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Bishop Asks Trump to ‘Have Mercy’ on Immigrants and Gay Children
Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde was nearing the end of her sermon for the inaugural prayer service on Tuesday when she took a breath and looked directly at President Donald J. Trump.
“I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now,” said Bishop Budde, the leader of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington. “There are gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican and independent families, some who fear for their lives.”
The direct appeal to Mr. Trump, at the start of the first full day of his presidency, was a remarkable moment. Twenty-four hours after he had reclaimed the highest office in the land, summoning tech billionaires as witnesses and pulling off a sweeping display of power by signing of a flurry of executive orders, he was suddenly confronted by an extraordinary act of public resistance from an unlikely source: a soft-spoken bishop.
“The vast majority of immigrants are not criminals,” Bishop Budde said. “I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away, and that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here.”
Mr. Trump, seated in the first row of pews in the towering Washington National Cathedral, looked down and then away. Vice President JD Vance raised his eyebrows and looked several times at his wife, Usha Vance, who kept her gaze trained ahead on the bishop. When Bishop Budde finished, Mr. Trump said something to Mr. Vance, who shook his head in apparent irritation. Members of the Trump family seated directly behind them appeared to look at one another, noticeably perturbed. Eric Trump, Mr. Trump’s middle son, shook his head.
It was not how Mr. Trump has generally been spoken to as he returns to the White House. Since winning the election, he has been courted by powerful business leaders and politicians alike, including many who kept their distance during his first term. Just the day before, he celebrated his return to office with an inauguration in the Capitol Rotunda, a rally surrounded by supporters and a succession of inaugural balls. Even former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. greeted Mr. Trump at the White House by saying, “Welcome home.”
Bishop Budde’s comments came a day after Mr. Trump issued a flurry of executive orders focused on transgender rights and immigration.
The appeal by the pastor clearly grabbed Mr. Trump’s attention. Asked by a reporter what he thought of the service, the president said: “Did you like it? Did you find it exciting? Not too exciting, was it?
“I didn’t think it was a good service, no,” Mr. Trump continued. “They could do much better.”
In an interview, Bishop Budde said she had decided to speak to the president directly because “of the fear that I have seen and experienced among our people — people that I know and love, both within the immigrant community and within the L.G.B.T.Q. community, and how terrified so many are.”
She said she was concerned about “the level of license to be really quite cruel” that some people feel now.
“I wasn’t necessarily calling the president out. I was trying to say, ‘The country has been entrusted to you,’” Bishop Budde said. “And one of the qualities of a leader is mercy, right? Mercy. And to be mindful of the people who are scared.”
Bishop Budde is not the only prominent clergy member to call attention to the fear caused by Mr. Trump’s agenda. Pope Francis on Sunday called Mr. Trump’s plans for mass deportations “a disgrace.”
Mr. Trump began his presidency on Monday with executive actions that aimed to turn his campaign rhetoric into tangible policies, including one that rescinded a Biden administration order that sought to prevent discrimination on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation.
Mr. Trump’s new order, the administration said, seeks to defend women against “gender ideology extremism” that allows biological males to undermine their rights and privacy. And the definitions it sets forth go further to more explicitly define “sex.”
Under the order signed by Mr. Trump on Monday, males and females would be defined at “conception,” the text states. Someone who eventually produces “the large reproductive cell” would be deemed female, the order says. A male would be defined as the person who eventually “produces the small reproductive cell.”
The order also says that the federal government would no longer recognize “gender identity,” and only “sex” as defined by “an individual’s immutable biological classification as either male or female.”
The order also prohibits the use of federal funds for any promotion of “gender ideology” through grants or other government programming, as well as the use of public funding for transition-related medical procedures in prisons.
The order effectively defines transgender Americans out of existence.
“At its core, this executive order is an appallingly cruel effort to make transgender people strangers to the law and push them back into the closet,” said Sarah Warbelow, legal director at the Human Rights Campaign.
Mr. Trump also issued multiple immigration-related executive orders on Monday that suspended refugee admissions, severely restricted asylum for migrants and made clear that he intended to deploy the military to the southern border. The border, however, remains relatively calm after a record number of illegal crossings earlier in the Biden administration.
