Sen. Mike Lee faced criticism this week after he compared President Trump to Captain Moroni, a heroic figure for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Lee, a Utah Republican, who made the comparison at a Trump rally on Wednesday in Phoenix, encouraged his “Mormon friends” to “think of [Trump] as Captain Moroni” because “he seeks not power, but to pull it down. He seeks not the praise of the world or the ‘fake news,’ but he seeks the well-being and the peace of the American people.”
The comment made at the Arizona rally sparked condemnation from Mormon supporters of Biden. Rob Taber, the national director for the “Latter-day Saints for Biden-Harris” coalition, told AZ Central that the remarks were surprising, given the president’s own characteristics. The church itself does not endorse political candidates.
“For those of us who are not ‘in the bubble’ of being Trump loyalists and being on the far right, this idea that (President) Trump is humble when he’s ratings-obsessed, it just doesn’t make sense for us,” Taber said. “I think that’s why so many Latter-day Saints, regardless of their political beliefs or where they fall on the political spectrum, found the comparison to be so jarring and why it’s been so shocking.”
Lee addressed the pushback in a Facebook post shared on Thursday.
“Some people found that comparison upsetting, blasphemous, and otherwise wrong. I respect their right to feel that way and realize that my impromptu comments may not have been the best forum for drawing a novel analogy from scripture,” Lee said in the post. “In no way did I suggest that people should seek to emulate President Trump in the same way they might pattern their lives after Captain Moroni.”
He also noted that he doesn’t believe the president is a prophet nor that he should be “revered as a religious leader.”
Lee went on to explain that he viewed the two (President Trump and Captain Moroni) similarly because both “s[ought] not for power, but to pull it down. Translating Captain Moroni’s language into Donald Trump’s, he has relentlessly tried to ‘drain the swamp’ — for example, by avoiding new wars while winding down existing ones, reducing federal regulations, relieving the federal tax burden on working families, and reforming the criminal-justice system.”
