“Knowing that a lot of people, as I said, in our country right now are really scared, I wanted to take the opportunity in the context of that of service for unity, to say we need to treat everyone with dignity, and we need to be merciful. I was trying to counter the narrative that is so, so divisive and polarizing and in which people, real people, are being harmed,” Budde told the ABC show in a Wednesday interview.

The View co-host Ana Navarro praised the bishop for being “so gentle” and “so respectful” in her message.

Co-host Sara Haines asked her about Trump ripping her prayer service as “not a good service” and calling her a “Radical Left hard line Trump hater.” She also noted that Trump said the bishop and her church owed “the public an apology.”

“Given your role, it doesn’t seem surprising that you would speak out for the marginalized as anyone who has read the Bible and knows the path of Jesus, but do you think your message is being misconstrued and politicized?” Haines asked her in a softball question.

“How could it not be politicized? We’re in a hyper-political climate. One of the things I caution about is the culture of contempt in which we live that immediately rushes to the worst possible interpretations of what people are saying and to put them in categories such as the ones you just described,” Budde responded. “That’s part of the air we breathe now and I was trying to speak a truth that I felt needed to be said, but to do it as respectful and kind a way as I could.”

“And also, to bring other voices into the conversation, which voices that had not been heard in the public space for some time,” she added.

In a Tuesday sermon, Budde urged Trump to “have mercy upon the people in our country” and told him that many people were “scared now.”

She said that “there are gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and independent families, some who fear for their lives — and the people, the people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meat packing plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants, and work the night shifts in hospitals.”

“I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away and that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here,” she added.

In a Truth Social post several hours later, Trump criticized the bishop.

“She brought her church into the World of politics in a very ungracious way,” he wrote in the social media post. “She was nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart. She failed to mention the large number of illegal migrants that came into our Country and killed people. Many were deposited from jails and mental institutions. It is a giant crime wave that is taking place in the USA. Apart from her inappropriate statements, the service was a very boring and uninspiring one. She is not very good at her job! She and her church owe the public an apology!”

The president attended the National Cathedral’s interfaith Service of Prayer for the Nation, along with first lady Melania Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and his wife, Usha, on Tuesday.

Budde was elected the ninth Bishop of Washington at the Washington National Cathedral in 2011, becoming Washington’s first female diocesan bishop.

She had previously criticized President Trump in 2020 when she disagreed with the National Guard and law enforcement clearing LaFayette Square ahead of him speaking in front of St. John’s Church during the George Floyd protests. She also removed stained-glass panes honoring Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson from the Washington National Cathedral.

Inside the National Cathedral’s gift shop, the cathedral has several gift items with the logo “House of Prayer for All People” in rainbow colors to celebrate “God’s LGBTQIA+ children.”

“As the final resting place of Matthew Shepard, this Cathedral is committed to being a House of Prayer for All People, no exceptions,” a description of a Pride shirt in the church’s online store read.