Dumps’ Robert Jeffres, pro-Trump evangelical rhetorician, calls Biden ‘president-elect’, but says he is not official

Updated at 12:20 pm with Jeffress comments.

WASHINGTON – One of President Donald Trump’s top evangelical Christian allies, Dallas Pastor Robert Jeffers, has broken down over the president’s refusal to accept defeat, and Democrat J. Biden has been elected president and fellow Trump supporters should advise on how to accept development. Is.

Biden’s victory is a “bitter pill to swallow,” Jeffreys wrote in a column published online by Fox News, where he is a frequent commentator. “It’s always been easy to submit and pray for someone when he was our favorite candidate. But rubber really gets in the way when the person who takes the office fee is not the one we supported. Here is our chance to show that Christians are not hypocrites. ”

Jeffreys’ stance could be a bitter pill for the president himself, who has insisted he will win the election once fraud and deception are exposed.

First Baptist, a senior pastor in Dallas, one of the largest megachurches in Texas, was one of Trump’s earliest and most visible staunch Christian supporters in the 2016 campaign.

Arriving by phone on Wednesday, Jeffers insisted that “I am not saying this election in any way,” although he acknowledged that Biden’s victory was a “possible outcome.”

The Associated Press and TV networks, called Pennsylvania, and after contesting Biden’s election on Saturday morning, Fox News wrote to him about how Christians should react to President Biden. The column began with that support, but emphasizing it did not mean it was agreed, Jeffres said, although the column carried a more declarative headline for three days:

Pastor Robert Jeffers: Biden is President-elect – How should Christians react? Below that, he asks: What is God doing in this result? Why would he let this happen?

“I did not choose the title. That was Fox’s headline, “said Jeffreys.

However, he does not accept Trump’s claim that the election was rigged, and that there has been massive fraud and deception to manipulate the outcome.

“I don’t tend to be an election expert,” he said by phone. “I am confident that if this type of fraud occurs, it will be exposed.”

Jeffreys makes frequent visits to the White House. He was a VIP guest when the United States opened its embassy in Jerusalem, and Trump’s fiercest defender during the impeachment, warning that Democrats would spread “civil war-like fractures” if they acted.

On Good Friday, Trump called him “a horrible guy, a horrible man,” when he announced that he would see the Easter service that would lead Jeffreys to Dallas, giving church attendance bad advice at that stage of the epidemic.

Evidence of fraud and deception has not come out, although it has not stopped Trump and his campaign from accusing the election of being rigged.

On Wednesday morning, for example, the Trump campaign was still presenting a pile of donations claiming: “We can’t steal this election from the Democrats.”

Due to the epidemic and widespread use of mail ballots, election officials in each state have categorically denied the allegations.

Trump trailed Biden by more than 5 million votes, and Democrats won a landslide victory in the Electoral College.

“I understand – looking at him, it looks like he has won,” Jeffreys said by phone on Wednesday, “I have said in public – I have said on Fox News – that I think there is only one way for us to unite. In our country. Not only do people respect the right to vote in elections, but they have the right to fight, and President Trump has every right to fight this election. “

He said, ‘He’s‘ if he becomes president ’and until we find out I won’t assume until December 14 when the elect oral real college lege is met,” he said.

In his column, Jeffer advised the apostle Paul to submit to legal civil authority, as in 1 Timothy 2: 1-2, when he vowed to pray “for all peoples, kings and all those in high positions.”

He said, “Paul did not give us any wiggle room – his order applies, even if the emperor was faith-friendly Constantine or the evil emperor Nero,” adding that “if President Biden succeeds, we will all succeed.” . God bless Jay Biden, and God bless the United States. “

None of which means that Jeffres Biden is without a shield about the administration.

On Wednesday, he criticized Biden for pledging to overturn Trump’s executive order on abortion and religious freedom.

He has not spoken to Trump since election day, although Vice President Mike Pence called him two days later, “just to investigate.”

“At the time, the vice president was very clear that it was not over in his mind, although there are still counts to be done. He was even more optimistic, “Jeffers said.

Evangelical activists rallied around Trump over his policies and his promise, which he completed in a few months to the degree he envisioned, tilting federal courts to the right. With the confirmation of Justice Amy Connie Barrett last month, he has named a third of the 9-member Supreme Court.

So on the right side despair is inherent.

“I think most people are well-intentioned,” Jeffres said. “They want the best for our country. And I think Christians want to hope for the best with a new president, but clearly I think if Biden makes the wrong move, he really wants to work with all Americans. I mean an immediate attack on issues of religious freedom and protection of the unborn. I don’t think that’s the kind of thing you do if you’re really interested in working with groups that don’t believe like you. “