Transcript
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Pastor Travis Johnson, it's great to have you back here on Charisma News.
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You had a very unique opportunity a couple days ago, and right now you're actually you've
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traveled to Washington, D.C. for a very special event.
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But this event that we're talking about was you got to meet with President Donald Trump
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in a small private gathering.
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You got to pray for him on stage in front of faith leaders.
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And I want to hear from you.
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What was this experience like for you?
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Well, you know, it's obviously a privilege to be with any type of leader that leads at
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a capacity as someone like Donald Trump.
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You know, not only an American leader, but any kind of world leader.
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It's very rare air.
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And so that's a wonderful thing.
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But then to be able to do that with an American former president and white, possibly, and
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hopefully, I believe I believe this is what will happen.
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I believe President Trump will serve his second term.
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But to do something like that in the context of Christian faith, which is so important,
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religious liberty, freedom, and to be able to have those discussions in a very unfiltered,
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both formal and informal ways was so really wonderful.
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And I would be making a big mistake not to also acknowledge that the God of all creation
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was in that room.
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And he was honored more than anyone else in the room.
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The presence of God was in the house.
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And that was wonderful.
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Yeah.
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You know, there was lots of people that were praying for President Trump or had different
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speeches beforehand.
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And you gave about a four minute speech there.
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I want to hear what that was about and what was your heart behind that message.
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But I also want to ask you a question with your with your interaction and understanding
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of President Trump and what you've heard about his faith.
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Do you believe that he is a Christian?
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So speaking to the first issue, as far as what I spoke about, you know, on my heart,
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there are a number of things and, you know, from life to gender indoctrination of our
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children, that being tied to federal funds, depriving resources of schools and organizations
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from being below function without hitting a certain level of approval on these agendas.
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Very concerning.
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It's very concerning.
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Life is concerning.
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At the bedrock of those concerns is freedom of speech.
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If we lose freedom of speech, we lose all of these issues.
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I mean, if if you are not able to freely speak, how can you contend for the lives of the unborn?
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How can you contend for your children?
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And so that was on my mind very much.
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And it's also been something that I've been a part of, you know, experiencing personally.
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There's no question that it has shaped how I approach my city and how I approach the
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work of ministry that we do.
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And you know, I feel like, John, that there there's been several decades now of us just
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really giving this very sort of palliative gospel.
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You know, my my dad died of cancer after a year and a half cancer battle.
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The doctor said, well, this can't be cured.
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We will be giving you palliative treatment.
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It's basically saying, we'll lay you down comfortably to die so you won't experience
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pain.
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It's very soft gospel.
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And the result may have been that we got some crowds, wasn't necessarily a larger church,
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but we failed to disciple an entire generation or two.
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And so my my real prayer for the American church right now is that we will stand and
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speak on the big moral and biblical issues that intersect with politics.
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That was my that was what I said.
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I said that David did not expect to get involved in politics when he brought food to the frontlines,
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but he got involved in his national affairs.
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And he showed that when we step forward, the giant will, in his case, will fall back.
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But when we'll step forward, the enemy will step back.
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And we have to stand and we have to speak for free speech, freedom of religion.
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We have to speak for life and against the gender indoctrination of the entire generation.
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And we've got to stand as Christian pastors.
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And if we will together stand, then the enemy will fall back.
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That's what was on my heart.
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And so it was a wonderful thing to share that I've traveled in every single battleground
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state to communicate that message.
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Now, when it comes to President Trump's faith, I know this is that he's very much interested
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in the freedoms of the American church and to people of all faith.
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It's very important.
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It's very important for Christians and all faiths to stand together that we have that
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freedom.
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And so that's on his mind.
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One of the things that he shared was that he was going to work against anti-Christian
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bias in our country.
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And it's there.
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It is there.
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You see it happening in school choice.
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You see it happening in a number of issues.
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Of course, Kelly Shackelford was there and he talked about some of the landmark.
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There were like four landmark legal decisions that went to came out of the Supreme Court.
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That was one of them that you could not discriminate against Christian parents who wanted to put
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their kids in Christian schools using vouchers from states and that sort of thing.
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So there was that.
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And he also mentioned that if he is elected, he would be opening a faith office in the
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White House that reports directly to him and that we would very much be right down in the
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middle of that.
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You know, I could characterize those conversations a little bit more.
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That was both on the platform is also backstage when he was meeting with probably about 25
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pastors or so.
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So what would that faith office look like in your estimation?
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What kind of things did he say behind those closed doors?
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Well, in the president Trump's first term, the National Faith Advisory Board, people
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like that, people of faith.
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Obviously, Paula White has been right down in the middle of that is her relationship
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with President Trump has, you know, been ongoing now for quite some time.
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And so that that first Trump administration brought through over 10,000 pastors to the
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White House.
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So, you know, it'd be a continuation of that.
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But it would be someone that reports directly to the president to hear the thoughts and
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the concerns, the initiatives of people of faith.
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And there are many, many, many.
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It's the largest voting group in America.
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It's the largest voting group.
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And so many of us are in one way or the other under pressure from our government.
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I think this is the thing.
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One overarching theme that was getting into these conversations is that many pastors don't
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want to get involved in politics.
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However, whether or not we want to get into involved in politics, politics will get involved
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in us and it will happen in the way of, you know, laws, policy, even zoning matters.
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So all of that would be on the agenda in the White House.
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Yes.
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So is what was faith?
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Yes.
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Yes.
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Did you want to talk about his faith?
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Yeah.
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So I know he talked about his Sunday school.
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He talked about his mother's faith.
