'That's not what I say': Allie Beth Stuckey takes David French to task over 'toxic empathy' smear in rare interview
BlazeTV's Allie Beth Stuckey sat down with New York Times columnist David French in a rare, candid debate about the concept of "toxic empathy," which Stuckey wrote about in her book "Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion."
'You are using the title of my book, and you called me the foremost architect of this concept of toxic empathy.'
Stuckey confronted French's mischaracterization of her views on empathy in his NYT op-eds, in which he argued that some Christians who align with President Donald Trump have waged a war on empathy.
"My issue is, really, we don't have enough empathy, that empathy needs to be more holistic," French said.
"In my view, one of our big problems is not enough empathy and, particularly amongst very partisan people, very selective empathy, so that 'only my ally's experience really matters,'" he continued.
French called it a "cultural phenomenon," particularly among parts of "MAGA Christianity," to dismiss empathy for human suffering as "toxic." He claimed instead that it is "incomplete" or "selective" empathy.
Stuckey contended that "selective empathy" that leads to "immoral decisions is a form of toxic empathy." She continued to press French on his articles.
"I tell both sides of the story. ... I'm actually doing what you say needs to be done, which is expanding compassion, but I don't end there. Because I think you would agree, we don't get anywhere if both sides are just saying, 'Well, my story's sadder. No, my story's sadder,'" Stuckey stated.
She argued that ending there "actually paralyzes you from making a good moral decision." She instead called for Christians to be thoughtful and consider both sides of the story, giving the example of illegal immigrants and victims like Laken Riley, a 22-year-old college student who was murdered by a foreign national who was in the U.S. illegally.
"We have to ask discerning questions: What is biblically true? What's morally true? What's politically true, logically true, historically true?" she added.
RELATED: David French catches flak for claiming Talarico, a pro-abortion Democrat, 'acts like a Christian'
During the exchange, Stuckey noted areas of apparent agreement, stating, "It doesn't really sound like you disagree with me here, but it did sound like you did in the articles."
"In 2025, you said, for example, 'If people respond to the foreign aid shutdown and the stop-work orders by talking about how children might suffer and die, then they're exhibiting toxic empathy,'" Stuckey said. "That's not what I say toxic empathy is."
"Well, it's absolutely what I see a lot in the public discussion," French responded.
"You are using the title of my book, and you called me the foremost architect of this concept of toxic empathy. But I don't say that toxic empathy is someone caring about children dying, and that's how you describe it in the article," Stuckey remarked.
"I'm not putting this all on you," French said. "One of the sad things that has occurred is this global, larger attack and talk about empathy has led to an immediate response when you talk about human suffering. I will see many Christians say, 'That's toxic empathy.'"
RELATED: Pro-life support plummets among churchgoers despite faith resurgence
During the interview, the two also discussed gender, abortion, French's defense of voting for Vice President Kamala Harris (D) in the 2024 presidential election, and his support for Texas state Rep. James Talarico (D) in the upcoming Texas Senate election against either incumbent Sen. John Cornyn (R) or Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R).
As part of his argument for voting for Harris over President Donald Trump, French cited the abortion rates under Trump's administration compared to those under former President Barack Obama.
French, who considers himself pro-life, told Stuckey, "The largest drop in abortions actually occurred during the eight years of the Obama administration." While he admitted that the rise in abortion rates under Trump is the result of multiple factors, he argued that the Republican president perpetuates a problematic culture of "libertinism" that "is incompatible with a pro-life ethic."
"Complex social phenomena typically don't have singular causes. ... We've been dealing with some culture changes that I think are really negative. ... America is a lot more libertine, and Donald Trump is a very libertine man. He does what he wants," French said.
Megan Basham, a journalist for the Daily Wire, reacted to Stuckey's interview with French, criticizing the columnist for his abortion-rate argument.
"Oh my gosh, that is such a ridiculous response. French had said something similar about Obama. He said that the abortion rate went down under Obama because Obama gave people hope. Absolutely idiotic. The truth was, red states enacted more restrictions under Obama and that what was what was bringing the abortion rate down. And French is too smart not to know that," Basham wrote. "So what does that make him?"
