Evangelist Franklin Graham urges prayer for Biden and Harris after riots at US Capitol
Rev. Franklin Graham — an ardent ally of President Donald Trump — asked Christians to pray for the incoming administration after Trump supporters besieged the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday.
“The division in our country is as great as any time since the Civil War,” he wrote on Twitter. “I am calling on Christians to unite our hearts together in prayer for President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, and for the leadership in both parties.”
Graham’s message comes less than 24 hours after rioters stormed buildings on Capitol Hill as Congress was set to certify the election results, forcing lawmakers to evacuate and killing at least four people. Many have blamed the violence on Trump, who urged his supporters to descend on the Capitol during a rally Wednesday morning.
The tweet was one of several Graham penned about the riots between 7 p.m. Wednesday — when Trump was locked out of his own social media accounts — and 11:30 a.m. Thursday in which he described being “deeply saddened by what took place” and urged people to “stop the finger pointing.”
“Pray for peace and the protection of our nation,” he said. “Let’s come together — on our knees.”
Graham is a North Carolina native and son of the late evangelist Billy Graham. He has backed Trump since the 2016 election but said he’d be willing to work with Biden, the Associated Press reported in early December.
“If Joe Biden is the president, if that’s what it turns out to be, then we need to do everything we can to support him, where we can,” he told the AP.
Still, critics were quick to call his message of unity hypocritical after repeatedly backing Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud.
In a Dec. 28 tweet, Graham urged his supporters to vote Republican in the Georgia runoff election and warned of the “radical agenda of the left.”
“There won’t be another chance to get this right,” Graham said. “The nation is depending on you.”
As a mob made its way to the Capitol just before noon Wednesday, Graham wrote on Facebook “the votes are in, but is the election over? I have no clue. I guess we just have to wait and see.”
Graham later told Religion News Service the rioters “have a right to protest” and it wasn’t for him to decide whether people should “go home,” as Trump said in a video on Twitter that has since been removed.
“The people who broke the windows in the Capitol did not look like the people out there demonstrating,” Graham said when Religion News Service reached out for his reaction to the violence. “Most likely it was antifa. For people busting windows, they need to go home. But for people standing out there peacefully holding flags, and protesting, they have every right to do that.”
Snopes has debunked claims the rioters were with Antifa, pointing to unreliable sources and Trump’s previous comments urging “his supporters to do exactly what they’re doing now.”
Others said Graham was in-part to blame for all the “finger pointing,” saying he contributed to the violence by supporting Trump.
“I’ve listened to the ‘both sides’ argument for a long time,” one person wrote on Twitter. “Only one side called for violence and it’s the side that calls itself the ‘religious right.’ You backed Trump so you could gain political power. You own this moment too.”
Another said the violence was “Trump and his followers doing.”
“This is the next obvious step 5 years in the making,” they said. “Do some introspection and really see how you have added to this madness.”
This story was originally published January 7, 2021 at 4:38 PM with the headline "Evangelist Franklin Graham urges prayer for Biden and Harris after riots at US Capitol."
