MSNBC’s Joy Reid was no fan of the animated benediction at Donald Trump’s inauguration.
She remarked it was both “over the top” and “quite performative” by Reverend Lorenzo Sewell, who shot up in MAGA fame after he hosted Trump at his Detroit church last summer for a roundtable.
“I’m not sure what the point was,” she said of the prayer, which she referred to as a “speech.”
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The benediction was notably patriotic, pro-Trump, and made multiple references to Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “I have a dream” speech. That invocation was likely intentional, as the inauguration fell on the national holiday for the late civil rights icon.
“We are grateful that you are the one that have called him for such a time as this, that America would begin to dream again,” Sewell said, referencing Trump.
Sewell, who is Black, prayed that Americans continue to “live in a nation where we will not be judged by the color of our skin, but by the content of our character.” He also referred to Trump’s near-death assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, as the “millimeter miracle.”
Sewell spoke loudly and raised up his hands throughout his three-minute prayer—a decision that was praised as passionate by some but criticized by others as resembling a “minstrel show.”
“Lorenzo Sewell is an embarrassment to himself, his family, and our nation,” wrote one detractor on X. That same man added in a second post, “Lorenzo Sewell chose #MLKDay to mock Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on worldwide television at the close of a presidential inauguration. Not sure I’ve seen a more shameful display, ever.”
Sewell has said previously he was once a “street pharmacist”—a term for a drug dealer—before he had a “mighty experience with Jesus” that set him on a path to become a reverend.
Sewell told MSNBC in June that he did not align with Republicans or Democrats, but his actions since suggest otherwise. He delivered a prayer at the RNC the following month and told Fox News weeks ago that it is “impossible” for pastors and Christians to be politically “neutral.”
“We do not believe that every Democrat is a demon,” he said, “but we do believe that the Democratic platform is demonic.”
