Trump's top spiritual advisor visits Miami megachurch. She shares a prophecy
President Donald Trump's top spiritual advisor visited a southwest Miami-Dade County megachurch to outline a vision of a Christian-dominated world and urge believers, particularly Evangelicals, to help make it a reality.
In a two-hour sermon on Thursday, Florida Pastor Paula White-Cain — a prominent televangelist and senior advisor to Trump in the newly established White House Faith Office — told a packed church at King Jesus Ministry, one of the largest megachurches in South Florida, that she was not merely preaching but prophesying.
'Can one person make a difference? You didn't come to fit in, you came to take over. You came to move in your Kingdom calling,' she said. 'That threatens people who don't understand the word of God because their language, their understanding is not like yours.'
Blending Biblical scripture and personal stories, White-Cain spoke about God using ordinary people to spread the Gospel, save lost 'souls,' and achieve Christian 'dominion' by transforming society.
'God wants to use you to reposition society, your community, this nation, the world,' White-Cain said. 'Get ready because you're going to reap the greatest harvest mankind has ever known.'
A translator echoed her every word in real time for the mostly Spanish-speaking audience sprinkled with visitors from South and Central America. Apostle Guillermo Maldonado, the church's founder, has a large international following, including many congregants with strongly conservative political and social values. Nationally, evangelical congregations ranked among the Republican president's most enthusiastic supporters — voting clout that has made White-Cain a powerful political influence in the White House.
White-Cain appeared at King Jesus for a three-day spiritual conference called the 'Supernatural School of the Spirit,' where she headlined a string of local and visiting Christian leaders who preached, performed supernatural healings, and instructed crowds of followers and local pastors about how to 'walk in the supernatural' — a term used in some Christian circles referring to direct encounters with God and the Holy Spirit.
'Evangelism is the responsibility of every single christian. As a believer you cannot choose to ignore it. No way you can have an encounter with God and not care about the lost,' said White-Cain during a session that was aired live on the church's Facebook page.
White-Cain — who is based in Apopka and married to Jonathan Cain, who played guitar and keyboard for the band Journey and is now part of the Christian music scene — is aligned with a movement of Christianity religious scholars call 'Independent Charismatic Christians,' a part of the New Apostolic Reformation. It blends Pentecostal practices with modern-day Evangelicalism, and its followers believe some leaders — like White-Cain and Maldonado — are apostles or prophets.
The idea of achieving 'dominion' over the world and society is not uncommon in charismatic Christian theology, according to religious scholar Matthew Taylor, who studies Christian Nationalism.
'It holds that because God gave human beings 'dominion' over creation (Gen. 1:28), God must intend for human beings today to be active partners in ruling over the earth,' writes Taylor in his book 'The Violent Take it By Force.' Many charismatics, he writes, 'came to understand this as a present-day mandate to take over human societies so as to govern them according to God's reign.'
White-Cain, a longtime supporter of Trump, has been credited for her skill at bringing views long considered extreme into the mainstream of conservative Christianity. Her Miami appearance echoed many familiar themes, preaching about God's dominion and transforming American values and culture.
'We're responsible to create culture. And that culture is a kingdom culture where you bring the heart of God into herding humanity,' White-Cain said during her sermon in Miami.
Humble beginnings to the White House
White-Cain's personal story moved some in the church to tears as she shared tales of her tumultuous childhood and unlikely path to ministry. White, who grew up in Mississippi but eventually landed in Florida, emphasized that she didn't attend church until she was 18 years old and that she never imagined that she'd make it out of her abusive situation let alone into the White House.
White-Cain has often spoken about her chaotic childhood — her father who had a gambling and drinking problem, died by suicide when she was just five-years-old, she says. In the fallout of her father's death, her mother struggled with alcoholism and before the age of thirteen, she endured years of sexual and physical abuse from babysitters and neighbors, according to a chapter on White-Cain in Taylor's book.
In her Miami sermon, White-Cain talked about her journey from the trailer park as an 18-year-old single mother to preaching on television and ultimately, serving as a close spiritual advisor to President Trump.
'My story has nothing but brokenness, has nothing but ashes, but a great God can take what everyone else will give up on and say look what I can do,' she said.
White-Cain also spoke at length about 'financial abundance' and preparing for a 'great harvest,' connecting the idea of giving financially to a spiritual revival.
A key part of her message: in order to reap the rewards and feel God's glory, believers must first plant the seed and make a covenant with God. It was an appeal echoed in almost every church on Sunday to take out a checkbook or wallet but she urged congregants to dig deep.
'God's giving me revelation right now. Remember, glory only came when there was extravagant giving,' White-Cain said as QR codes flashed on the screens of the worship center, prompting people on how to donate.
