'Excuse me?' What Trump said when Mike Pence asked him the first time they met to 'bow your head and pray', leaked recording between the President and Christian group reveals
Donald Trump told a group of Christians he said 'excuse me' when Mike Pence asked him to pray with him at their first meeting, a new recording reveals.
Pence, an evangelical Christian, asked Trump, then the Republican presidential nominee if he'd like to pray, according to the tape of meeting Trump had with Christian leaders that was obtained by The Atlantic.
'The first time I met [Mike Pence], he said, "Will you bow your head and pray?" and I said, "Excuse me?" I’m not used to it,' Trump said at the meeting, which happened during his first presidential campaign in September 2016.
Trump has been appealing to the Christian right this campaign year, warning supporters at his rallies that Joe Biden will burn down their churches and accusing the Democratic nominee of being against religion.
Donald Trump told a group of Christians he said 'excuse me' when Mike Pence asked him to pray with him at their first meeting, a new tape recording has revealed
President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and faith leaders say a prayer in the Oval Office on the National Day of Prayer in September
The president also has pushed for churches to reopen during the coronavirus pandemic.
And he's touted the religious background of his Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett and warned Democrats not to go after her faith.
'On the religious situation with Amy, I thought we settled this 60 years ago with the election of John F. Kennedy,' Trump said when he announced Barrett as his nominee on Saturday. 'Seriously, they’re going after her Catholicism.'
He then accused Democrats of 'basically fighting a major religion in our country.'
But an investigation by The Atlantic found a different side of the president.
In a recording of a meeting the president had in 2016 with leaders on the religious right- including talk-radio host Eric Metaxas, the Dallas megachurch pastor Robert Jeffress, and the theologian Wayne Grudem - Trump admits he is not familiar with the Bible.
'I don’t know the Bible as well as some of the other people,' he said.
And he bragged about the nickname he gave Republican Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska.
'I call him Little Ben Sasse,' Trump said. 'I have to do it, I’m sorry. That’s when my religion always deserts me.'
A White House spokesman told the magazine that 'people of faith know that President Trump is a champion for religious liberty and the sanctity of life, and he has taken strong actions to support them and protect their freedom to worship. The president is also well known for joking and his terrific sense of humor, which he shares with people of all faiths.'
Campaign advisers said Trump expressed awe at the amount of followers that mega-churches were able to attract and referred to pastors of those churches as 'hustlers.'
And some close to him said they didn't know he was religious.
'I always assumed he was an atheist,' Barbara Res, a former executive at the Trump Organization, said.
Then Republican nominee Donald Trump with his running mate Mike Pence, Karen Pence, his then personal attorney Michael Cohen, then campaign advisor Omarosa Manigault and boxing promoter Don King praying during a campaign stop at the New Spirit Revival Center church in Cleveland Heights in September 2016
Faith leaders pray over President Donald Trump at an 'Evangelicals for Trump' in Miami in January 2020
President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump attend Christmas Eve service at the Washington National Cathedral on December 24, 2018
President Donald Trump with first lady Melania Trump and daughter Tiffany Trump arrive for Easter services at Episcopal Church of Bethesda-by-the-Sea in Palm Beach, Fla., in May 2020
Trump has publicly mocked the faith of his rivals. In addition to accusing Biden, a devout Catholic, of disliking the bible, he mocked Speaker Nancy Pelosi's Catholic faith after he was found not guilty on two articles of impeachment.
He told the National Prayer Breakfast in February that he does not like 'people who say I pray for you when they know that's not so. So many people have been hurt, and we can't let that go on.'
Pelosi has repeatedly said she prays for the president. She was seated at the head table during Trump's remarks at that event and shook her head at one point during them.
The president also admitted that day he was having trouble liking his political enemies now that his impeachment trial is over.
''We are grateful to the people of this room for the lovely show to religion, not one religion, but many religions. They are brave, they are brilliant, they are fighters, they like people and sometimes they hate people. I'm sorry. I apologize. I am trying to learn. Not easy. It's not easy. When they impeach you for nothing, and you're supposed to like them, it's not easy, folks. I do my best,' he said.
Trump is regular church goer on Christmas and Easter, attending services with his wife Melania Trump.
The first couple changed their church routine on Christmas Eve this last December in the wake of the president's feud with an evangelical Christian magazine.
The Trumps attended the Family Church-Downtown in West Palm Beach, spending the holiday occasion at the Baptist chapel.
In past years, the Trumps have attended service at Bethesda by the Sea, an episcopal church near Mar-a-Lago, when they spent the Christmas and Easter holidays at the Winter White House. It's also the church where they were married.
Donald and Melania Trump attended the Family Church on Christmas Eve this past year - a change from the church they usually attend
The president sat in the third row of the Baptist church during Christmas Eve service
The Family Church is a Baptist Church, the same faith as Rev. Jerry Falwell, who visited the Trumps at Mar-a-Lago over the holiday weekend.
The president embraced Falwell after getting into a feud with the publishers of a prominent Evangelical Christian magazine founded by the legendary pastor Billy Graham.
The president said that Christianity Today, founded in 1956, has become a 'far left' periodical. The magazine's top editor wrote in an editorial published that the president should be removed from office because he has 'dumbed down the idea of morality.'
Falwell defended Trump in the fallout from the feud.
The reverend went on 'Fox and Friends' - the president's favorite morning show - and said he found the magazine's remarks 'hypocritical,' adding it shows there is an 'elite establishment among the religious community.'
'I think it's hypocritical,' Falwell said. 'I think it's ironic also that Christianity Today, sort of a forgotten magazine from yesteryear, took the opportunity the week before Christmas to point out the difference between true Christianity and Pharisaical or judgmental Christianity and reminded us there is an elite establishment among the religious community just like there is in the government that's liberal, that's left-wing. And it's a group that — they think they are more moral and smarter than the rest of us.'
Falwell later had his own scandal and stepped down as head of Liberty University after it was revealed he and his wife engaged in a years-long sexual relationship with a man they had met in 2012.
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