MSNBC Host Joe Scarborough Questions Trump's Christianity
Donald Trump's Christianity was put under scrutiny once again, this time by a TV news anchor. The snide remark was made by MSNBC's Joe Scarborough at his program "Morning Joe" while he and co-host Mika Brzezinski talked about the president's private audience with Pope Francis.
Before going on a break, Brzezinski showed viewers the segment up ahead, featuring the meeting between Trump and Pope Francis. "They didn't actually see eye to eye during the presidential campaign, so what happened during Donald Trump's meeting today with Pope Francis?" she said.
Seconds before cutting to commercial break, Scarborough quipped "Well, the pope's a Christian," which was heard by viewers. The anchorman used to be a Republican congressman and a friend of the president, but the two had a falling out after he wrote during the campaign that Trump lacked the "fundamentals" to win a general election.
Scarborough's remark on Trump's Christianity was an apparent reference to Pope Francis' comment last year that the president was not a Christian for his plan to build a wall at the Mexican border. "A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not of building bridges, is not Christian," the Pope said that time.
Despite the jabs on his faith, Trump is the first sitting president to visit holy sites of three major religions in a week. He kicked off his Middle East trip by meeting Muslim leaders in Saudi Arabia. He then proceeded to Jerusalem where he became the first incumbent president to pray at the Western Wall. He also dropped by the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
In Rome, Trump and Pope Francis traded presents after their half-hour private meeting. The president handed the pontiff a set of first edition books by Martin Luther King Jr. In turn, the Holy Father gifted the president a peace emblem in the form of a large medal shaped into an olive tree.