Trump plans Miami event to court Evangelicals after Christianity Today backs impeachment
President Donald Trump is heading to Miami on Jan. 3 to assert his strength among the religious right.
One day after the magazine Christianity Today surprisingly supported House Democrats’ impeachment and called for the president’s removal in an editorial, the Trump campaign announced plans to roll out an Evangelicals for Trump movement in South Florida.
Trump’s campaign said the president will headline the event.
“The event will bring together Evangelicals from across the nation who support President Trump’s re-election,” the Trump campaign stated in a press release.
The announcement comes as part of a swift and furious response by Trump to Christianity Today.
The magazine, in an editorial written by Editor-in-Chief Mark Galli, called Trump’s pressure campaign to convince the government of Ukraine to investigate the family of former Vice President Joe Biden “profoundly immoral,” and backed articles of impeachment passed last week by House Democrats.
Galli also savaged the president’s general behavior since being sworn into office, saying Trump has “dumbed down the idea of morality in his administration.”
“He has hired and fired a number of people who are now convicted criminals. He himself has admitted to immoral actions in business and his relationship with women, about which he remains proud,” Galli wrote. “His Twitter feed alone — with its habitual string of mischaracterizations, lies, and slanders — is a near perfect example of a human being who is morally lost and confused.”
Trump responded quickly, using that same Twitter account to call the magazine “far left.” He also trumpeted a Breitbart article based on a Facebook post by the son of the late famed reverend and Christianity Today founder Billy Graham criticizing the magazine and saying Graham voted for Trump before his death.
“The fact is, no President has ever done what I have done for Evangelicals, or religion itself!” Trump tweeted.
Trump’s appearance in Miami may bookend a holiday stay in South Florida that began Friday when the president, First Lady and their son flew out of Washington into Palm Beach International Airport and drove in a motorcade to Mar-a-Lago. The president plans to spend the holidays at his private club, which according to paperwork he and Melania Trump filed in October is now their full-time residence.
This story was originally published December 21, 2019 at 11:32 AM.
