Bishop Who Encouraged ‘Mercy’ From Trump Isn’t Surprised at His Reaction: ‘How Could It Not Be’ Politicized? | Video

Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, who urged Trump to his face this week to have “mercy” on marginalized communities while delivering a sermon following his inauguration, is not at all surprised by his angry reaction. In fact, she fully expected it.

In her sermon to Trump and his vice president JD Vance — with their wives in attendance, an immigrant and the child of immigrants, respectively — Budde asked Trump “to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now,” from immigrants to the LGBTQ+ community.

“There are gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican and independent families, some who fear for their lives,” she said to the group, with Trump and Vance getting visibly more annoyed as she spoke.

“And the people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meat packing plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals, they may not be citizens or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes and are good neighbors.”

Stopping by “The View” on Wednesday, Budde explained that she felt called to “speak a truth” in her address, realizing that unity — as Trump has expressed his desire to be a unifying president — requires mercy.

“I wanted to take the opportunity in the context of that of service for unity, to say we need to treat everyone with dignity, and we need to be merciful,” she said. “I was trying to counter the narrative that is so, so divisive and polarizing and in which people, real people, are being are being harmed.”

When host Sara Haines asked Budde if she thinks Trump “misconstrued and politicized” the Bishop’s message, she readily agreed.

“Well, sure,” she replied with a laugh. “Yeah. But, I think if you read what I said — I mean, how could it not be politicized, right? We’re in a hyper political climate. One of the things I caution about is the culture of contempt in which we live that immediately rushes to the worst possible interpretations of what people are saying and to put them in categories such as the ones you’ve just described.”

“That’s part of the air we breathe now,” she continued. “And I was trying to speak a truth that I felt needed to be said, but to do it in as respectful and kind a way as I could, and also to bring other voices into the conversation, voices that had not been heard in the public space for some time.”

You can watch the moment from “The View” in the video above.

The post Bishop Who Encouraged ‘Mercy’ From Trump Isn’t Surprised at His Reaction: ‘How Could It Not Be’ Politicized? | Video appeared first on TheWrap.