'Stop holding yourselves back … Let God touch your heart for the harvest … Watch God extravagantly bless you … What you sow you grow. Obedience opens overflow. This is not historic. This is prophetic. God is getting ready to increase you.'
White-Cain said she was moved to plant her own seed at King Jesus Ministries, pledging $12,000. She fetched her checkbook and wrote the donation live in front of thousands watching in person and at home.
A viral prayer for Trump
White-Cain didn't discuss specific issues like the administration's controversial crackdown on immigrants, many of them Hispanic. But she mentioned Trump a few times in her sermon on Thursday, telling the audience that her work was bigger than politics.
'This is not about Democrat or Republican or Independent. This is a moment that God opened up to be harvested,' she said.
White-Cain said she has been close friends with the president for over 24 years. The relationship started when Trump called her one day out of the blue, she said, after he saw her preaching on TV and told her she had the 'it' factor.
But, even before Trump called her, she said she had been praying for the president, and that she had added him to a list of ten people that she wanted the Lord to 'save.'
'When President Trump got back in, I knew that it was for America, but the Lord spoke to me and said it was for the nations,' White-Cain told the crowd. 'And the Lord has divinely aligned his people. That's you.'
In 2020, she first gained broad national fame when one of her sermons at her church in Tampa went viral online. In it, she prayed forcefully, imploring God to give victory to Trump just one day after the presidential election was called for Joe Biden.
During the prayers in the now-viral video, White was speaking in tongues, a practice that is commonly used by charismatic Christians who evoke ecstatic sounds that believers find to be a heavenly language.
'For every enemy that is aligned against you, let there be that we would strike the ground, for you will give us victory, God…. I hear a sound of victory. The Lord says, 'It is done,'' she said in that sermon.'We break and divide every demonic confederacy against the election, against America, against who you [God] have declared to be in the White House.'
Her stance also drew criticism. As clips of White's intonations spread across the internet, people mocked the Florida pastor — arguing that Trump's Christian base was appearing more extreme, more unhinged by the day.
'Religious extremists like this is why we need to strengthen the separation between church and state!' wrote one online critic.
Following Trump's latest victory, White-Cain became the first female clergy member to pray at a presidential inauguration and now serves as the first female primary spiritual adviser to a U.S. president.
This story was produced with financial support from Trish and Dan Bell and from donors comprising the South Florida Jewish and Muslim Communities, in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners. The Miami Herald maintains full editorial control of this work.
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Hegseth is aligned with a wing of the evangelical church that believes in establishing a theocratic Christian government in which Jews would be, at best, second-class citizens, and LGBTQ individuals would lose nearly all of the rights they have won in recent decades. Earlier this month, Hegseth promoted staffer Kingsley Wilson as the Pentagon's chief press secretary, despite her history of disseminating antisemitic conspiracy theories and neo-Nazi rhetoric on social media. Milk, a gay rights activist, was elected to San Francisco's Board of Supervisors (its city council) in 1977, making him, at that time, the most high-profile LBGTQ figure in the country. He was assassinated the following year. In 2016, then-U.S. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, a former Mississippi governor, observed that 'Even after death, his voice still spoke, his struggles continued and his cause taken up by countless others.' 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Hodges, that states could not prohibit same-sex couples from legally marrying. Milk was not the first openly gay person to win public office. Voters in Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan had already elected gay and lesbian candidates. But Milk's victory, winning a powerful high-profile position in the nation's gay capital, made him instantly a national figure. Today, at least 1,336 openly LGBTQ persons are serving in public office, according to the LBGTQ Victory Institute, including three governors, 13 members of Congress, and 68 mayors. Milk grew up in a middle-class Jewish family on Long Island outside New York City. In high school he played football and developed a passion for opera. He graduated from college in 1951 with a degree in math. Although he knew he was homosexual while he was still a teenager, he kept it secret. A college friend recalled, 'He was never thought of as a possible queer — that's what you called them then — he was a man's man.' After college Milk joined the navy for four years, serving as a diving officer aboard a submarine rescue ship during the Korean War. He was discharged in 1955 with the rank of lieutenant, junior grade. For the next fifteen years, Milk drifted, taking a series of jobs for which he had little enthusiasm. He taught high school, then worked as a statistician for an insurance company and as an analyst for a Wall Street brokerage firm. During that period he had a number of relationships with men. In 1972, Milk and his partner Scott Smith joined the exodus of hippies and gays migrating to San Francisco. The city had long been a haven for nonconformists and bohemians. The 1950s beatnik scene, with its overlapping circles of radicals and folk music