A Compendium of Statements That St. Peter Might Be Asking Pat Robertson to Explain

Televangelist Pat Robertson, who founded the Christian Broadcasting Network, died Thursday at age 93.

Robertson was one of the main drivers behind Christian conservatism’s entry into mainstream politics, introducing what would become some of modern Republicans’ favorite talking points, including blaming LGBTQ people and people of color for pretty much everything.

Here are nine statements Robertson made that he will probably have to explain at the pearly gates.

1. Gay people and abortion caused 9/11

Robertson hosted fellow televangelist Jerry Falwell on his show The 700 Club just days after the 9/11 attack. At one point, Falwell said, “The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America, I point the finger in their face and say, ‘You helped this happen.’”

Robertson replied, “I totally concur, and the problem is we have adopted that agenda at the highest levels of our government.”

2. Haitians deserved the earthquake in 2010

Haiti was struck by a devastating earthquake in January 2010. The death toll is still uncertain, but potentially half a million people died. Robertson said that Haitians had made a “pact with the devil” and have been “cursed” ever since.

3. Feminists are evil

In a 1992 fundraising letter, Robertson wrote: “The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.”

4. Abortion caused Hurricane Katrina

Robertson said Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005 because God was angry about abortion. “I was reading … a book that was very interesting about what God has to say in the Old Testament about those who shed innocent blood,” he said. “Have we found we are unable somehow to defend ourselves against some of the attacks that are coming against us, either by terrorists or now by natural disaster? Could they be connected?”

5. God won’t bless America because of gay people and abortion

Robertson said at the start of 2010 that God wouldn’t bless America that year because there was too much abortion and homosexuality and not enough prayer.

“Fifty million babies slaughtered,” Robertson said God told him. “You can’t have legislation that is anti-God. You can’t foster in your midst things that I call an abomination.… If you do, sooner or later judgment’s going to come.”

6. Gay people are Nazis

In March 1990, Robertson referred to homosexuality as a “pathology” that needed to be treated. “Many of those people involved with Adolf Hitler were Satanists, many of them were homosexuals,” he said on The 700 Club. “Those two things seem to go together.”

7. Muslims are also Nazis

In 2011, Robertson compared Islamophobia to being anti-Nazi. “I was thinking, you know, if you oppose Muslims, what is said?” he asked on The 700 Club. “Well, you’re a bigot, right? Terrible bigotry. I wonder, what were people who opposed the Nazis? Were they bigots?”

8. God would overturn the 2020 election in favor of Donald Trump

Robertson told 700 Club viewers that the lawsuit filed by Texas’s then–Attorney General Ken Paxton challenging the results of the 2020 election was a “miracle.”

“They’re going to the Supreme Court to say, ‘This election was rigged and you’ve got to overturn it,’” Robertson said, pushing Trump-backed falsehoods. He also said God would intervene.

(At least on this point, Robertson seemed to correct himself, saying two weeks later that Trump was living in “an alternate reality.”)

9. Towels in Kenya transmit AIDS

In 2014, a 700 Club viewer asked whether an upcoming trip to Kenya was risky.

“You might get AIDS in Kenya,” Robertson warned on air. “The people have AIDS in Kenya. The towels could have AIDS.”

Lauren Boebert doesn’t have the time of day for people who survived mass shootings.

On Tuesday, as gun violence survivors visited Washington, D.C., to lobby for action, they ran up against some elected officials who wouldn’t even look them in the eye, including one Republican Representative Boebert.

“Hey, there’s a lot of survivors over there if you want to …,” one young visitor started to Boebert.

“Survivors of gun violence if you want to talk to them,” another finished. “Survivors from Uvalde, Parkland.… You don’t really care?”

“It’s alright. My son died for you to just go do that,” said Brett Cross, whose son was shot and killed at the Uvalde elementary school shooting, as Boebert walked by without even looking at him.

“I heard you’re gonna be a grandmother!” the first young individual called out as Boebert and her aides marched away toward the people’s house.

Numerous other members of Congress did take time out of their equally busy days to meet with the student and parent organizers, including Senator Bernie Sanders and Representatives Summer Lee, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, and Mike Thompson. Senator Jon Ossoff even came out as another co-sponsor of a bill to ban assault weapons.

Also on Tuesday, when asked about gun violence by a school shooting survivor, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene simply said she supports the Second Amendment before turning her back and walking away from a child who survived a gun killing.

Republican infighting over the recently passed debt limit law has gotten so bad that they’re undermining their own investigation into President Joe Biden to get back at each other.

