Trump ‘Went to Waco to Bring Back Visions’ of Cult Leader David Koresh, Democratic Rep. Says

Donald Trump held a rally in Waco, Texas, this weekend during the 30 year anniversary of the federal government’s siege on the Branch Davidian compound in 1993. Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz said that Trump’s choice of locale brought back “visions of [Branch Davidian leader and self-proclaimed prophet] David Koresh.” But Moskowitz isn’t alone in noticing the correlation. A minister in a modern offshoot of the Branch Davidians has also said the former president was “making a statement” by coming to Waco.

“You don’t see stadiums of people chanting ‘Lock her up’ anymore, because it’s not — apparently, it’s a little ironic for his side. Look, this is a guy who went to Waco, Texas, to bring back visions of David Koresh,” Moskowitz said on CNN’s State of the Union Sunday. “I mean, he’s got Ted Nugent following him around as a spiritual adviser. It’s very strange what’s going on right now with Donald Trump.”

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Also strange are comments made by Charles Pace, a current Branch Davidian minister who said Trump is “making a statement, I believe, by coming to these stomping grounds where the government, the FBI, laid siege on this community just like they laid siege on Mar-a-Lago and went in and took his stuff. That’s what they wanted to do here, they wanted to come in and take the guns and everything.” Pace made the comments to Texas Tribune reporter Robert Downen while wearing a Trump 2020 t-shirt. Pace joined the Branch Davidian religious group in the 1980s but was not at the compound when the government siege began. Pace has previously said God chose him to “rebuild a purified church and community.”

Pace also spoke to The New York Times last week, telling the paper he “for sure” planned to attend the rally. “Donald Trump is the anointed of God,” Pace said. “He is the battering ram that God is using to bring down the Deep State of Babylon.”

Pace likened Trump to Koresh, saying the two men were in similar circumstances because the government was “accusing [Trump] of different things that aren’t really true, just like David Koresh was accused by the FBI when they sieged him.”

Speaking to The Intercept, a retired FBI expert on right-wing militant violence, Tom O’Connor, said Trump holding the rally in Waco sends a strong message to the extremists in his base. “It will be perceived as a coded message of revolution to those on the extreme,” O’Connor said.

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