What are the Court Evangelicals Saying About Trump’s Coronavirus Speech?

/ johnfea

Trump Jeffress

Last night Donald Trump delivered a nationally-televised address to the nation on the coronavirus. It was a disaster.  And he followed-up today with an equally bad press conference.

  • Following his speech, Trump’s administration had to clarify facts about his travel ban on multiple occasions.
  • Trump’s failure to calm fears, tell the truth, and get his facts straight last night resulted in the stock market’s free-fall today.
  • Today Anthony Fauci told Congress that the country is failing in its attempt to test for the virus.
  • Less than an hour later, Trump said that “testing has been going very smooth…if you go to the right area you get the test. We are very much ahead of everything.”  This, of course, is not true.
  • Also today, the president said that all Americans coming back to the country from Europe were being tested for the coronavirus.  That is not true.  Some of these travelers are getting screened, but they are not getting tested for the virus at the airport.

The criticism of Trump’s handling of the virus is coming from some unlikely places.

After a briefing with senators, conservative Republican Jim Lankford of Oklahoma said, “We couldn’t get a good, clear answer on when we are going to get commercial testing out there, labs that can get faster responses.” He said that the president’s claim that anyone who wants a test for the virus can get it is incorrect.

Here is Trump’s court journalist (at least among evangelicals) David Brody of Christian Broadcasting Network:

Trump’s speech did not go well.  But that did not stop some of the court evangelicals from praising it:

Here is Robert Jeffress:

Dallas-area megachurch pastor Jack Graham was comforted by the speech.

And here is Trump’s boy wonder Charlie Kirk:

As I said in another recent piece, the court evangelicals will never criticize the president. He holds them and their public faith captive.