Televangelist Pat Robertson says it’s time for Trump to accept Biden’s win and ‘move on’
Pat Robertson #PatRobertson
Televangelist Pat Robertson, one of President Trump’s staunchest backers, on Monday described Trump as “very erratic,” called on him to accept that President-elect Joe Biden won and said the Republican should not consider running again in 2024.
The comments marked a sharp turnaround for Robertson, who recently voiced support for Trump’s false claims of widespread voter fraud and declared before the election that God had told him Trump was going to win.
“I think it’s a sideshow,” Robertson said Monday on his television show, “The 700 Club,” when asked whether he thinks Trump should run again in 2024. “I think it would be a mistake. My money would be on [former United Nations ambassador] Nikki Haley; I think she’d make a tremendous candidate for the Republican Party.”
Trump has refused to concede after losing to Biden on Nov. 3 and has redoubled efforts to overturn the election results even after the electoral college affirmed the Democrat’s win with 306 electoral votes. The president also has hinted that he may run again in four years.
[A frustrated Trump redoubles efforts to overturn election result]
Robertson said that Trump has “done a marvelous job for the economy, but at the same time he is very erratic, and he’s fired people and he’s fought people and he’s insulted people and he keeps going down the line.”
“And so, it’s a mixed bag,” he said. “And I think it would be well to say, ‘You’ve had your day and it’s time to move on.’ ”
Robertson helped spur the rise of the religious right in the 1980s and 1990s and has been influential among religious conservatives for decades. He is widely known for making controversial remarks on his show and predicting God’s judgment. In early 2017, after Trump’s administration began, Robertson suggested that those who were revolting against the president were revolting against God.
Chris Roslan, a spokesman for the Christian Broadcasting Network, estimated that about a million people watch the 700 Club across the network’s platforms.
Robertson, a onetime GOP presidential candidate, has been generally supportive of Trump during his administration, although he criticized the president this past summer for his “law and order” response to the nationwide unrest following the killing of George Floyd in the custody of Minneapolis police.
On Monday’s show, Robertson also offered some personal criticisms of Trump, describing the president as “very erratic” and taking aim at his penchant for falsehoods.
“You know, with all his talent and the ability to be able to raise money and grow large crowds, the president still lives in an alternate reality,” Robertson said. “He really does. People say, ‘Well, he lies about this, that and the other.’ But no, he isn’t lying; to him, that’s the truth.”
Robertson then mentioned several of Trump’s false claims: “He had the biggest crowd on Inauguration Day. He had more people than ever. He was the most popular of people — he saved NBC with ‘The Apprentice.’ ”
“You go down the line of things that really aren’t true,” Robertson continued. “And, you know, people kept pointing to them, but because they loved him so much and he was so strong for the evangelicals — the evangelicals were with him all the way — but there was something about him that was good, that God placed him in that office for the time.”
sarah.bailey@washpost.com
