DALLAS — Former President Donald Trump is spending the Sunday before Christmas in Dallas, appearing at American Airlines Center with former Fox News personality Bill O’Reilly and attending services at First Baptist Church Dallas.
Trump has been on “The History Tour” with O’Reilly earlier this month in Sunrise and Orlando, Florida, and Saturday night in Houston at the Toyota Center. The Dallas event is set for later Sunday at the American Airlines Center.
Trump made remarks at the end of the First Baptist worship service, which the church had said would be a Christmas message.
The former president, who acknowledged that he strayed from a prepared speech, said the nation is “in great trouble.”
“There’s a lot of clouds hanging over our country right now — dark clouds — but we will come back bigger and better and stronger than ever before,” Trump said. “ ... There’s such spirit out there right now, I’ve never seen anything like that.”
He briefly mentioned border security, inflation, gas prices and the United States’ withdrawal from Afghanistan, which he called a “mess” and the most “embarrassing day” in the nation’s history. He also talked about and thanked the military and police, who he said are facing unprecedented crime and looting.
“Our country needs a savior right now, and we have a savior — that’s not me, that’s someone much higher up,” Trump said before delivering a Christmas message about Jesus.
“We’re going to make America great again,” he concluded before the crowd stood and chanted “U.S.A.”
Former first lady Melania Trump did not attend the service in downtown Dallas, though Trump talked about her Christmas parties — and what he said was backlash from the media about her choice of tree colors. He told the congregation she would be with him at his next visit.
Earlier in the service, Trump walked out with First Baptist Dallas senior pastor Robert Jeffress to a standing ovation from the congregation. Trump pumped a fist and muttered “thank you” to the roaring crowd. Many of the churchgoers took cellphone photos as he walked to a seat on the front row of the sanctuary.
Jeffress was one of Trump’s earliest and most vocal backers among evangelical Christian leaders during the 2016 campaign. He became one of Trump’s most prominent Christian advisers and boosters and was a frequent visitor to the White House.
This was Trump’s first time worshipping in person at First Baptist. Last year, he attended the Easter service virtually during the height of the pandemic.
In intorducing Trump, Jeffress called him one of his “closest friends.”
“I believe ... (Trump) is the most consequential president since Abraham Lincoln,” the pastor said.
“He is a great friend to Christians everywhere,” Jeffress said. “I can say this without any dispute at all, he is the most pro-life, pro-religious liberty, pro-Israel president in the history of the United States of America.”
Although Jeffress had said he hoped to steer clear of politics Sunday, he didn’t fault Trump for his comments on current affairs.
“I don’t think the president said anything overtly political,” the pastor told the media after the service. “ ... I think his overall theme that our country is not where we’d like to see it is something that many Christians and non-Christians can agree with.”
Jeffress attributed the large crowd, which thousands of people attended in person and virtually via livestream, to people’s love for the president.
“We had a full house today, people were here very early, lining up to get in because they love this president and they love his policies, especially the moral and spiritual principles on which he stands,” he said.
The coronavirus pandemic was not mentioned during the service.
Signs across the church encouraged the large crowd to wear masks, social distance and use hand sanitizer regularly, but few masks were spotted in the venue, despite the threat of a surge in COVID-19 cases.
“We have always said in our church that COVID-19 is real and it’s a real threat,” Jeffress said. “ ... The reason we felt comfortable assembling here today is that the vast majority of our people have been vaccinated. We believe the safest way to continue to be able to gather together as a church or together as families is to get vaccinated.”
He could not provide statistics on how many people in his congregation were vaccinated but said the number probably matched national statistics. About 61.4% of Americans are fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
As the crowd waited to get in to the church service, a lone protester walked among them, calling Trump “worse than Nebuchadnezzar,” a biblical figure known for destroying Jerusalem.
“I am very upset that this church is welcoming one to me who is worse than Nebuchadnezzar,” said Ruth Torres, who was carrying a sign that said: “I’m too upset that this fool is here.”
Torres yelled to people under an awning on San Jacinto Street, “You’re going into a superspreader event ... I hope you’ve had your vaccine.”
One woman waiting in the line that formed about 8:30 a.m. shouted back, “The vaccine doesn’t stop the spread.”
Church security asked Dallas police to cite Torres for trespassing, despite her being on a public sidewalk, and officers encouraged her to keep moving and not cause problems.
Few people in line wore overtly political clothing, but the crowd cheered when a bus drove by emblazoned with the anti-President Joe Biden political slogan “Let’s go Brandon,” a euphemism for an obscene phrase.
That phrase was a common refrain as hundreds eager Trump supporters lined up to enter American Airlines Center to hear Trump speak with O’Reilly.
As people waited to get in, they spoke of attending other events with the former president, noting that they had been “star-struck” to see him in person.
A massive flag that read “Trump won” was mounted near a tent toward the front of the arena, and the QAnon conspiracy theory was also represented in the crowd.
Eileen McDermott, wearing a QAnon hoodie, said that she’d come from California for the event. She credited Trump for bringing down an array of powerful men who have been accused or convicted of sex crimes, including financier Jeffrey Epstein, movie mogul Harvey Weinstein and NXIVM cult leader Keith Raniere.
A central QAnon tenet is that Trump will destroy a cabal of liberal celebrities and politicians who QAnon followers believe are pedophiles.
Also in attendance were members of Negative48 — a subgroup of QAnon that’s focused on the belief that John F. Kennedy Jr. didn’t really die in 1998 and will emerge to reinstate Trump as president.
But others in the crowd insisted that the QAnon fringe was not representative of their beliefs, saying they were there simply to support Trump and O’Reilly.
Grace Blair of Lubbock said she appreciated that O’Reilly “is trying to help save our country from the far left and the destruction of our culture.”
By 2:30 p.m., the arena had filled about a fifth of its 20,000-person capacity, with most of the lower sections slowly filling up. Several sections of the upper levels in front of and behind the stage were curtained off.
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(Dallas Morning News Washington bureau chief Todd J. Gillman and assistant politics editor John Gravois contributed to this report.)
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