Democratic Bishop Marian Budde who came under fire after lecturing President Donald Trump at the National Prayer Service defended her speech and said she was just trying to say the truth while Donald Trump politicized her statement. The Episcopal bishop of DC turned her speech into a rant about illegal migrants, refugees and the LGBTQ community. Donald Trump sought an apology from her as he called her a radical left hard line Trump hater.
“The so-called Bishop who spoke at the National Prayer Service on Tuesday morning was a Radical Left hard line Trump hater,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “She brought her church into the World of politics in a very ungracious way,” he said — saying she did so in a “nasty” tone that was “not compelling or smart.”
Referring to the bishop’s ‘have mercy’ on immigrant families appeal, Trump said the bishop failed to mention the large number of illegal migrants that came into the US and killed people. “She is not very good at her job! She and her church owe the public an apology!” he wrote.
Reacting to the controversy, the bishop said her message was politicized but it was kind of a given that her message would be politicized, she said. “I think if you read what I said, I mean how could it not be politicized, right? We are in a hyper-political climate. One of the things I caution about is the culture of contempt in which we live that immediately rushes to the worst possible interpretations of what people are saying and to put them in categories. That’s part of the air we breathe now,” the bishop said.
“I was trying to speak a truth that I felt needed to be said but to do it in a respectful and kind way as I could,” she said.
What did the bishop say with Donald Trump in the audience?
“You have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now,” Budde said in a direct appeal to Trump. In her sermon, Budde said they gathered “to pray for unity as a people and a nation – not for agreement, political or otherwise – but for the kind of unity that fosters community across diversity and division.”
