Trump secretly mocked Christian leaders: Report
US President Donald Trump has secretly mocked Christian leaders, describing them as “schmoozed” and “conned,” though he was praising them in public through his campaigns and presidency, a new report says.
Trump told his longtime confidant and then-personal attorney, Michael Cohen, that evangelical pastors are “all hustlers,” the Atlantic reported Tuesday.
The president, according to the magazine, made the remarks after reading an article about pastor Creflo Dollar raising money from followers for a private jet and appeared excited by the “scam.”
“His view was ‘I’ve been talking to these people for years,” I’ve let them stay at my hotels — they’re gonna endorse me. I played the game,’ the Atlantic quoted a former adviser as saying.
“He was completely familiar with the business dealings of the leadership in many prosperity-gospel churches,” said the adviser.
In speeches and interviews, Trump however has always praised conservative Christian leaders and has earned their respect by appointing a large batch of conservative judges to federal courts.
“My administration will never stop fighting for Americans of faith,” he declared at a rally for evangelicals earlier this year.
The president's comments about religious leaders came after Trump nominated Amy Coney Barrett—a conservative Catholic — to the Supreme Court.
With just five weeks to go in the November 3 election, Trump who is seeking to court Catholic voters, has accuse Democrats of “playing the religious card” with Judge Barrett,.
"On the religious situation with Amy, I thought we settled this 60 years ago with the election of John F. Kennedy,” Trump said Sunday. “Seriously, they’re going after her Catholicism.”
Trump then accused Democrats of “basically fighting a major religion in our country.”
He also accused his rival Joe Biden of being “against God,” “against the Bible” and “essentially against religion.”
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