An Evangelical U.S. Senator From Georgia Jokes That Christians Should Pray For Obama’s Death

Ted Cruz’s departure from the presidential race has left a void in off-the-rail evangelical speech coverage, but we’ll always have memories. After all, Cruz left quite an impression next to a pastor who called for the execution of gays right before the Zodiac Killer bounded happily onto the stage. Fortunately, there are still some willing politicians to fill the awkward gap. One of them happens to be U.S. Senator David Perdue, who has caused quite a ruckus with his jokey remarks about President Obama.

The freshman senator from Georgia took the mic at The Road to Majority (a Christian conservative gathering, which Trump will keynote on Friday) where he invoked a bible passage to explain his feelings on Barack Obama. Let’s just say that he’s not a fan of the president and can’t wait until his second term ends. And he got a little hyperbolic with his choice of shared passages — which involved a biblical death wish — to express his hopes for the country:

“I think we’re called to pray for our country, for our leaders, and yes, even our president. In his role as president I think we should pray for Barack Obama. But I think we need to be very specific about how we pray. We should pray like Psalms 109:8 says. It says, “‘Let his days be few, and let another have his office.'”

This was a play on words on what isn’t exactly a friendly little psalm against those who cross David. In fact, this passage is downright ominous:

8. Let his days be few; and let another take his office.
9. Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.
10. Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places.
11. Let the extortioner catch all that he hath; and let the strangers spoil his labour.
12. Let there be none to extend mercy unto him: neither let there be any to favour his fatherless children.
13. Let his posterity be cut off; and in the generation following let their name be blotted out.

In response, Perdue’s audience laughed along with what was apparently a joke. Here’s a video clip showing this portion of the speech.

The Daily Beast spoke with Deborah Lauter of the Anti-Defamation League, who didn’t see the humor: “It’s protected speech, but it’s clearly offensive.” In response to the backlash against this joke, Sahil Kapur of Bloomberg tweeted a statement from Perdue’s spokesperson: “He in no way wishes harm towards our president.”

(Via Daily Beast)