A failed call in to a Christian prayer session by former President Donald Trump was marred by technical issues, causing some to speculate that the segment was sabotaged by trolls.
Just after joining the Pastors for Trump’s “prayer call”—which also featured Roger Stone and was hosted by Oklahoma Pastor Jackson Lahmeyer, the former president’s connection was cut.
“Okay, I guess we have some phone miscommunication,” Trump said after reconnecting. “The radical left was working on the phone. There is no question about it.”
Trump grew audibly frustrated, claiming he couldn’t hear anyone on the other line. “Uhhh,” Trump can be heard sighing before being disconnected from the call.
In an article later published by The Gateway Pundit, editor Joe Hoft suggested something sinister was at play.
“We don’t know at this time what happened with the call with President Trump and why the administrators were kicked off their normally very reliable Internet,” Hoft, who was also on the call, wrote. “It could have been call volume, or it could have been outside sabotage or something else.”
Speaking to the Daily Beast on Monday, Lahmeyer said that “trolls” might have been behind the incident.
“Our backstage got flooded with people and trolls, just commenting all types of stuff,” he said, adding that it could have been a “hack.”
“Everything froze on our end,” he continued. “I think the system got overloaded with the number of viewers,” he told The Daily Beast.
Trump pushed the unproven claim that the left was involved in the screwup.
“I hope you can hear me clearly now because we did try this twice, and I am only kiddingly convinced that the radical left did it,” he said. “I think probably it was the radical left that did something with [the phone lines],” he added.
“We did the best we could,” Lahmeyer said. “Those things happen in life.”
A video of the call was later uploaded to Lahmeyer’s YouTube channel, with the flubs edited out.
In a statement to the Daily Beast late Monday, Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung slammed the unidentified trolls as “losers.”
“Millions of Americans are praying for President Trump because he is the only one standing in the way of radical, liberal prosecutors abusing their power from targeting citizens they disagree with,” he said. “If these losers can try to do this to President Trump, they will certainly try to do it against other conservatives and Republicans.”
