Michele Bachmann Joins Trump's Evangelical Advisory Board
Tuesday, June 21, 2016 04:41 PM
By: Todd Beamon
Former Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann will serve on Donald Trump's Evangelical Advisory Executive Board.
Other members include James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family; Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr.; Richard Land, president of the Southern Evangelical Seminary; Faith and Freedom Coalition founder Ralph Reed, and Word of Faith founders Kenneth and Gloria Copeland, the campaign said Tuesday.
"I have such tremendous respect and admiration for this group and I look forward to continuing to talk about the issues important to evangelicals, and all Americans, and the common sense solutions I will implement when I am president," Trump said in a statement.
The board, according to the statement, will "provide advisory support to Mr. Trump on those issues important to evangelicals and other people of the faith in America."
Some of the board members were involved in organizing a meeting with Trump and evangelical leaders on Tuesday in New York.
Bachmann, the five-term Minnesota representative, was a 2012 Republican presidential candidate who ran on a tea party platform. She has not made any endorsement so far this season.
The statement said that none of the 23 board members was asked to endorse Trump and that the list instead reflected "Donald J. Trump's endorsement of those diverse issues important to evangelicals and other Christians, and his desire to have access to the wise counsel of such leaders as needed."
Here are the other board members:
A.R. Bernard, senior pastor and CEO, Christian Cultural Center, Brooklyn, N.Y.
Mark Burns, pastor, Harvest Praise and Worship Center, Denver, Colo.
Tim Clinton, president, American Association of Christian Counselors, Forest, Va.
Ronnie Floyd, senior pastor, Cross Church, Springdale, Ark.
Jentezen Franklin, senior pastor, Free Chapel, Gainesville, Ga.
Jack Graham, senior pastor, Prestonwood Baptist Church, Plano, Texas.
Harry Jackson, senior pastor, Hope Christian Church, Beltsville, Md.
Robert Jeffress, senior pastor, First Baptist Church of Dallas.
David Jeremiah, senior pastor, Shadow Mountain Community Church, El Cajon, Calif.
James MacDonald, founder and senior pastor, Harvest Bible Chapel, Rolling Meadows, Ill.
Johnnie Moore, author and president of the KAIROS Co., Glendale, Calif.
Robert Morris, senior pastor, Gateway Church, Southlake, Texas.
Tom Mullins, senior pastor, Christ Fellowship, Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.
James Robison, founder, Life OUTREACH International, Euless, Texas.
Tony Suarez, executive vice president, National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, Elk Grove, Calif.
Jay Strack, president, Student Leadership University, Orlando, Fla.
Paula White, senior pastor, New Destiny Christian Center, Apopka, Fla.
Tom Winters, attorney, Winters and King Inc., Tulsa, Okla.
Sealy Yates, attorney, Yates and Yates, Santa Ana, Calif.
http://www.newsmax.com/Politics/mich.../21/id/734946/
Trump appoints pro-amnesty pastor to evangelical advisory board
By GABBY MORRONGIELLO • 6/21/16 5:08 PM
Donald Trump has tapped 25 religious leaders to serve on his new evangelical advisory board, including a man who's championed the same executive actions on immigration that Trump has vowed to overturn.
Tony Suarez, a Virginia-based pastor who serves as executive vice president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, is one of two dozen executive board members of a religious committee unveiled by Trump on Tuesday.
He is also a steadfast supporter of the executive orders President Obama signed in 2014 to grant temporary legal status to millions of immigrants who came to the U.S. illegally and expand the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. At the time, Obama said his action would enable illegal immigrants to "come out of the shadows and get right with the law."
"I support President #Obama taking executive action regarding #immigration #reform," Suarez wrote on his personal blog in November 2014.
"Political grandstanding and partisan politics are to blame for the current crisis. Families continue to be divided and marriages torn apart while one party claims to uphold traditional family and marriage values," Suareza added, taking an indirect jab at congressional Republicans.
In January 2014, Suarez attended Obama's State of the Union address as the guest of Democratic Congressman Luis Gutierrez, who's been a vocal proponent of granting reprieve to illegal immigrants and has railed against Trump this election cycle for running the "ugliest, most xenophobic, most anti-immigrant campaign in anyone's memory."
Last November, Suarez took to Facebook to slam both Trump and the religious leaders supporting him.
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In a separate Facebook status posted months prior, Suarez claimed Trump was "putting on a clinic of how to NOT win the Latino vote or the White House." The post linked to video footage of a man telling Latino journalist Jorge Ramos to "get out of my country" during a press conference with Trump.
"His candidacy needs to end like his last reality television program. It needs to be canceled," Suarez told conservative Latinos at a gathering held hours before the October GOP primary debate in Boulder, Colo.
Trump has long advocated for building a 1,000-mile wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, ending birthright citizenship and deporting the 11 million immigrants currently residing in the country illegally.
In March, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee vowed to "overturn every single executive order that Obama has put in place," including his action on immigration, the legality of which is currently being reviewed by the Supreme Court.
Suarez and others were not required to endorse Trump before joining his evangelical advisory board, which includes prominent conservative Christians like former Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann and Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr.
However, in a statement released by his campaign, Trump said he had "such tremendous respect and admiration" for the board members of the advisory committee.
"I look forward to continuing to talk about the issues important to Evangelicals, and all Americans, and the common sense solutions I will implement when I am President," he said.
Trump has not previously met with Suarez, but delivered a two-minute video address to attendees of an NHCLC summit in California last month. Suarez did not return the Washington Examiner's request for comment.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/tr...rticle/2594519