The bishop who rebuked Donald Trump has now replied to his comments where he referred to her as ‘nasty’ and ‘not smart’ after she advised him to demonstrate compassion towards LGBTQ+ individuals and undocumented immigrants.
The Right Reverend Mariann Edgar Budde explained that she aimed for her sermon to challenge the divisive and polarizing narrative causing harm to people, as she expressed during an appearance on The View.
Although she chose not to address his demand for an apology directly, she mentioned her willingness to entertain a one-on-one meeting if the president himself extended the invitation.
Budde added that she has a ‘great amount of respect’ for Trump’s office and promised to remain ‘respectful’ if a meeting occurred.
The Bishop of Washington spoke out after she used a prayer service to make an emotional plea to the president, stating that many in the marginalized groups she named, ‘fear for their lives’.
Her words fell on deaf ears however and Trump immediately hit back on Truth Social, demanding an apology and branding her a ‘Radical Left hardline Trump hater’.
‘She brought her church into the World of politics in a very ungracious way,’ Trump fumed. ‘She was nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart.’
It was an assessment that The View’s hosts clearly disagreed with, as they spent much of the segment fawning over the ‘fearless’ Reverend’s ‘demure and mindful’ tone during the sermon.
At one point host Sara Haines read much of Trump’s Truth Social post aloud to Budde, who appeared briefly stunned by its contents.
She went on to caution against ‘the culture of contempt that immediately rushes to the worst possible interpretations of what people are saying’.
‘I was trying to speak a truth in a way that was as respectful and kind as I could and to bring in other voices,’ Budde said.
The day before she had begged Trump to grant ‘mercy upon the people in our country that are scared now’, invoking the bible as she said ‘God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger.’
‘There are gay, lesbian, and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and Independent families, some who fear for their lives,’ she continued.
Moving onto illegal immigrants, a central issue on Trump’s victorious presidential platform, Budde urged him not to follow through with his mass deportation plans.
‘The people who pick our crops, and clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meat packing plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants, and work the night shifts in hospitals, they might not be citizens or have the proper documentation,’ she said.
‘The vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. I ask you to have mercy Mr. President on those in communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away.’
Trump didn’t react to the pointed message as he sat staring at Budde, although others in his group, including new Vice President JD Vance, wore a more telling expression on their faces.
Speaking to reporters at the White House shortly after the service, Trump was more reserved than his Truth Social rebuke, but said briefly that he thought Budde ‘could have been much better.’
He later blasted the ‘boring’ sermon and refuted her statements about illegal migrants.
‘She failed to mention the large number of illegal migrants that came into our Country and killed people,’ Trump wrote on Truth Social.
‘Many were deposited from jails and mental institutions. It is a giant crime wave that is taking place in the USA.
‘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!’
Budde, 65, is the first woman appointed to lead the Episcopal Diocese of Washington.
The married mother-of-two adult sons has served as Bishop of Washington since 2011 and was previously a rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
During her tenure, two quilts gifted to her congregation by the White Earth Reservation were stolen and Budde chose to wait a day before filing a police report as she hoped ‘humanity would prevail’, the Star Tribune reports.
The ‘unapologetically liberal’ Reverend has made no secret of her Democrat views and previously oversaw a convention in the diocese that called for the disuse of gendered pronouns for God.
She is pro-gay marriage and vocal in her support for the Black Lives Matter movement.
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