White House calls Trump’s church visit 'leadership moment', draws parallels with Churchill

White House said Wednesday that President Donald Trump’s visit to a nearby church where he held up a Bible was a “leership moment” akin to Winston Churchill’s inspection of bomb-damd London during World War II, a comparison that drew swift condemnation from author of a new best-selling book on former British prime minister.

Throughout yearlong blitz of London by German fighter aircraft, Churchill often watched bombing raids from rooftops and he me special effort to walk streets in places where thousands were killed.

Trump ministration has been criticized by Democrats and several Republicans, after peaceful protesters were forcibly cleared from area around St. John’s Church, where president posed and held a Bible aloft on Monday. president did t inspect dam inside church.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Trump’s stroll to St. John’s Church day after it was damd by fire during protests was a comforting moment for Americans amid unrest spurred by police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

“Through all of time, we’ve seen presidents and leers across world who have h leership moments and very powerful symbols that were important for our nation to see at any given time to show a mess of resilience and determination,” she said.

“Like Churchill, we saw him inspecting bombing dam and it sent a powerful mess of leership to British people,” she said.

She listed or examples of presidential leership too: George W. Bush throwing out ceremonial first pitch at World Series after 9/11, Jimmy Carter putting on a sweater to encour energy savings; and George H.W. Bush signing Americans with Disabilities Act, when he was flanked by disabled Americans.

“For this president, it was powerful and important to send a mess that rioters, looters, anarchists, y will t prevail,” McEnany said.

Erik Larson, author of “ Splendid and Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During Blitz,” said he was disgusted by McEnany’s comparison.

“ comparison is worse than merely laughable; it verges on obscenity,” Larson tweeted. “Churchill wept when he visited bombed neighborhoods; he offered compassion and hope, and helped people find ir cour.”

Trump on Wednesday dismissed criticism of church visit and suggested that massive show of force h helped calm protests in Washington and elsewhere. Religious leers, including Episcopal Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde , have fiercely criticized Trump over tactics used against demonstrators.

“Most religious leers loved it,” Trump said in a Fox News Rio interview. “I heard Franklin Graham this morning thought it was great. I heard many or people think it was great. And it’s only or side that didn’t like it.”

Trump has praised leership of Churchill before. president reinstalled a bust of Churchill in Oval Office shortly after his inauguration in 2017 and later that year screened “Darkest Hour,” a film that recounts Churchill’s early days as prime minister in midst of war.