Josephine Harvey
Wed, 6 December 2023
The author of a new book about the American evangelical movement said he was taken aback by the way prominent evangelical leaders responded to his questions about former President Donald Trump.
“I would say one of the most surprising and discouraging things that I encountered time and again was when I would really press some of the high profile evangelical figures,” The Atlantic’s Tim Alberta told MSNBC’s Katy Tur on Tuesday.
“When you get these guys one on one Katy, and you really press them on specific things, specific beliefs, they’ll sort of back off a little bit, and they’ll even do a little bit of a wink and a nod and kind of signal to you that like, yeah, I get you, like, it’s been over the top. It’s overkill. This guy, you know, it’s not OK,” he said.
However, these figures would still justify supporting Trump because “the ends of preserving Christian America justify the means of enlisting this uncouth, boorish, conspiracy-spouting individual who is issuing these casual calls to violence and saying and doing things every day that are not Christ-like,” Alberta said.
“He fights for us; he’s our champion, and therefore, we can ignore the rest because the ends ultimately justify those means,” he continued, summarizing what he was told in interviews.
Alberta, a practicing Christian and the son of an evangelical pastor, parsed how Trump’s presidency and an extreme political environment have influenced the evangelical movement in “The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism,” which was released Tuesday.
Evangelical voters helped Trump to victory in 2016 and largely stuck by him again in 2020.
Trump, however, has reportedly disparaged those voters in private. In his book, Alberta describes the “colorful language” Trump has used to describe the evangelical community over the years, according to The Guardian.
Several key evangelical figures have distanced themselves from Trump during his third presidential bid. Bob Vander Plaats, an influential Iowa evangelical leader, recently endorsed Trump’s Republican rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Watch Alberta’s MSNBC interview below.
Ex-Trump Aide Reveals How He Threatened To Execute His Own Staff Member
Ed Mazza
Updated Wed, 6 December 2023
“The View” co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin, who served as White House communications director under Donald Trump, said he once threatened to have a member of his own staff executed.
“Right before I resigned, I was in an Oval Office meeting with a dozen other staffers, and somebody had, he thinks, leaked a story about him going to the bunker during the George Floyd protests,” she said on Tuesday’s broadcast. “And he said, ‘Whoever did that should be executed.’”
Trump was rushed to a bunker as protests erupted near the White House over relentless cases of police brutality against Black victims that too often result in deaths, including the May, 25, 2020, police killing of Floyd in Minneapolis.
When word got out of the bunker move, Trump insisted he was only “inspecting” the bunker, a claim that was widely mocked.
The anecdote on “The View” confirms an incident first reported by Wall Street Journal reporter Michael Bender in his 2021 book, “Frankly, We Did Win This Election.”
“Trump boiled over about the bunker story as soon as they arrived and shouted at them to smoke out whoever had leaked it. It was the most upset some aides had ever seen the president,” Bender wrote.
“Whoever did that, they should be charged with treason!” Trump reportedly yelled. “They should be executed!”
A spokesperson for Trump at the time denied that he wanted the staffer executed.
But as Farah Griffin noted on “The View” on Tuesday, Trump has made similar threats publicly. Earlier this year, Trump suggested that Gen. Mark Milley ― who at the time was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff ― should be executed
Ed Mazza
Updated Wed, 6 December 2023
“The View” co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin, who served as White House communications director under Donald Trump, said he once threatened to have a member of his own staff executed.
“Right before I resigned, I was in an Oval Office meeting with a dozen other staffers, and somebody had, he thinks, leaked a story about him going to the bunker during the George Floyd protests,” she said on Tuesday’s broadcast. “And he said, ‘Whoever did that should be executed.’”
Trump was rushed to a bunker as protests erupted near the White House over relentless cases of police brutality against Black victims that too often result in deaths, including the May, 25, 2020, police killing of Floyd in Minneapolis.
When word got out of the bunker move, Trump insisted he was only “inspecting” the bunker, a claim that was widely mocked.
The anecdote on “The View” confirms an incident first reported by Wall Street Journal reporter Michael Bender in his 2021 book, “Frankly, We Did Win This Election.”
“Trump boiled over about the bunker story as soon as they arrived and shouted at them to smoke out whoever had leaked it. It was the most upset some aides had ever seen the president,” Bender wrote.
“Whoever did that, they should be charged with treason!” Trump reportedly yelled. “They should be executed!”
A spokesperson for Trump at the time denied that he wanted the staffer executed.
But as Farah Griffin noted on “The View” on Tuesday, Trump has made similar threats publicly. Earlier this year, Trump suggested that Gen. Mark Milley ― who at the time was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff ― should be executed
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