Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde joined “The View” on Wednesday to discuss her plea for “mercy” to President Donald Trump at a prayer service this week, saying it was impossible for her viral message not to be politicized.
Co-host Sara Haines asked if she believed her message was “misconstrued” or “politicized.”
“I think if you read what I said, I mean, how could it not be politicized, right? We’re in a hyper-political climate. One of the things I’m warning about is the contempt culture we live in that immediately rushes to the worst possible interpretations of what people say and puts them into categories like the ones you just described,” Budde replied.
Budde asked the president to “have mercy”. LGBT community and immigrants during the prayer on Tuesday. Trump and Vice President JD Vance, along with their spouses, listened stony-faced as Budde made her remarks.
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Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde joined “The View” on Wednesday to discuss her plea to Donald Trump during Tuesday’s prayer service. (Screenshot/THeView)
“It’s part of the air we breathe now, and I was trying to tell the truth that I felt needed to be told, but to do it as much as I could with respect and kindness. And also to bring other voices into the conversation, voices that they haven’t heard in the public space for a while,” Budde added.
Co-hosted by Alyssa Farah Griffin asked Budde if her sentiment would have had more of an impact in a one-on-one setting with Trump and if she had that opportunity.
“I have never been invited to a one-on-one with President Trump. I would welcome the opportunity,” Budde said. “I have no idea how that would go. I assure him and anyone listening that I would treat him with the same respect as any other person, and especially his office, which I have the utmost respect for, but the call would have to come from him.”
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Budde’s comments attracted considerable attention given the venue.
“Let me ask you one more time, Mr. President,” she said Tuesday. “In the name of our God, I am asking you to have mercy on the people of our country who are now afraid. There are gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican and independent families, let them fear for their lives.”
She went on to say that “the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes and are good neighbors.”
Afterward, Trump told reporters he didn’t care about the service.
He also harshly criticized Trump Budde in a post on Truth Social.
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“The so-called bishop who spoke at the National Prayer Service on Tuesday morning was a radical leftist Trump hater. She brought her church into the world of politics in a very unkind way,” he wrote.
Fox News’ Danielle Wallace and Alex Nitzberg contributed to this report.
