CNN political pundit Karen Finney couldn’t hide her astonishment at a new video that Donald Trump shared on his Truth Social platform.
“Karen, your jaw is dropping,” anchor Jim Acosta told Finney on Sunday’s broadcast of Newsroom after airing a clip that claimed the former US president and Republican 2024 front-runner is “an instrument of God.”
In said video, the narrator claimed:
And on June 14th, 1946, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, ‘I need a caretaker.’ So God gave us Trump. God said, ‘I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, fix this country, work all day, fight the Marxist, eat supper then go to the Oval Office and stay past midnight and a meeting of the heads of state.’ So God made Trump.
Evangelical Christians’ apparent belief that Trump is “the person who can deliver and restore America to what they believe it ought to be” despite him being “not so God-like in his behaviours” was the focus of Tim Alberta’s book “The Kingdom, The Power, And The Glory: American Evangelicals In An Age Of Extremism,” noted Finney.
Acosta said it was “part of the playbook” for Trump, whose hours of daily so-called “executive time” during his presidency reportedly consisted of him watching television and tweeting.
CNN political pundit Ana Navarro agreed.
“This is not new, right? These are the same evangelicals who somehow justified to themselves voting for a guy in 2016 who we all heard boast on video, we all heard him in his own voice, boasting about committing sexual assault,” she said in reference to Trump’s comments on the Access Hollywood tape that was leaked ahead of his victory over Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.
Watch the video here:
In Alberta’s book, The Atlantic journalist detailed Trump’s critical comments about evangelicals during the 2016 Republican primary.
Trump reportedly described those who backed rival Senator Ted Cruz (Republican, Texas) as “some real pieces of shit.” Evangelicals later proved critical for Trump’s win.
In 2022, multiple key evangelical figures claimed to have dumped Trump, unless he becomes the Republican nominee.