Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura laughed on Saturday during an interview appearance on MSNBC at former President Donald Trump calling himself a “religious person.”
Speaking with MSNBC’s PoliticsNation on Saturday, Ventura was asked by host Reverend Al Sharpton if the Trump today is the same one he once befriended. Ventura responded that he was not, adding that he “changed his views.”
“No, he is not the guy that came to me back in ’98 after I won. Back then, he was much more liberal, but you need to understand Donald Trump is for Donald Trump and Donald Trump is going to do whatever it is that supports Donald Trump. So, he looked the situation over, he obviously saw that he could take over the Republican Party, so he changed his views,” Ventura said.
“…He’s trying to say he’s now a religious person,” Ventura added while laughing. “Well, to me, if you’re going to be a religious person, you have to live it. And Donald Trump hardly lives it. I mean, he’s had multiple wives…I’m an agnostic atheist and I think that I’m more religious than he is.”
This comes after Trump, the GOP’s presidential nominee, spoke last month at Turning Point Action’s (TPA) Believers’ Summit in which he played into the conservative summit’s themes, which are tailored to “unite Christians across America,” per the event’s website.
Trump, who addressed the crowd of Christians, also declared himself a Christian as he urged them to vote.
“I love you Christians. I’m a Christian. I love you, get out, you gotta get out and vote. In four years, you don’t have to vote again, we’ll have it fixed so good you’re not going to have to vote,” the former president said.
Newsweek has reached out to Trump’s campaign via email for comment.
When reached for comment asking for clarification on the former president’s statements, Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung previously told Newsweek via email, “President Trump was talking about uniting this country and bringing prosperity to every American, as opposed to the divisive political environment that has sowed so much division and even resulted in an assassination attempt.”
Support from white evangelical Christians was crucial in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections. The former president secured a formidable alliance with white evangelicals, who gravitated toward him for his stance on abortion and religious freedom. He pledged to champion evangelical causes, appoint conservative judges and protect religious liberties.
More recently, however, evangelical leaders have called out the danger of endorsing political candidates.
Kimberly Reisman, executive director of World Methodist Evangelism, warned last month that doing so hurts Christians across the country. And Carl Nelson, president of Transform Minnesota, cautioned that many endorsements from church leaders fail to “hold that candidate accountable to the full spectrum of values we represent.”
“God can use leaders from all parties, and to equate God’s will with the will of any political party or person is exceedingly dangerous and a threat to the overall witness of Christians in the United States,” Reisman said in a July 31 statement.
This is not the first time Ventura has criticized Trump, as the two share a long history. In 2000, Ventura expressed support for Trump, saying he would “absolutely get my full consideration” as a potential Reform Party presidential candidate—the same platform Ventura was elected on in 1998. During that conversation, Trump referred to Ventura as a friend, saying, “I’m a big supporter of Jesse.”
However, in recent years, Ventura has been outspoken against Trump, writing in a 2016 Time magazine opinion piece that he “could never endorse him.”
Speaking with CNN‘s Laura Coates on Friday night, Ventura criticized the GOP presidential candidate and his running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance, for their character and values, particularly referencing military service.
Ventura, who served in the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam War, told Coates: “Vance is doing a disservice to himself and a disservice to the United States Marine Corps. I know a lot of great Marines, and Marines show respect, and Vance is not showing respect.”
Candidates’ military service has been a hot topic in election campaigns this past week, with Vance and Vice President Kamala Harris‘ running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, coming under scrutiny from partisan attacks over their service.
Speaking to reporters in Michigan on Wednesday, Vance accused Walz of “stolen valor,” of having “lied” about serving in a war and of “abandoning” his unit. Walz spent 24 years in the National Guard and left in 2005, two months before the battalion he led was notified that it would to be deployed to Iraq.
Vance served in the Marine Corps for four years, and never saw combat. He worked as a combat correspondent in Iraq between August 2005 and February 2006.
Walz has previously acknowledged that he never saw combat in the National Guard. Speaking to MPR News in 2018, he said: “I know that there are certainly folks that did far more than I did. I know that. I willingly say that I got far more out of the military than they got out of me, from the GI Bill to leadership opportunities to everything else.”
