Evangelicals believe in the power of forgiveness, and have seen the change in Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who is "beside himself" over allegations surfacing that he had grabbed, groped, and kissed several women against their wishes in past years, Evangelist and Liberty University president Jerry Falwell Jr. said Thursday.
"He was just beside himself, he couldn't believe that the press was running with a story like that," Falwell told Fox News' "America's Newsroom" program, explaining that he spoke with Trump Wednesday night.
"That's why he released a statement last night that, categorically denying all the accusations . . . He's a different man than the man you saw on that videotape a few years ago, 11 years ago," Falwell continued.
He also told the program that Trump has evidence that will disprove the allegations.
Falwell said he is also not concerned that evangelicals will back away from Trump, because they understand Christianity is "about forgiveness, it's about repentance."
Voters have seen the change in Trump, Falwell continued, saying he's seen it personally.
"He's not the same person he was one, two, three, four, five years ago," said Falwell. "Since he's become a politician, he's seen the suffering of the American people. That's positively influenced him."
Also on Wednesday, Falwell said an alleged email from Hillary Clinton director of communications Jennifer Palmieri making comments about Catholics is just "further evidence" of the Democratic nominee's "elitism."
"She's part of the establishment," Falwell told the program. "The fact that she would say that these people are Catholics not because they have sincerely-held beliefs, but because being an evangelical would be not acceptable by their rich friends is just further proof of her view of the American people."
Clinton, continued Falwell, has a pattern of saying that she has one position in private and another in public, and that's been proven with the emails being revealed through Wikileaks.
"[They are] implying that the American people, the average American is too dumb to understand why she has to have one position for the elites and one for everybody else," said Falwell. "It's why why all these accusations are being thrown against Donald Trump, because they want to steer the public away from all of these revelations in these emails."
Falwell shared a story about a time when he was working as an attorney in 1989, and work was being done on refinancing for the university through a Little Rock, Arkansas law firm, and they brought along the Rose Law firm, while Clinton, Vince Foster and others were still associated with it.
"I've got the whole group, and they were the most condescending, rude group of people I've ever dealt with in my professional career, and it's just par for the course," said Falwell. "These people look down their noses at the American people. And that's why Trump has done so well.
"It's always been a grassroots movement with Trump. It doesn't matter what the Republican establishment does, tries to do to Donald Trump, because they're not where he got his power."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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