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Sydney Morning Herald
16 hours ago
- Politics
- Sydney Morning Herald
How the Trump shooting supercharged beliefs in a divine right of MAGA
Politics increasingly entered the pulpit at the demand of congregants, and pastors indulged those demands for fear of losing members, according to the journalist Tim Alberta in his 2024 book The Kingdom, the Power and the Glory. Last Monday, the Trump administration said a federal prohibition on campaigning by non-profit organisations did not apply to houses of worship, implementing a long-standing campaign promise to let churches make more explicit political endorsements. Trump has never been known for his personal piety, but he has long enjoyed the overwhelming support of evangelicals. His own reaction to the Butler shooting was initially, 'I'm not supposed to be here' – meaning he was not supposed to be alive – according to a new book about the campaign, 2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America. (The book is co-written by the author of this article.) His top adviser, Susie Wiles, told him, 'You do know this is God,' the book says. After that, Trump began saying: 'If anyone ever doubted there was a God, that proved there was.' In Butler the day after the shooting, county GOP chair Jim Hulings recalled trying to return to the crime scene and being unable to get near it across the police tape. But he did notice that all the church car park spaces were full. 'We cling to our guns and our Bibles,' Hulings said, reappropriating an infamous remark about small-town Pennsylvania that Barack Obama made at a San Francisco fundraiser in 2008. That morning at the Church of God at Connoquenessing, Karns preached about the fragility of life, quoting Psalm 90 likening man's time on Earth to the grass that grows and withers. His own son, daughters-in-law and grandchildren were at the rally, seated in the bleachers behind the stage. They became friendly with a kind man seated in front of them, Corey Comperatore, a 50-year-old local volunteer firefighter who was there with his family. Before Trump arrived, Comperatore had helped Karns' 12-year-old granddaughter, Alexa, recover her dropped phone after it fell through the bleachers, and he passed out water bottles to help those around him stay hydrated in the heat. When the gunman opened fire from a nearby factory roof, Comperatore was struck and killed trying to protect his family. 'It's one of those things where you feel like you're in this place at a certain time, and there's a reason for it,' Lisa Karns, Alexa's mother and the pastor's daughter-in-law, said. 'I felt like, 'God, why take him? You could have taken me.'' Loading That night the Karns family met the pastor and showed him the photos of the twisted flag. He decided to put the image on a sign for the church, as a message of comfort, to thank God for keeping them safe and to honour Comperatore. 'It wasn't necessarily a political statement,' he said. On the way home, Alexa told Lisa Karns that she had prayed for Trump before the rally, asking God to protect him. Lisa Karns suggested she write Trump a card telling him. 'Dear President Trump,' the 12-year-old wrote in green pen, under a sketch of an American flag, 'I was on the same bleachers of the man who died. … Before the rally I had prayed that you wouldn't get shot because it sounded like something that might happen. God answered my prayers. … I will still pray for you. I hope you win the election!' He wrote back a few weeks later. 'For you and all those in attendance on that fateful day, we remain resolved to fight for our great country,' Trump and his wife, Melania, said. 'May God bless you and keep you safe, little one.' Lisa Karns framed the letter and hung it on a wall in their home. The Republican National Convention that immediately followed the shooting brought talk of God's hand from private rumblings to the prime-time stage. 'That was a transformation,' Tucker Carlson said on the final night in Milwaukee. 'This was no longer a man.' 'Divine intervention,' a man shouted from the floor. 'I think it was,' Carlson agreed. He went on: 'I think even people who don't believe in God are beginning to think, 'Maybe there's something to this, actually.'' Trump's son Eric embraced the sentiment in his speech introducing his father: 'By the grace of God, divine intervention and your guardian angels above, you survived.' The candidate himself attested: 'I felt very safe because I had God on my side.' By the time Trump returned to Butler for a second rally in October, a man dragged a wooden cross up and down the road to the fairgrounds. At a prayer circle the night before, Susan Sevy from East Liverpool, Ohio, who had also attended the July rally, said the time when Trump was shot, 6.11pm, corresponded to a verse of Ephesians about putting on the armour of God. On the rally stage, speakers recalled seeing signs or hearing a heavenly voice. 'That flag right there displayed like a crucifix or an angel on it,' Butler township commissioner Sam Zurzolo said. 'I know everybody has seen that, and I think that was a warning,' 'I heard a voice – loud, clear, rich and reassuring,' said James Sweetland, a retired emergency department doctor who tended to Comperatore. 'It spoke to me. It said, 'Go. Go they need your help'... I'm telling you right now that was a voice of God.' The Trump campaign worked to bring back attendees from the first rally, and the Karns family returned to sit in the rows of chairs below the bleachers. At one point during the early speeches, the sound system glitched, and someone shouted for a medic. The pastor's other daughter-in-law, Christie Karns, felt her anxiety spike. She wondered why she had come back and put herself through this, she said. At that moment, the giant flag overhead flipped on itself again, resuming the Y shape that reminded her of an angel. Then it gracefully flipped back to normal. Loading 'We just all looked at each other and we were like, 'Oh my word',' Christie Karns said. 'No one could have done that. It could have only been God. And it just gave us that peace.' In church last Sunday, Pastor Karns returned to the theme of fragility, again referencing the metaphor of grass that grows and withers. 'It's here one minute, and the next minute it's gone,' he said. In his sermon he asked worshippers to reflect on the past year, considering the trials they faced and the strength God gave them. 'It took a very strong man who could help right our country back to being God's country,' Lisa Karns said. 'I do feel like God protected him to help our country.'
