Last month, a group of religious-right activists and Christian nationalists were invited to the White House to pray over President Donald Trump.
Among those invited to meet with the president was William Wolfe, a former Trump administration official and an ardent Christian nationalist who declared in 2023 that "we are getting close" to a point where Christians will have to "heed the call to arms."
After Trump lost the 2020 election, Wolfe founded the Center for Baptist Leadership, which seeks to impose his ultraconservative theology and politics on the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, and it was in his capacity as the CBL's leader that he was invited to the White House.
In addition to meeting with Trump and posing for photos, Wolfe and the others also had a meeting with faith adviser Paula White and members of the White House Faith Office.
On Monday, Wolfe appeared on "The Aaron Renn Show," where he revealed that during the discussion with White, he urged the administration to ramp up its deportation efforts because real Christians "want to see mass deportations."
"What catches everybody's eyes are the pictures," Wolfe said. "Whether it's the group of us praying with Trump or, you know, I posted my individual picture with Trump—which, that was wonderful—but the most important thing I did that day on the White House campus was this round table discussion with other faith leaders with the White House Faith Office, where we got to actually talk about and advocate for policy that matters for this country and for Christians."
"That's a behind the scenes thing," he continued. "I'm not at liberty to say what other people talked about, but one of the things I did in that meeting—and I think this is really sort of important different posture that CBL brings—is I told the White House Faith Office I think Christians want to see mass deportations."
"You'll see a lot of sort of evangelical organizations attacking Trump's immigration policies and priorities," Wolfe declared. "They're astroturf. They're left-leaning. They're using 'evangelical' in a way that is not really historically accurate. But I'm telling you, I think Southern Baptists and Christians want to see this happen. So, the work of CBL is giving me the opportunity to do things like that, and that makes much more of a difference I hope in the long run than even a picture with the president."
In addition to his work with the CBL, Wolfe has also served as a visiting fellow at OMB Director Russ Vought’s Center for Renewing America, which identified Christian nationalism as a priority for the Trump administration.
In 2023, Wolfe joined radical Christian nationalists Joel Webbon, Dusty Deevers, and others in drafting a document called “The Statement on Christian Nationalism and the Gospel,” which declared that the United States must formally “acknowledge the Lordship of Christ” in all its laws, “abolish abortion,” outlaw marriage equality, and “recapture our national sovereignty from godless, global entities who present a grave threat to civilization.”
