On the Friday following Memorial Day, Donald Trump said the the United States is a “fascist state.” Here is his “press conference”:
Watch:
Anyone who has watched Trump over the years should not be surprised by anything he said in this rambling speech. What struck me (again) is that Trump shows no contrition for anything. He still won’t admit he slept with Stormy Daniels. Does anyone really believe that he didn’t have anything to do with doctoring financial records? Even if this case was politically motivated, as Trump claims, it would seem that a moral person would admit that he made mistakes.
Evangelicals leaders continue to defend this man.
Robert Jeffress, who has admitted that the evangelical support of Trump has done “some damage” to the witness of evangelicals, tweeted this last night:
Seriously, Bob? Trump was convicted by a jury of his peers. He chose to do business and live in New York City. This means a “jury of his peers” is made up of people from New York City. His conviction on 34 felony accounts has little to do with “rising poll numbers.” One can debate whether the case should have gone forward, but don’t demonize the jury.
And then there is Al “Biblical World View” Mohler. Here is a taste of his piece today at World:
I have to put my cards on the table. I think Alvin Bragg’s prosecution of Donald Trump, coming as a result of a campaign pledge he made when he ran for Manhattan district attorney, was a political stunt from the beginning. Bragg had to construct an argument without legal precedent to press felony charges against Trump, and it is hard to see Bragg’s office taking a similar approach to any other defendant. To make the point bluntly—it has never happened before. Furthermore, the entire process played out almost as if it were a staged political show trial. And does anyone believe that a Manhattan jury is representative of the U.S. population? Major media described the New York proceedings as “Trump’s hush money trial,” even though the paying of hush money is not illegal. The seven-week trial was nakedly political, and the judge, New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, made so many questionable rulings that a good number of observers on the liberal side acknowledge that Trump has strong grounds for an appeal.
We will see if Mohler sings the same note when he joins Steve Bannon and Doug Wilson at the upcoming National Conservative Conference in July.
More Mohler:
At the same time, Christians trying to think and act within a Biblical frame find the entire picture just sickening. We have a former president, just about ready to pick up his third Republican nomination for president, whose major defense was that paying hush money to a porn actress isn’t illegal. Technically, it’s not illegal, but it’s hard to imagine that many evangelical Christians can look to Donald Trump without shaking their heads and wanting the whole sordid picture to just fade away. Whether or not Trump ever knew Stormy Daniels, he did arrange to pay her off. There is very little there that could surprise most of us when it comes to Donald Trump and scandal. The moral weight of it all is massive. And yet, President Biden is a half-lucid geriatric who is now little more than a tool of the radical left. To vote for Biden is to authorize continued incompetence and moral liberalism, now set to push a set of progressivist ideological goals over the finish line.
Notice that Mohler, who voted for Trump in 2020, raises subtle doubts about whether or not Trump had sex with Stormy Daniels.
He calls Biden a “half-lucid geriatric” and incompetent.
More Mohler:
Say what you will about Donald Trump and his sex scandals, he doesn’t confuse male and female. Furthermore, the events connected to this trial will only serve to fire up Trump’s base and give him even more moral credibility when tells the American people, “I told you so. It’s me today and they’re coming for you tomorrow.” The biggest effect of this verdict, reached so suspiciously fast, is likely to be that Biden’s team feels self-satisfied and Trump’s team is fired up. My guess is that far more Americans will be fired up than satisfied by this verdict and New York’s misuse of the law.
Does Mohler really believe that the trial will give Donald Trump “moral credibility?” What kind of evangelical seminary president says something like this? Trump may gain political credibility with his base as a result of the conviction, but “moral credibility?”
Mohler says “Say what you will about Donald Trump and his sex scandals, he doesn’t confuse male and female.” One might read this line in this way: “Donald Trump is a red-blooded American male as evidenced by his adulterous affairs with a porn star and that’s why I won’t be voting for Joe Biden in November.”
And then there is the head of Liberty University’s Standing for Freedom Center, Ryan Helfenbein:
Yes, you read that correctly. The leader of Liberty University’s MAGA team is lecturing us on “pride” and a “haughty spirit.”
Gary Bauer, who spent 1999 and 2000 running for president on presidential character, believes the jury’s decision about the adulterer to be a “travesty”:
Eric Metaxas has apparently never heard of the Civil War:
I started to watch this and lost interest. He has nothing new to say. He’s rambling and incoherent. The support of him by our “so-called” Christian leaders is sad. My non-believing friends and family are now further away from understanding Jesus than ever. I’m not sure evangelicals will ever have credibility again.