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You see some glimpses here and there, but obviously not using the vernacular that we
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as believers would prefer, but tell me about your understanding of that.
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Yeah.
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I mean, some of that, some of that vernacular is there, you know, he's some of it is familiar
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to to my background and then some of it is not, you know, some of it is, you know, he's
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also from New York.
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I was born in North Carolina.
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I grew up in Miami.
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I have the distinct privilege of pastoring the most incredible church in Mobile, Alabama.
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We have campuses across the Gulf Coast.
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And you know, the language in all of those places is different.
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You know, in Miami, rather than saying, are you Catholic or Protestant?
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People would people would say Latinos would say, are you Catholic or Christian?
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But you know, so that language is different.
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Well, he's a New Yorker.
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He's a he's a contractor.
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He's a builder.
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He's a developer.
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And so, you know, that that shapes that.
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And so that's very much there in his conversation.
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He talks about religion.
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He talks about Christianity.
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He talks about faith and and he uses it in Trump, ask language, you know, and he also
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would describe struggles that he has.
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You know, of course, he talks about how Franklin Graham kind of gave him a hard time about
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his language.
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Yeah, it's good.
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It gets better every time he says it.
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Actually, you know, this is like a little embellishments here and there and is a great
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storyteller.
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You know, it's what makes him very effective in so many ways.
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But here's what I believe that he is very much conscious, conscious of faith, conscious
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of the Lord.
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He openly declares that Jesus is king and Jesus is welcome in his rallies and in his
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administration.
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There's no question about that.
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There's no question that the assassination attempt.
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It was like a marked difference.
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You know, I was at the RNC at the convention in Milwaukee.
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I was sitting about three rows behind President Trump.
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That was a different Donald Trump that I saw.
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I mean, not not on a fundamental level.
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I mean, he was still who he was.
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But his temperament, it was all different.
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He's very calm.
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He's affable.
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He's, you know, personally, he's very easy to engage with, easy to talk to.
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And that temperature, I'm not saying it's down.
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I mean, I don't think there's any I think it's terrible thought that in the church,
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there's some idea that Christian have to be Christian men have to be lesser men, less
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masculine.
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No, I mean, the strong he's a strong figure.
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But there is a real tenderness that President Trump.
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I'll tell you a story really quickly.
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Yes, I was in I was in Bedminster the night that he was arrested in D.C. and we met with
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him right after after that event.
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And before he walked in, he had stopped just outside the doorway.
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There's no door.
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And I'm sitting on the corner of the table, kind of where I was in the pictures backstage.
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Backstage I was sitting next to Eric Metaxas, Ralph Reed and then Mark and Grace Driscoll.
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We were all kind of right there in that corner.
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And so I was at the corner like that right by the door.
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And President Trump walked up and he stood and had a conversation for like five minutes
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with one of the servers there at Bedminster and was asking this very quietly how their
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family was and how the woman's children were.
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If she was enjoying working, is everything going well?
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He was very much interested in her person.
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Because you just get to see a different picture than what's happening on on that stage.
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And it is very, very human.
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And it's it's amiable really draws you and he does a great job of that.
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Yeah.
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Now, you sent me a picture and I'm putting it up on the screen here.
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But you're talking directly to the president there.
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Can you tell us what you said and maybe what he said, if that's OK?
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Well, I mean, there was some there was something there was.
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There was a conversation that took place on that stage.
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I was a part of the conversation.
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It was with the president.
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It was about spirituality.
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It was about next steps.
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It was awesome.
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Yeah, it was.
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It was wonderful.
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There was some of that.
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I don't see.
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I feel like it would be right for me, for me necessarily to necessarily to disclose
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it.
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But, you know, somebody else can do that.
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Sure.
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But it was it was really wonderful.
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It was wonderful.
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And I know that the men and women on that stage are praying for him.
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And, you know, as far as that goes, you know, I'm praying for Kamala Harris.
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You know, I had the privilege of praying for President Trump the night before his debate
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with President Joe Biden.
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And you know, I prayed for President Biden that night as well with the you know, in that
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in that moment.
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And you know, those invitations also, when we have meetings like this, there there were
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invitations sent out to the other candidates as well.
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And, you know, that's not just something that National Faith Advisory Board would do.
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But that's something that all Christians should do where Paul instructs us to pray for our
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leaders.
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And that's that's not just a thing we should do.
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This is instruction from the scriptures.
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And it's a real privilege.
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I will say in America, our leaders are also us because our government, we don't have a
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king and our constitution lays out that our leadership is we the people.
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And so while I pray for President Trump and I pray for Joe Biden, President Biden, I also
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pray for the American people.
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And I especially pray for Christians who are our leaders, as well citizens who are leaders,
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that we would all do our jobs and we would go vote.
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It would be a terrible dereliction of duty if we didn't show up and vote.
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Some of the greatest the greatest decision that we'll make is who's going to lead our
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country when it comes to politics and our government.
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So yeah, that was that was an enjoyable time.
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And I'm especially appreciative for the President Trump would consistently consistently take
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so much time with the church, with evangelical pastors and to come and be in moments like
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that, both speaking and being spoken to and having conversation.
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Pastor Travis, thank you so much for taking the time out of your busy schedule.
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I know you you literally just landed and you're now in Washington, D.C. to do something at
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the Museum of the Bible.
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And that's really cool.
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We can maybe talk about that at another time.
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But thank you so much for taking the time to share with us from this kind of is behind
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the scenes inside look into President Donald Trump's faith from your perspective there
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and for giving us some pointers on how we can be praying as well.
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Thank you so much for joining us here today.
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Thank you, John.
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I appreciate it.