President Trump spent some time in Alabama today greeting people and autographing items, among them hats, $100 bills, and Bibles.
As in The Bible.
Trump toured a swath of tornado-ravaged Alabama by helicopter and SUV, inspecting the devastation of a rural neighborhood where 23 were killed in tornadoes last weekend — with houses stripped to their foundations, branches twisted on top of one another in sinewy piles and mattresses and home supplies perched in trees.
The president was on the ground for about two hours.
The 50-car presidential motorcade traversed two-lane back roads, where some houses appeared unscathed while others were pummeled
Trump was granted a hero’s welcome in the corridor of a state that overwhelmingly supported him in 2016.
Inside a Baptist church, the president autographed at least two Bibles for an adoring horde of volunteers, who were packed eight-deep around tables of recovery supplies.
President Trump autographs a copy of The Bible in Alabama.
Thousands waved and cheered along the roadways, some paved and some not, with nary a protester in sight.
Crowds greeted him in a wrecked neighborhood with MAGA (Make America Great Again) signs, Trump chants and a mannequin decorated with Trump merchandise outside a crushed home.
“I’d vote for him again,” said Ada Ingram, a local resident, in the annex of Providence Baptist Church serving as a shelter.
She said proudly that Trump had signed Bibles belonging to her sister and a 12-year-old volunteer, who drew uproarious cheers when he posed for a picture with Trump. She called the president a “godsend.”
“He signed his Bible!” she exclaimed.
Trump’s visit to Republican-friendly Alabama came amid political storms back in Washington, where Trump’s fifth communications director, Bill Shine, quit after a turbulent eight-month tenure and where his former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, was sentenced to nearly four years in prison for tax fraud and other crimes.
Hours later, Trump was in Florida speaking with political donors inside Mar-a-Lago.
The Republican National Committee is holding its spring meeting nearby, and the event gives the president’s club an opportunity to profit.