Trump: We don’t know ‘about Hillary in terms of religion’
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Clergy leaders with People Improving Communities through Organizing Action Fund and their local federation, Faith in New York, demonstrate outside the hotel in New York’s Times Square, Tuesday, June 21, 2016, where Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is scheduled to meet evangelical clergy.
NEW YORK >> Republican Donald Trump appeared to raise questions about likely rival Hillary Clinton’s religious faith at a closed-door meeting with evangelical leaders Tuesday.
The presumptive GOP nominee, in a video clip of his remarks, appeared to suggest the public doesn’t know “anything about Hillary in terms of religion.”
“You know, she’s been in public eye for years and years, and yet there’s no, there’s nothing out there. There’s like nothing out there,” he told the group.
“It’s going to be an extension of Obama, but it’s going to be worse because with Obama you had your guard up, with Hillary you don’t. And it’s going to be worse,” he warned.
A spokeswoman for Trump’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on exactly what Trump meant.
Footage of Trump speaking at the meeting at a Times Square hotel, which was closed to reporters, was posted by attendee Bishop E.W. Jackson on his Twitter feed.
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Jackson told The Associated Press that Trump had been talking about the idea that conservatives are constantly scrutinized over their religion, how devout they are and their positons on social issues.
“He was saying in the context that liberals and the Democrats don’t get those kinds of questions, they don’t get their faith examined in that way,” he said.
“He wasn’t questioning her Christianity, but he was questioning the implications of her faith, compared to how conservatives tend to have their faith examined.”
Clinton grew up in the Methodist church, attending church youth group and teaching Sunday school like her mother. While she doesn’t often talk about her faith on the campaign trail, she occasionally quotes biblical verses and mentions her experiences in church.
“I am a person of faith. I am a Christian. I am a Methodist. I have been raised Methodist,” she told voters in Iowa in January.
In the posted footage, Trump also takes issue with the idea of encouraging prayers for all leaders.
“I said: Well you can pray for your leaders, and I agree with that, pray for everyone. But what you really have to do is you have to pray to get everybody out to vote for one specific person,” he said. “And we can’t be again politically correct and say we pray for all of our leaders because all of your leaders are selling Christianity down the tubes, selling evangelicals down the tubes.”
Trump has sometimes struggled to discuss religious issues. He has declined to cite his favorite biblical verse and has toted around a photo from his confirmation as evidence of his Christian upbringing.
But in another video clip from Tuesday’s event, Trump talked about the meaning of faith in his life.
“Christianity, I owe so much to it in so many ways, through life, through having incredible children, through so many other things,” he said, noting his great support from religious voters in GOP primaries.
“The evangelical vote was mostly gotten by me,” he said.
Trump also talked in another clip about the lack of “spirit” in inner cities.
“We’ve got to spiritize this country. And I’m not only talking about the inner cities. I’m talking about everywhere,” he said, coining a new word.
Trump’s campaign on Tuesday also announced the formation of a new “Evangelical Executive Advisory Board” that will advise the candidate “on those issues important to Evangelicals and other people of faith in America,” according to a release.
Members of the new group include former Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. and Faith and Freedom Coalition leader Ralph Reed.
Jackson, the bishop who posted video to Twitter, said that he’d walked into the meeting as more of an anti-Clinton voter than pro-Trump one, but said the meeting had changed his view.
“The thing I’ve heard most people say is, ‘He moved the needle,’” he said. “People who came in with reservations, they have fewer reservations. Others left thinking, ‘Maybe I need to take a look at him again.’”
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Associated Press writer Lisa Lerer contributed to this report from Washington.
17 responses to “Trump: We don’t know ‘about Hillary in terms of religion’”
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At least, in this case, Trump is an equal opportunity offender, as he has also questioned the religious beliefs of Mitt Romney, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, and, of course, Barack Obama, while his claims about his own religious belief are dubious. And, for all of you conservatives who love to wave your tiny copies of the Constitution (but rarely seem to read it), here’s what it says, “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”
Christianity is so strong in this country that candidates have to lie about how Christian they are. Trump can’t even fake it. Look at those quotes. He says vague things because he has no clue. His speech at Liberty University was so pathetic that I couldn’t even laugh at it. If Evangelicals had any other possible option, Trump would be the last one they would vote for.
Conservative Evangelicals, that is.
But despite the fact that anyone with half a brain can tell that he’s obviously lying, they still support him.
It’s amazing.
You so frequently refer to those with half a brain, one cannot help but wonder how much first hand experience you must draw upon.
…probably amounts to half of the one hand experience you draw upon.
klastri and a lot of other Hillary supporters have symptoms of NPD.
Belittling people and exhibiting their perceived superiority towards others is the game they play.
No worry, Thos is an ardent defender of violent sexual opportunist and is banned from any legitimate babysitting jobs on account of his natural proclivities and misogyny.
boolakanaka is waiting for his appointment from Hillary. VPOTUS? Cabinet Position. I hope he came down with some cold hard cash. BS not accepted. Do they have dogs? Dog catcher?
Les, you best hope you never meet me one day in person. Halawa Housing boy through and through, so don’t let the degrees fool you….
agree. Trump is playing the Evangelicals for fools. He is no Christian. Evangelicals need to worry about their souls, churches and communities and stop dictating to others. I admire and share their faith but just keep it out of government.
I’m wondering if he would paint himself blue if he attended a meeting of oompa loompas.
This: “A spokeswoman for Trump’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on exactly what Trump meant.”
…pretty much sums up the aftermath of everything this man says in public.
PUH LEEZE continue to underestimate him. You and those of your ilk are paving his way to the podium where he will take the oath as POTUS 45 in one day less than six months from now.
LOL. Tell you what, thosser, when I want to face an impossible scenario, I’ll try to underestimate you.
“Sticks & stones…” &c &c &c
trumpy’s religion is make money by scamming people. he scammed the evangelicals by telling them what they wanted to hear, he does not mean on iota of what he said.
Submitting facts and veracity to this conversation:
According to the Religious News Service, “As a girl, she was part of the guild that cleaned the altar at First United Methodist Church in Park Ridge, Ill. As a teen, she visited inner-city Chicago churches with the youth pastor, Don Jones, her spiritual mentor until his death in 2009.”
A Time magazine profile, which ran under the headline “Hillary Clinton: Anchored by Faith,” had this to say about Clinton’s early religious training:
Time, June 27, 2014: Clinton grew up attending First United Methodist Church of Park Ridge in Chicago, where she was confirmed in sixth grade. Her mother taught Sunday school, and Clinton was active in youth group, Bible studies and altar guild. On Saturdays during Illinois’s harvest season, she and others from her youth group would babysit children of nearby migrant workers.
The article notes that in college at Wellesley, “Clinton regularly read the Methodist Church’s Motive magazine,” that she and Bill Clinton were married by a Methodist minister, and that in 1993, she joined a women’s prayer group.