Franklin Graham, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA), has publicly congratulated U.S. President Donald J. Trump on winning the Presidential election today, Nov. 6 (2024).
“Congratulations to Donald J. Trump on being elected the 47th president of the United States of America! I pray that you will look to God every day for His guidance and wisdom,” wrote Graham on his Facebook page.
The congratulatory post had been preceded by another post yesterday (Tuesday) on the same social media platform in which Graham compared the election to a spiritual battle.
“I voted today—in the most important election in the history of our nation,” Graham wrote.
“America is under attack by an immoral, anti-God agenda that would like to change our country foundationally forever. The choice is clear, and you are responsible for how you vote.”
At a Trump rally meeting in Concord, North Carolina, on Oct. 21, Graham, speaking as a private citizen, expressed admiration for Trump’s energetic abilities to assemble supporters at mass rallies. However, he warned, these alone were not enough to win the election. “Rallies and positive poll numbers are not going to win this election. It’s going to be God.”
“There’s a spiritual element at work here,” he warned. “There are dark forces arraigned against this man. They have tried to put him in prison, they’ve tried to assassinate him twice. He’s attacked every day in the media and the only hope for Donald J. Trump and our nation is God.”
Graham disclosed that he had personally encouraged President Trump to ask for God’s help at the beginning of each morning, from the moment he woke up: “and if he does that, God will hear and answer his prayer.”
The evangelist also quoted from Psalm 20:7: “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.”
Then Graham led the rally attendees in a short time of corporate prayer, “as God leads you, in your heart, to pray for President Trump, that God gives him wisdom, protects, guides and directs his steps, and that God will bless this nation once again.”
Graham then prayed aloud himself, confessing “humbly” that the U.S., as a nation, is “guilty of many sins” and asking for forgiveness. He prayed for Trump and his family, and added: “And Father, we pray for our nation, that if it be thy will that President Trump will win this election, we pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.”
Trump has previously aired his respect for Graham in turn, at the Republican Convention in Milwaukee in July, in which he recalled his now-deceased father Fred taking him as a boy to evangelistic rallies held by the late Rev. Billy Graham, Franklin’s father.
Trump at the time called Franklin Graham an “outstanding man…a great gentleman… I have a lot of respect for him.”
