Leaked Recording Between the President and Christian Group Reveals That Trump Said ‘Excuse Me?’ When Mike Pence Asked Him the First Time They Met to ‘Bow Your Head and Pray’

Donald Trump told a group of Christians he said ‘excuse me’ when Mike Pence asked him to pray with him at their first meeting, a new recording reveals.

Pence, an evangelical Christian, asked Trump, then the Republican presidential nominee if he’d like to pray, according to the tape of meeting Trump had with Christian leaders that was obtained by The Atlantic.

‘The first time I met [Mike Pence], he said, “Will you bow your head and pray?” and I said, “Excuse me?” I’m not used to it,’ Trump said at the meeting, which happened during his first presidential campaign in September 2016.

Trump has been appealing to the Christian right this campaign year, warning supporters at his rallies that Joe Biden will burn down their churches and accusing the Democratic nominee of being against religion.

The president also has pushed for churches to reopen during the coronavirus pandemic.

And he’s touted the religious background of his Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett and warned Democrats not to go after her faith.

‘On the religious situation with Amy, I thought we settled this 60 years ago with the election of John F. Kennedy,’ Trump said when he announced Barrett as his nominee on Saturday. ‘Seriously, they’re going after her Catholicism.’

He then accused Democrats of ‘basically fighting a major religion in our country.’

But an investigation by The Atlantic found a different side of the president.

In a recording of a meeting the president had in 2016 with leaders on the religious right- including talk-radio host Eric Metaxas, the Dallas megachurch pastor Robert Jeffress, and the theologian Wayne Grudem – Trump admits he is not familiar with the Bible.

‘I don’t know the Bible as well as some of the other people,’ he said.

And he bragged about the nickname he gave Republican Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska.

‘I call him Little Ben Sasse,’ Trump said. ‘I have to do it, I’m sorry. That’s when my religion always deserts me.’

A White House spokesman told the magazine that ‘people of faith know that President Trump is a champion for religious liberty and the sanctity of life, and he has taken strong actions to support them and protect their freedom to worship. The president is also well known for joking and his terrific sense of humor, which he shares with people of all faiths.’

Campaign advisers said Trump expressed awe at the amount of followers that mega-churches were able to attract and referred to pastors of those churches as ‘hustlers.’

And some close to him said they didn’t know he was religious.

‘I always assumed he was an atheist,’ Barbara Res, a former executive at the Trump Organization, said.