'Charlatan' pastor at Latino event lays hands on Trump, prays God makes him president

At the close of a Latino Americans for Trump town hall at Donald Trump’s Miami golf club on Tuesday, MAGA pastors, including one whose “messy” divorce led him to be labeled a “charlatan,” laid hands on the criminally convicted ex-president, described the election as a “war between good and evil,” fervently prayed for God to return Trump to the White House, and asked Him to “Make America Godly again.”

Trump’s return to embracing Christianity and invoking religion comes amid debunked reports, including from top Trump activist Charlie Kirk, that Vice President Kamala Harris last week kicked out “Christians” for shouting “Jesus is lord” at a recent campaign event.

Harris at a Wisconsin rally had told supporters, “Donald Trump hand-selected three members of the United States Supreme Court with the intention that they would undo the protections of Roe v. Wade, and they did as he intended.”

Hecklers interrupted, shouting “That’s a lie,” or “lies.”

“Oh, you guys are at the wrong rally,” Harris responded, to applause. “No, I think you meant to go to the smaller one down the street.”

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The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that as the hecklers were escorted out they shouted “Jesus is Lord.”

Not according to Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA and a member of the highly-secretive far-right organization Council for National Policy.

So when a pro-Trump pastor laid hands on the ex-president Tuesday afternoon, the roomful of conservative Latinos likely understood what he meant when he prayed, “today where we lift up the man that we believe you’ve put your hand upon, to help restore America, and bring America back to the place that honors you. To a place where we will not be kicked out for saying ‘Christ the king.’ Or, ‘Jesus is Lord.'”

The Harris hecklers were not kicked out for saying, “Jesus is Lord,” but that is now what many MAGA Republicans now believe — or at least are willing to say.

Another pastor at Trump’s Latinos for Trump town hall in his prayer described the 2024 presidential election as a “war.”

“As I was talking yesterday to the, uh, in North Carolina,” Miami MAGA megachurch pastor and televangelist Guillermo Maldonado said, “I mentioned the people the fact that this is not a war between the left and the right. This is a war between good and evil.”

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Pastor Maldonado was the subject of a 2021 Miami Herald opinion piece titled: “Pastor was a charlatan, but few cared as long as he hosted Trump, pushed GOP agenda.”

“Long before divorce documents spilled tantalizing secrets about the wealth of Miami megachurch pastor Guillermo Maldonado — and his wife’s accusations of emotional abuse — there were signs he was a charlatan. ‘The presence of the living God,’ the evangelical preacher called President Trump, who, on the campaign trail, stood steps away from him looking like he was trying to stifle a good laugh, while beaming at the obsequious praise.”

A separate Miami Herald article reports, “The booming business of Miami pastor Guillermo Maldonado, which helps him pay for what court records describe as a half-dozen properties, at least three cars and a nine-seat jet, depends entirely on whether he can speak to God.”

Maldonado’s wife’s divorce attorneys, the Herald reported, “said there could be as much as $120 million at stake.”

In December of 2020 Pastor Maldonado urged his congregation to refuse the COVID vaccine, The Christian Post reported, saying the shot was “the structure for the Antichrist.”

“They’re going to demand for you to have the vaccine in your passport. Otherwise you will not be able to travel because they are preparing the way. And the vaccines, they are made to alter your DNA,” he said. “Believe in the blood of Jesus. Believe in divine immunity.”

Maldonado also “said the Lord spoke to him and told him that there is a ‘satanic agenda, a global agenda, specifically preparing the way for the Antichrist.'”

On Tuesday, Pastor Maldonado, laying hands on Trump, ended his prayer saying, “the Bible says that let’s pray for the will of God to come. Meaning, what’s the will of God, the Bible says, God sets up kings. He removes kings.”

“We’re gonna bring the will of God and we’re gonna pray for the president for President Trump to be the next 47th president.”

After the pastors laid hands on Trump and prayed over him, he appeared to say nothing as “YMCA” played and he began signing autographs.

Watch the videos above or at this link.

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