Trump’s evangelical advisers sticking with him amid fallout

NEW YORK » One of President Donald Trump’s most steadfast constituencies has been standing by him amid his defense of a white nationalist rally in Virginia, even as business leaders, artists and Republicans turn away.

No member of Trump’s evangelical advisory council has quit, unlike those from other fields who have resigned from their own presidential boards.

Trump’s evangelical council members have strongly condemned the bigotry behind the Charlottesville march by white nationalists and neo-Nazis over the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. But regarding Trump, they have offered either praise for his response or gentle critiques couched within complaints about how he has been treated by his critics and the media.

Like other presidents before him, Trump has turned to religious leaders for counsel and support. Trump’s evangelical advisers include pastors who had worked with his campaign, and now pray with him and consult with his staff on issues ranging from religious liberty in the U.S. to the persecution of Christian minority populations in the Middle East.

Jerry Falwell Jr., president of Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, and an early backer of Trump, said the president had made a “bold truthful statement” about the demonstration.

Falwell said the president’s remarks were a clear repudiation of white supremacists, Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan.

Johnnie Moore, a public relations executive, faith adviser to the president and a spokesman for several of the evangelical council members, said, “The president is certainly guilty of being insensitive,” but that the media and critics of the president have ignored his other comments rejecting white supremacy and antiSemitism.

Jack Graham, a Texas pastor and former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, signaled he planned to stay on as an adviser. The role of faith advisers “is to prayerfully advise & advance Christian issues to the Administration,” Graham tweeted.