Donald Trump today announced his Evangelical Executive Advisory Board which is a ‘Who's Who' of anti-LGBT figures.
Said Trump: “I have such tremendous respect and admiration for this group and I look forward to continuing to talk about the issues important to Evangelicals, and all Americans, and the common sense solutions I will implement when I am President.”
The list:
Executive board members include:
• Michele Bachmann – Former Congresswoman
• A.R. Bernard – Senior Pastor and CEO, Christian Cultural Center
• Mark Burns – Pastor, Harvest Praise and Worship Center
• Tim Clinton – President, American Association of Christian Counselors
• Kenneth and Gloria Copeland – Founders, Kenneth Copeland Ministries
• James Dobson – Author, Psychologist and Host, My Family Talk
• Jerry Falwell, Jr. – President, Liberty University
• Ronnie Floyd – Senior Pastor, Cross Church
• Jentezen Franklin – Senior Pastor, Free Chapel
• Jack Graham – Senior Pastor, Prestonwood Baptist Church
• Harry Jackson – Senior Pastor, Hope Christian Church
• Robert Jeffress – Senior Pastor, First Baptist Church of Dallas
• David Jeremiah – Senior Pastor, Shadow Mountain Community Church
• Richard Land – President, Southern Evangelical Seminary
• James MacDonald – Founder and Senior Pastor, Harvest Bible Chapel
• Johnnie Moore – Author, President of The KAIROS Company
• Robert Morris – Senior Pastor, Gateway Church
• Tom Mullins – Senior Pastor, Christ Fellowship¬
• Ralph Reed – Founder, Faith and Freedom Coalition
• James Robison – Founder, Life OUTREACH International
• Tony Suarez – Executive Vice President, National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference
• Jay Strack – President, Student Leadership University
• Paula White – Senior Pastor, New Destiny Christian Center
• Tom Winters – Attorney, Winters and King, Inc.
• Sealy Yates – Attorney, Yates and Yates
Trump made the announcement in a conjunction with a meeting with leaders of the Religious Right in New York and told the gathering of Christianists that they should not pray for all leaders, but selectively pray for the ones who aren't “selling the evangelicals down the tubes,” specifically him:
[…Anything] about Hillary in terms of religion. She's been in the public eye for years and years and yet there's nothing out there, there's, like, nothing out there. She'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. So, I think people were saying, some of the people were saying, ‘Let's pray for our leaders.' 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, and for one specific person. We can't be politically correct and say we pray for all of our leaders because all of your leaders are selling Christianity down the tubes, selling the evangelicals down the tubes, and it's a very, very bad thing that's happening.
Far-right activist E.W. Jackson tweeted out a video of Trump making that speech:
https://twitter.com/ewjacksonsr/status/745266004113170433
And then he later misrepresented what Trump said:
“Let me just address one thing that he said during our steering committee meeting,”Jackson stated, “when he said, ‘Don't buy this political correctness you gotta pray for everybody' … There are some people who say, ‘Oh, Donald Trump said don't pray for all your leaders, only pray for him.' Look folks, I was in the room. Donald Trump acknowledged that we're supposed to pray for everybody. He acknowledged that. But what he was trying to say was, after that he said don't let political correctness stop you from realizing I gotta pray for everybody [but] you gotta pray for this campaign, you have got to pray for new leadership in this country.”
