Washington D.C., Aug 4, 2020 / 04:15 pm (CNA).- EWTN News Nightly’s lead anchor Tracy Sabol conducted a White House interview with President Donald Trump Aug. 4. Below is a transcript of that interview provided by EWTN News Nightly.
EWTN News Nightly said it has also reached out for an interview to Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president.
Catholic News Agency is a service of EWTN News.
Tracy Sabol: Thank you so much, Mr. President, for speaking with us today. We appreciate it.
President Trump: Thank you.
Tracy Sabol: We have a lot to get to. But I first want to talk about the economy. Where we are right now, of course, we’re starting with another round of stimulus. Can you talk about that and what’s needed for Republicans and Democrats to meet in the middle?
President Trump: So we had the greatest economy in the history of the world, not only in our country, in every country. We were beating China, beating everybody. They were having the worst economy they’ve had in over 67 years. So we were doing with the tariffs and all the things that I was doing. And then we had to close it up. It came from China. They should have stopped it. They could have stopped it, but they didn’t. They stopped it from going into their country, but they didn’t stop it from here, Europe, or the rest of the world. And we had to close it up and we did that. And now we’re coming back and we’re doing stimulus. We’ve already done it, as you know, very successfully. And we’ll probably have something worked out. We’ll see what happens. The problem with the Democrats, as you know, they want bailout money for their states and cities that have done so poorly under Democrat leadership. And I’m not happy with that. It’s not appropriate. This is having to do with the corona, I call it the “China-virus.” And so I think we’re doing very well. We had the best job numbers we’ve ever had, percentage-wise. You take a look at what happened, [indiscernible] close to seven million jobs over the last two months. New numbers are going to be coming out very soon. We’re back. We’re doing very well. I think next year is going to be one of the best years we’ve ever had. And it looks very, very strong.
Tracy Sabol: Looking forward to the third quarter: How do you anticipate that looking?
President Trump: I think the third quarter is going to be good. I think it’s going to be good. I think the fourth quarter is going to be very, very good. But we’re just coming out of something that we had no choice. We saved millions of lives by closing. If we didn’t close it up, you would have lost millions of lives. And by closing it, I mean, we’ve done a really good job. The ban on China was very important. We banned people coming in, highly infected, and we banned people from coming in from China and then from Europe. We did the ban on Europe, very important. It really, I think, is going to be, I think we’re going to have a very special economy in about…for next year. But I think third quarter actually is going to be very good.
Tracy Sabol: A lot of things shut down, including churches. Let’s talk about that and the importance of reopening churches. I know you’ve talked about that.
President Trump: I think they should open the churches. It’s up to the governors. But, I think, and I’m recommending it, you open the churches. They’ll spread, they’ll be socially spread, they’ll have masks and they’ll do what they have to do, you know, the hygiene and everything else that we know. It’s a very simple list, but I think it’s very unfair that they have– I saw Jim Jordan the other day talking about it very well, that they have 50,000 people protesting and they’re standing on top of each other practically, and yet you’re not allowed to go to church. You don’t go to schools. We want to open our churches. We want to open our schools. And everybody wants to be safe. They know what to do. They’ll stay away. And, you know, we’ll be the same way. Maybe you’ll have an extra service or two or three. But they have to let the churches open. They want to put, the Democrats want to put them out of business. They want to put the churches out of business. And it’s very unfair. So they don’t complain about the protests, which are horrible in many cases. You look at Portland, it’s a disaster, but they don’t want the churches open, they don’t want the schools open, they don’t want offices open. So it’s a very, very unfair situation to a lot of people.
Tracy Sabol: Mr. President, is there a way to deem churches as essential businesses? How can we do that?
President Trump: I am looking at that because I think it’s enough already. You have some states, I think they never want them open. They don’t want churches open. Look, the Democrats, frankly, if you look at the radical left, Democrats, which are radical left now, they’ve gone radical left. Whether you’re talking about life or whether you’re talking about almost anything, they’re not liking it. They’re not liking it.
Tracy Sabol: I know that you’ve heard about the vandalism, the horrific vandalism. Many, many churches have been vandalized over the past recent weeks. When you heard about that, what did you think?
President Trump: I think it’s a disgrace. And I think it’s partially because they’re not allowed to function, they’re not allowed to really function. And I think it’s disgraceful that it can happen. And, you know, they want to defund the police. They want to stop the police. They want to have them at least to a minimum. And we’re just the opposite. I just got endorsed by Texas law enforcement, by Florida, all of the sheriffs and the law enforcement. I think, I can’t imagine them ever, I can’t imagine law enforcement ever endorsing Biden. He’s got a hard time in a lot of ways, let’s face it, but I can’t imagine that ever happening. So we just about have everybody endorsing us in terms of law enforcement. And, you know, with the churches, you need some law enforcement to help you out also. But it’s the fact that they’re closed and they you know, bad things happen when they’re closed. It’s a very terrible situation, what they’re doing to churches and these are governors that are radical left or Democrat, it’s almost becoming the same thing. And I don’t think they want churches open.