The Trump administration also rescinded a Biden policy that directed Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to not make arrests at schools, places of worship and other places described as “sensitive locations.”
Throughout his campaign, and during his first term, Mr. Trump often portrayed all migrants crossing the border illegally as criminals. While sporadic crimes by migrants have gained national attention in recent years, homeland security officials themselves acknowledge that most people crossing the border are fleeing poverty or violence and seeking a better life.
“There are times when he talks of immigrants in broad strokes that feel as if the image portrayed is that all immigrants who are coming into the country are dangerous,” Bishop Budde said. “And I know that’s not true. It’s not true.”
Argentina forward Julián Alvarez (C) celebrates scoring his team’s second goal during the World Cup quarterfinal match against Switzerland in Kansas City on Saturday. Argentina has advanced to the semifinals and will play England on Wednesday.
Odd Andersen/AFP via Getty Images
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Odd Andersen/AFP via Getty Images
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — This was not the first time Argentina had come to the brink in this FIFA World Cup.
First, the defending champions needed extra time to escape Cape Verde, the Cinderella story of this tournament. Then, they needed a miraculous comeback to overcome a 0-2 deficit to Egypt in the Round of 16.
In Saturday’s quarterfinal in Kansas City, the Albiceleste stood on the edge once again, trapped in a 1-1 tie for much of the second half and extra time against a feisty Switzerland team that would not lie down — even once they were playing down a man and a loss seemed inevitable.
In the end, after 30 minutes of extra time, Argentina prevailed 3-1 to earn a spot in the World Cup semifinals. They will face England (which also needed extra time Saturday to defeat Norway) on Wednesday in Atlanta.
Of the 69,045 people who packed into the stands of Arrowhead Stadium on a hot and humid Missouri night, thousands wore the jersey of the sport’s singular star: Lionel Messi, the 39-year-old forward for Argentina.
But it was forward Julián Alvarez who saved the day for his team and his country, sending a right-footed rocket to the far upper corner of the goal in the 112th minute. Then, in the 121st minute, a cherry on top from Lautaro Martínez, who sealed the game with another strike.
Messi contributed only an early-game assist. He had scored a goal in a record nine straight World Cup games — this is his first game in 10 matches in which he did not.
Switzerland’s midfielder Remo Freuler (L) and Argentina midfielder Alexis Mac Allister fight for the ball during the World Cup quarterfinal in Kansas City on Saturday.
Juan Mabromata/AFP via Getty Images
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Juan Mabromata/AFP via Getty Images
Alvarez’s goal capped an increasingly desperate effort by Argentina to keep the game from going to penalty kicks. It had taken an early 1-0 lead in the 10th minute, when midfielder Alexis Mac Allister headed a Messi corner kick into the net. (That was Messi’s 10th career World Cup assist, all of them to different players.)
Yet Argentina could not add to that lead in the first half, or the second. Instead, a clinical and determined Swiss side found enough gaps in Argentina’s defense to repeatedly threaten before, finally, forward Dan Ndoye slipped a shot under the leg of Swiss goalkeeper Gregor Kobel to tie the match 1-1.
But soon after Switzerland’s equalizer came the game’s pivotal development: Swiss forward Breel Embolo was sent off after a video review showed he had faked a fall.
It was Embolo’s second yellow card of the game — the first had come late in the first half when he was late to challenge Argentinian midfielder Leandro Paredes — meaning it would be treated as a red card, and Switzerland would have to play the remainder of the game down a man.
The shocked and crying Embolo had to be led off the field, his face crumpled and head in hands, by teammates and into the locker room.
Instantly, the decision sparked debate among analysts and fans. Were both calls fair, and the outcome an acceptable consequence? Or was dooming Switzerland to a shorthanded quarterfinal a punishment that did not match the crime of a single theatrical fall to the ground, something that happens a dozen times a game?
But no debate will keep Argentina from another World Cup semifinal. And for Messi, that means two more chances — the semifinal against England, then either the final or the third-place playoff — to pad his lead in the record for career World Cup goals scored, at 21.