Kylee Griswold, the managing editor for the Federalist, added, "Additionally, abortion #s under Trump 2 can't be divorced from the Biden-Harris administration removing the in-person dispensing requirements for mifepristone — which is how most abortions are performed. An egregious move that puts women at SERIOUS risk and also causes abortion in red states to SKYROCKET."
In a separate post, Mollie Hemingway, the editor in chief of the Federalist, wrote, "David French struggles and faceplants with his attempt to justify to @conservmillen why he endorsed Kamala Harris, given her lengthy track record of persecuting prolife Christians and journalists."
Not the Bee commended Stuckey for the debate.
"I love your way of confronting men like French. I'd say in this case, it would have made sense to bring up the fact that if you follow his logic, speaking to somebody about the Gospel could be equated to telling them an unkind truth. They are sinners. They are incapable of saving themselves, and they need Jesus. That's not 'kind.' But it's necessary. If you avoid unkind truths, you will never share the Gospel," Not the Bee wrote.
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
Pro-life support plummets among churchgoers despite faith resurgence
Despite signs of renewed interest in faith, a troubling trend is emerging within the American church.
In a recent study by the Family Research Council, it was revealed that the percentage of regular churchgoers who identify as pro-life was only 43% in 2025, after being 63% in 2023.
“That is so unfortunate,” BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey says. “And what happened there, I think, was just the propaganda war after the overturning of Roe v. Wade, which happened in the summer of 2022. And it convinced so many people.”
“I know people like this who are Christians who consider themselves pro-life, and they bought into all of these lies that these pro-life laws are causing women to die from miscarriages in emergency rooms. It’s a lie. It’s not true,” she adds, pointing out that any pro-abortion tale spun by the left can be easily debunked.
“If you send me someone who tragically died because of a miscarriage, or because of something that was going on in their pregnancy, I can tell you exactly why the legislation in that state had nothing to do with that person dying,” she explains.
“And you even see these stories from places like California of women dying. I’m like, what does that have to do with pro-life laws, which are nonexistent in the state of California? So much propaganda, but clearly the propaganda works,” she continues.
Stuckey believes that the propaganda is playing on what she’s coined the “toxic empathy” manipulation tactic.
“You tell a really sad story of a mom in distress who didn’t want to have an abortion. She wanted this child, and then she ended up losing her life or she ended up being forced to have a child that died soon after birth. And as women, as moms, that understandably pulls on our heart strings,” she says.
“And then it’s presented in a way that if you just allowed women the choice in these extreme situations, then you could relieve her pain. And if you don’t want to relieve her pain, it’s because you’re selfish. It’s because you’re close-minded and bigoted,” she continues.
“And they never talk about the actual victim of that abortion. ... That’s the baby,” she adds.
Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?
To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.
When ‘be nice’ becomes the whole ethic, we’re in trouble
The appeal to pity is the modern left’s favorite fallacy.
In logic, it is called argumentum ad misericordiam. Instead of showing that a policy is just or true, the speaker points to suffering and insists compassion requires agreement. It works because it weaponizes one of the strongest moral instincts in the American people: mercy.
Deep empathy does not sneer at suffering. It refuses to treat feeling as the foundation of ethics.
The person making the appeal to pity is not merely expressing concern. He is using your compassion to secure special treatment, expanded power, or ideological conformity. And because America remains culturally shaped by Christianity — a faith that commands love of neighbor — the tactic often succeeds.
Allie Beth Stuckey and Joe Rigney have warned about what they call the weaponization of empathy. Empathy, properly understood, is the act of feeling the pain of another. It differs from sympathy, which acknowledges suffering without necessarily taking it on. Empathy attempts to enter another person’s emotional state.
But empathy rests on feeling, and feelings fluctuate. They can be misinformed. They can be manipulated. They can even be built on fiction.
