You could easily miss it amid all the bric-a-brac and folksy paraphernalia in Tucker Carlson’s podcast studio, but the latest addition to his cornucopia of kitsch is an important signal to a very politically active segment of American Christians. Within the past month, Carlson — one of the most popular right-wing podcasters in the country — has adopted the Appeal to Heaven flag into his personal iconography.
For those unfamiliar with this flag, it might look like just another piece of random memorabilia in Tucker’s barn on his lakeside property in Maine where he records his podcast. Tucker might even be tempted — as have other public figures in recent years who have embraced the Appeal to Heaven — to pass his use of the flag off as an appreciation of Americana or an interest in New England local history. But this flag should be understood as a dog whistle, a Christian nationalist secret handshake hidden in plain sight.
Tucker’s Appeal to Heaven flag first appeared online on May 16, 2026. It’s in the background when Tucker posted a picture of himself, his brother Buckley ("Uncle Buck”), and far-right commentator Owen Benjamin, his podcast guest that day. It has been consistently visible in photos on Tucker’s social media since then, evidently replacing an American flag that hung in that exact location as recently as late April.*
Tucker Carlson is only the latest of dozens of right-wing Christian celebrities and political figures to utilize the Appeal to Heaven flag in recent years. Over the past decade it has become a ubiquitous symbol of American Christian nationalism and of an effort to instigate a spiritual revolution to reChristianize the country, including the dozens of such flags flown by rioters at the US Capitol on January 6th, 2021. So what does Tucker mean by placing this flag so prominently in his home studio?
A Historic American Flag Threaded through Recent Controversies
The Appeal to Heaven flag (also known as the Pine Tree Flag) has a 250-year history predating the country’s founding. It was first commissioned by General George Washington in 1775 as the flag of the Massachusetts navy. The phrase “An Appeal to Heaven” was a Revolutionary War slogan drawn from the philosopher John Locke — roughly translatable as, “You go to war and let God sort it out.” For most of American history, the flag was a niche artifact found in history textbooks, reenactment battles, and historical postage stamps.
But in 2013, a Pentecostal-charismatic pastor and author named Dutch Sheets — a respected figure in the world of evangelical prayer and spiritual warfare — discovered the flag and believed he received a prophecy: this flag was the symbol of a new American revolution, a spiritual war that would cleanse the nation and wipe out liberal tyranny. In my book The Violent Take It by Force, I devote a whole chapter to Sheets, his deep ties to the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) — a network of influential celebrity apostles and prophets at the vanguard of Christian nationalist politics today — and to the story of this flag’s reentry into American politics.
After he discovered the flag and received this prophecy, Sheets left his job leading an evangelical Bible college to pursue this Appeal to Heaven mission, self-publishing a book titled An Appeal to Heaven in the summer of 2015. Its publication coincided with two galvanizing events for the Christian right: the Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision legalizing same-sex marriage (a major culture war defeat for Sheets and other Christian right leaders) and the improbable entry of Donald J. Trump into presidential politics.
The New Apostolic Reformation leaders were some of the first Christian leaders to recognize Trump’s potential as a strongman ally, and Sheets became one of the most ardent Christian Trump supporters, believing God had prophetically ordained Trump to turn the nation back to God. Sheets and his NAR cohort, I argue in my book, became principal architects of Donald Trump’s religious appeal to charismatic evangelicals (Trump’s most diehard base). NAR leaders, including Sheets, have advised the White House on policy and helped spearhead prayer initiatives on its behalf.
Through the NAR’s efforts over the past decade, the Appeal to Heaven flag has come to symbolize prophecy and spiritual warfare, a violent spiritual revolution to retake the country from liberals, and stalwart Christian Trump support. The movement has managed to get lawmakers to fly the flag over statehouses, at their desks inside legislative chambers, and outside their congressional offices.
When Trump lost in 2020 and refused to concede, the flag became a battle standard for Christian election denial. Sheets and the NAR used every available channel — podcasts, televangelism shows, conferences, Jericho Marches — to enlist Christian spiritual warriors in the cause of reinstating Trump. Sheets even prophesied over the Capitol in the middle of the January 6th riot via speakerphone. Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of Appeal to Heaven flags surrounded the Capitol that day, making it one of the defining symbols of the insurrection.
Since January 6th — A More Ambivalent Far-Right Token
The brilliance and subtlety of the Appeal to Heaven flag as a political marker hinges on its ambivalence. It is a genuine artifact of American history; that is its historic denotation. But since Sheets and the NAR popularized it as a far-right Christian symbol, it has taken on many more connotations. This means that public figures caught flying it can routinely claim they are just patriotic history buffs while sending all the right signals of solidarity to prophecy-believing Christian nationalists.
In 2023, Bradley Onishi and I broke the story that Mike Johnson flies an Appeal to Heaven flag (given to him by a NAR pastor) outside his congressional office. He began doing so before he became speaker, and he has continued to do so after becoming speaker. In fact, Johnson has co-led prayer meetings with Dutch Sheets. When asked for comment on what the flag means to him, Johnson’s office told us he appreciates “the rich history of the flag.”
