A Prayer Breakfast

Let’s start with something that we all can agree on.

It was a prayer breakfast.

The National Prayer Breakfast is an annual event in Washington, DC, held on the first Thursday of February, which brings together the President, the Congress, other public officials and international guests to “pray, network, and reflect on moral values”. It has taken place since 1953 and beginning with President Dwight Eisenhower, every sitting president has attended.

In a period of days filled with a barrage of bad decisions, bad faith, and bad optics coming from the White House, it is taking a lot to set me off. Let’s just say, my expectations are set at such a low register that outrage is becoming increasingly difficult. That’s probably the design.

But when I heard clips of the President’s 77 minutes of remarks (not a typo, yes seventy-seven) I came out of my chair.

To ensure that these remarks were not being taken out of context (though as you’ll see, I can’t imagine an appropriate context for many of them), I did the work. I obtained a complete transcript of his remarks and slogged through all 12,000 words, underlining, highlighting, and singling out the doozies.

As to the remainder of the speech, it was thematically tone deaf for a prayer breakfast and another frightening display of the vindictive personality and muddled mind of our rapidly aging Chief Executive. Going from Joe Biden to Donald Trump is truly a geriatric vault from the frying pan into the fire.

Its main topics were the awesome strength of our military, the baseless attacks on Tulsi Gabbard, Pam Bondi, and Pete Hegseth, the stolen 2020 election, the destruction of Europe with windmills, and how he is universally loved by all the leaders of Europe.

But turning to the most inappropriate remarks ever uttered at a prayer breakfast, here they are broken down by theme.

His Vile Verbal Attacks on Perceived Enemies 

First, he goes after his favorite Republican target in Congress, Thomas Massie (R-KY). Massie is a graduate of MIT, an engineer, and a successful business entrepreneur. His wife of 21 years passed away in 2024 and he remarried last year.

He has been a lone voice in the House Republican Conference calling out the President on everything from the Epstein files to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, to US Military action abroad. He has worked across the aisle in a dire attempt to bring accountability to this Administration.

For that the President called him a “moron” and stating that “something is wrong with him.” At a prayer breakfast. At a prayer breakfast.

Next, he calls Biden the worst President we’ve ever had and makes back-to-back jokes about his senility (which get audible laughs from the audience as recorded in the transcript). He follows that by saying that Obama was “very bad” and a “divider of our country.”

And then stating that “And believe it or not (his words), WE’RE BRINGING THE COUNTRY TOGETHER.”

Unfortunately for him, polling is showing that to be the truth. Ironically, one of the few true statements he made in 12,000 words.  For a walk down memory lane on this topic, check out my blog from one year ago this month. Mr. President, Bring Us Together

https://www.constancelyhoping.com/post/mr-president-bring-us-together

Sweeping, Unhinged Attack on the Democratic Party

While the above quotes were rough, it was this next one that sent me into orbit. 

“They (Democrats or Democratic Presidents?) want to be neutral. They want to be neutral or against. You know, the Democrats are against. I don't know how a person of faith can vote for a Democrat. I really don't. And I know we have some here today and I don't know why they're here because they certainly don't give us their vote”.        

At a prayer breakfast. At a prayer breakfast. Whose purpose is to come together once a year and pray for the nation and all of its leaders. All of its leaders.

This adulterous, twice impeached, convicted felon; this racist, misogynist, sexual predator, is now going to be the arbiter of what “people of faith” should do with their votes, while at the same time implying that all Democrats are faithless cowards when it comes to religion?

And if that is not enough, apparently, he thinks that tickets to prayer breakfasts are only given out to those who “give us their vote.” He just hates to be reminded that they’re not there to pray to him.

Unsupportable Claims

“You know, I've done more for religion than any other president. When Paula was saying that, it was so nice. I was proud of it and I said that's true. I told the people backstage, what she said is true. Who else would say that, right? But it is true.”

The Paula that Trump refers to is of course, Paula White-Cain, the president’s spiritual adviser and Senior Advisor to the White House Faith Office. My favorite ironic quote from Reverend (no degree, no ordination) White-Cain is “By your words, you form your destiny – what you say within yourself determines the end promise of your life! Your future lives in your mouth.” Quite a mouthful from a person who works for and professes undying allegiance to Donald J. Trump.

Previous presidents dating back to George W. Bush have had faith offices in the White House, but all previous instances have been for liaison purposes and not policy. Trumps office and his actions to do “more for religion” than other previous presidents are seen by many constitutional experts as clear violations of the separation of church and state.

What previous presidents have done for religion is to lead by example.

Dwight Eisenhower was regular in his attendance at the National Presbyterian Church in Washington and he asked that a chapel be placed at his Presidential Library in Abilene, Kansas.

Richard Nixon, a Quaker, set up regular Sunday worship services in the East Room of the White House.

Jimmy Carter became a member of First Baptist Church in Washington, attended almost every Sunday, and became a Sunday School teacher there.

George H.W. Bush was a devout Episcopalian. He and his wife Barbara attended St. Ann’s Episcopal Church in Kennebunkport for Sunday Services.

Bill Clinton became a member of Foundry United Methodist Church in Washington DC and attended regularly.

Joe Biden attended Catholic Mass every Sunday.

Sinners? Yes all sinners by their own public admission, but sinners who went to the altar and asked for forgiveness.

While Donald Trump has had very public prayer meetings at the White House (usually arranged by others) he usually spends Sundays on the golf course. He has been to St. John’s Lafayette Square on three occasions, once famously to use it as a backdrop during the George Floyd protests in May 2020. It was also on that occasion that he held up the Bible (upside down) in an awkward attempt at using the word of God as a counterprotest.

But after all, the Bible is his "favorite book", as he stated in an interview with Bloomberg News in August 2019. When pressed on a favorite verse or two, he said that was too personal and he wouldn’t want to share. When asked whether he was more of an Old Testament or New Testament guy, he answered “equal.”

I was going to cut and paste Trump’s rant about our transgender brothers and sisters, but you don’t deserve to be put through that. So, I’ll end on a lovely scene of the Speaker of the House Mike Johnson sitting down for one of his regular lunches with the President in the oval office.

Donald Trump: “Mike Johnson’s a very religious person, that he does not hide it?" Trump said. "He’ll say to me sometimes at lunch, ‘Sir, may we pray?’ I say, ‘Excuse me, we’re having lunch in the Oval.’ It’s okay with me.

The statement that someone who was very religious might consider hiding it and the surprise that someone sitting in the Oval Office might want to give thanks before eating...well, that about sums it up for me. And it was all said at a prayer breakfast. A prayer breakfast. By the President.