During a FlashPoint interview that aired September 10, former President Donald Trump suggested to program host Gene Bailey that “God saved me” from an assassination attempt during a presidential campaign rally “because he wants me to save this country for you and for people that think like we do.” Bailey responded later by praying that God would “motivate the American people to get out and vote.” This was at least Trump’s seventh interview on FlashPoint or during the show's affiliated live events between September 2021 and September 2024.
Bailey is a right-wing pastor at Trump ally Kenneth Copeland’s Eagle Mountain Church and is the host of Victory Channel’s FlashPoint, a right-wing program that pledges to provide “commentary on current issues from a conservative and prophetic viewpoint.” Bailey, who has called the separation of church and state “a lie,” described his political agenda for the program at a FlashPoint Live event last year, declaring: “We do have an agenda, and that is I am a Christo-fascist, Christian nationalist.” Other right-wing “prophets” and personalities on the show have pushed extreme rhetoric, including prophesying natural disasters in response to Trump’s criminal indictments, suggesting that Trump is anointed and that God will kill his opponents, and framing political developments in the context of a “demonic spin cycle.”
During Trump’s most recent interview with FlashPoint, which was recorded on September 6 and seemingly aired for the first time on the September 10 edition of the show, Trump stated, “God saved me, and maybe, and I like to think that he did it because he wants me to save this country for you and for people that think like we do.”
Bailey then prayed over Trump, calling on God to “motivate the American people to get out and vote in mass like they've never voted before.”
Discussing Trump’s potential second term, Bailey asked about “that nasty Johnson Amendment that I have to deal with,” asking “what’s going to happen with that.” (The Johnson Amendment regulates what tax-exempt organizations like churches can do in the political arena, and “is fairly narrow in scope,” per NPR.)
Trump seemed to falsely claim that he “took … out” the Johnson Amendment in his first term, saying, “We didn't get it through Congress, but I took it out through executive order.” He added: “I want to hear from you and other people I respect. And so do a lot of other people. I’d say more than anybody else, we can listen to our pastors and the people that we want to hear tell us what to do. We can hear from them again, and you will be in great shape.” But as noted by The Washington Post, “The Johnson Amendment is still on the books, despite Trump’s repeated claims to the contrary and his 2016 campaign promises to some evangelical groups that want to see it repealed.”
At the end of the interview Trump praised Bailey, calling him “a terrific guy,” and saying: “I don't say that about many, but stay with him. … He's a fantastic man.”