Eric Trump visits FOX Business Network’s Maria Bartiromo at FOX Studios on October 4, 2016 in New York City. (Astrid Stawiarz/Getty)
A week after he accidentally declared himself a member of the LGBT+ community, Eric Trump is making the bold claim that his father has “literally saved Christianity”.
The president’s second-oldest and second-worst son baffled the world when he mistakenly came out on Fox and Friends on September 29.
He later clarified that he “misspoke”, and now it seems he’s moved onto an even wilder claim as he attempts to shore up votes for his dad among religious Conservatives.
“He’s literally saved Christianity,” the president’s son said in an interview with a North Dakota radio station. “I mean, there’s a full-out war on faith in this country from the other side.
“I mean, the Democratic party, the far-left has become the party of the quote-unquote atheists. They wanna attack Christianity. They wanna close churches. They wanna, you know, they’re totally fine keeping liquor stores open, but they want to close churches all over the country.”
While it’s not clear where Eric Trump has got his ideas about his father saving Christianity, it seems that his gripe is rooted in coronavirus-related church closures.
The reference to liquor stores is likely based on the Conservative complaint that mass gatherings like church congregations remained banned while businesses like grocery stores and liquor stores were allowed to re-open.
However, the decision to re-open places of worship was largely in the hands of state and local officials, not Donald Trump.
In any case, Eric’s bid to paint his father is a Christian saviour is at odds with reports from the president’s former aides, who say he speaks with “contempt and cynicism” about his religious supporters.
According to staffers speaking to the Atlantic, they often heard Trump “ridicule conservative religious leaders, dismiss various faith groups with cartoonish stereotypes, and deride certain rites and doctrines held sacred by many of the Americans who constitute his base”.
“They’re all hustlers,” the Trump allegedly said, describing one particular pastor as “full of sh*t”. How Christlike.