The Price of Speaking Up in Trump's America

A bishop asked the president to show mercy to immigrants and scared children. The response tells us everything about the next four years.

On Tuesday morning at Washington's National Cathedral, Episcopal Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde did something remarkable: she looked directly at the president of the United States and asked for mercy. It became a bit of a viral moment.

Her words were simple and profound. They should have also been completely uncontroversial. Speaking to Trump, who sat in the front pew, she said:

In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now. There are gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican and independent families, some who fear for their lives. The people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meatpacking plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals. They may not be citizens or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes, and are good neighbors. They are faithful members of our churches and mosques, synagogues, gurdwara, and temples. I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away, and that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here.

---

---

The response was swift and severe. Trump himself attacked her on Truth Social, calling her a "Radical Left hard line Trump hater" and demanding an apology. He told reporters the service was "not too exciting" and that organizers "could do much better."

But that was just the beginning. Right-wing media launched an all-out assault on Budde that revealed exactly how power plans to deal with dissent in Trump's second term. Fox News host Greg Gutfeld literally called her "Satan." His colleague Sean Hannity described it as a "disgraceful prayer full of fearmongering and division." Fox & Friends co-host Lawrence Jones called Budde’s words “radical leftist.” The Daily Wire's Matt Walsh declared that "hell exists for people like Mariann" and called her "exhibit A for why women should not be pastors, priests, or bishops.”

Even members of Congress got in on the act, with one Republican suggesting that the American-born bishop should be "added to the deportation list.”

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Naturally, with conservative audiences fully whipped into a fury, Budde says she began receiving wishes for her death.

All of this—the full machinery of right-wing outrage—deployed against a religious leader who simply asked for kindness toward vulnerable people. The disproportionate response tells us exactly what we're dealing with.

When asked about the backlash, Budde told NPR, "I regret that it has caused the kind of response that it has, in the sense that it actually confirmed the very thing that I was speaking of earlier, which is our tendency to jump to outrage and not speak to one another with respect." But she stood firm: "I don't feel there's a need to apologize for a request for mercy."

The irony here is that Budde's sermon was actually about unity. As she explained to The View, her responsibility "was to reflect, to pray with the nation for unity," and her remarks were an attempt to "say we need to treat everyone with dignity, and we need to be merciful.”

This matters because it's a preview of how the new administration and its media allies plan to handle dissent. They're not just disagreeing with Budde's message—they're trying to destroy her for delivering it. When Fox's Will Cain tells viewers that this represents a "woke virus" that has "infected the church,” he's providing a framework for dismissing and demonizing any religious leader who dares to speak up for vulnerable people.

Remember this moment. Remember that asking for mercy toward scared children and immigrants was enough to trigger a full-scale campaign of intimidation from the highest levels of government and media. Remember that a sitting congressman suggested deporting an American citizen for the crime of asking the president to be kind.

This is how authoritarianism works—not just through direct government action, but through the creation of an environment where speaking up feels too costly. When Fox's Jesse Watters says Budde is "lucky this didn't happen on day one when he was a dictator because he would have put her in prison,” he's half-joking. But only half.

The question isn't whether Budde was right to speak up. The question is whether the rest of us will have the courage to join her. Because if this is how they respond to a gentle plea for mercy, imagine what's in store for those who dare to push back against actual policies.

The important thing to remember here is that Budde is still standing. And her words are still true, no matter how many right-wing hosts try to demonize her for speaking them. The immigrants she described are still our neighbors. The scared children she mentioned are still scared.

The administration's response to Budde's sermon has shown us exactly who they are. The only question is who we'll choose to be in response.