One of Donald Trump’s spiritual advisors claims she told him that God wanted him to run for president, but that he would have to pay a “price.”
Televangelist Paula White has known the former president for 22 years after he saw her on television, called her and brought her to Atlantic City for private Bible studies.
She is one of several religious advisers to Trump, including Robert Morris, who resigned as pastor at his megachurch this week after admitting to sexually abusing a 12-year-old girl in the 1980s.
White praised Trump in a speech at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority conference at the Washington Hilton on Friday.
Paula White praised Trump in a speech at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority conference at the Washington Hilton on Friday.
White claimed he told Trump that God wanted him to run for president, but there would be a ‘price’ to pay.
He said Trump told him in 2011 that he didn’t “like the way this country is going” and asked him what he thought of him running for president.
“And then he turned around and said, ‘Well, what does God say?'” he recalled.
White said he prayed with 30-something friends and then told Trump: ‘Lord… someday you will be president.’
And a tear ran down my eyes and I said, “I hate the price you’re going to pay.”
“Few of us would have imagined the price this man, his family and many of you – many of us – have paid.”
But White said he believed it was “worth it” because of the pro-religious laws Trump passed during his four years as president.
“I’m going to be president and you’re going to be faith director,” she said Trump told her in 2014 when she decided to run in the 2016 election.
“I’m not sure any of us knew what we were doing, but I know God was with us.”
White has known the former president for 22 years after he saw her on television, called her and brought her to Atlantic City for private Bible studies.
White led Trump’s evangelical advisory council during his campaign and delivered the invocation prayer during his inauguration.
She was later given an official job at the White House as an advisor to the Center for Faith and Opportunity Initiative.
White claimed on Friday that religious freedoms were being attacked “like never before” during Joe Biden’s presidency, and this was frightening because religious freedom was “the foundation upon which all our other freedoms rest.”
She then listed several incidents that she said constituted attacks on religious freedom.
“Something is wrong and we have to stop it and this November we will definitely make our voice heard,” he said of the upcoming election.
White added that people in the room would say, “Damn, we’ve had enough…this is an ideology that goes against God, against our faith and against our rights.”
White, senior pastor of City of Destiny Church in Apopka, Florida, has consistently supported Trump through his legal troubles.
White claimed Friday that religious liberties were under attack “like never before” during Joe Biden’s presidency.
She called his 34 felony convictions “a sad day for all Americans as we saw firsthand how the justice system was weaponized to persecute President Trump for political purposes.”
During his re-election campaign, he stated that “Christians who do not support President Trump will have to answer to God.”
After he lost the election, she repeatedly called for “angelic reinforcement” to reverse Trump’s defeat.
Weeks later, he delivered the opening prayer at a Trump rally that sparked the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
In early 2020, he declared: ‘We command that any satanic pregnancy be aborted right now!
‘We declare that anything that has been conceived in satanic wombs and aborts, will not be able to carry out any plan of destruction, any plan of harm.’
White is a controversial figure even among other religious conservatives for some of his beliefs and faced legal scrutiny over one of his churches.
White led Trump’s evangelical advisory council during his campaign and delivered the invocation prayer during his inauguration (pictured).
White speaks during a Donald Trump campaign event courting devout conservatives by combining praise, prayer and patriotism.
The Senate Finance Committee investigated his former megachurch, the International Church Without Walls, in 2007-2011 for alleged financial irregularities.
The investigative report found that the church raised $150 million in donations between 2004 and 2006 and spent nearly $900,000 in tax-exempt funds to help pay for White’s waterfront mansion.
Sin Muros also used the tax-free cash to pay salaries to his family members and for his private jet.
The church, which she founded with her then-husband Randy White, had 20,000 members at its peak, but starting in 2008 it fell on hard times.
Without Walls put its buildings in Tampa and Lakeland, Florida, up for sale, citing financial difficulties, but managed to stay afloat by selling part of its land.
Both buildings were again at risk of foreclosure in 2011, and services ceased after power was shut off for more than $50,000 in unpaid energy bills.
Ralph Reed, from right, Dr. Alveda King, Journey keyboardist Jonathan Cain and the president’s personal pastor Paula White Cain, and others pray on stage during a Donald Trump campaign event.
White left the church in January 2012 to go to City of Destiny Church, allegedly taking church equipment with him.
Without Walls went bankrupt in 2014 and the Evangelical Christian Credit Union claimed it was owed $29 million.
White in 2017 denied responsibility for the church’s bankruptcy, as he was already gone by that time.
“I have been called a heretic, an apostate, an adulterer, a charlatan and an addict,” he said in an interview with CNN.
‘It has been falsely reported that I once declared bankruptcy and that I deny the Trinity. My life and my decisions have not been anywhere near perfect, although nothing like what has been falsely broadcast in recent days.’
