Making A Messiah: Allies Cast Trump As Divine Commander Following Assassination Attempt

Less than 24 hours after Donald Trump survived an assassin’s bullet in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, Jack Posobiec, the far-right conspiracy theorist and MAGA rabble-rouser, tweeted a Bible verse. “The bullets were fired at 6:11pm,” Posobiec, who is Catholic, wrote. “Ephesians 6:11.” The Bible verse, which reads, “Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes,” is key to the spiritual warfare that Christian nationalists have made the centerpiece of Trumpian politics. They pit Trumpism against democracy in a cosmic showdown between the godly and the demonic, believing they are on a divine mission to save a debased America from the evil left, with Trump as God’s battle commander.

Posobiec’s Sunday morning lesson in numerology and spiritual warfare took off like wildfire in MAGA circles. For the Trump faithful who believe God anointed him president and, after the attempt on his life, that God protected him from death, there are no coincidences — only miracles, signs, and wonders. Charlie Kirk, the founder of the far-right Turning Point USA and a fellow denizen of the conspiratorial fever swamps of X, chimed in on Posobiec’s tweet. “Armor of God,” he replied, just in case Posobiec’s meaning was lost on anyone. “The next verse is this: ‘For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.’” For good measure, Posobiec replied to Kirk, quoting the next verse, Ephesians 6:13. “Therefore, put on the armor of God,” he concluded, “that you may be able to resist on the evil day and, having done everything, to hold your ground.” 

Adoring memes raced into Posobiec’s replies, including one depicting what appears to be Jesus with angel wings and body armor protecting Trump as he speaks to a crowd. Later that day, at the right-wing news site National Pulse, editor Raheem Kassam, a former editor at Breitbart, announced that his old boss Steve Bannon had sent a missive from his prison cell, where he is serving a four-month sentence for contempt of Congress. “President Trump wears the Armor of God,” Bannon reportedly said. “Today, our leader showed total command presence, stood tall, and said ‘FIGHT’!”

All week, Republican heavyweights pronounced that God had his hand on Trump, and that this miraculous, divine intervention saved not only Trump’s life, but America itself. “GOD protected President Trump yesterday,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) tweeted Sunday morning. He told right-wing broadcaster Ben Shapiro, “I think God’s gonna give our nation another chance, and I think President Trump is gonna be the leader that does that.” 

For Trump supporters, Trump’s survival is decisive proof God is on his side. Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, who represents a south Florida district, tweeted a cartoon meme of an angelic hand deflecting a bullet from Trump’s head. “Si Dios contigo, ¿quién contra ti?” she wrote. (If God is with you, who can be against you?)

At the Republican National Convention, Trump loyalists lined up to declare a miracle had saved God’s chosen one. “The devil came to Pennsylvania holding a rifle,” Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina said Monday night. “But the American lion got back up on his feet and he roared!” MAGA star Marjorie Taylor Greene added, “Two days ago, evil came for the man we admire and love so much. I thank God that his hand was on President Trump.” Arkansas governor and former Trump White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, “God Almighty intervened, because America is one nation under God, and He is not done with President Trump.”

Other Republicans were even more explicit about how the assassination attempt proves that Christians are locked in spiritual warfare against evil enemies. Tucker Carlson, whose floundering post-Fox career has been revitalized by his outsized presence at the RNC, told a Heritage Foundation gathering on Monday that the assassination attempt proved “there is a spiritual battle underway,” and warned that forces that are “against Trump” are “hoping to eliminate” Christians, a statement amplified on the Christian Broadcasting Network.Trump campaign spokesperson Caroline Sunshine, appearing on Fox News on Tuesday, called the left “godless,” and then cited Ephesians 6:11 and the need for Trump supporters to “put on the full armor of God.” In her convention speech Wednesday night, Kimberly Guilfoyle, the fiancée of Donald Trump Jr., proclaimed, “God has put an armor of protection on Donald Trump.” 

Beyond his post-Trump shooting tweet, Posobiec has been even more explicit that he sees this “spiritual” battle as one against democracy itself. In February, in speeches to the Conservative Political Action Conference, he pledged to “overthrow” democracy and support January 6 insurrectionists. “We didn’t get all the way there on Jan. 6, but we will endeavor to get rid of it,” he said in one speech. In another, he said, “after we burn that swamp to the ground, we will establish the new American republic on its ashes, and our first order of business will be righteous retribution for those who betrayed America.” At the far right National Conservatism conference in Washington, D.C. earlier this month, where now-vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance also spoke, Posobiec laid out a fascistic vision for defeating “un-humans.” (He was also promoting his new book of that title, which has been endorsed by Donald Trump, Jr. and disgraced former Trump national security advisor and stolen election conspiracy theorist Michael Flynn.) Posobiec praised Joseph McCarthy and Viktor Orbán; he called for “investigations to identify the neo-cultural Marxists in seats of power all across Washington.” According to a transcript of the NatCon speech posted by journalist Hamilton Nolan, Posobiec said, “We don’t negotiate with globalist neo-Marxists. We don’t negotiate with the political version of an auto-immune disease. In a word, ladies and gentlemen — taken from the title of my book — we don’t negotiate with un-humans. Because that’s the stakes of this battle: humanity versus un-humanity. Populist nationalists versus atheist Marxist globalists. Strength, beauty, and genius versus weakness, ugliness, and stupidity. Civilization versus barbarism. Crime and chaos versus law and order.”

There, too, he invoked the armor of God, saying, “We are the Christians who put on the full armor of God to march into battle against Satan and all his works.” By mid-week this week, Posobiec’s viral tweet had become the stuff of Fox News discussions about how divine intervention saved Trump. Trace Gallagher, host of Fox News @ Night, featured Posobiec’s tweet in a segment in which he discussed the topic with Pastor Robert Jeffress, a longtime Trump loyalist and one of the first prominent evangelicals to get behind his 2016 presidential run. But even he balked at signing on to Posobiec’s tweet. “God has a plan for each one of us, including president Trump, and he has a plan for each nation, including the United States of America,” he told Gallagher when asked about the tweet. Jeffress might have ducked the question, but many of Trump’s most ardent supporters made it abundantly clear they are ready for the spiritual war.