Franklin Graham Serves Up Massively Hypocritical Claims on Vaccines, Trump and the Press in Axios Interview

Pro-Trump Conservative Evangelical Leader Franklin Graham sat down with Axios co-founder Mike Allen and brought up various hypocritical views on topics ranging from former President Donald Trump to vaccines to the media.

Perhaps the biggest lie was a brief exchange about the coronavirus vaccine.

Numerous months of reports make it clear that Conservative Evangelicals are the largest group of Americans who refuse to receive the vaccine. Given that one in four Americans is Protestant, it will be difficult for the US to achieve herd immunity on its own.

“Evangelical resistance to the COVID-19 vaccine poses a public health challenge,” NPR reported on April 5.

A New York Times headline on the same day made the problem increasingly clear: “Millions of white evangelicals have no intention of getting vaccinated.”

A month earlier, an AP / NORC poll found that “40% of white evangelical Protestants said they are unlikely to be vaccinated.”

According to Graham (who encouraged evangelicals to get the shot) evangelicals are not the problem.

“In the past four years, when you supported President Trump, you’ve seen everything become more politicized and polarized. Do you feel like some of it is on your doorstep?” Axios’ Mike Allen introduced himself in the interview (below).

“No,” replied Graham. “I appreciate what the president has done for our country.”

“Because many of his followers,” Allen continued, “many Christians, many evangelical Christians do not believe in science, the truth, the press.”

“Many accept vaccines,” said Graham, “many don’t. And it’s not a gospel thing,” he claimed, which is wrong.

Graham also asked Allen how Trump treated the press.

“Rally after rally, President Trump said, ‘Don’t believe them’ and pointed to the cameras.” Don’t believe the press, don’t believe anyone but me. “

“And I would never have said that,” claimed Graham. “And I think that it hurts. I think you built a wall. I think it generated hostility when it shouldn’t have been. Just because someone disagrees with you doesn’t mean they are your enemy. “

“You think it was a mistake for President Trump to demonize the press?” Allen asked at close range.

“No question,” replied Graham (video below.)

Here’s Graham, doing exactly the same thing Trump did and to advance Trump’s agenda (all quotes from Graham’s Twitter account):

“I have never seen hatred as we see it in our nation today. The mainstream media is so biased and will do anything to attack @POTUS Trump. He has done more for our country in four years than any other president in my life, but that is not important for the media on the agenda. “October 16, 2020

“A lot of the media lost it. There is no respect, no honor. What happened to the professionalism and journalists reporting the facts without a personal agenda? “December 7th, 2018

“Never before has there been such hatred as we have seen from the Democrats and the liberal media for Donald Trump. Why? It may be that he didn’t bow to them. “January 13, 2020

“The news media are so vicious and relentless in their troubleshooting and attacks on the president. It’s just sick. “December 26, 2018

“I blamed the media for feeding the divisions and advancing their own agendas rather than carefully researching and reporting on the news.” January 23, 2019

“For once I agree with House @ SpeakerPelosi – our country is in a constitutional crisis. However, I disagree with her on the matter. I blame her and those in the Democratic Party who follow her along with many in the media. May 10, 2019

“The Müller report is in – no evidence of agreements. The sad thing is the US lost 2 years and millions of dollars to investigation when @POTUS @ realDonaldTrump’s enemies spat out lies. The liberal media were also to blame for this nightmare. “March 24, 2019

Clock:

. @ mikeallen: “Are you telling us? [Trump] hard truths? “

Rev. @Franklin_Graham: “Yes I do.”

Allen: How does he take it?

Graham: Sometimes I leave his office and I think he’ll never invite me back. #AxiosOnHBO pic.twitter.com/v79q6vg7Gp

– Axios (@axios) May 17, 2021