Did Donald Trump Discover Religion in 2011?

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Here is Donald Trump on religion in a 2011 interview:

“I believe in God. I am Christian. I think The Bible is certainly, it is THE book,’ Trump told CBN’s David Brody.

….When asked by Brody about whether he keeps a lot of Bibles, Trump said, “Well I get sent Bibles by a lot of people… we keep them at a certain place. A very nice place. But people send me Bibles. And you know, it’s very interesting. I get so much mail, and because I’m in this incredible location in Manhattan, you can’t keep most of the mail you get.

I put this up for two reasons. First, Trump’s claim that he puts all the Bibles he receives in “a very nice place” is pretty amusing. I’d like to see this Taj Mahal of Bible storage! Second, it’s the earliest reference I can find to Trump talking about religion.

I don’t have access to a good news database, so I can’t really say for sure that Trump never displayed any religious tendencies before this. I can say that even though he’s a Presbyterian, he got married in 2005 in an Episcopalian church. And when his daughter Ivanka converted to Judaism, he apparently had no problem with it. That’s not much, but it’s all I’ve got.

So what’s the deal with Trump and religion? He seems to have discovered it pretty conveniently during his slow-but-steady conversion process into a viable Republican presidential candidate, but maybe not. Maybe he’s been a regular churchgoer all along. Does anyone know?

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

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DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do things differently in the aftermath of a political crisis: Watergate. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after, and go deep on, stories others don’t. And we’re a nonprofit newsroom because we knew corporations and billionaires would never fund the journalism we do. Our reporting makes a difference in policies and people’s lives changed.

And we need your support like never before to vigorously fight back against the existential threats American democracy and journalism face. We’re running behind our online fundraising targets and urgently need all hands on deck right now. We can’t afford to come up short—we have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

Please help with a donation today if you can—even just a few bucks helps. Not ready to donate but interested in our work? Sign up for our Daily newsletter to stay well-informed—and see what makes our people-powered, not profit-driven, journalism special.

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