The US congressman Ro Khanna says armed Israeli settlers detained him during a visit to the Israel-occupied West Bank recently, describing the experience as a first-hand view of the realities faced by Palestinians living under occupation.
In an interview with Reuters on Thursday from a Palestinian village, the progressive US House Democrat from California said his detention happened the previous day while his delegation visited an area of the southern West Bank that has experienced repeated attacks by Israeli settlers.
Khanna recounted how settlers carrying US-made M4 rifles surrounded the group’s van.
“We were at a village that Israeli settlers had destroyed – they had destroyed the school, they had destroyed that village, and we were just looking at it,” Khanna said.
Referring to the Israel Defense Forces, which is funded in part by US military aid, Khanna continued: “And these hoodlums … detain us. They block off the road. And then they call the IDF and the IDF is on their side, not on the side of the Americans.”
Khanna also told Reuters, “I saw the arrogance in the eyes of those settlers, 21- and 22-year-olds with guns, laughing that they had detained us, the arrogance of those young IDF soldiers that my tax dollars are funding – having no respect for the fact that they were detaining Americans, no respect that there was an American congressperson in that bus, and laughing when our translator told them that there are Americans there and the American embassy is concerned.”
Khanna aide Cameron Kasky wrote on X that he was there when the congressman’s group was detained, saying: “The IDF showed up to back up the settlers, not the US congressman.”
Khanna added that the encounter illustrated “the arrogance of power – of a power that has had no accountability, total impunity – and it’s created a toxic culture of oppression”.
The New York Times first reported Khanna’s account on Saturday morning. He told the outlet: “I felt powerless in that situation, which is not an easy thing, as I have a lot of privilege in life.
“Imagine how people feel every day, Palestinians under the occupation, if they could make an American congressperson feel powerless for 90 minutes.”
Khanna said he and his group were ultimately able to continue traveling after contacting the US embassy and Israeli police.
The Israeli military said troops and police responded after receiving a report that settlers were obstructing vehicles near Khirbet Zanuta, according to Reuters.
Khirbet Zanuta is a Palestinian hamlet whose residents were forced to leave in the wake of violent settler raids after the Hamas attacks on Israel in October 2023.
Asked by Reuters whether he intends to run for president, Khanna replied: “I’m strongly considering it. And I’m more resolved to consider it after this trip.”
More than 700,000 Israelis reside in settlements across the occupied West Bank including East Jerusalem. The United Nations considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank to be illegal, and Israel has faced repeated criticism over violence and other actions by settlers in the territory.
Since Israel took control of the West Bank in 1967, restrictions imposed there have prevented the territory from developing a self-sustaining economy. Those restrictions intensified significantly after the deadly 7 October 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel.
Nearly 300,000 Palestinians have lost employment in the West Bank and Israel.
A June report issued by a UN independent international commission of inquiry concluded that “Israeli authorities and security forces have deliberately targeted Palestinian children resulting in genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes in the Gaza Strip and war crimes in the West Bank”.
According to data from human rights organisation Yesh Din, no Israeli has been indicted for the killing of a Palestinian since October 2023.
Khanna has been one of the most outspoken critics in the US Congress of the war in Gaza and the occupation of the West Bank, often clashing with his own party’s establishment. In May, he released a video criticizing the Democratic National Committee’s incomplete postmortem report on the defeat that the party suffered at the hands of Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election.
The postmortem did not mention Gaza. In his video, Khanna said: “As someone who campaigned in Michigan and Wisconsin, let me tell you – one of the reasons we lost is our blank check to Israel and [prime minister Benjamin] Netanyahu while they committed genocide in Gaza.
“We must speak and confront hard truths if this party is to win” the 2028 presidential election, he added.
Reuters contributed reporting
The fans see the games, the crowds, the food and the beer. But behind every World Cup watch party is a team working long before kickoff and well after the final whistle. We go behind the scenes at a beer hall in Brooklyn to see what it takes to serve a room full of soccer fans on game day.
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