US President Donald Trump has hit out at a bishop who rebuked him during the National Prayer Service on Tuesday morning over his LGBT views and immigration policies.
The Right Rev Mariann Edgar Budde, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, suggested that LGBT people were living in fear as she used her sermon to criticise Trump a day after he took office for the second time.
“In the Name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now,” Budde said.
“There are gay, lesbian, and transgender children in Democratic, Republican and independent families, some who fear for their lives.”
She continued, “The people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, who labour in poultry farms and meat-packing plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals. They may not be citizens, or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals.”
She added, “I ask you to have mercy, Mr President.”
A day earlier, Trump signed executive orders to halt the arrival of asylum seekers and start the deportion of illegal immigrants.
Responding to the sermon on his Truth Social platform, the President railed against the bishop and illegal immigration, and said her comments were “inappropriate”.
“The so-called Bishop who spoke at the National Prayer Service on Tuesday morning was a Radical Left hard line Trump hater,” he said.
“She brought her church into the World of politics in a very ungracious way. She was nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart.
“She failed to mention the large number of illegal migrants that came into our Country and killed people. Many were deposited from jails and mental institutions.
“It is a giant crime wave that is taking place in the USA. Apart from her inappropriate statements, the service was a very boring and uninspiring one. She is not very good at her job! She and her church owe the public an apology!”
An interfaith prayer service has been held at the National Cathedral for newly inaugurated presidents in a tradition going back to 1933.
Also in attendance on Tuesday were First Lady Melania Trump, Vice President JD Vance and his wife, Second Lady Usha Vance.
Bishop Budde has been critical of Trump in the past. In 2020, when he staged a photo op outside St John’s Episcopal Church near the White House a day after it was damaged during George Floyd protests, Bishop Budde complained, “The President just used a Bible and one of the churches of my diocese as a backdrop for a message antithetical to the teachings of Jesus and everything that our church stands for.”
