U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks to the White House Religious Liberty Commission at the Museum of the Bible, in Washington, D.C., U.S., September 8, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
The Washington Post on Friday published a profile of an unknown political advisor to President Donald Trump's Department of Health and Human Services. And in that profile, the authors mentioned an odd nickname Trump has for the advisor.
“'Where’s my Mormon?'” Trump demanded in a meeting last year, one person attending the meeting told the Post.
He was searching for Chris Klomp, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who is overseeing the $2.6 trillion agency's budget, which includes the recent cuts to Medicare and Medicaid in the "One Big Beautiful Bill" law.
As CNN reported earlier this year, Klomp has played a key role in negotiating Trump's demand for lower drug prices. In an HHS shake-up, Klomp was moved to work more directly with HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy and his chief of staff.
"The moves also represent an effort to keep closer tabs on Kennedy and an HHS leadership that has struggled at times to coordinate with its own agencies and the White House, frustrating senior Trump officials and generating dayslong controversies," the CNN report said.
Both HHS and the White House refused to comment about the allegations around Trump's nickname for Klomp, the Post reported. It praised his work instead. He's still overseeing streamlining of Medicare to solve "technical problems."
The president and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth have also begun using religiously charged language around the war against Iran. Hegseth has called it the "American Crucade."
The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) reported that the organization has received more than 200 complaints from service members who are concerned about extremist Christian rhetoric about biblical “end times” that superiors and commanders are using to justify the war.
Trump's Cabinet is filled with devout Christians and Christian nationalists. After Trump's second term began, Capitol Ministries reignited its weekly Bible study for elected officials and members of the Cabinet. Trump has never been known to attend, and isn't known for reading the Bible or going to church.
Last year, he confessed to Fox News reporter Peter Doocy, "I'm being a little cute. I don't think there's anything that's going to get me into heaven. I think I'm not maybe heaven-bound. I may be in heaven right now as we fly on Air Force One. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to make heaven, but I've made life a lot better for a lot of people."
There haven't been any stories of Trump bellowing for "my Catholic" or "my Jew," though at a June 2016 campaign rally, he referred to one man in the audience as "my African-American."