According to some reports, our fighting men and women of the military aren't the only group that Donald Trump has a low opinion of behind closed doors.
Conservative evangelicals make up a gigantic amount of his base and led by folks like Franklin Graham and Robert Jeffress and groups like the Family Research Council, they have stuck by Trump in spite of every discovery of dishonesty, every lie, and every bit of chicanery learned about him.
And Trump definitely appreciates their support. In front of cameras, of course. But, if his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, is to be believed what you see in front the cameras isn't exactly true:
President Donald Trump spoke condescendingly about evangelical Christians after holding a meeting with religious leaders before the 2016 election, his former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen has said in a new book. Cohen, who broke with Trump to cooperate with the special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation, is releasing a memoir Tuesday titled "Disloyal: A Memoir: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump." The Washington Post, which obtained a copy of the book before its release, reported one passage in which Cohen details what he says happened after Trump met with prominent evangelical leaders at Trump Tower in 2016 before winning the presidency. After the meeting was over, Cohen says, Trump said: "Can you believe that bulls---? Can you believe people believe that bulls---?"
"The cosmic joke was that Trump convinced a vast swathe of working-class white folks in the Midwest that he cared about their well-being," Cohen added, according to The Post. "The truth was that he couldn't care less." It's unclear what meeting Cohen was referring to, but Trump did meet with conservative Christian leaders in New York City in June 2016, according to NPR, which was allowed inside the private event.
Of course if this excerpt gains legs, expect evangelical leaders to engage in the usual rationalizations of their support of Trump. From "God chooses imperfect people" to "He was a baby Christian then. His faith is stronger," my guess is that their explanations will be epic and totally transparent. Cohen's revelation simply reveals the predatory relationship Trump and conservative evangelicals have. Most likely, Graham, Jeffress, and the rest know what Trump thinks about them. And while they can claim he has changed, they know he hasn't. One can easily measure Trump's behavior from the beginning of the 2016 campaign until now and easily come up with the the fact that Trump hasn't changed for the better. If anything, he's gotten worse.
If there has been any change since Trump took office, it's within the evangelical community. They no longer talk about values as much as they used to. They no longer pretend to look heavenward because their eyes are more on Trump than Jesus. And in some ways, they are working to somehow mingle Trump with Jesus. And it's not working. They are so busy trying to point to the halo they claim exist over his head that they are totally oblivious to horns and tails which have appeared on their persons due to their close proximity to him.
But they don't care. As long as he gives them power and appoints judges they think will rule their way, particularly against LGBTQ equality and abortion, Trump could urinate publicly on the White House lawn and they would call it nectar from heaven.
