Woke DC Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde defends lecturing Trump
A lefty DC bishop who chided President Trump about social justice causes during Tuesday’s National Prayer Service doubled down on her politically charged sermon, saying she “was trying to speak a truth that I felt needed to be said.”
“How could it not be politicized? We’re in a hyperpolitical climate,” Episcopal Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde said on ABC’s “The View” Wednesday, adding that she regularly cautions about the “culture of contempt” in which people rush to judgment about anything someone says.
“I was trying to speak a truth that I felt needed to be said, but to do it in as respectful and kind a way as I could, and also to bring other voices into the conversation that had not been heard for some time,” she said.
At the prayer service in DC — which traditionally avoids wading into political issues of the day — Budde, at times looking directly at Trump, who was seated nearby, used the opportunity to proselytize on a range of left-wing causes including illegal immigration, refugees and the plight of the LGBTQ community.
She preached about “gay, lesbian and transgender children” who “fear for their lives,” and even called directly on Trump, who sat expressionless as she spoke, to “have mercy” on immigrant families “whose children fear that their parents will be taken away.”
Trump blasted Budde on his Truth Social account just after midnight Tuesday, calling the DC bishop “nasty” and “a Radical Left hard line Trump hater” in a lengthy rant.
“She brought her church into the World of politics in a very ungracious way,” he said — adding she did so in way that was “not compelling or smart.”
The president went so far as to call for a public apology from Budde and her church, which she declined to address on the program.
Budde confirmed late Tuesday that her service was intended as a “one-on-one conversation with the president.”
Speaking on CNN, Budde said, “I was speaking to the president because I felt he has this moment now where he feels charged and empowered to do what he feels called to do, and I wanted to say there is room for mercy.”
Speaking on “The View,” Budde said, “My responsibility that morning was to pray with the nation for unity. I wanted to emphasize respecting basic honesty and humility.”
Despite drawing Trump’s ire, Budde said she’d be willing to meet one-on-one with the commander-in-chief — as long as he extended the invitation.
“I would welcome the opportunity. I have no idea how that would go, but I can assure him and everyone listening that I would be as respectful as I would with any person,” Budde said on “The View.”
Budde, the Episcopal bishop of the nation’s capital, said she had a “great deal of respect” for his office, but that any invitation to meet “would have to come from him.”
