Pamela Brown Says She Changed Pete Hegseth’s Far Right Pastor’s Opinion of CNN: ‘He Viewed Us As The Enemy’

CNN’s Pamela Brown said when she first sat down to interview Christian nationalist pastor Doug Wilson, he told her that her network “was on the other side of the barrier.”

“He viewed us as sort of the enemy,” Brown told Mediaite founding editor Colby Hall.

Brown joined the latest episode of Press Club to discuss her 2025 interview with the pastor and why Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s support of Wilson drew her to the conversation.

“I was always thinking about Pete Hegseth and the way he was bringing in prayer into DoD and doing other things, and some of the tweets coming out of DoD around religion,” said Brown. “I wanted to better understand the thinking of his church network that could be influencing him as the DoD secretary and kind of give us a window into that.”

Brown eventually released an extended interview with the pastor, with some moments going viral due to Wilson’s extreme views.

“I asked him, what do you think a woman’s role is in society? And he said, without missing a beat, “women are the kind of people that people come out of.” And I sat there waiting for him to expand on that, and he didn’t,” said Brown. “Full stop[…] And I said, ‘Well, hold on a second, so you just think we’re a vessel?’ And then he went on to say, “well no, it’s not like pigs and horses, it doesn’t take any talent.”

The CNN veteran said the way in which she went about interviewing Wilson led to him ultimately praising her reporting.

“My approach was, I’m not going in with judgment, I’m going in with curiosity. Who am I to judge, right? I’m really going in with a genuine curiosity, and I think he could feel that. Like, I wasn’t out to get him,” said Brown.

She continued:

And actually after that interview aired, he wrote a really nice blog post, not to like toot our own horn, but saying, he thanked us publicly, saying they were very fair.

[…]

I think it showed something. You know, he said, he started this off saying CNN– thinking we were the enemy. And then he ended it, after we did the journalism, thanking us and saying they didn’t just put the provocative parts out there. They put the context out there around the provocative parts or the controversial parts.

Brown spoke with Wilson, along with members of a Christian nationalist community in Texas, for her upcoming documentary on the subject set to be released on Sunday.

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!