After blasting the Drudge Report for linking to a Breitbart article about his latest fast, Glenn Beck doubled down on his religious rhetoric by reciting a passage from the Bible about “boasters” and “blasphemers” to encourage Indiana voters to “turn away” from GOP frontrunner Donald Trump.
At a rally for Ted Cruz at the Indiana State Fair Grounds yesterday, Beck said, “Ted and I were just driving in, and he’s laughing on his iPhone. He said, ‘Well, you made another Drudge headline.’ And I said, ‘Well, it’s better than the headline of you pushing Carly off the stage.’”
He explained the Drudge headline by saying: “It was because last night when I got home I did something that I don’t think is controversial. I asked for America to fast and pray and approach the Lord with humility and ask for His forgiveness and His protection. And it is being mocked in the media as usual. But I’m telling you, I don’t know who we are if this is not an American thing to be able to beseech the Almighty Creator – the one who gave us these rights in the first place and through Divine Providence established this country. I don’t know who we are.”
He then adopted a fake Southern accent and joked, “But I’mma just gonna make it easier for them to make fun of me.”
Holding open a book, Beck said, “I just want to ask you if you can recognize this person. Tell me if this doesn’t sound like somebody we might know.”
When someone in the audience shouted, “Cruz,” Beck joked, again using an exaggerated Southern accent, “Amen, brother! Come on up and get baptized!”
Speaking in his real voice again, he proceeded to recite 2 Timothy 3:1-5 from the Bible, saying: “This know also, that in those days the perilous times shall come. For men will be lovers of their own selves. They will be covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, fierce, despisers of all that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God, having the form of godliness but denying the power thereof. From those people ye shall turn away.”
After reciting this passage from the King James Bible, Beck said, “Man o’live, it couldn’t be more clear, and yet so many people in America are missing it.”
Beck, who has in the past described Trump as “a pathological narcissistic sociopath” and “a narcissistic psychopath” whose presidency “will lead to civil war or worst,” clearly intended the Indiana audience to “recognize” Trump in that passage and “turn away” from him.
The radio talker has increasingly filled his rally speeches for Cruz with overt religious imagery. He has declared Cruz to be “anointed” by God and “a man who was raised for these times” by God. He has also called the Texas senator “the next George Washington” – the Founding Father who Beck idolizes with religious fervor usually reserved for saints. Beck has also criticized Christian Evangelical voters for not supporting Cruz, declaring that “real Christians” don’t support Donald Trump and that “all throughout the South the Evangelicals are not listening to their God” after Cruz lost primaries in the South to Trump.
In a Facebook post on Sunday night, Beck encouraged Americans to join him in a fast in the run-up to the Indiana primary. The last time he encouraged a fast was following Cruz’s defeat in South Carolina.
It’s been a difficult past week for Beck, following news of another round of mass layoffs at his troubled media empire. On Friday, after giving an impassioned “farewell address” of sorts to his 40 laid-off employees from his replica Oval Office, the former radio shock jock joined his co-hosts in donning swim goggles and rubbing his face in a bowl of crushed Cheetos to see if they could “look like Donald Trump.”
Watch the full video of Beck’s remarks below:
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