CNN's Chris Cuomo tries to explain prayer to Trump after bizarre Pelosi dig

(Image credit: Screenshot/YouTube/CNN)

The six-page letter President Trump sent to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Tuesday "is unlike anything I've ever seen from a sitting president — really, anything I've ever seen from Donald Trump," Chris Cuomo said on CNN Tuesday night. It wasn't a compliment. Trump is "marshaling the weight of the world's most powerful office to declare himself as the sole arbiter of what actions are impeachable," Cuomo said, and doing so "without any real deep thought, it's just a stream of consciousness bombarding you with mistruths, with lies, with personal animus, and a staggering lack of comprehension for the reality that he now finds himself in and, as a result, the rest of us do as well."

Cuomo walked through some of the "absurdity that is littered throughout this thing," swatting at Trump's fallacies and concluding that "the basic facts that he tries to present are not on his side." But Trump's accusation that Pelosi was lying about praying for him got some special attention from Cuomo:

Here he is assuming he speaks for all Americans of faith by attacking the speaker, saying "You are offending Americans of faith by continually saying 'I pray for the president.'" Does he not understand prayer? Prayer doesn't change things, it is an attempt to change people. It would be Pelosi asking for help for him, but inasmuch doing that, help for herself to deal with her situation. That's what prayer is. It's not magic. And it's certainly not offensive to anybody of faith. [Chris Cuomo, CNN]

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CNN's Chris Cillizza was also floored by Trump's fake-prayer charge. "Trump knows Pelosi doesn't actually pray for him?" Cillizza asked. "How? Did someone eavesdrop on her prayers? Also, what is the 'negative sense' of praying? I spent more time than I'd like to admit thinking about this and decided that Trump is suggesting that if Pelosi prays for him, it's for his demise. I think." Or maybe Trump just watched Saturday Night Live last weekend and saw this:

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"If we had more prayer from our people in elected office and from all of us, we'd be in a better place no matter what you believe," Cuomo concluded. Amen?

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.