Vice President Mike Pence will keynote Liberty University’s graduation in May. The bad news: President Trump, who gave a speech there in early 2016, is undoubtedly more entertaining. The good news: If Pence wants to quote Bible passages, the audience can sit back, breathe and relax. You can bet he won’t screw them up.
Liberty Prez Jerry Falwell Jr. has called Trump a “dream president” for evangelicals. (RELATED: Falwell Is A Huge Fan Of Trump)
In 2018, former President Jimmy Carter gave Liberty’s commencement speech and took a light-hearted crack at Trump and crowd size.
Honestly, if Trump is a dream — despite his “two Corinthians” flub — Pence, a devout Christian evangelical, must be heaven on earth.
Still, Trump is pretty cozy with Liberty U. In January, the WSJ reported that in 2015 Trump’s ex-fixer Michael Cohen gave John Gauger, the university’s chief information officer, $12,000 in cash in a Walmart bag, The alleged promise was $50K to manipulate online polls to benefit Trump. According to the report, Gauger never received the rest of the money.
In 2016, Trump delivered a very non-Teleprompter Trump speech in which he claimed he was going to protect Christianity while mucking up the Bible. He infamously said: “Two Corinthians 3:17, that’s the whole ballgame. Is that the one you like?”
It’s “Second Corinthians.” He also swore twice, which is something Pence won’t likely do.
Pence announced the news of his upcoming speech at CPAC Friday morning.
“It is great for us to be back at CPAC 2019, the largest gathering of conservatives anywhere in America,” Pence said. “I’m honored to be joined here by thousands of conservatives in our nation’s capital, but I also want to give a shout out to all those great conservatives watching across the country, especially all of our friends joining us live from Lynchburg, Va., at Liberty University — I’ll see you in May.”
This is not Pence’s first rodeo there. He gave the university’s graduation speech in 20016.
The school expects 18,000 students to graduate and is planning on 40,000 guests.