The New York Times reported that Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito flew the flag at his summer home in 2023; he claimed ignorance of its meaning and blamed his wife. Leonard Leo — the far-right Catholic activist who has been the architect of the current hyperconservative Supreme Court — has flown the flag outside his Maine home. His statement: “I like naval flags, and… as a resident of Maine, the Pine-Tree-State, I like pine trees.” A report from early in the second Trump administration found a dozen congressional offices displaying the flag. Apparently naval-flag mania is spreading like wildfire in the halls of Congress!
The flag has also begun to slip outside the bounds of charismatic evangelicalism to become a more malleable far-right symbol. Neo-Nazi groups have begun flying it alongside Nazi paraphernalia — a usage I can virtually guarantee Dutch Sheets, a fervent Christian Zionist, would not approve of.
All of which brings us back to what Tucker is trying to say with his Appeal to Heaven flag.
Tucker Carlson’s America First Branding
I will fully acknowledge that here I move out of the realm of facts and into the realm of expert opinion and analysis. I reached out to Tucker Carlson for comment on what the Appeal to Heaven flag means to him, and neither he nor his representatives responded before I published this piece. But I believe this is a very conscious choice of symbol.
Tucker has a cultivatedly casual, folksy persona, especially in his post-Fox News years after his firing in 2023. Maine is where his roots are, and he has reportedly spent almost every summer at Bryant Pond since childhood. In the summer months, he records his podcast in the barn on his property there: a homey, country, kitschy vibe. Many guests record with him in person, trekking to Woodstock, Maine to sit with him at the microphones. Guests have praised Tucker’s hospitality, and he nearly always pauses for a photo with in-person guests in the barn — typically behind the bar, in front of the framed American flag surrounded by slightly off-color knick-knacks. It’s the iconic “I made it all the way to Maine to talk to Tucker for an hour” shot.
About a month ago, Tucker swapped out the centerpiece of that iconic shot — the American flag — and replaced it with a framed Appeal to Heaven flag.
It’s still the iconic shot, repeated over and over, but now with a stark white flag and a vivid pine tree. Tucker Carlson has been a lifelong, savvy navigator of the zone between the respectable right and far right, a master at the art of dog-whistling and provoking. Now that the covert signaling of the Appeal to Heaven flag has been the subject of New York Times investigations into Supreme Court Justices, it beggars belief to think that Tucker would innocently center this flag with no knowledge of its meaning or connotations.
Which brings us to the more interesting question: what signal is Tucker trying to send? He has been publicly feuding with President Trump over the Iran war for months, including his much-publicized April apology for ever having endorsed Trump. Just this week, he grabbed headlines by declaring that “There’s no chance” he would support the Republican party moving forward. Trump, for his part, is publicly lambasting Carlson, so I don’t read the flag as a covert signal of Trump support.
It’s also worth noting — as I wrote in my previous post on the intra-MAGA civil war over Israel and antisemitism — that Tucker is on the opposite side of that conflict from Dutch Sheets. Tucker, an Episcopalian, is one of the foremost promoters of antisemitic conspiracy theories and anti-Israel sentiment on the American far right, and a leading figure in the “America First” rebellion against Trump over the Iran war. Sheets and the NAR are on the other side: the movement of apocalyptic charismatic Christian Zionists who surround Trump as his evangelical advisers, the very MAGA establishment that Tucker is now warring against.
My best read: Tucker Carlson has discovered the unique virtue of the Appeal to Heaven flag as a deeply ambivalent symbol of American patriotism and Christianity. It signals common cause to a core audience of hardline Christian nationalists while remaining deniable as mere Americana. It can gesture toward neo-Nazi adjacent America First politics while retaining the cover of maritime history. Tucker, I suspect, is appropriating this potent symbol for his own America First ends — suggesting a desperate prayer for God to overthrow the current regime. We go to war, and let God sort it out. Tucker’s own appeal is addressed not to the charismatic prophets and MAGA establishment that created the flag’s modern meaning, but to the disaffected Christian right that has broken with Trump and is searching for a new banner. Tucker, it appears, is auditioning for the role of standard-bearer.
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* There is a slight discrepancy in the sequencing of the photos on Tucker’s social media, because some photos still show the American flag in place after May 16, when we first see the Appeal to Heaven flag. As someone who has spent a lot of time around podcasts, I would wager that this is more about the need to create an ongoing flow of content on the podcast. It seems like Tucker records some “evergreen” episodes (less tied to the day’s or week’s news) and then intersperses those as needed between the more up-to-the-minute episodes. All photos in that location since June 5, 2026 feature the Appeal to Heaven flag.
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Thank you for spotting it and detailing all of it here. I was so caught up on another Tucker signal this week (the photo of him, under this flag, it appears, with Joel Webbon and JD Hall). Webbon is an acolyte of Douglas Wilson and deeply opposed to women's rights such as voting. And I believe Hall left his ministry due to drugs and embezzlement charges, after leaving his church due to "serious sin." Anyway, your analysis is always spot-on!
Matt, you are one of the few people who would notice, and then go on to explain thoughtfully, the seeming incongruence between this Christian nationalist symbol
brandished by both Carlson, a raging anti-semite, and Dutch Sheets, a raging Christian Zionist. Thanks for this piece.