Former White House aide Paula White hosted a “national faith summit” Monday, giving Donald Trump a chance to soak in the adulation of religious-right leaders who have spent the past eight years telling conservative Christians that Trump was anointed by God to lead the U.S.—and who are trying to mobilize conservative voter turnout to put Trump back in power.
“We believe you’re a vessel,” Pastor Jentezen Franklin told Trump at White’s gathering. “You’re a chosen vessel,” said Franklin, comparing Trump to the Apostle Paul.
Trump returned the affection, telling the religious-right leaders, “The more powerful you become, the better the country’s going to be,” and promising to permanently repeal restrictions on politicking by churches.
Trump’s event came on the heels of his Madison Square Garden rally, a festival of bigotry and extremism that shocked even some MAGA Republicans. Not this crowd. Gary “is-he-really-still-around?” Bauer praised Trump for “turning Madison Square Garden into MAGA Square Garden,” drawing cheers from the crowd.
The love-fest was organized by Paula White’s National Faith Advisory Board, which she created to continue the work she did as a White House aide to sustain support for Trump among Christian nationalist and New Apostolic Reformation dominionist leaders. In September, the NFAB hosted a prayer call with Trump on the eve of his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, at which White called Trump “a great man of God.”
Among the Christian nationalist figures posting on social media about attending Monday’s summit was political operative Jason Rapert, who wrote on Facebook, “I believe God is trying to use him as a tool to save our country at this moment.”
Dominionist musician-political activist Sean Feucht, who hosted a rally on the National Mall on Saturday, posted video of himself sitting with MAGA pastor Greg Locke, known for his angry rants. Locke and Feucht told pastors to “rise up,” a sentiment echoed by Gene Bailey, host of the FlashPoint show on Kenneth Copeland’s Victory Channel, which provides viewers with a steady stream of pro-Trump propaganda.
Others in attendance included New Apostolic Reformation figure Cindy Jacobs, televangelist Kenneth Copeland, false history-promoting David Barton, MAGA broadcaster Eric Metaxas, Intercessors for America leader Dave Kubal, religious-right political operative Ralph Reed, and more.
White began her interview with Trump with a softball question about his faith. In classic Trump form, he answered by talking instead about how he had given her good advice on buying and selling real estate over the years. Dodging the question about his own faith, he said America’s problems could be blamed on the decline in “religion,” which he called the glue that holds the country together.
She tried a couple more times, getting Trump to talk about hearing Norman Vincent Peale and Billy Graham preach. When she asked about how Trump sees the role of God in his life after surviving an assassination attempt, he launched into a re-telling of the shooting and cited others who attributed his survival to God’s intervention. Trump said he’d like to believe that he was spared because “God wants our country to be helped” by Trump returning to power.
During Trump’s term in office, White denounced his political opponents as demonic. After Americans voted to remove him from office in the 2020 election, she prayed for him to stay in power. And in an opening prayer at Trump’s pre-insurrection rally on Jan. 6, 2021, White asked God to give Trump’s supporters “holy boldness” and prayed that “every adversary” would be “overturned right now in the name of Jesus.”
