Sen. Lankford Hires Anti-Trump, CRT Apologist as Lead ‘Values Action Team’ Staffer

Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) hired an anti-Donald Trump, pro-illegal immigration, pro-Covid vaccine mandate, climate change alarmist, reportedly anti-Second Amendment, and Critical Race Theory apologist to serve as his top staffer on a team fighting for conservative values.

Matthew Arbo, a self-described “academic and ethicist turned leadership and culture consultant,” began working for Lankford in July as a senior adviser, with one of his priority roles being leading the Values Action Team (VAT), a coalition of proclaimed conservative members of Congress whose staffs meet weekly with outside groups to advocate for a conservative agenda.

Lankford serves as the VAT Senate co-chair.

Arbo, who served as an associate professor at Oklahoma Baptist University, appears to have developed a reputation for using his Christian faith to argue for liberal policies.

“Matthew Arbo has a long track of advocating for very liberal positions in the [Southern Baptist Convention],” posted William Wolfe, Executive Director of Center for Baptist Leadership. “Not only does he scoff at legitimate concerns with CRT, he argued *against* religious exemptions for the COVID vax (hardly a “Christian values” aligned position to take).”

An unearthed Arbo tweet from September 2020 in which he said, “The white-knuckle paranoia about CRT (of all things) is kinda comical at this point,” unleashed a flurry of conservative commentary against Lankford’s hiring of Arbo. Past Arbo statements and posts advocating liberal positions, and even accusing Trump of “embarrassing the office,” soon emerged as well.

Breitbart News asked a spokesman for Lankford if the senator was aware before hiring him of Arbo’s animosity for Trump and history of promoting liberal positions, as well as if Lankford believes Arbo can accurately represent him on the Values Action Team, a group promoting conservative values.

“Lankford’s office did not answer Breitbart News’s questions or make the senator available for an interview, instead emailing a handful of tweets – all from academics – congratulating Arbo on his hiring.”

Tom Jones, President of the American Accountability Foundation, raised the question in a statement to Breitbart News whether Lankford, best known as the frontman for Sen. Mitch McConnell’s open borders pro-migration bill defeated in January 2024, has a practice of hiring anti-Trump, liberal staff members.

“Does Senator Lankford make it a habit of hiring staff who voted against President Trump’s re-election, or is Matthew Arbo just an outlier?” Jones asked. “How many of Lankford’s staffers go out of their way to argue against religious exemptions for the COVID vaccine, regularly bash President Trump, and openly mock those who see DEI for what it is—a divisive evil?

“It begs the question whether Lankford’s office is quietly staffed by people who are fundamentally opposed to the voters who elected him.”

Arbo wrote in December 2019 for Religious News Services about Trump’s “Insidious, even vile tweets,” writing “It is why in my case I blocked the president’s account altogether: I didn’t wish to experience a United States president embarrassing the office on a near-daily basis.”

He then “suggest[ed] that we phrase the question about the president’s morality differently, by asking if the president has conducted himself virtuously and not simply whether certain of his policy achievements have merit.”

“There is plentiful evidence that the president’s actions lack virtue,” he writes, adding “Some of his actions are an affront to human dignity.”
Praising Trump’s character “can only be done, it seems to me, by dismissing, excusing or ignoring manifest cruelties and misdeeds.”

Arbo also argued that anyone supporting Trump’s immigration and law enforcement policies should choose to abandon any progress made if Trump is the one scoring the victories.

“[I]f one believes that a border wall and more aggressive policing solve important immigration problems, then the methods for getting there are of little concern” to his supporters, he wrote.

“In Christian ethics, however, we aren’t just about outcomes and the effectiveness of polices. There are other moral factors involved,” he added. “When it comes to immigration, for example, other important moral factors such as treating immigrants with dignity, keeping family members together or ensuring asylum-seekers a fair and prompt hearing also matter.”

Arbo also argued, in a tweet appearing to be from mid-2020 referenced by Wolfe, in favor of vaccine mandates.

“[I]n the likelihood of vaccine requirements being implemented this fall and winter… it is important that people of faith *not* to [sic] appeal to religious exemptions,” he wrote.

He also advocated for increased actions to prevent climate change.

In an archived post to Medium in July 2017, Arbo writes of the “challenge climate change presents to the church,” lamenting the “evangelical ambivalence about the challenges of climate change” and calling climate change a “moral question.”

“Climate change will continue to alter the future mission of the church, and that seems reason enough to give it due consideration,” he writes.

In 2018 Arbo used liberal outlet Slate to further attack Trump’s immigration policies.

“One is not obligated to respect any and everything an authority orders simply because an authority orders it,” he wrote in arguing Christians should not follow or support immigration laws.

Arbo singled out what he called Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ “family separation policy” – which began during the Barack Obama administration and was fueled by an avalanche of asylum claims fueled by Obama’s open border policies, singling out Sessions’ scriptural justification for following the law.

“Persons who violate the law of our nation are subject to prosecution,” Sessions said in an earlier June 2018 speech. “I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13, to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained the government for his purposes.”

Sessions, who as Senator was often the lone advocate for what became Trump’s immigration policies – Trump Deputy Chief of Staff and immigration guru Stephen Miller worked for Sessions for seven years before joining Trump’s campaign in January 2016 – worked to secure the border in spite of a House and Senate much-less inclined than the current Congress to support Trump’s policies. Democrats forced a partial-government shutdown beginning in December 2018 to prevent Trump from spending $4 billion to build additional border wall.

But Arbo argued the Bible only justified building a wall to prevent physical attack, and that the U.S. should therefore remain open to anyone seeking to cross the border.

Wolfe, the Center for Baptist Leadership Executive Director, also posted that Arbo, while a professor, argued against Second Amendment rights.

Arbo “screamed into a students face at a philosophy forum on guns, ‘So you want kids to die?!” Wolfe quoted a “reliable source.”

In October 2016, Arbo and a co-author wrote a stinging rebuke of Trump for Mere Orthodoxy.

“We reject both Donald Trump and any argument that somehow a Christian responsibility is to vote for him this November,” they wrote.

Arbo wrote in the past that he hopes his worldview and writings can serve as a “resource” for others.

“I can only hope that it finds an audience!”

Bradley Jaye is Deputy Political Editor for Breitbart News. Follow him on X/Twitter and Instagram @BradleyAJaye