a holiday, “in order that state employees may spend this holiday with their families giving thanks for Christ’s birth.”
Huckabee Sanders went even further.
“More than two millennia ago in the little town of Bethlehem,” she wrote in an official state email last week, according to the Arkansas Times, “far from the centers of power in first-century Rome, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was born in a humble manger.”
“Jesus was the Messiah and became a teacher and leader, and He would be crucified, suffer for the sins of all mankind, die and be buried, and rise again on the third day to sit at the right hand of the Father.”
The governor was admonished by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which called her declaration an “abuse of power.”
“State offices are not churches, and gubernatorial proclamations are not sermons,” Chris Line, an attorney with the group wrote in a press release, the Arkansas Times also reported. “The governor is free to practice her religion privately, but she may not use the authority of the state to promote Christian doctrine as official government speech.”
On Tuesday, on Fox News’ “Outnumbered,” Shimkus told viewers, “the bottom line here is that, yes, we are a secular republic when it comes to our government, but we are a Christian nation.”
Shimkus had also declared that the governor received the letter criticizing her message, “as she was leaving a menorah lighting ceremony, like, that’s the irony of the timing of that.”
“Also,” she said, continuing to defend the governor, “she’s the daughter of … the ambassador to Israel.”
The Freedom From Religion Foundation responded to Shimkus’ remarks on social media.
“We’re a secular nation where you’re free to believe whatever you want,” the organization wrote. “So you can believe that we’re a Christian nation… But you’re wrong.”