Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde (Screenshot: 11Alive / Youtube)Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, the Episcopal prelate President Donald Trump branded a “Radical Left hard line Trump hater,” is preparing to leave the pulpit she used to ambush him, but not before stretching her tenure to 17 years because, she says, the country’s political climate was simply too important for her to walk away.Budde announced October 1 that she will resign as bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, remaining in the post until a successor is consecrated on June 3, 2028, after an election set for the diocesan convention on January 29, 2028, according to Religion News Service and her letter to the diocese.She told RNS the departure is formally a resignation, not a retirement, because Episcopal bishops keep the title after they leave office. She plans to return to Minnesota to be near her grandchildren.She originally planned to serve 15 years. She stayed for 17, she said, because she felt she “needed to stay.”Budde:It persuaded me to stay longer because so many people in our immediate area were adversely affected, including many in my congregations—you know, from job losses and budget cuts, and certainly immigration policy.So I extended what would have been a timeline of 15 years to 17 because I just felt like I needed to stay.Now is the time. The country has an opportunity to make a course correction and to send a pretty strong signal, and I pray that we do because it’s been devastating and so destructive in so many ways.And I’m not talking about political partisanship. I’m just saying the direction of the country. And I feel like there is reason to be hopeful that that message will be strong.WATCH:Episcopal Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, the “radical” Washington cleric who famously used President Donald Trump’s inaugural prayer service to lecture him from the pulpit, is preparing to leave her powerful post after what will be roughly 17 years in office.And according to Budde, the political climate under President Trump played a role in keeping her around longer than she originally planned. https://t.co/QdxULGEmXP— The Gateway Pundit (@gatewaypundit) October 5, 2026Americans who watched the January 21, 2025, National Prayer Service already know the sermon this is about.The day after Inauguration Day, Trump sat in the pews of Washington National Cathedral for what was supposed to be a unifying interfaith service, a tradition dating to 1933. Budde turned it into a political lecture.As The Gateway Pundit reported, she closed with a “final plea” demanding “mercy” for “gay, lesbian, and transgender children” who “fear for their lives,” then for “the people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings” who “may not be citizens or have the proper documentation.”She insisted “the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals” and asked Trump to spare parents whose children fear they will be “taken away.”Trump answered on Truth Social the same day:The so-called Bishop who spoke at the National Prayer Service on Tuesday morning was a Radical Left hard line Trump hater. She brought her church into the World of politics in a very ungracious way. She was nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart. … 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!Budde did not apologize. Days later she went on The View and doubled down, calling the sermon “a truth” that needed to be said, as The Gateway Pundit reported.The mercy sermon also sat next to a money trail. In February 2025, The Gateway Pundit reported that Episcopal Migration Ministries, tied to the church Budde leads in the nation’s capital, had taken in roughly $53 million in taxpayer funds while its bishop was lecturing the country on compassion for illegal aliens.The same month, The Gateway Pundit noted that her son, Amos Budde, had worked for Obama for America as a battleground-states elections analyst.This was not her first clash with Trump. In June 2020 she denounced the clearing of Lafayette Square before Trump held a Bible outside St. John’s Episcopal Church, and she later wrote a New York Times op-ed accusing him of cloaking himself in sacred symbols.Budde was elected in 2011 and consecrated as the first woman to lead the Diocese of Washington, which covers 86 congregations in D.C. and parts of Maryland and includes the National Cathedral.She has also presided over the interment of Matthew Shepard’s ashes at the cathedral and delivered a benediction at the 2020 Democratic National Convention.She told RNS she does not intend to slow her religious advocacy until she actually leaves, and that she wants to “leave well” so the next bishop inherits “as much wind in the sails” as possible. The diocese will spend nearly two years searching for that successor while she remains in the chair.The post Woke Bishop Who Lectured Trump on ‘Mercy’ for Illegals and Trans Kids Finally Steps Aside — But Only After Staying Two Extra Years to Fight Trump appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.