Donald Trump responds to Flint pastor who interrupted his anti-Clinton comments

(Image credit: Mark Makela/Getty Images)

published 15 September 2016

On Thursday, Donald Trump reacted to the Flint, Mich., pastor who stopped him from attacking Hillary Clinton during his Wednesday visit to the city. In a phone interview with Fox and Friends, Trump said he "figured something was up from the start" because the pastor, Faith Green-Timmons, "was like a nervous mess" when she was introducing him. Trump was slated to discuss the city's lead-contaminated water crisis during his visit to Bethel United Methodist Church, but he veered off topic and began slamming Clinton, prompting the pastor to ask him to stop.

"I mean, everyone plays their games. It doesn't bother me," Trump said, suggesting the pastor had that interruption in mind from the start. Politico reported that the pastor wrote on Facebook before Trump's appearance that "he will not use us, we will educate him." When she interrupted Trump's speech, Green-Timmons reminded him they'd invited him to "thank us for the work we've done in Flint, not give a political speech."

Overall, Trump said he got "unbelievably good treatment from the people" during his "interesting experience." "I'll tell you what made me feel good, the audience was saying let him speak, let him speak, and the audience was so great and these are mostly African-American people, phenomenal people and they want to see change," he said, noting that "what they did with the water is horrible, but the crime rate" in Flint is "ridiculous."