Some of the most conservative House Republicans, furious that Speaker Kevin McCarthy agreed to raise the debt ceiling, blocked a bill on Tuesday that would have prevented gas stoves from being banned (another one of their fake culture wars). But now, Republican leadership may respond by blocking a vote, set for Thursday, to hold CIA director Christopher Wray in contempt for not complying with the Oversight Committee’s holey Biden investigation.

“I have been told that leadership teams are meeting right now,” Representative Matt Gaetz told Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast. “And they’re thinking about punishing House conservatives and just sending everybody home this week, and canceling the committee work and the contempt work as a way to stick it to us for making demands that they keep their promises.”

Members of the Freedom Caucus, the farthest-right wing of the House, accuse McCarthy of reneging on several promises he made to them when he was elected speaker. In fact, those promises were what got him elected speaker in the first place.

McCarthy apparently also promised to slash government spending and cap the debt ceiling. Instead, McCarthy negotiated with Biden to pass a deal to raise the debt ceiling (after a GOP-manufactured crisis that brought the U.S. to the brink of default).

The Freedom Caucus has been a thorn in McCarthy’s side since the very beginning. They’re the ones who made us sit through 15 rounds of votes for the speakership. And now, they’ve dragged the Republican Party into a weird game of tit for tat that is preventing them from actually achieving any of their goals.

Considering one of those goals is an investigation based on seemingly no evidence, maybe we should let them keep going.

Don’t blink, you might miss it: a Republican actually criticizing twice-impeached, criminally indicted, and liable-for-sexual-abuse former President Donald Trump.

During his presidential campaign announcement on Wednesday, Mike Pence did not shy away from the bare minimum of saying that Trump’s actions related to the January 6 attack on the Capitol disqualify him from the White House.

“My former running mate continues to insist that I had the right to overturn the election. But President Trump was wrong then, and he’s wrong now,” Trump’s former vice president said.

“Anyone who puts themselves over the Constitution should never be president of the United States, and anyone who asks someone else to put them over the Constitution should never be president again.”

Pence’s remarks come while he’s also aiming to position himself as the most conservative candidate in the race—looking to ban abortion outright, openly calling for cuts to programs like Social Security and Medicare, and embracing military hawkishness. Pence conceptualizes it all as a resurgent “Reagan coalition,” a plan that may only somewhat work at chipping away at Trump, who has commanded a lead over many conservatives who romanticize Reagan’s destructive legacy.

In the past, Pence has maintained some posture of benevolence toward Trump, reiterating his commitment to honoring the Constitution rather than focusing directly on Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. He has also written glowing anecdotes about the former president, called Trump’s indictment “political persecution,” and repeatedly refused to testify in the House investigation against Trump.

Pence’s comments today portend some more awareness that his best shot at losing less badly, if not somehow winning, is by actually going after Trump. Time will tell whether he’ll stick to his guns or balk at the first sign of adversity.

The PGA Tour and its Saudi-backed rival, LIV Golf, have unveiled a plan to merge, but it’s not yet a done deal—and it can still be stopped.

The two golf tours have been at each other’s throats for months, with LIV offering massive paychecks to lure golfers away from PGA. PGA, meanwhile, slammed Saudi Arabia’s human rights record. LIV sued the PGA Tour for antitrust law violations, and the Tour countersued, accusing LIV of using players “and the game of golf to sportswash the recent history of Saudi atrocities.”

Then PGA and LIV suddenly announced Tuesday that they would drop all lawsuits and merge operations, a plan that came as a huge shock even to the players. As it turns out, none of the PGA’s top players were consulted about the deal.

But the PGA Tour’s policy board has to approve the deal first—and it hasn’t yet. Here are the names of the 10 people who could stop the merger:

1. Ed Herlihy
2. Jimmy Dunne
3. Mark Flaherty
4. Mary Meeker
5. Randall Stephenson
6. Patrick Cantlay
7. Charley Hoffman
8. Peter Malnati
9. Rory McIlroy
10. Webb Simpson

It’s also possible that if a group of the world’s top players spoke out against the deal, then it might not move forward. McIlroy and Tiger Woods were both vocal in condemning LIV, but McIlroy said Wednesday he is “resigned” to the fact of Saudi Arabia’s growing influence in sports.

He also seems to feel that the merger will happen. “I still hate LIV. I hope it goes away, and I would fully expect that it does,” McIlroy said Wednesday during a press conference at the Canadian Open. “Whether you like it or not … the Saudis want to spend money in the game of golf, and they weren’t going to stop. This is the one thing that I’ve always thought about, how can we get that money into the game, but use it the right way?”

Another option would be for the Department of Justice to block the merger by arguing it violates antitrust laws. The department is already investigating the PGA Tour over LIV’s allegations of antitrust violations. But it’s unclear if the department will step in or how long that could take.