Donald Trump has posted a heartfelt tribute to disgraced TV preacher Reverend Jimmy Swaggart.
Swaggart’s family announced the death of the televangelist on Tuesday, aged 90, two weeks after suffering a heart attack.
On his Truth Social account, Trump wrote, “Very sad, Jimmy Swaggart passed away today! He was an incredible Man of Faith and, as our Nation’s longest serving Televangelist, inspired millions with his Great Love of God and Country.”
The president added, “Our hearts and prayers are with his wonderful wife Frances, his son Donnie, and their entire family. Jimmy will be deeply missed!”
In October last year, Trump gave Jimmy and his son Donnie a shout out at a Faith Summit held by the National Faith Advisory Board. “I love Jimmy, ”Trump said. “I don’t even know if he likes me, but I think he does.”
Jimmy Swaggart started his career making Christian music, inspired by his cousin, rock pioneer Jerry Lee Lewis. He began a radio ministry in the early 1970s, before transitioning to Christian-based television shows which helped him build an empire. By 1986, Jimmy Swaggart Ministries had made an estimated $142 million.
Swaggart was defrocked by the Assemblies of God, the world’s largest Pentecostal group, in 1988, after he was photographed at a New Orleans hotel with a sex worker.
That year, Swaggart appeared on live TV in tears. While he did not mention his indiscretion in detail, he told the audience, “I have sinned against you, my Lord, and I would ask that Your Precious Blood … would wash and cleanse every stain until it is in the seas of God’s forgetfulness never to be remembered against me anymore.”
In 1991, Swaggart was pulled over by police in California after driving on the wrong side of the road. He was in the car with a sex worker called Rosemary Garcia. The preacher stepped down as head of his ministry temporarily for “a time of healing and counseling.”
Swaggart made news in 2004 after telling his congregation about a time he was “looked at” by a gay man.
“And I’m going to be blunt and plain: If one ever looks at me like that, I’m going to kill him and tell God he died,” Swaggart said, before later apologizing.
His son Donnie took control of Jimmy Swaggart Ministries, Inc. after the scandals.
Last year, at the Family Worship Center, Pastor Donnie Swaggart told the congregation he was “100 percent biased” towards Trump getting re-elected.
The pastor said, “Ladies and gentlemen, we are in a fight for the unborn. We are in a fight to protect the untold numbers of minors, young boys and girls, whose minds have been corrupted and made to believe they were born in the wrong gender. We’re in a fight to stop doctors from mutilating their bodies.”
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