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Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde was nearing the end of her sermon for the inaugural prayer service on Tuesday when she took a breath and looked directly at President Trump. “I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now,” she said. “There are gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican and independent families, some who fear for their lives.”
The direct appeal to Mr. Trump, at the start of the first full day of his presidency, was a remarkable moment. Twenty-four hours after he had reclaimed the highest office in the land, summoning tech billionaires as witnesses and pulling off a sweeping display of power by signing a flurry of executive orders, he was suddenly confronted by an extraordinary act of public resistance from an unlikely source: a soft-spoken bishop.
The vast majority of immigrants are not criminals, Bishop Budde said. “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.”
Mr. Trump, seated in the first row of pews in the towering Washington National Cathedral, looked down and then away. Vice President JD Vance raised his eyebrows and looked several times at his wife, Usha Vance, who kept her gaze trained ahead on the bishop. When Bishop Budde finished, Mr. Trump said something to Mr. Vance, who shook his head in apparent irritation. Members of the Trump family seated directly behind them appeared to look at one another, noticeably perturbed. Eric Trump, Mr. Trump’s middle son, shook his head.
In an interview, Bishop Budde said she had decided to speak to the president directly because “of the fear that I have seen and experienced among our people — people that I know and love, both within the immigrant community and within the L.G.B.T.Q. community, and how terrified so many are.”
She said she was concerned about “the level of license to be really quite cruel” that some people feel now. “I wasn’t necessarily calling the president out. I was trying to say, ‘The country has been entrusted to you.’ And one of the qualities of a leader is mercy, right? Mercy. And to be mindful of the people who are scared.”
She added, “I’m not the only one who is saying this, but I’m just one voice. I’m just a person who is called to serve, and my calling is to speak the truth.”
Asked by a reporter what he thought of the service, the president said, “I didn’t think it was a good service, no.”
In response to Bishop Budde’s comments about immigration, Mr. Trump said, without providing evidence, that a “large number” of immigrants had come to the United States illegally and killed people.
Under the order signed by Mr. Trump on Monday, males and females would be defined at “conception,” the text states. Someone who eventually produces “the large reproductive cell” would be deemed female, the order says. A male would be defined as the person who eventually “produces the small reproductive cell.”
The order also says that the federal government would no longer recognize “gender identity,” and only “sex” as defined by “an individual’s immutable biological classification as either male or female.”
The order also prohibits the use of federal funds for any promotion of “gender ideology” through grants or other government programming, as well as the use of public funding for transition-related medical procedures in prisons.
The order effectively defines transgender Americans out of existence. “At its core, this executive order is an appallingly cruel effort to make transgender people strangers to the law and push them back into the closet,” said Sarah Warbelow, legal director at the Human Rights Campaign.
Mr. Trump also issued multiple immigration-related executive orders on Monday that suspended refugee admissions, severely restricted asylum for migrants and made clear that he intended to deploy the military to the southern border. The border, however, remains relatively calm after a record number of illegal crossings earlier in the Biden administration.
The Trump administration also rescinded a Biden policy that directed Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to not make arrests at schools, places of worship and other places described as “sensitive locations.”
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