devotees, morphed into the hippie culture of the 1960s, centered in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury neighborhood. After World War II, San Francisco had also become a mecca for gay men. By the 1960s, it had more gay people per capita than any other American city and a thriving gay scene of bars, businesses, and bathhouses. The Castro District became the city's gay ghetto, but the official culture still reflected mainstream antipathy toward gays. For example, landlords could legally evict tenants whom they discovered to be homosexual. As their numbers grew, gays became a political force in the city. Two organizations — the Society for Individual Rights and the Daughters of Bilitis — began challenging the police department's arbitrary and sometimes brutal persecution of gay bars and entrapment of gays having sex in public parks. In 1971, 2,800 gay men were arrested for having sex in public restrooms and parks. That year Richard Hongisto, a straight ex-cop who had fought the police department's bias against gays and minorities, ran successfully for county sheriff with the support of the gay community. Other liberal politicians began to court gay and lesbian support. Key gay leaders, including the publisher of the gay newspaper the Advocate, started the Alice B. Toklas Democratic Club in 1971 to mobilize gay voters. Milk lived as an openly gay man. He and Smith had opened Castro Camera. The store's back room became a gathering place for Milk's widening circle of friends. He frequently complained about taxes on small businesses, underfunded schools (which he learned about when a teacher asked to borrow a projector because her school's equipment did not work), and ongoing discrimination against gays by employers, landlords, and cops. In 1973 Milk decided to run for supervisor. 'I finally reached the point where I knew I had to become involved or shut up,' he recalled. Milk, who still looked like an aging hippie, ran a spirited but low-budget and chaotic campaign, drawing on patrons of gay bars angry about police harassment. His fiery speeches and flare attracted media attention, and he garnered 16,900 votes — winning the Castro District and other liberal neighborhoods, finishing tenth out of thirty-two candidates. It was not enough to win the citywide campaign, but it made Milk a visible presence. Milk and other gay business owners founded the Castro Village Association, which chose Milk as its president. He also organized the Castro Street Fair to attract more customers to the area. By then, Milk had started referring to himself as the 'mayor of Castro Street.' Milk ran a better campaign for supervisor in 1975. He cut his hair and wore suits. His community organizing paid off. He had more money and more volunteers. Thanks to his activism, he earned the support of key unions. This time he came in seventh, one spot away from winning a supervisor's seat. Milk remained involved in grassroots gay activism, which was facing a backlash by the religious right across the country. The growing antigay climate had real consequences. Random attacks on gays in the Castro increased. Upset by the lack of police protection, groups of gays began patrolling the neighborhood themselves. On June 21, 1977 conservative thugs attacked Robert Hillsborough, a gay man, yelling 'Faggot!' while stabbing him fifteen times, killing him. A few weeks later, 250,000 people attended the Gay Freedom Day Parade, fueled by anger as well as by gay pride. Milk's leadership in these mobilizations, plus his previous campaigns, gave him an advantage when he ran again for supervisor in 1977. Equally important, voters had just approved a city charter change to elect supervisors by geographic districts instead of citywide. The new District 5, centered in the Castro area, was Milk's home base. That November, Milk was finally elected to the Board of Supervisors, beating sixteen other candidates, half of them gay. This time he had an effective campaign manager, a large cadre of volunteers, and the endorsement of the San Francisco Chronicle. Milk's victory made national news. He became a close ally of Mayor George Moscone, a progressive who had been elected two years earlier. Together, they challenged the power of the big corporations and real estate developers that were gentrifying the city and changing its skyline. They supported rent control, unions, small businesses, neighborhood organizations, and a tax on suburban commuters. Milk made sure that he responded to constituency concerns, such as fixing potholes and installing stop signs at dangerous intersections. In fact, soon after taking office, he sponsored two bills. The first outlawed discrimination based on sexual orientation. Milk was responding to his core constituency, San Francisco's gay community, which had endured years of bigotry from employers, landlords, and other institutions. The second bill dealt with an issue that, according to polls, voters considered the number-one problem in the city: dog feces. Milk's ordinance, called the 'pooper scooper' law, required dog owners to scoop up their pets' excrement. After it passed, Milk invited the press to a local park, where, with cameras rolling, he intentionally stepped in the smelly substance. The stunt attracted national media attention as well as extensive local press coverage, as Milk had anticipated. He later explained why he pulled off the photo op: 'All over the country, they're reading about me, and the story doesn't center on me being gay. It's just about a gay person who is doing his job.' Milk was a big personality, but he was also a serious and brilliant politician. After his election, he was the most visible gay public figure in America. At a time when homophobia was still deeply entrenched in American culture, Milk encouraged gays and lesbians to come out of the closet. He received thousands of letters from gays around the country, thanking him for being a role model. 