January 31st 2020

TruNews’ Rick Wiles Call Impeachment a “Jew coup’; Paula White, Trump’s spiritual advisor, calls for “all satanic pregnancies to miscarry right now.”

By Bill Berkowitz

After Christianity Today magazine’s recent editorial calling for President Donald Trump to step down, the president’s evangelical supporters went into overdrive, roundly condemning the publication. Trump, as is his wont, has unloaded a fusillade of appearances and initiatives aimed at shoring up his evangelical base. He appeared at an Hispanic evangelical megachurch in Florida, where he told the audience that he had done more for evangelicals then anyone else had ever done; and, he became the first president to appear in-person to address the “March for Life,” the annual anti-abortion demonstration in Washington, D.C. He has also unveiled a so-called Middle East Peace Plan that overwhelmingly favors Israel and should fully appease his Christian Zionist constituency. 

“Unborn children have never had a stronger defender in the White House,” he told the crowd in D.C. “Sadly, the far left is actively working to erase our God-given rights, shut down faith-based charities, ban religious believers from the public square and silence Americans who believe in the sanctity of life.” 

As New York magazine’s Sarah Jones pointed out, “[W]hile the president’s cynicism is obvious to his critics, his Christian supporters see something else entirely. Trump’s enthusiastic reception by Friday’s marchers clarified the Christian case for his presidency. What looks like hypocrisy to the average liberal can look like a redemption arc to others.”

Despite this flurry of activities and events, Frederick Clarkson, a Senior Research Analyst at Political Research Associates, a social justice think tank in Somerville, Massachussets, sees “evidence of erosion” in evangelical support for Trump. In an email, Clarkson said “The turnout at the annual Values Voter Summit, the premier political conference of the Christian Right, (which I attended) was far less than usual last fall. [Then there was] the famous editorial in The Christian Century that argued that what Trump stands for is incompatible with evangelical Christianity. [Also of note was] the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival led by William Barber and Liz Theoharris of the Kairos Center at Union Theological Seminary, has made a critique of the Christian Right's corruption of evangelical Christianity a central part of their public program.”

Clarkson acknowledged that “This does not necessarily mean that the Christian Right political movement is necessarily weakening. Rather they are adapting to the new reality to remain in power alongside their chosen political leader, Donald Trump.”

Wiles’ “Jew Coup” & Paul White’s prayer that “all satanic pregnancies miscarry

As part of that new reality, Trump’s White House recently granted press credentials to an outfit called TruNews, whose founder Rick Wiles has called the impeachment a “Jew Coup.” 

In an video in November, according to Raw Story, Wiles claimed that a “Jewish cabal” plotted Trump’s impeachment. “That’s the way Jews work,” Wiles said. “They are deceivers. They plot. They lie. They do whatever they have to do to accomplish their political agenda. This ‘Impeach Trump’ movement is a Jew coup, and the American people better wake up to it really fast.”

Wiles also claimed that “when Jews take over a country, they kill millions of Christians.”

“We want to know why TruNews was granted White House access and what steps are being taken to condemn their anti-Semitism and ensure such hatred is never welcome in the White House again,” Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Fla., and Rep. Elaine Luria, D-Va, wrote in a December letter to Trump’s acting chief of staff. “An extremist website that frequently attacks Jews and other minorities has no place in the White House … In addition to condemning this vile anti-Semitism, please let us know how this anti-Semitic purveyor of hate received access to the White House and what steps are being taken to ensure no similar group is ever recognized at the White House again.”

Meanwhile, Paula White, a master of the “prosperity gospel,” and Trump’s spiritual advisor, is attempting to bat away criticism over a prayer she made in early January that called for “all satanic pregnancies to miscarry right now.”

In a January 5 sermon, White prayed: “In the name of Jesus, we command all satanic pregnancies to miscarry right now. We declare that anything that’s been conceived in satanic wombs that it’ll miscarry, it will not be able to carry forth any plan of destruction, any plan of harm.”

White, who leads the White House’s Faith and Opportunity Initiative, defended the prayer in the tweets, claiming her words were “taken out on context.”

In a full recording of the service published by the church, White can also be seen praying that “any strange winds that have been sent to hurt the church, sent against this nation, sent against our President, sent against myself, against others, we break it by the superior blood of Jesus right now.”

Among White’s many critics, James Martin, a Jesuit priest wrote: “No pregnancies are satanic. Every child is a gift from God. No one should ever pray for any woman to miscarry. No one should ever pray for evil or harm to befall another person.”

Trump has done a great deal for conservative evangelical Christians. He appointed Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. As New York magazine’s Jones noted,  Trump “appointed pro-life conservatives to influential roles within the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Homeland Security, sided publicly with the Little Sisters of the Poor in its fight to deny birth-control coverage to its employees, and indulged the pro-life movement’s most hyperbolic instincts to better cast Democrats as infant-murdering villains.”

Trump has also unveiled a Middle East peace plan that is totally favorable to Israel. Whether his peace plan has any legs is highly doubtful – Palestinian leadership has already rejected it – it will certainly provide a much-needed, if only temporary, diversion for the impeached Trump and the embattled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as another clear example that he’s got the back of conservative evangelical Christians. 

According to Clarkson, another troubling element of Team Trump’s strategy involves “the high tech targeting of conservative Catholic and evangelical church goers in swing states by tracking their cell phones while they are in church.This surveillance and political dossier building is being carried out by 2016 Trump campaign supporters.  This effort helps identify potential supporters who are also not registered to vote, … target[ing] [them with] … political ads and other forms of outreach.”