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Georgia Congressman Mike Collins has called for the deportation of the bishop who urged Donald Trump to “have mercy” on the LGBTQ+ community and immigrants.
Trumpworld has erupted in the wake of Episcopal Bishop Mariann Budde’s direct appeal to the president in the inaugural prayer service at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C on Tuesday, just two days into his second term.
Sharing a clip of the sermon on X, Collins called for Budde to be “added to the deportation list”, a day after Trump began signing a deluge of executive orders related to immigration.
“The person giving this sermon should be added to the deportation list,” the GOP congressman wrote on Tuesday.
Budde was born in New Jersey in 1959 and is a U.S. citizen — therefore, she cannot be deported.
It is not clear how Collins plans for Budde to be deported, nor where she should be deported to. The Independent has contacted his press office for clarification.
The Trump and Vance clans sat stony-faced in the front rows of the nave, as the softly-spoken bishop issued her warning.
“In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy on the people in our country who are scared now,” Budde said. “There are gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican and independent families, some who fear for their lives.”
She continued: “The vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. “I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away, and that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here.”
Upon finishing her sermon, Trump said something to Vance which caused him to shake his head. Leaving the cathedral, reporters asked the president what he made of the service.
“Not too exciting, was it. I didn’t think it was a good service. No, they can do much better,” he was recorded saying.
Meanwhile, in a fiery rant on TruthSocial late on Tuesday, Trump wrote that Budde owes “the public” an apology.
“The so-called Bishop who spoke at the National Prayer Service on Tuesday morning was a Radical Left hard line Trump hater,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “She was nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart…. She and her church owe the public an apology!”
Vice President JD Vance is yet to comment on Budde’s remarks.
Trump’s attack followed harsh criticism of the bishop from his MAGA faithful earlier in the day.
Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville condemned Budde’s speech in a Newsmax interview Tuesday.
“For this Bishop to do this to President Trump after a weekend of… talking about God more than ever, talking about how he was spared to give an opportunity maybe to change this country back to something that should be — it just absolutely amazes me how far these people go,” he said on On Newsmax’s The Todd Starnes Show.
Fox News hosts also lashed out at Budde’s comments and swooped to the defence of the president.
“She made the service about her very own deranged political beliefs with a disgraceful prayer full of fear-mongering and division,” longtime Trump ally and Hannity host, Sean Hannity said.
While Fox News anchor Laura Ingraham, added: “But rather than a Christian service about God and country, they were forced to listen to the rantings of a lunatic.”
Budde later addressed the controversy in an appearance on CNN, claiming that she was “reminding us all that in the people that are frightened in our country”.
She continued: “The two groups of people that I mentioned are our fellow human beings, and that they have been portrayed all throughout the political campaign, in the harshest of lights.”
It’s not the first time Budde has spoken out about Trump.
During the George Floyd protests in Washington, D.C in June 2020, she lambasted against the National Guard and police’s use tear gas to disperse crowds at the St. John’s Episcopal Church.
It was to allow for Trump to have a photo op, which the bishop described “as a backdrop for a message antithetical to the teachings of Jesus”.
