Trump Awkwardly Stands Behind Democratic Congressman Who Makes Urgent Plea During Prayer
Graeme Demianyk
Thu, February 5, 2026 at 7:06 PM UTC
2 min read
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With President Donald Trump standing awkwardly behind him, a Democratic congressman used his prayer at the National Prayer Breakfast to urge Trump to “think of families preparing to bury their loved ones in Minneapolis.”
Speaking at the bipartisan Washington, D.C., event on Thursday shortly after Trump gave a rambling address, Rep. Jonathan Jackson (D-Ill.) offered a prayer for “the future of this nation,” and asked God to “lead this president into greater levels of compassion.”
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Jackson, the son of civil rights activist Jesse Jackson, said, “Today, we remind him that the lives of millions of people are in his hands, and that he has the power to turn mourning into dancing or to reduce the country into a cosmic elegy of chaos and suffering.”
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Jackson continued by calling on Trump to be “mindful of the poor” and “be invested in the alleviation of suffering happening on farms in the Midwest, in the families preparing to bury their loved ones in Minneapolis.”
He added that “we are all Americans, all made in the image of God, and that none of us are free unless all of us have our freedoms protected.” (Watch video at the end of the story.)
When the prayer finished, Trump shook Jackson’s hand and appeared to say, “Great words.”
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During his address, the Republican president said he didn’t know “how a person of faith can vote for a Democrat.”
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The plea to Trump came amid weeks of chaos in Minnesota as a result of his administration’s immigration crackdown, with the president’s rhetoric helping to sow discord.
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The president has baselessly accused the state of harboring thousands of violent undocumented immigrants, calling them the “worst of the worst.”
Against a backdrop of protests against the influx, federal agents have shot dead two U.S. citizens ― 37-year-old Renee Good and Alex Pretti, also 37 ― in separate incidents.
On Wednesday, the Trump administration announced it is scaling back immigration operations around Minnesota by withdrawing about 700 of the roughly 3,000 federal officers sent to the state.
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Speaking to NBC News later that day, Trump admitted he could have adopted “a little bit of a softer touch” in the region.