Donald Trump’s fellow Republicans joined the fray today in response to the pope’s suggestion that the New York real estate mogul was “not Christian.”
“A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not of building bridges, is not Christian,” Pope Francis said during a flight from Mexico to the Vatican Wednesday night.
After the Republican presidential front-runner called the pope’s comments “disgraceful,” others weighed in from the campaign trail:
Jeb Bush
The former Florida governor pushed back a bit.
"I don’t question anybody’s Christianity because I honestly believe that’s a relationship you have with your creator and it only enables bad behavior when someone from the outside of our country talks about Donald Trump,” Bush said while campaigning today in Columbia, South Carolina, before the Saturday primary there.
Back in January, however, Bush had some strong words for the real estate mogul and his faith, calling him a “flip-flopper." "Trump views all this not from a position of his faith, he views it all as politics. I think faith goes way beyond politics,” he said to reporters after a campaign rally then.
Bush said today he supports walls with fencing where it’s appropriate and that a strategy to protect the border is not an “un-Christian thing to do to make sure that people don’t come across our border illegally. That’s a just thing to do.”
Bush, who is Catholic, said he respects the pope, but won’t be looking for advice from the pontiff on policy matters.
“I think it’s OK, as a Catholic, to get my guidance as a Catholic from the pope but, certainly, not economic policy or environmental policy,” Bush said. “I respect the pope, his voice will be heard, but dealing with ISIS, we need someone who has a steady hand and a strategy and I’m the only guy who laid out a strategy prior to the attacks and I’m going to stick with that being the important thing."
Marco Rubio
The Florida senator avoided commenting on the recent exchange between rival Trump and Pope Francis while campaigning in South Carolina, saying he hadn’t been briefed on the full statement.
But Rubio did make it clear that the United States has “not just a right but an obligation to control the process by which people enter the country.”
“As a Roman Catholic, he's the head of the church, he's a successor of Peter is what I believe and I have tremendous respect and admiration for him,” Rubio told reporters today. “I haven't seen his statement but I'm an elected official of the United States of America in the federal government and our number one obligation is to keep the people safe and our immigration system is a part of that.”
Ben Carson
The retired neurosurgeon, who is a Seventh-day Adventist, also chimed in today, saying, “it would be hilarious if it weren’t so sad.”
Despite Pope Francis’ characterization of Trump, Carson told Fox Business Network’s Neil Cavuto in a telephone interview he would not “judge” his fellow GOP contender’s faith.
“I am not going to judge Donald Trump in terms of whether he is a Christian or not. Some of the things he does may not be suggestive of Christianity, but then again all of us have weaknesses and shortcomings. That is what it is all about,” Carson said.
Ted Cruz
Before his stop in Easley, South Carolina, the Texas senator responded briefly to the pope's comments about Trump.
“Listen, that's between Donald and the pope,” Cruz, a Southern Baptist, said. “I'm not going to get in the middle of that. I'll let them work it out.”
ABC News’ Jessica Hopper and Tom Llamas contributed to this report.
This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service - if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at http://ift.tt/jcXqJW.
from ABC News: Politics http://ift.tt/1QnAX73
via IFTTT
0 Response to "2016 Candidates React to Pope and Trump's Back-and-Forth"
Posting Komentar