In conversation with Liberty University president Jerry Falwell, Jr. Wednesday, a CNN host wondered when he was going to stop supporting President Donald Trump, given the president’s “behavior.” Erin Burnett asked Falwell, who has emphatically endorsed the Trump presidency, if Trump’s “behavior” gives the evangelical leader “any pause” for concern.
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“It doesn’t give you any pause when you think about these women having the same stories and saying these things about the president, about his behavior?” Burnett asked Falwell Jr., as she went through the recent rash of claims by porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy centrefold Karen McDougal that they both had numerous sexual trysts with Trump.
Falwell referenced the notorious “Access Hollywood” segment from a secretly-taped conversation with Trump, where the then-television celebrity talks in very crude terms about groping women. Many at the time thought the video would tank Trump’s numbers with evangelicals but Falwell reminded Burnett that he had dismissed the video at the time because he didn’t believe it represented the man who was running for president, that Trump was a “different person than he was in 2005.”
Falwell said he felt the same way today. “And I really do believe that. I think he’s had a change of heart. I think he’s changed in the positive way. I don’t think there’s any chance of anything like this happening in the White House, like Bill Clinton was accused of.”
Burnett wondered if bad behavior in the present would cause Falwell to change his mind. “Would that be a line for you, if it did, if word of it came out that it did? Is that what would change it for you?”
Falwell wouldn’t be pinned down, saying not only that “it’s different while you’re in the White House because it puts you in a position where you could be blackmailed” but reminding Burnett that when it comes to supporting the president, “I still go back to the issues. Just like with Bill Clinton, many of his supporters struck with him no matter what he was accused of.”