Yet in the modern West, empathy has increasingly become a substitute for ethics. Moral reasoning gets reduced to a simple script: Identify the oppressed, feel their pain, then reorder society accordingly. The equation becomes: Empathy plus an oppression narrative equals moral righteousness.
This framework now gets handed to American students as a moral catechism. Under Marxist-inflected professors, they learn to “problematize” and “deconstruct” Western institutions, to “decolonize” structures of power — all in the name of empathy. The moral energy driving the project does not come from reasoned argument about justice or human nature. It comes from cultivated emotional identification with those cast as victims of “systemic oppression.”
Question this framework, and you run into another trick: the motte-and-bailey.
The motte-and-bailey fallacy works like this: Someone advances a controversial claim (the bailey). When challenged, he retreats to a safer, more defensible position (the motte). When the pressure eases, he returns to the controversial claim.
You see it constantly. A progressive activist claims America’s land ownership is illegitimate because it rests on historic injustice. Challenge that sweeping conclusion — raise questions about legal continuity, generational distance, competing claims of sovereignty — and the response shifts: “Why do you not care about the suffering of indigenous peoples?”
RELATED: My school’s AI challenge raised a scary question: What do students need me for?
That maneuver does not answer the question. It changes the subject. It turns a dispute about political legitimacy into a moral indictment: You lack empathy.
Under this logic, questioning policy becomes questioning compassion. Questioning compassion becomes moral failure.
Elon Musk recently offered a useful distinction: superficial empathy versus deep empathy. Whatever one thinks of Musk, the distinction clarifies the problem.
Superficial empathy reacts to appearances. Someone suffers, so someone else must be guilty. Someone lacks wealth, so the wealthy must have acquired it unjustly. Someone feels distress, so society must immediately reorganize itself to relieve that distress.
Superficial empathy has no patience for causes. It wants to relieve visible pain fast, typically by redistributing power. It externalizes blame and treats suffering as primarily the product of oppressive structures. Push back and you become the villain — a heartless person unmoved by human pain.
Deep empathy asks a harder question: What is truly good for a human being?
It recognizes that not all suffering comes from injustice. It acknowledges suffering can arise from folly, moral disorder, and the limits of living in a fallen world. It understands immediate relief is not always ultimate good. Tears do not decide what is right.
Deep empathy does not sneer at suffering. It refuses to treat feeling as the foundation of ethics.
Ethics cannot rest on the shifting landscape of emotion. It must rest on something objective and enduring. For Christians, that foundation is the law of God — the revealed moral order that defines justice, righteousness, and human flourishing. Love of neighbor is not a free-floating sentiment. God’s commands give it shape.
RELATED: Jeffrey Epstein’s ‘philosophy’ wasn’t deep — it was dirty
The Marxist professor tells students that love of neighbor means feeling empathy for economic deprivation. Biblical love makes heavier demands. It cares for the body, yes, but also for the soul. It refuses to affirm what destroys a person morally or spiritually, even if such affirmation might reduce discomfort in the short term.
Superficial empathy says: Remove suffering at all costs. Deep empathy says: Pursue the true good of the person, even when that path requires discomfort, responsibility, or repentance.
The irony is that the left’s empathy-driven politics often produce policies that entrench dependency, dissolve personal responsibility, and weaken the institutions — family, church, community — that sustain long-term human flourishing. It feels compassionate in the moment. It proves destructive in the end.
America does not need less compassion. It needs a deeper understanding of it.
The question is not whether we feel. The question is whether our feelings answer to truth.
Empathy can be a virtue. But it can become a dangerous master.
When compassion detaches from objective moral order, it becomes an easy tool for anyone seeking power. When appeals to pity replace rational debate about justice, a free people grows vulnerable to emotional coercion.
If we want to preserve liberty and genuine love of neighbor, we must recover a moral framework deeper than sentiment — one rooted in enduring truth.
www.theblaze.com
www.theblaze.com
thefederalist.com
thefederalist.com
www.theblaze.com
FACT CHECK: Did Dan Goldman Call for Trump’s ‘Elimination’ After a 2024 Assassination Attempt?