Cliff Sims, the 'Team of Vipers,' and His Views of the President's Faith Advisors (part 2)

By amazon Thursday, February 7, 2019 Comment Edit

"Proximity to power does strange things even to pastors and ministers."

Ed: In the Atlantic article, you were critical of the President's faith advisors. (In full disclosure, I was actually asked to be on that faith advisory council and declined.) From the outside, it’s hard to gauge their impact, though I have several friends in that group and they tell me they are being heard. What would you say?

Cliff: Well, first of all I think it's important to understand how these people came into Trump's orbit.

For Trump, TV is the be all and end all. So, if you're on TV, you're at the top of your field. Whether it's in business and entertainment. That’s why he had The Apprentice. Or in politics, if you were the best and the brightest reporter, you'd be on TV every day. For him, that same principle, I think, applied to the faith space.

When he sees someone like Paula White on TV, he says to himself, "These speakers must be the best. These must be the people that are at the top of their field." That's kind of how he appointed people to these positions. It wasn't like he agreed with a pastor’s doctrine or anything like that—I don't think there was much more to the decision than him seeing the individuals on TV.

There’s a story that I tell in the book that really stuck out to me very early on in the White House and made me realize that proximity to power does strange things even to pastors and ministers. When we were trying to plan the first prayer breakfast, Sarah Sanders and I were working together to organize speakers, and I wanted David Platt to come and speak at it.

I talked to David about it, and I don't think he would mind me saying that he was conflicted about that decision. I think one of the reasons for this hesitation ...