President Trump is calling on the bishop who spoke at a National Cathedral prayer service Tuesday to issue a public apology after she urged the president during her sermon to “have mercy” on members of the LGBTQ community and illegal immigrants. 

Mr. Trump, in a midnight rant on Truth Social, railed against Reverend Mariann Edgar Budde, the Episcopal bishop of Washington, D.C., who he described as a “Radical left hard line Trump hater.” He accused her of bringing politics into the church “in a very ungracious way” and being “nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart.”

During Ms. Budde’s sermon on Tuesday, she mounted an impassioned defense of “gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican and independent families,” some of whom she claimed, “fear for their lives.” She also pitched her support for those who “may not be citizens or have the proper documentation,” adding that “the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals.”

She then directly addressed the president, who was sitting in the front row of the church, pleading for him to “have mercy” on those “whose children fear that their parents will be taken away” and urging him to “help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here.”

She added: “Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were all once strangers in this land.”

Mr. Trump, who remained expressionless during the sermon, later told reporters that “I didn’t think it was a good service” and “they could do much better.” He upped the ante in his Post on Truth social early Wednesday morning, denouncing the bishop for failing to mention “the large number of illegal migrants that came into our country and killed people,” adding that “it is a giant crime wave that is taking place in the USA.”

After criticizing her for being “not very good at her job,” Mr. Trump declared that “She and her church owe the public an apology.”

Speaking to CNN after the service, Ms. Budde said that she decided to address Mr. Trump directly because he “feels charged and empowered to do what he feels called to do,” and she wanted to remind him that there is “room for a broader compassion.” Mr. Trump, during his first day in office, signed several executive orders related to strengthening the southern border and reversing federal gender ideology policies instituted by the Biden administration.

On Wednesday, Ms. Budde was scheduled to appear on ABC’s “The View” for an interview with the show’s vehemently anti-Trump hosts.

Ms. Budde, who has been at the church for nearly 13 years, has been a fierce critic of Mr. Trump since his first term in office. During the George Floyd riots in 2020, she said that she had “given up” on trying to get through to Mr. Trump, who she said has “done everything to divide us,” and suggested that the country needed to “replace him.” 

According to her biography on the Episcopal Diocese of Washington website, Ms. Budde angles herself as “an advocate and organizer in support of justice concerns, including racial equity, gun violence prevention, immigration reform, the full inclusion of LGBTQ+ persons, and the care of creation.”