The Age
16 hours ago
- Politics
- The Age
How the Trump shooting supercharged beliefs in a divine right of MAGA
Politics increasingly entered the pulpit at the demand of congregants, and pastors indulged those demands for fear of losing members, according to the journalist Tim Alberta in his 2024 book The Kingdom, the Power and the Glory. Last Monday, the Trump administration said a federal prohibition on campaigning by non-profit organisations did not apply to houses of worship, implementing a long-standing campaign promise to let churches make more explicit political endorsements. Trump has never been known for his personal piety, but he has long enjoyed the overwhelming support of evangelicals. His own reaction to the Butler shooting was initially, 'I'm not supposed to be here' – meaning he was not supposed to be alive – according to a new book about the campaign, 2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America. (The book is co-written by the author of this article.) His top adviser, Susie Wiles, told him, 'You do know this is God,' the book says. After that, Trump began saying: 'If anyone ever doubted there was a God, that proved there was.' In Butler the day after the shooting, county GOP chair Jim Hulings recalled trying to return to the crime scene and being unable to get near it across the police tape. But he did notice that all the church car park spaces were full. 'We cling to our guns and our Bibles,' Hulings said, reappropriating an infamous remark about small-town Pennsylvania that Barack Obama made at a San Francisco fundraiser in 2008. That morning at the Church of God at Connoquenessing, Karns preached about the fragility of life, quoting Psalm 90 likening man's time on Earth to the grass that grows and withers. His own son, daughters-in-law and grandchildren were at the rally, seated in the bleachers behind the stage. They became friendly with a kind man seated in front of them, Corey Comperatore, a 50-year-old local volunteer firefighter who was there with his family. Before Trump arrived, Comperatore had helped Karns' 12-year-old granddaughter, Alexa, recover her dropped phone after it fell through the bleachers, and he passed out water bottles to help those around him stay hydrated in the heat. When the gunman opened fire from a nearby factory roof, Comperatore was struck and killed trying to protect his family. 'It's one of those things where you feel like you're in this place at a certain time, and there's a reason for it,' Lisa Karns, Alexa's mother and the pastor's daughter-in-law, said. 'I felt like, 'God, why take him? You could have taken me.'' Loading That night the Karns family met the pastor and showed him the photos of the twisted flag. He decided to put the image on a sign for the church, as a message of comfort, to thank God for keeping them safe and to honour Comperatore. 'It wasn't necessarily a political statement,' he said. On the way home, Alexa told Lisa Karns that she had prayed for Trump before the rally, asking God to protect him. Lisa Karns suggested she write Trump a card telling him. 'Dear President Trump,' the 12-year-old wrote in green pen, under a sketch of an American flag, 'I was on the same bleachers of the man who died. … Before the rally I had prayed that you wouldn't get shot because it sounded like something that might happen. God answered my prayers. … I will still pray for you. I hope you win the election!' He wrote back a few weeks later. 'For you and all those in attendance on that fateful day, we remain resolved to fight for our great country,' Trump and his wife, Melania, said. 'May God bless you and keep you safe, little one.' Lisa Karns framed the letter and hung it on a wall in their home. The Republican National Convention that immediately followed the shooting brought talk of God's hand from private rumblings to the prime-time stage. 'That was a transformation,' Tucker Carlson said on the final night in Milwaukee. 'This was no longer a man.' 'Divine intervention,' a man shouted from the floor. 