Despite President Donald Trump’s attempts to pass as a pious Christian, late night host Seth Meyers is not convinced.
In an episode that aired Tuesday night, Meyers unpacked Trump’s claims of religiosity and introduced viewers to the president’s spiritual adviser, prosperity gospel preacher Paula White.
The president’s journey with religious has been a winding one. From casually affiliating as a Presbyterian to apparently being “born again,” Trump has doubled down on his religious image since becoming president.
In May he signed an executive order on religious liberty aimed at giving churches greater leeway to get involved in politics, but which left many evangelicals nonplussed.
Last week, Trump made waves with a bizarrely timed and strangely zealous tweet and Instagram post, proclaiming: “In America we don’t worship government, we worship God.”
The declaration came the same day Trump tweeted out of the blue about a new policy to ban transgender people from serving in the military, which similarly seemed aimed at his Christian base.
Trump’s track record of adultery, divorce, vulgar language and predatory behavior hasn’t turned off his conservative Christian base. Nor has his basic lack of understanding of the Christian faith or disregard for the tenets and rituals of the religion he claims as his own.
More than 80 percent of white evangelicals supported the unlikely candidate at the polls last November, and some have even claimed it was the “hand of God” that made Trump president.
Come Inauguration Day, Trump tapped White to deliver an invocation. The preacher has amassed a huge wealth largely thanks to donations from her followers and was part of a Senate investigation of six televangelists from 2007 to the beginning of 2011. She and Trump have been friends for at least 15 years.
As Meyers summed up: “Trump’s surrounding himself by people who seem to prioritize wealth over faith, while using his friends to convince others that he himself is a man of deep faith.”
For some truly cringe-worthy moments, check out Meyers’ clip above.
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