Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde called on President Trump to have mercy on transgender children and immigrant families at a National Cathedral prayer service for the inauguration Tuesday, which went viral and prompted the president to call her “nasty in tone” and “not compelling or smart.”
“I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared. There are gay, lesbian, transgender children, Democratic, Republican, independent families — some who fear for their lives,” Budde said.
She went on to ask for Trump’s mercy toward immigrants and their families, saying the vast majority of them are “not criminals” but rather “good neighbors.”
Trump and Vice President JD Vance mostly stared ahead as Budde spoke, but after the ceremony, Trump told reporters he didn’t think it was a “good service” and Wednesday morning he went after the bishop in a Truth Social post.
“The so-called Bishop who spoke at the National Prayer Service on Tuesday morning was a Radical Left hard line Trump hater. She brought her church into the World of politics in a very ungracious way. She was nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart,” Trump wrote about Budde.
Budde currently serves as the spiritual leader of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, the first woman to hold this position. She has led the diocese since 2011.
Before her election to the diocese, she was the rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Minneapolis, where she spent 18 years.
Buddle, 65, holds a masters in Divinity and Doctor of Ministry from Virginia Theological Seminary.
According to Episcopal Diocese of Washington’s website, Budde is “an advocate and organizer in support of justice concerns, including racial equity, gun violence prevention, immigration reform, the full inclusion of LGBTQ+ persons, and the care of creation.”
This is not the first time the bishop has been critical of Trump.
In 2020, she wrote an opinion piece in The New York Times criticizing the use of tear gas against protesters for racial justice in Lafayette Square. She said she was “outraged” and “horrified” that Trump used the Bible, which he held outside St. John’s Church following the violence at the protest against Goerge Floyd’s killing.
She accused Trump of using “sacred symbols” while “espousing positions antithetical to the Bible.”
Trump has denied that tear gas was used against the protestors.
“Scripture is clear: Justice, which is the societal expression of love, matters most to God. Justice is also what is most important to those who are exercising their right to peaceful protest,” Budde wrote in the 2020 op-ed.
Explaining why she was speaking out, Budde wrote, “There are times when taking a side, and a stand, is precisely what’s needed from people of faith.”
Budde told CNN’s Erin Burnett Tuesday that she wanted her plea to remind Trump and her audience that “frightened” transgender people and immigrants are “our fellow human beings”
“I wanted to counter, as gently as I could, with a reminder of their humanity and their place in our wider community,” she said. “I was speaking to the president because I felt that he has this moment now where he feels charged and empowered to do what he feels called to do. And I wanted to say there is room for mercy.”
