The most surprising part of that appeal was the apparently durable connection he was making with evangelicals, many of whom were Protestants. When Trump appeared in mid-January at Liberty University, the college founded by the politically influential televangelist Jerry Falwell, both sides of his peculiar rapport with religious conservatives were immediately visible. He spoke clunkily about matters of faith—attempting to read from the book Second Corinthians, Trump remarked, “Two Corinthians, 3:17, that’s the whole ballgame”—but that stuck with the more than ten thousand attendees less than the eagerness with which he appeared to relish conflict with their common foes. “Christianity, it’s under siege,” he began the speech.
Accompanying Trump that day was a young former ballerina named Ashley Byers who had attended one of his campaign events and interacted briefly with him there. She was suddenly invited to visit him at Mar-a-Lago. She then traveled with the Trump team to Liberty aboard the Trump plane, wearing a skirt that Trump aides saw as too short for the event, so one of them insisted on lending her a coat. Byers went largely unnoticed by the crowd. She later took an official role on the Trump campaign in Florida. (She met her husband during the 2016 campaign, and was later accused of shooting him to death over a custody dispute, which she claimed was in self-defense.)
No comments:
Post a Comment