'I think it was,' Carlson agreed. He went on: 'I think even people who don't believe in God are beginning to think, 'Maybe there's something to this, actually.'' Trump's son Eric embraced the sentiment in his speech introducing his father: 'By the grace of God, divine intervention and your guardian angels above, you survived.' The candidate himself attested: 'I felt very safe because I had God on my side.' By the time Trump returned to Butler for a second rally in October, a man dragged a wooden cross up and down the road to the fairgrounds. At a prayer circle the night before, Susan Sevy from East Liverpool, Ohio, who had also attended the July rally, said the time when Trump was shot, 6.11pm, corresponded to a verse of Ephesians about putting on the armour of God. On the rally stage, speakers recalled seeing signs or hearing a heavenly voice. 'That flag right there displayed like a crucifix or an angel on it,' Butler township commissioner Sam Zurzolo said. 'I know everybody has seen that, and I think that was a warning,' 'I heard a voice – loud, clear, rich and reassuring,' said James Sweetland, a retired emergency department doctor who tended to Comperatore. 'It spoke to me. It said, 'Go. Go they need your help'... I'm telling you right now that was a voice of God.' The Trump campaign worked to bring back attendees from the first rally, and the Karns family returned to sit in the rows of chairs below the bleachers. At one point during the early speeches, the sound system glitched, and someone shouted for a medic. The pastor's other daughter-in-law, Christie Karns, felt her anxiety spike. She wondered why she had come back and put herself through this, she said. At that moment, the giant flag overhead flipped on itself again, resuming the Y shape that reminded her of an angel. Then it gracefully flipped back to normal. Loading 'We just all looked at each other and we were like, 'Oh my word',' Christie Karns said. 'No one could have done that. It could have only been God. And it just gave us that peace.' In church last Sunday, Pastor Karns returned to the theme of fragility, again referencing the metaphor of grass that grows and withers. 'It's here one minute, and the next minute it's gone,' he said. In his sermon he asked worshippers to reflect on the past year, considering the trials they faced and the strength God gave them. 'It took a very strong man who could help right our country back to being God's country,' Lisa Karns said. 'I do feel like God protected him to help our country.'
The Herald Scotland
5 days ago
- Politics
- The Herald Scotland
Trump says he threatened Putin with Moscow bombing in new audio
"He said 'No way,' and I said, 'Way.' And then he goes, 'I don't believe you,' but the truth is, he believed me 10%," Trump added. Trump then said he'd made the same threat to Chinese President Xi Jinping - that he would bomb Beijing if China invaded Taiwan. "I said, 'I have no choice, I've got to bomb them.' And he didn't believe me either, except 10%, and 10% is all you need," he continued. More: Trump escalates criticism of Putin, rearms Ukraine, as Russia's war plows on Trump made the comments to a group of private donors at a fundraising dinner during his campaign for a second term. The audio was published by CNN on July 9 and obtained by Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager and Isaac Arnsdorf, authors of a new book - "2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America." Trump has repeatedly insisted that the Ukraine war "never would have happened" if he were president and pledged on the campaign trail to end the conflict within 24 hours of taking office. More than six months into his presidency, Trump has shown increasing frustration with Putin as a ceasefire deal to end the conflict remains out of reach. "We get a lot of bulls--t thrown at us by Putin, if you want to know the truth," Trump said at a July 8 cabinet meeting. "He's very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless." Trump also restarted aid deliveries to Ukraine after the Pentagon said it would suspend some weapons transfers as part of an across-the-board "review" of U.S. military aid. "They have to be able to defend themselves," Trump said, adding that Ukraine was "getting hit very hard" by Russia. It is unclear who first gave the order to pause the aid deliveries. Trump, when asked by a reporter at the Cabinet meeting, said, "I don't know, why don't you tell me?" According to CNN and other reports, the Pentagon did not inform Trump when the halt first went into effect. Russia slammed Ukraine with the largest drone attack of the three-plus-year conflict overnight on July 8, launching more than 700 drones at targets across the country.
