The Flint, Mich., pastor who interrupted Donald Trump’s speech on Wednesday said she took that action after Trump decided to politicize his visit to the city suffering from a lead water crisis.
Bethel United Methodist Church Rev. Faith Green Timmons took to the stage during his visit to the city on Wednesday as he began to talk about his opponent Democrat Hillary Clinton. She told Trump, “I invited you here to thank us for what we’ve done in Flint, not give a political speech.”
The Republican candidate said Thursday that he believed “something was up” before he began his speech because the pastor appeared to be a “nervous mess.”
Timmons said that while it may have seemed an “odd situation,” she invited Trump to Bethel United Methodist Church because it is an “open church.”
“This is God’s house, not my house, the members don’t own it … And so he was welcome to come see what we do in the city of Flint,” she said.
Timmons claimed the Trump camp repeatedly tried to change the original plan beyond witnessing the efforts the church has taken to mitigate the effects of the city’s ongoing water crisis.
In a since deleted Facebook post, the pastor wrote, “We have our chance to show Donald Trump that this nation is filled with intelligent, wise black citizens of integrity many of whom live right in Flint, Michigan. What he will see is how we are braving a man-made catastrophe. HE WILL NOT USE US, WE WILL EDUCATE HIM!!!” The pastor’s Facebook page currently includes a post stating, “Had he stuck to what his camp claimed he came to do, we would not have had a problem! — Good night.”
The pastor said she wanted the candidate to see the best of the city and minority communities in general after criticizing some of his previous statements as “degrading.”
“Some of the statements that I’d heard him make about African-Americans, Mexicans, and others were degrading. I wanted him to see intelligent people, loving people, caring people who have done well with the resources that they had and I wanted to present the best that I could to someone who was coming in from out of town, it happened to have been Donald Trump. And I believe whether people agree with it or not that we represented Flint well.”
