Just in time for the third anniversary of the Jan. 6 riot.
The Lincoln Project is launching a new ad likening the pandemonium that day to the fervor with which some faith leaders are declaring their — and God's — support for former President Donald Trump.
"This is war," said Pastor Shane Vaughn of First Harvest Ministries in Mississippi screams.
"You ain't seen an insurrection yet," promises Pastor Greg Locke of the Tennessee-based Global Vision Bible Church.
The one-minute spot intersperses them and other Christian ministers vowing that "spiritual warfare" will culminate in Trump "getting his second term of presidency" with the chaos at the U.S. Capitol.
It's titled "MAGA Church: Holy War," and its message is clear: If you want more of this, vote for Trump.
"MAGA 'preachers' are going to war for the least religious President in our lifetime," Lincoln Project spokesperson Gregory Minchak said in a statement. "History and a higher power will judge these lunatics for what they are: delusional, blindly devoted sycophants with a fixation on worshiping a false God."
The Thursday ad comes the same day as reporting that Trump will spend Saturday's third anniversary of the Capitol riot by holding two campaign rallies in leadoff-voting Iowa to support his White House bid.
President Joe Biden, meanwhile, plans to visit a site near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, on Friday where George Washington and the struggling Continental Army endured a tough winter during the American Revolution.
Biden's advisers say the stop in a critical swing state will highlight Trump's role in the Jan. 6 siege and give the Democrat a chance for him to lay out the stakes of this year's election. Weather concerns led Biden to move up his appearance from Saturday.
Biden's campaign also announced an advertising push starting Saturday with a spot centering on the Capitol attack.
In the ad, Biden says, "There's something dangerous happening in America."
Nine deaths were linked to the attack and more than 700 people have gone to court for their roles in it. More than 450 people have been sentenced to prison.
Federal prosecutors in Washington have charged Trump in connection with the riot, citing his promotion of false and debunked theories of election fraud and efforts to overturn the results. Trump has pleaded not guilty and continued to lie about the 2020 election.
Trump has still built a commanding lead in the Republican Primary, and his rivals largely refrain from criticizing him about Jan. 6. He has called it "a beautiful day" and described those imprisoned for the insurrection as "great, great patriots" and "hostages."
Gov. Ron DeSantis, who holds a distant second place in Republican Primary polling, called Jan. 6 a "protest" that "ended up devolving." He more recently said Trump "should have come out more forcefully" against the rioters. Trump's former U.N. Ambassador, Nikki Haley, who trails DeSantis in national polling by less than a percentage point, frequently tells crowds that Jan. 6 "was not a beautiful day; it was a terrible day."
Views overall of the attack have hardened along partisan lines.
In the days after the attack, 52% of U.S. adults said Trump bore a lot of responsibility for Jan. 6, according to the Pew Research Center. By early 2022, that had declined to 43%. The number of Americans who said Trump bore no responsibility increased to 32% in 2022 compared to 24% in 2021.
A Washington Post-University of Maryland poll released this week found that about 70% of Republicans say too much is being made of the attack. Just 18% of GOP supporters say that protesters who entered the Capitol were "mostly violent," down from 26% in 2021, while 77% of Democrats and 54% of independents say the protesters were mostly violent — essentially unchanged from 2021.
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Material from The Associated Press was used in this post. Republished with permission.
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