FALSE PROPHET
Ted Budd
U.S. Representative, North Carolina
Senator Ted Budd of North Carolina is the owner of a multi-million-dollar gun store and shooting range. Budd is a strong proponent of the Big Lie to overturn the 2020 election results, and was one of 126 Republican members of the House to sign the amicus brief in support of the lawsuit to contest the 2020 election results. He’s again endorsed ex-President Trump, speaking at a re-election rally alongside fellow False Prophet Mark Robinson, lieutenant governor of North Carolina.
At the 2024 unveiling of the Billy Graham statue in the Capitol’s Statuary Hall, Budd said: "it's our hope that we as lawmakers as we come and go and his visitors passed by the statue here of Billy Graham that we're reminded of his ministry and what he preached." Apparently he missed Graham’s efforts to avoid politics because of his belief that “The hard right has no interest in religion except to manipulate it."
Budd graduated from the evangelical Dallas Theological Seminary, which, according to his campaign website, he attended to "acquire a Biblical lens for all of life" — presumably including his approach to governing. Budd consistently pushes an explicitly Christian-nationalist agenda as a senator.
He is a sponsor of the Capitol Ministries Bible Study for members of Congress, which is led by Ralph Drollinger, a pastor who called COVID-19 a form of God's wrath against environmentalists and LGBTQ persons.
Budd has said he does not like discussing his faith in public, which means that he does not use as much religious rhetoric as some of the other False Prophets of Christian nationalism. This is a helpful reminder that academic researchers define and identify examples of dangerous Christian nationalism as much by identity and policy as by rhetoric and symbolism, and Budd supports policies that would give power to conservative Christians while opposing equal rights for others.
Budd’s Christian Nationalist Rhetoric
In a campaign video entitled “Conservative Christian,” Budd states that he is a conservative, but is first and foremost a Christian: "It's who I am from the inside out."
On the “radical left”: "I look around and I see our freedoms trampled underfoot by the obscene advances of the radical left, whether it be through those open border policies, threats to the Second Amendment or attacks on Christians, churches and schools like this. As believers, we know that's not the path that leads to human prosperity and human flourishing. It's the path instead that leads down the road to destruction."
Promoted an endorsement from a pastor who claims that education on sexual orientation and gender identity is child abuse
Has appeared on Christian nationalist movement leader and fellow False Prophet Tony Perkins’ Family Research Council’s show ‘Washington Watch’
Budd’s Christian Nationalist Policy Positions
Signed an amicus brief contesting the results of the 2020 election, objected to certification of the results, and called the 2020 insurrectionists “just patriots standing up”
Budd is extremely opposed to abortion access for religious reasons, stating: “The left diminishes the intrinsic value of every human being when God clearly said through the prophet Jeremiah, ‘notice such a familiar verse to us, before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. And before you were born, I consecrated you.’ That’s why it’s so critically important that each of us examine ourselves and stand firm against the evil that’s all around us.”
Opposes LGBTQ equality, voting against the Equality Act and the Respect for Marriage Act in Congress
Voted against the For the People Act, opposing important voting rights and democracy reforms
As of September 2022, holds a 100% score from fellow False Prophet Tony Perkins’ Family Research Council (designated an anti-LGBTQ “hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center) for opposing voting rights, LGBTQ equality, the Equal Rights Amendment, and the Violence Against Women Act Reauthorization, among other bills.
Has been endorsed by fellow False Prophet Tony Perkins’ FRC Action PAC
By voting to overturn the 2020 results and refusing to say whether he will accept the 2022 results, Budd has boosted the various election-denial conspiracy theories spread by fellow False Prophets and Christian-nationalist movement leaders Rev. Franklin Graham, General Michael Flynn, Bishop Joseph Strickland, strategist Steve Bannon, and Pastor Tony Perkins.