By Will Hall, Message Executive Editor
GREENVILLE, N.C. (LBM) — During a July 17 campaign rally in Greeville, North Carolina, President Trump cursed twice, invoking God’s name both times, while speaking to supporters in Minges Coliseum on the campus of East Carolina University.
Afterward, most mainstream media outlets took issue with a “send her back” chant by the crowd, directed at U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota), after Trump criticized anti-Semitic comments she has made and other statements in which she minimized the 911 terrorist attacks by Muslim extremists.
However, at least a few attentive viewers took issue with the president’s use of foul language that demeaned God. Trump used the offensive phrase, first, while telling an anecdote about a businessman who reluctantly conceded he was prospering because of the president’s economic policies, and a second time while describing the outcome of a hypothetical military strike against Iran.
Criticism lit up social media, but died down just as quickly.
But a West Virginia lawmaker took the matter to heart and wrote a formal letter to respectfully express being appalled that the president “chose to use the Lord’s name in vain.”
Paul Hardesty, a state senator, is a faithful Freewill Baptist who lives in Holden, West Virginia, ac-cording to one source close to him.
In the letter, he described himself as “a very conservative Democrat here in the southern West Virginia coalfields” as well as “a Trump supporter” in 2016 and going forward.
Writing that there “is NO place” for use of “that type of language,” he asked the president to “examine yourself, reflect on your comments, and never utter those words again.”
“Please remember Mr. President,” Hardesty continued, “in the United States of America, ‘In God We Trust,’ not curse.”
