May 8, 2019

Michael Cohen Fixed Jerry Falwell Jr.’s Problem. Then the Evangelical Leader Went to Bat for Trump.

Falwell Jr. ended up playing a big role in Trump’s 2016 campaign.

Steve Helber / AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Donald Trump’s onetime lawyer and fixer helped line up a crucial endorsement for his boss on the eve of the Iowa caucuses in 2016, securing the support of prominent evangelical Jerry Falwell Jr. According to Reuters, Falwell’s endorsement came months after Cohen had done him a very big solid: Cohen helped Falwell and his wife prevent racy “personal” photos from becoming public.

Cohen, who reported to prison earlier this week to serve a three-year sentence for federal campaign violations and lying to Congress, told comedian Tom Arnold, who surreptitiously recorded the conversation on March 25, that he had prevented someone with compromising photos of the Falwells from releasing them to the public.

Before Falwell officially endorsed Trump, he was featured in a 60-second radio advertisement from Trump’s campaign. Falwell made an appeal to evangelical voters, who were expected to vote for Ted Cruz, by comparing Trump to his father, popular conservative televangelist Jerry Falwell Sr., who founded Liberty University, one of the largest Christian universities in the world. “I see a lot of parallels between my father and Donald Trump,” Falwell says in the ad, which used audio from Falwell’s introduction of Trump at a rally at Liberty University. “He speaks the truth publicly, even if it is uncomfortable for people to hear.”

Falwell then spoke at the 2016 Republican National Convention, calling Trump “America’s blue collar billionaire” and urging viewers to vote for the Republican nominee. “He has created jobs for thousands and is one of the greatest visionaries of our time,” he said. (Trump, in turn, gave the 2017 commencement address at Liberty University.)

Throughout the 2016 campaign, Falwell boosted Trump’s campaign on his Twitter and in interviews with the media.

Falwell continued to support Trump even after the leak of his lewd comments about women in a tape from Access Hollywood, blaming the leak on a conspiracy to harm the Republican candidate. Although he called Trump’s comments “reprehensible,” he did not rescind his endorsement, saying, “We’re all sinners, every one of us. We’ve all done things we wish we hadn’t.”

Falwell also made an appearance at Trump’s victory party, after speaking with him on the phone three times on Election Day.

Falwell has continued to stick by the president in office, even after Trump called white supremacists “very fine people,” and after he began separating children from their parents at the US–Mexico border. In an interview with the Washington Post published on Jan. 1, 2019, Falwell said of Trump, “I can’t imagine him doing anything that’s not good for the country.”

Just this week, Falwell tweeted that Trump should have two years added to his term as “reparations” for Robert Mueller’s investigation. Trump retweeted the message.

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate