![]() ![]() In a September 2016 meeting with about a dozen influential figures on the religious right-including the talk-radio host Eric Metaxas, the Dallas megachurch pastor Robert Jeffress, and the theologian Wayne Grudem-the then-candidate was blunt about his relationship to Christianity. The conservative Christian elites Trump surrounds himself with have always been more clear-eyed about his lack of religiosity than they’ve publicly let on. “He was completely familiar with the business dealings of the leadership in many prosperity-gospel churches,” the adviser told me. In Cohen’s recent memoir, Disloyal, he recounts Trump returning from his 2011 meeting with the pastors who laid hands on him and sneering, “Can you believe that bullshit?” But if Trump found their rituals ridiculous, he followed their moneymaking ventures closely. The former campaign adviser recalled showing his boss a YouTube video of the Israeli televangelist Benny Hinn performing “faith healings,” while Trump laughed at the spectacle and muttered, “Man, that’s some racket.” On another occasion, the adviser told me, Trump expressed awe at Joel Osteen’s media empire-particularly the viewership of his televised sermons. It helped that Trump seemed to feel a kinship with prosperity preachers-often evincing a game-recognizes-game appreciation for their hustle. I played the game,’” said a former campaign adviser to Trump, who, like others quoted in this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. “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. Though he faced Republican primary opponents in 2016 with deeper religious roots-Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee-Trump was confident that his wealth and celebrity would attract high-profile Christian surrogates to vouch for him. The president is also well known for joking and his terrific sense of humor, which he shares with people of all faiths.”įrom the outset of his brief political career, Trump has viewed right-wing evangelical leaders as a kind of special-interest group to be schmoozed, conned, or bought off, former aides told me. Reached for comment, a White House spokesman said that “people of faith know that President Trump is a champion for religious liberty and the sanctity of life, and he has taken strong actions to support them and protect their freedom to worship. Read: The Christians who loved Trump’s church stunt Former aides told me they’ve heard Trump ridicule conservative religious leaders, dismiss various faith groups with cartoonish stereotypes, and deride certain rites and doctrines held sacred by many of the Americans who constitute his base. ![]() It’s a message his campaign will seek to amplify in the coming weeks as Republicans work to confirm Amy Coney Barrett-a devout, conservative Catholic-to the Supreme Court.īut in private, many of Trump’s comments about religion are marked by cynicism and contempt, according to people who have worked for him. “My administration will never stop fighting for Americans of faith,” he declared at a rally for evangelicals earlier this year. In speeches and interviews, Trump routinely lavishes praise on conservative Christians, casting himself as their champion. The president’s alliance with religious conservatives has long been premised on the contention that he takes them seriously, while Democrats hold them in disdain. Trump seemed delighted by the “scam,” Cohen recalled to me, and eager to highlight that the pastor was “full of shit.” “They’re all hustlers,” Trump said. Now he was gleefully reciting the impious details of Dollar’s quest for a Gulfstream G650. During the meeting, Trump had reverently bowed his head in prayer while the pastors laid hands on him. Trump knew the preacher personally-Creflo Dollar had been among a group of evangelical figures who visited him in 2011 while he was first exploring a presidential bid. ![]() Trump was brandishing a printout of an article about an Atlanta-based megachurch pastor trying to raise $60 million from his flock to buy a private jet. One day in 2015, Donald Trump beckoned Michael Cohen, his longtime confidant and personal attorney, into his office. ![]()
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