Paula White-Cain believes her role as senior advisor and director of the White House Faith Office is a direct call from God — one rooted in a “strong conviction” and pointed quest to protect religious liberty.
“Many people know that I’ve had a relationship with President Trump and his family for over 24 years,” she said. “A strong conviction because, as we saw, a quick deterioration of religious liberties of our country, of the moral fabric.”
White-Cain cited claims of the FBI investigating the Catholic Church, restrictions on pro-lifers, and Coach Joe Kennedy’s battle to pray on the 50-yard line as examples of such biases.
“We’re in trouble, and that’s only the beginning,” she said. “There’s been so much targeted discrimination.”
As far as why White-Cain believes some citizens don’t realize the extent of religious liberty threats, she said too many people keep their heads “buried in the sand.” Listen to her explain:
“I think we just have this really narrow tunnel vision sometimes, and … we think it’s not gonna directly impact us, but it does,” she said, noting politics play a role in many facets of Americans’ lives. “Whether they believe it or not, politics is in their life deciding how much they’re gonna pay on their property tax if they can be zoned … if they go to a church, if that church can have a daycare, because a secular daycare is much easier to zone than one that is of faith, if they want to adopt a child or get involved in foster care — there are gonna be rules and regulations on them.”
Even when people think they’re safe from such interactions, she argued they really are not. Despite the need to sound these alarms, the White House faith leader said she’s encouraged.
White-Cain believes Trump’s reelection shows many people feel “enough is enough.” All of this underpins her own decision to jump into the driver’s seat of the White House Faith Office.
“Why did I sign up? Because I had an unprecedented opportunity given to me by this amazing president, this man who understands the importance of faith to be in the first-ever, newly created, historic White House Faith Office that gets to fight for people, whether they’re on the street, homeless, or whether they’re the CEO and they’re being targeted because of their faith,” she said. “And the greatest thing that we do — we have eight different tenets in here, but the greatest thing to me is religious liberty. And that is that every human being on this earth has the right to approach God, and to worship Him.”
White-Cain recounted how she met Trump 24 years ago when he called her office randomly.
The irony is that White-Cain had already put some celebrities on a prayer list and Trump was one of the names who had come to her heart well before that call.
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“So, he calls me up, I get on the phone, he says, ‘You’ve got the ‘it’ factor,'” she recalled. “I said, ‘Oh, sir, we call that the anointing.'”
Trump then referenced a series White-Cain had preached at her church, showcasing he was familiar with her pastoral work. After that call, the two met in New York, and a friendship subsequently bloomed.
Over the years, White-Cain said she came to make a commitment to “never take a dime from him.” She continues this tradition in her White House role, where she said she declines to take a salary.
“I’ve kept that covenant with God,” White-Cain said. “I’ve never received a dime from President Trump. I won’t take a penny here … because it’s connected to President Trump.”
Years before Trump’s 2016 presidential victory, he spoke with White-Cain and told her he wasn’t a fan of how the country was moving.
“And he said, ‘I’m thinking about running for president. What do you think?'” she recalled. “I told him what I thought, and he turns around and goes, ‘What is God saying?'”
White-Cain told Trump she would need to take it to prayer, and she brought 30 pastors to Trump Tower in New York City, where they prayed for six and a half hours. Trump would come in and out of the meeting throughout the day and ponder what the Lord was telling the group.
“I looked at him … and I said, ‘Sir, you’re gonna be president, but I hate the price you’re gonna pay,'” she said, citing some of the political issues that have unfolded in recent years, including impeachments, claims of Russian interference and what supporters of the president have called “lawfare.”
But White-Cain said the attempted assassination in Butler, Pennsylvannia, last year was the toughest price she believes Trump encountered. The presidential advisor became emotional as she recounted where she was when she heard Trump had been shot.
“I just said, ‘We’ve gotta pray,'” she said. “No one knew what was happening — if he was dead, if he was alive.”
White-Cain made phone calls to check on what was happening in real time, as the event had clearly had a profound impact on her. She was relieved when she learned he survived.
Ultimately, White-Cain believes the attempted assassination has had a deep impact on the president as well.
“He knows without a shadow of a doubt that God saved him and believes, like I do, that God saved him for a purpose and that he is now fulfilling that purpose,” she said.
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