President Trump gets a “mulligan” from evangelical voters for some of his past behavior — including an alleged affair with a former adult film star — as long as he comes through on policy, said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council.
“We kind of gave him, ‘All right, you get a mulligan. You get a do-over here,” Perkins told Politico in a podcast posted Tuesday.
Perkins was asked about reports of Trump’s affair with Stephanie Clifford, whose stage name is Stormy Daniels, in 2006 — months after his wife, Melania, gave birth to their son, Barron.
Michael Cohen, a lawyer for Trump, reportedly arranged for Clifford to receive $130,000 a month before the election to keep quiet about her sexual encounter with Trump.
Perkins said he believes Trump is maturing as president and from the “spiritual standpoint” because of those he has chosen to surround himself with, but he stressed that support from the evangelical community is “not unconditional.”
“If Trump were to all of a sudden revert back to some of that behavior as president, the evangelical support will not be there for him,” he said.
The Family Research Council leader stressed that during the general election, evangelical conservatives did not support Trump “based on his moral qualifications, but based upon what he said he was going to do and who he was surrounding himself with.”
Evangelical Christians, he said, “were tired of being kicked around by Barack Obama and his leftists. And I think they are finally glad that there’s somebody on the playground that is willing to punch the bully.”
