Senate Chaplain Implies Donald Trump Is a Sinner in His Daily Prayer

Earlier this week, outgoing Republican senators Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Bob Corker (R-TN) questioned President Donald Trump's fitness for office. In his daily prayer on Capitol Hill yesterday, Senate Chaplain Rev. Barry Black appeared to contemplate their decision to condemn the president's behavior.

"Stand by our lawmakers and protect them with your might. Lord, refresh them with your wisdom, as you prepare them not only for time but eternity. Lord, we praise you for ethically congruent lawmakers who in their innermost beings are true and honest," Black said on the Senate floor.

He continued: "Give us more senators who are true to duty as the needle to the pole. Give us more legislators who are not afraid to call sin by its right name. Lord, provide us with more patriots who will stand for right, regardless of the consequences. We pray in your sovereign name. Amen."

Black holds a nonpartisan position and was appointed by Senator Bill Frist (R-TN) in 2003, who was the majority leader at the time.

Senator Flake's emotional speech this week, in which he called out the president for {the threats against principles, freedoms and institutions; the flagrant disregard for truth and decency” has continued to reverberate beyond the Senate floor. Trump addressed Flake's speech in a statement to reporters yesterday afternoon:

Long before he ever knew me, during the campaign, even before the campaign — I mean, he came out with this horrible book, and I said, ‘Who is this guy?’ In fact, I remembered the first time I saw him on television I had not really been — nobody knew me in terms of politics.But the first time I saw him on television, I said, ‘I assume he’s a Democrat. Is he a Democrat? They said he’s a Republican. I said, ‘That’s impossible.’

He also insisted the Republican Party is not fractured:

We have, actually, great unity in the Republican Party. We have great unity. If you look at what happened yesterday in the meeting we had virtually every senator including John McCain, we had a great conversation yesterday, John McCain and myself, about the military. I called it a love fest, it was almost a love fest. It was a love fest. Standing ovation.There is great unity. If you look at the Democrats with Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, now that's a mess. There's great unity in the Republican Party.