Tracy Sabol: What can be done to stop this vandalism? What do you think?
President Trump: Well, what you need is you need the law enforcement. It’s areas usually run by radical left Democrats. I mean, where you have Republican leadership, where you have Republican governors and mayors, you don’t have this problem. You have this problem where you have radical left Democrats in virtually every instance. So what you have to do is elect Republicans. And if you had a Republican, as an example, if Biden got in, you’d have Portland all over our country. It would be like Portland. These people are agitators. They’re anarchists. You’d have that all over our country. You know, we stopped it, we stepped in and a lot of people said we were early. Well, let us let us be early. Better early than late. But we did a good job there. We did a great job in Seattle that would have been burned to the ground, frankly. But with Portland, and we didn’t do our big job, we did a much smaller job. We had to protect our building, and our buildings, actually, a number of buildings. But the courthouse would have been burned down. The courthouse would have been destroyed if we didn’t step in. People said, “Oh, we went early.” Well, if we didn’t go then, the courthouse would have been destroyed because Seattle was not protecting it. So you would have that situation all over the United States. And that’s unacceptable.
Tracy Sabol: And, Mr. President, on top of mind for a lot of parents, including myself: the reopening of schools. I know you just tweeted about that. Can you talk about that?
President Trump: I want the schools open. First of all, children are unbelievably strong, right? Their immune system. Something’s going on because out of thousands of deaths in New Jersey, thousands, because I just saw the statistics, many thousands of people died, one person under the age of 18. And that was a person I believe had diabetes on top of everything. So children just are, I guess I heard one doctor say, virtually they’re immune from it. They have a strong, they have a very strong something, and they are not affected. And we have to open our schools. You know, there’s a big danger to keeping people locked in. And they’re also finding it’s wonderful to use computers, but it’s not a great way of learning. They now know that it’s much better to be with a teacher on campus or in a school, that’s much better than looking at a computer all day long. So we have to get our schools open. We have to get them open soon.
Tracy Sabol: And if there was one message you wanted to say to our viewers, what would it be right now?
President Trump: Well, I think anybody having to do with, frankly, religion, but certainly the Catholic Church, you have to be with President Trump when it comes to pro-life, when it comes to all of the things, these people are going to take all of your rights away, including Second Amendment, because, you know, Catholics like their Second Amendment. So I saved the Second Amendment. If I wasn’t here, you wouldn’t have a Second Amendment. And pro-life is your big thing and you won’t be on that side of the issue, I guarantee, if the radical left, because they’re going to take over, they’re going to push him around like he was nothing.
Tracy Sabol: Well, thank you so much, Mr. President, for the time today.
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But “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God”, by Martin Luther, is still OK, right?
If (Arch)Bishops begin to “cancel culture” all composers who have sin in their past or don’t have perfect personal histories, we’ll have very little music left to play in church… None in fact! Isn’t the clergy attacking laity musicians the pot calling the kettle black, considering all the sexual abuse allegations made against priests??? Why not just let the secular courts deal with Mr. Haas? Just as a priest’s personal piety doesn’t affect the efficacy of the Eucharist, a composer’s personal peity doesn’t affect his sacred music compositions.
Haas is not just a random composer, who quietly went about his business writing music; he is well-known, and was looked upon as an authority figure. He portrayed himself as a spiritual leader, through his music, and used his organizations and parish sponsored workshops to groom his victims, many of whom were minors at the time. That hardly makes his ministry a “safe environment.” This is a prudent stance for Bishops to take out of respect for those who suffered, because any time his victims (and now, we) hear his music at Mass, it will draw attention to itself and remind us of what he did. Not exactly the best thing to focus on during the Liturgy.
I think his music was already unsuitable for Mass, since much of it can hardly be classified as sacred. That, along with his openly dissenting views regarding Catholicism, which, like the abuse, were also public and widely known, should have disqualified him from having any influence within our parishes.
It is true that Mass said by a predatory priest is still valid, and doesn’t usurp the sacredness of the Eucharist. But music by David Haas is neither vital nor necessary for worship, so we’re not really comparing the same things here. In fact, it can become cultish to attribute to Haas special status, through some sort of devotion to his music, as though it’s integral to the liturgy. It’s not. He’s not. Sacred music is. And I do believe that composers, as well as poets and authors, do write things that are reflective of their personal lives. It was about a year ago that Haas composed a song, based on a psalm, for “Pride Week,” something that the Church opposes. We can do better, and our pastors and bishops need to lead.
Yes, but isn’t it nice to be rid of his “religious music” ? There’s a lot more of the same type that we could happily live without.