The Right Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, whose appeal to President Donald Trump for mercy in her sermon at a national prayer service earlier this week caused a stir, said she will not apologize despite Trump’s criticism.
“I don’t hate the president, and I pray for him,” Budde told NPR in an interview Wednesday. “I don’t feel there’s a need to apologize for a request for mercy.”
Budde, the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, addressed Trump directly during Tuesday’s prayer service at Washington National Cathedral, asking him to “have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now,” specifically citing LGBTQ people and undocumented immigrants.
Budde’s remarks drew plenty of praise — but also harsh criticism from Republicans and from Trump himself.
Budde’s remarks drew plenty of praise — but also harsh criticism from Republicans and from Trump himself. The president soon lashed out at Budde, calling her a “Radical Left hard line Trump hater” in a post on Truth Social, and accused her of having “brought her church into the World of politics in a very ungracious way.” In an interview with Fox News, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Budde should apologize to Trump, calling the remarks “egregious.”
Budde told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Wednesday that her sermon had been intended “to appeal to what we know to be true about our immigrant neighbors, who they are, the kind of people that we’re blessed to be among, and to remember them in our understanding of what it means to be America.”
Budde told NPR that she regrets the angry reaction to her sermon, but said she stood by her remarks.
“I regret that it was something that has caused the kind of response that it has, in the sense that it actually confirmed the very thing that I was speaking of earlier, which is our tendency to jump to outrage and not speak to one another with respect,” she said. “But no, I won’t — I won’t apologize for what I said.”
