Tony Perkins, the president of the conservative Family Research Council, contended that the evangelical community has given President Donald Trump a “mulligan” when it comes to his personal behavior.
“We kind of gave him — ‘All right, you get a mulligan. You get a do-over here,'” Perkins said, using a golf term in an interview on Politico’s “Off Message” podcast.
“The evangelical community gives him grace for the mistakes that he’s made,” he noted.
Perkins’ remarks come after a Wall Street Journal report that Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, formed a private LLC to pay a former porn star in exchange for not speaking publicly about an alleged sexual encounter with the then-candidate. CNN has not independently confirmed The Wall Street Journal’s reporting, and in response to the initial Wall Street Journal report about the affair, Cohen said the rumors had circulated since 2011 and that Trump “once again vehemently denies any such occurrence.”
Family Research Council is known for pushing socially conservative family values. One of the foundations of the organization, according to its website, is to promote marriage and family. “Family Research Council champions marriage and family as the foundation of civilization, the seedbed of virtue, and the wellspring of society,” according to the site. “Properly understood, ‘families’ are formed only by ties of blood, marriage, or adoption, and ‘marriage’ is a union of one man and one woman.”
Perkins pushed back on the idea that the latest allegation against Trump would preclude him from evangelical support.
“I wouldn’t say it’s not a problem,” he said of the President’s alleged affair. “(But) evangelicals did not vote for Donald Trump based on his moral qualifications but based upon what he said he was going to do and who he was surrounding himself with.”
“From a policy standpoint, he has delivered more than any other president in my lifetime,” Perkins said, pointing to the Trump administration’s record on anti-abortion and “religious freedom” policies.
However, Perkins noted that he doesn’t think that evangelical support is “unconditional.”
“Whenever the policy stops and his administration reverts to just personality, that’s where I believe the President will be in trouble,” he said. He also contended that if Trump were to “revert back” to some of his past behaviors, he would likely lose support.
Perkins’ use of golf terminology might be familiar to the President, who has indulged frequently in his love of golf during his time in office, and is said to take “one free mulligan after another” on the golf course, according to former ESPN columnist Rick Reilly.