The Episcopal bishop who delivered a Tuesday sermon that got under Donald Trump’s skin delivered yet another message to the president hours before Trump demanded she apologize.
After the viral moment, Rev. Mariann Budde joined CNN’s Erin Burnett to explain her decision to target Trump directly during a National Prayer Service, and said that though he panned her performance, Trump’s reaction afterwards could’ve been worse.
Speaking at the Washington National Cathedral Tuesday morning, Budde said: “In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now. There are gay, lesbian, and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and independent families. Some who fear for their lives.”
She also addressed Trump’s plans for mass deportations.
“The vast majority of immigrants are not criminals,” she said. “May I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away.”
Trump, when initially asked about it later, groused that he “didn’t think it was a good service.” He added, “They could do much better.”
On CNN, Budde told anchor Erin Burnett she was “reminding us all that in the people that are frightened in our country, the two groups of people that I mentioned are our fellow human beings, and that they have been portrayed in all throughout the political campaign, in the harshest of lights.”
“I wanted to counter, as gently as I could, with a reminder of their humanity and their place in our wider community,” she explained.
“And I was speaking to the president because I felt that he has this moment now where he feels charged and empowered to do what he feels called to do. And I wanted to say, you know, there is room for mercy,” she continued. “There‘s room for a broader compassion. We don’t need to portray with a broad cloth in the harshest of terms, some of the most vulnerable people in our society who are in fact our neighbors, our friends, our children, our friends, children and so forth.”
And when asked to respond to Trump’s reaction, Budde agreed with Burnett in that it was “muted.”
“I keep my expectations low whenever I preach, Erin. I don‘t always—I can‘t always—measure impact by body language or even what people say afterwards. And so I have to let all of that go.”
“I speak from what I believe I‘ve been given to say and let it go from there,” she continued. “It was a respectful response. He didn’t like it. He said so. He said we could do better. Some of the other comments I’ve received havent been as kind or as muted, shall we say.”
Two such examples were Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville, who suggested that Budde was “spew[ing] hate,” and Georgia Republican Rep. Mike Collins, who called for Budde to be deported.
However, after her appearance on CNN, Trump took to Truth Social with a harsher tone and demanded a public apology.
“The so-called Bishop who spoke at the National Prayer Service on Tuesday morning was a Radical Left hard line Trump hater,” Trump wrote. “She brought her church into the World of politics in a very ungracious way. She was nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart.” He went on a tirade about the “giant crime wave” of “illegal immigrants” before adding that, “apart from her inappropriate statements, the service was a very boring and uninspiring one. She is not very good at her job! She and her church owe the public an apology!”
