Infamous televangelist Pat Robertson has dropped no shortage of …uh …interesting soundbites over the years. The man has said Black Lives Matter is trying to “destroy Christian values,” blamed the Las Vegas shooting on people being disrespectful to President Donald Trump and blamed the 9/11 attacks on the LGBTQ community and the ACLU.
So it might be a little surprising that he is now taking another stand that is actually pretty sensible: asking Trump to abandon the voter fraud conspiracy theories he’s been spreading since the election.
“I think it’s all over,” Robertson said on The 700 Club. “I think the electoral college has spoken. I think the Biden corruption has not totally been brought to fruition. But it doesn’t seem to be affecting the electoral college and the Supreme Court is going to move in to doing anything. And I think we are going to see President Biden and I also think we’re going to be seeing a President Kamala Harris not too long after the inauguration of President Biden.”
It’s an about-face from the 90-year-old Robertson, who predicted a handy Trump victory in October (followed by an asteroid). Now, Robertson is of the mind that Trump is being “erratic” and living “in an alternate reality.” You know the televangelist grift by this point: say enough stuff and sooner or later, some of it’s bound to be reasonable.
Televangelist Pat Robertson declares that Biden will be president and that Trump "lives in an alternate reality," "is very erratic," and should not run again in 2024: "You've had your day and it's time to move on." pic.twitter.com/2WYCZOSNTO
— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) December 21, 2020
“With all his talent and the ability to raise money and grow large crowds [Trump] still lives in an alternate reality,” Robertson muses. “He really does. People say he lies about this, that and the other but no. He doesn’t lie. To him, that’s the truth. He had the biggest crowd on inauguration day. He had more people than ever. He saved NBC with The Apprentice. We could go down the line of things that really aren’t true and, you know, people keep pointing to them. But because they loved him so much and he was so strong for the evangelicals, the evangelicals were with him all the way. There was something about him that was good. God placed him in that office for the time, he’s done a marvelous job for the economy. But at the same time, he is very erratic. He’s fired people. He’s fought people. He’s insulted people. He keeps going down the line. It’s a mixed bag. I think it’d be well to say ‘You’ve had your day and it’s time to move on.'”
In this case Robertson’s assessment lines up with reporting on the chaotic state of the White House. Multiple reports say that even Trump’s allies in his inner circle are getting increasingly concerned about the President’s growing hysteria over his voter fraud conviction, including entertaining the idea of seizing voting machines. Vice President Mike Pence, chief of staff Mark Meadows, White House counsel Pat Cipollone, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have all become targets of Trump’s wrath, as he views them as not fighting hard enough to overturn election results. “I’ve been covering Donald Trump for a while,” tweeted Axios reporter Jonathan Swan. “I can’t recall hearing more intense concern from senior officials who are actually Trump people.”
“We cannot stress enough how unnerved Trump officials are by the conversations unfolding inside the White House,” Axios continued.