The Herald Scotland
7 days ago
- Politics
- The Herald Scotland
Biden aides said fateful 2024 Trump debate would show 'strength'
"By holding the first debate in the spring, YOU will be able to reach the widest audience possible, before we are deep in the summer months with the conventions, Olympics and family vacations taking precedence," said the memo, which was revealed by journalists Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager and Isaac Arnsdorf in a new book, "2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America." The memo was published July 7 by Politico. Throughout the memo, the advisers take pains to reiterate Biden's stature by addressing him as "YOU" in bold capital letters. The June 2024 debate took place months before the fall debate timeline suggested by the Commission on Presidential Debates. "In addition, the earlier YOU are able to debate the better, so that the American people can see YOU standing next to Trump and showing the strength of YOUR leadership, compared to Trump's weakness and chaos," says the memo. It didn't turn out that way. In the aftermath of the June 27 calamity, when then 81-year-old Biden trailed off and froze at various points before a live television audience, he faced mounting pressure from influential donors and some lawmakers to drop out of the race. Less than a month later, Biden announced he was stepping aside and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, 59, as the Democratic nominee. Harris, who ran the shortest presidential campaign in history, was trounced by Trump in November, capping a remarkable comeback. Biden cover-up? The contents of the memo stand in sharp contrast to a narrative pushed by the Trump administration, which has accused those close to Biden, including former first lady Jill Biden, of a "cover-up" by making sure the former president had minimal public exposure and of keeping his supposed cognitive decline under wraps. House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Kentucky, sent letters to Biden's physician and former White House aides in May demanding they appear for a transcribed interview as part of an investigation into Biden's health and use of the autopen to sign presidential documents. In June, Trump's Justice Department began an investigation into pardons issued in the final days of Biden's presidency and "whether others were taking advantage of him through use of Autopen or other means." Biden announced last month that he had been diagnosed with an "aggressive" Stage 4 prostate cancer. Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy is a White House correspondent for USA TODAY. You can follow her on X @SwapnaVenugopal
New York Post
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- New York Post
Kamala Harris campaign staffers warned not to reach out to Taylor Swift: ‘Doug Emhoff was handling it'
Doug Emhoff was tasked with getting Taylor Swift to stump for his wife, Kamala Harris, on her ill-fated 2024 presidential campaign — but failed to seal the deal, according to a new book. Rumors swirled on Election Day eve that the chart-topping pop star would perform, or at least make an appearance, at the then-vice president's final rally in Philadelphia, near Swift's hometown of West Redding, Pa. The 'Love Story' singer, however, had apparently already rebuffed the former second gentleman's efforts to get her to do anything more than endorse the failed Democratic presidential nominee, journalists Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager and Isaac Arnsdorf explain in their forthcoming book, '2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America.' Advertisement 3 Swift endorsed Harris after her only debate with Trump last September, but never appeared on the campaign trail for the Democratic presidential TAS Rights Management 'Swift proved to be a special challenge,' the authors of the new book, due out Tuesday, explained. 'Staffers who worked on celebrity appearances were instructed not to make any outreach to her universe; Doug Emhoff was handling it.' Emhoff, a former Los Angeles entertainment lawyer, had a prior relationship with Swift's attorney, Doug Baldridge, and had reached out to him 'to convey that the campaign would appreciate any efforts the pop star could make to help Harris' before Swift's surprise post-debate endorsement, the book claimed. Advertisement Baldridge's devastating response to the Harris camp was: 'Swift would do what Swift thought was best.' 'Nothing more than the endorsement ever materialized,' the authors noted. Philadelphia rally-goers were instead treated to speeches and performances by Fat Joe, Lady Gaga, Ricky Martin, The Roots, and Oprah Winfrey. The Harris campaign put on several star-studded concerts in the days leading up to the former vice president's Election Day defeat. Advertisement Katy Perry, Christina Aguilera, Megan Thee Stallion, Bruce Springsteen, Jon Bon Jovi, 2 Chainz and Mumford & Sons were among other artists and musical acts that lent their talents to the Harris campaign in an apparent effort to get low-propensity voters out to the polls. Grammy Award-winning artists Beyonce, Cardi B and Jennifer Lopez also appeared on the stump for Harris, but didn't perform — upsetting some Harris supporters. 3 The Harris campaign reportedly spent tens of millions of dollars on concerts in the run up to Election Day. Tamara Beckwith/NY Post 3 Harris campaign staffers working on celebrity outreach were instructed not to make overtures to Swift's camp because Emhoff was working on roping her in, according to a new book. Bruce Glikas/WireImage Advertisement The series of election eve concerts alone reportedly set the campaign back $20 million. The performances were held in swing states that all went for President Trump the following day. 'Privately, some campaign staff raised concerns that the major rallies may not be worth the millions of dollars they cost to stage or the staff investment,' the authors stated, noting that 'There was scant evidence that the rallies were persuading voters or necessarily boosting turnout.'
