JD Vance Speaks At Event Hosted By ‘Apostle’ Who Accused Kamala Harris of ‘Witchcraft’

MONROEVILLE, Pa. — Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance spoke Saturday at an event hosted by a self-described Christian “apostle” who believes former President Donald Trump is destined to save America from Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, who was sent by the devil to “take Trump out.”

Vance walked onto the stage at a town hall at the Monroeville Convention Center, near Pittsburgh, in front a few hundred people attending the “Courage” tour, atraveling neo-Charismatic Christian revival organized by Lance Wallnau, a prominent evangelical pastor. Wallnau has used the tour to travel to battleground states, encouraging evangelicals to vote for Trump and to sign up as poll watchers and election workers.

“I got baptized in 2019,” Vance said to scattered cheers, recounting the story of how he rediscovered his Catholic faith late in life.

Vance’s town hall was a mostly routine recapitulation of his campaign talking points: He blamed the fentanyl crisis on lax border laws; made baseless assertions that schoolchildren aren’t learning math but “know there are 87 different genders”; and encouraged people to vote this November.

What was significant about Vance’s decision to participate at Wallnau’s town hall is that it shows the Trump campaign yet again associating itself with a strain of extremism steeped in anti-LGTBQ bigotry that’s determined to transform the government into a Christian theocracy.

Wallnau was a prominent part of the “stop the steal” movement that sought to overturn the results of the 2020 election and hand Trump a second term. He was even set to speak at the Jan. 6, 2021 rally that turned into the violent attack on the Capitol. Wallnau, who has repeatedly compared Trump to the biblical