'I thank God,' wrote a sixty-eight-year-old lesbian, 'I have lived long enough to see my kind emerge from the shadows and join the human race.' Milk knew that to win elections and pass legislation, he had to build bridges with other constituencies and with his straight colleagues on the Board of Supervisors. He cultivated support from tenants' groups, the elderly, small businesses, environmentalists, and labor unions. Milk forged an unlikely alliance with the Teamsters union, which represented truck drivers. The Teamsters wanted to pressure beer distributors to sign a contract with the union to improve pay and working conditions for its members. They were particularly angry at Coors, which of all the beer companies was the most hostile toward unions. A Teamsters organizer approached Milk for help in reaching out to gay bars, a big portion of Coors's customer base. Within days, Milk had canvassed the gay bars in and around the heavily gay Castro District, encouraging them to stopping selling Coors beer. With help from Arab and Chinese grocers, the gay boycott of Coors was successful. Milk had earned a political ally among the Teamsters. At Milk's urging, the union also began to recruit more gay truck drivers. Much of Milk's eleven months in office — before he and Moscone were assassinated — was spent organizing opposition to a statewide referendum sponsored by State Senator John Briggs to ban gays from teaching in public schools. Milk went up and down California speaking out against the initiative. He debated Briggs on television. He crashed Briggs's events, generating media stories. When Briggs claimed that gay teachers abused their students, Milk countered with statistics documenting that most pedophiles were straight, not gay. Opposition to the Briggs initiative mobilized gays and their liberal allies. They knocked on doors, wrote letters to the editor, and paid for TV and radio ads. More than a quarter of a million people attended that summer's Gay Freedom Day Parade in San Francisco. (Similar events in other cities attracted record numbers). Milk rode in an open car and later gave an inspiring speech that, according to the San Francisco Examiner, 'ignited the crowd.' He said: On this anniversary of Stonewall, I ask my gay sisters and brothers to make the commitment to fight. For themselves, for their freedom, for their country. We will not win our rights by staying quietly in our closets. We are coming out to fight the lies, the myths, the distortions. We are coming out to tell the truths about gays! I'm tired of the silence. So I'm going to talk about it. And I want you to talk about it. You must come out. Come out to your parents, your relatives. Come out to your friends. On November 7, 1978, Briggs's initiative lost by more than a million votes, with 58 percent of voters — and 75 percent in San Francisco — opposing it. It was a stunning victory for the gay community, and Milk was its most visible leader. Twenty days later, Milk and Moscone were dead. On November 27, former supervisor Dan White, carrying a gun, climbed into city hall through a basement window and shot both public officials. White had represented one of the city's more conservative neighborhoods and was the only supervisor to oppose Milk's antidiscrimination ordinance. Frustrated by his marginalization on the board, he abruptly resigned on November 10, only ten months after being sworn in. He quickly changed his mind and asked Moscone to reappoint him to his old position. Moscone refused to do so, in part because of Milk's lobbying against White. White was charged with first-degree murder, making him eligible for the death penalty. A conviction seemed a slam dunk. But White's lawyer claimed that he was not responsible for his actions because of his mental state, which the lawyer termed 'diminished capacity.' On May 21, 1979, a jury acquitted White of the first-degree murder charge but found him guilty of voluntary manslaughter. He was sentenced to seven years in prison. The verdict triggered riots outside city hall as gays and their allies unleashed their fury. Milk had anticipated his murder. He had received many hate letters and death threats. He recorded his thoughts on tape, indicating who he wanted to succeed him if he were killed, saying, 'If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door.' He added, 'I would like to see every gay lawyer, every gay architect come out, stand up and let the world know. That would do more to end prejudice overnight than anybody could imagine. I urge them to do that, urge them to come out. Only that way will we start to achieve our rights.' Milk's charisma and political savvy helped unleash the power of gay voters and advance the issue of gay rights, including the growing number of gay and lesbian elected officials and widening acceptance of same-sex marriage. The Trump administration's, and Hegseth's, recent efforts to paper over and rewrite history suggests they don't want the current and future generations to know about that movement, its accomplishments, and the persistent battle for LGBTQ equality. Responding on his Facebook page to news of the effort to rename the USNS Harvey Milk, gay playwright Harvey Fierstein described the move as a 'crime against the gay community' and wrote that Trump is a 'vile, petty, stupid, destructive, jealous, illiterate, hateful, ego-maniacal and dangerous shmuck.' California State Senator Scott Wiener, who is also gay, told the Los Angeles Times that Hegseth's move against Milk is part of a 'systematic campaign to eliminate LGBTQ people from public life.' 'They want us to go away, to go back in the closet, not to be part of public life,' added Wiener. 'And we're not going anywhere.'
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