This post was originally published on this site
President Trump is not one to turn the other cheek.
The influential Evangelical magazine Christianity Today, which was founded in 1956 by Rev. Billy Graham, published an editorial on Thursday penned by editor-in-chief Mark Galli and calling for the president’s removal over what it described as his “immoral words and behavior” in seeking the Ukrainian government’s assistance “to harass and discredit” Democratic rival Joe Biden, which became the basis of Trump’s impeachment.
Trump responded over Twitter TWTR, +0.27% on Friday morning, blasting the magazine, which he said “has been doing poorly and hasn’t been involved with the Billy Graham family for many years,” as biased against him and lacking any grasp of his contested phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“Christianity Today, knows nothing about reading a perfect transcript of a routine phone call,” read Trump’s tweet, accusing what he called “a far left magazine” of preferring to have a “Radical Left nonbeliever” out to take away religion and guns as the commander-in-chief over Trump himself.
The pair of presidential tweets quickly racked up more than 40,000 likes and 10,000 retweets apiece before noon on Friday. He drew praise from supporters, with one comment reading, “Keep fighting Mr. President. We are all with you,” drawing 2,000 likes.
Trump’s backers included the late Graham’s son, Franklin Graham, who wrote in a Facebook FB, +0.21% post on Friday morning that it was “unfathomable” to him that the publication his evangelist father had founded would support Trump’s impeachment.
“For Christianity Today to side with the Democrat Party in a totally partisan attack on the President of the United States is unfathomable,” he wrote, adding his view that his father would be “very disappointed” by the opinion piece.
“My father knew Donald Trump, he believed in Donald Trump, and he voted for Donald Trump. He believed that Donald J. Trump was the man for this hour in history for our nation,” he added.
Critics, on the other hand, not only sided with Christianity Today’s take, but noted that it is far from a “far left” publication.
But Trump’s kicker got the most attention, as he wrote, “I won’t be reading ET again!” It was assumed that he was abbreviating Christianity Today and committed a typo. But Twitter ran amok, and “ET” — interpreted as referring both to the beloved Steven Spielberg alien and the CBS-owned “Entertainment Tonight” program — was a top Twitter trend on Friday morning.
By Friday afternoon, the Illinois-based Christian magazine’s editorial director, Ted Olsen, was sharing excerpts of letters to the editor the publication has received in the wake of the editorial and requesting prayers for some of the letter writers.
“Reading them this morning has been brutal,” he said.
