In an early morning smackdown, former Pennsyvania Republican senator Rick Santorum got owned by CNN’s Chris Cuomo, who quoted the Bible to argue that President Donald Trump’s version of morality doesn’t match Christian teachings.
Earlier in the morning, co-host Alisyn Camerota interviewed a pastor who wrote a book justifying the Christian community’s continuing support for Trump despite his questionable morals.
Santorum argued that everyone makes mistakes and that part of Christianity is learning from those mistakes and working to become a better person. Cuomo noted, however, that Trump has not done that. The president has had multiple affairs in his life, has been married three times and has been accused of rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment. Most recently, Trump been accused of having affairs with adult film stars and nude models just after his wife gave birth to his son.
Santorum essentially confessed that Trump’s morality doesn’t matter in the face of what he does for right-wing Christians through legislation.
“As a Catholic, you know, we have confession,” Santorum explained. (Trump is not Catholic and does not go to confession.) “The question is: But how do they behave on the issues that we've elected them to deal with?”
Cuomo called out Santorum on his hypocrisy and that of the Christian right when it comes to President Bill Clinton.
“You were in there during the Clinton years,” Cuomo said. “This was not what was being said by this voting bloc then This was not what was being said by you back then. You'll remember you called for Clinton to resign, because he was going to be impeached and [Monica] Lewinsky was too big a cloud over everything. So, when it suits the politics, the piety is great. And when it doesn’t suit the politics, the piety is easily excused. And that is hypocrisy.”
Santorum tried to say it was the case for both sides.
“Let’s just talk about this side,” Cuomo returned. “They have made this their currency, ‘This is why they are better than I am.’ Because their faith comes first, Rick. Where is it now?”
Santorum disagreed and attacked the #MeToo movement for not attacking Bill Clinton.
Clinton, however, is no longer an elected official. The #MeToo movement didn’t begin until 20 years after he'd left office.
“Let’s just be honest about all of this,” Santorum continued, promising that he was not an apologist for Trump. “You’re right. The politics seem to trump everything these days. Unfortunately, that is the case.”
Cuomo demanded to know why Santorum refused to attack Trump the way he attacked Clinton in the 1990s.
Santorum tried to claim that Clinton's impeachment "was not about his affairs, it was actually about him lying under oath… I was there. And the reality was that when the president breaks a law, that’s a big deal.”
“But still, character either counts or it doesn’t,” Cuomo continued, hammering the evangelical community’s hypocrisy.
“With people who say they put faith first, character has to count,” Cuomo said. “It always has. We've heard it time and time again. And now all of a sudden, everything is forgivable. They liken Donald Trump to King David. Do you think that's a good analogy?”
Santorum agreed, saying that King David was a flawed man. That’s when Cuomo brought the Bible into play.
“What else did King David do that made him acceptable to Christians, and it was a fundamental aspect of the story in the Bible?” Cuomo asked rhetorically. “Psalm 51... That was fundamental to the forgiveness. It was fundamental to the acceptance of what he was as flawed because he knew it, and he begged forgiveness and promised to live his life differently going forward. It's in the Bible story because it's fundamental to the reckoning of why you're okay with it. And we see none of that here.”
Santorum argued that evangelicals believe contrition has to be made to God, not to man. He said he doesn’t know if Trump has asked for forgiveness from God, confessed his sins or promised to lead a better life and be a better man.
“Isn’t that convenient?” Cuomo said. “They judge things that are between man and God all the time when it suits them. ... If you put a D [for Democrat] next to his name instead of an R, there would have been a lot of loud and proud talking about it,” Cuomo said.
One Christian writer noted last month that, “the devil is delighted” to see evangelicals defending Trump and the GOP at all costs.
Watch the full interview below:
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News Today: CNN's Chris Cuomo Quotes the Bible to Shame Rick Santorum's 'Hypocrisy' on Trump's Immorality
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