White House hopeful Pete Buttigieg raised doubts about President Trump’s belief in God during an interview published Wednesday.
The South Bend, Indiana, mayor discussed Mr. Trump’s faith during a recent conversation with USA Today.
“I’m reluctant to comment on another person’s faith, but I would say it is hard to look at this president’s actions and believe that they’re the actions of somebody who believes in God,” Mr. Buttigieg told the newspaper. “I just don’t understand how you can be as worshipful of your own self as he is and be prepared to humble yourself before God.
“I’ve never seen him humble himself before anyone,” he said. “And the exaltation of yourself, especially a self that’s about wealth and power, could not be more at odds with at least my understanding of the teachings of the Christian faith.”
Mr. Buttigieg, one of more than a dozen candidate currently competing for the Democratic nomination to run against Mr. Trump in 2020, has frequently discussed his Episcopalian faith on the campaign trail since entering the race earlier this year.
“The important thing is to recognize God doesn’t belong to a political party,” Mr. Buttigieg said on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” last month. “When I go to church, what I hear a lot about is protecting the downtrodden, and standing up for the immigrant, and being skeptical of authority sometimes and making sure you look after the poor and the prisoner. I mean, to me that that’s the sort of thing that the religious left, often without much attention, has been arguing for my whole lifetime.
“So whether we’re talking about faith, whether it’s freedom, whether it’s patriotism, I think we need to assert that often those very values can point us in our progressive direction and that no party ought to have a monopoly on them,” he said.
Mr. Trump described himself in 2015 as a Presbyterian Protestant.
“If I do something wrong, I think, I just try and make it right. I don’t bring God into that picture. I don’t,” Mr. Trump said in 2016.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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