Episcopal Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde said on Wednesday that she had not politicized her remarks during the inaugural prayer service one day prior, instead claiming that everyone else had politicized what she said.
Budde, who used the prayer service and her position at the pulpit to effectively scold President Donald Trump and other Republicans for failing to embrace and “show mercy” to transgender-identifying people and illegal aliens, appeared on ABC’s “The View” to defend her remarks.
Ana Navarro, after lavishing praise on the “very demure and very mindful” bishop, asked Budde whether she believed her message — which she claimed was about “unity” — had gotten through to any of the members of the incoming Trump administration.
“Do you think it sunk in even a little bit?” she asked.
Budde said she had given up on looking for signs from congregants that might indicate they’d taken a message to heart.
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“How could it not be politicized? We’re in a hyper political climate…I was trying to speak a truth that I felt needed to be said, but to do it as respectful and kind a way as I could.”
Woke Bishop Mariann Budde defends herself on @TheView pic.twitter.com/p2ctiM5qJc
— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) January 22, 2025
Cohost Sara Haines complained about Trump’s response to the service, which he initially panned as “not very good,” claiming that it was the people who disagreed with a bishop using the pulpit to promote a political message who were injecting politics into the situation.
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“Do you think your message is being misconstrued and politicized?” Haines asked, laying out the argument for Budde.
“How could it not be politicized, right? We’re in a hyper-political climate,” Budde agreed, going on to chalk up any objections to her remarks to “the culture of contempt in which we live that immediately rushes to the worst possible interpretations of what people are saying and to put them in categories.”
“That’s part of the air we breathe now,” she continued. “I was trying to speak a truth that I felt needed to be said but to do it in as respectful and kind a way as I could, and also to bring other voices to the conversation which — voices that had not been heard in the public space for some time.”
