Flint Church Pastor Scolds Donald Trump for Attack on Hillary Clinton

Updated. FLINT, MI — The pastor of a church in Flint, under the shadow of a lead-contaminated drinking water crisis for more than two years, shut down Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump Wednesday when he launched into a blistering attack on his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.

“Hillary failed with the economy just like she has failed on foreign policy – everything she touched didn’t work out. Nothing,” Trump said, touching on a laundry list of items from the Flint water crisis, her husband’s signature NAFTA trade pact, General Motors’ decision to move jobs to Mexico and the Obama administration’s perceived failures.

“Mr. Trump,” said the Rev. Faith Green Timmons, the pastor of Bethel United Methodist Church said, “I invited you here to thank us for welcoming you to Flint, not give a political speech.”

Trump, who was meeting with about 70 invited guests and a small pool of media, moderated his tone.

“Oh, OK,” Trump said. “That’s good. Then I’m going to go back on to Flint.”

Timmons had to play sergeant at arms again when some of the people at the church interrupted Trump. She told them to “respect him” as “guests of my church.”

“Thank you, pastor,” Trump replied. “The damage can be corrected and corrected by people who know what they are doing.”

• See Also: Donald Trump Calls Pastor Who Interrupted Him in Flint ‘A Nervous Mess’

The guests inside the church included “Little Miss Flint” Mari Copeny, whose letter to President Obama moved him to visit the beleaguered city.

The plucky child activist, who was traveling with a busload of Flint residents to listen as Congress grilled Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder about his administration’s handling of the Flint water crisis, sent the president a letter asking if she could stop by the White House and meet him and First Lady Michelle Obama.

As one of those most affected by the lead-tainted water — children, for whom lead poisoning can be a life sentence of emotional and intellectual problems — Mari has emerged as a poster child for the crisis. As many as 12,000 children in Flint may have been exposed to lead by drinking the city’s tap water. Some homes in Flint had water with lead levels more than 850 times the level the EPA considers unsafe.

Residents started complaining of discolored drinking water with particulate matter shortly after the the city began drawing water from the Flint River in 2014 as a cost-saving move while under the control of an emergency manager.

Trump toured the water plant as part of his visit, over the objections of Flint Mayor Karen Weaver, who was in Washington, D.C., with several members of Michigan's congressional delegation — Democratic Sens. Debbie Stabenow and Gary Peters and U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee, a Democrat in Flint Township — where they joined environmental activists in calling on Congress to move quickly to solve the environmental and public health disaster to minimize the impact of lead and other threats to Flint’s citizens.

Weaver called Trump's planned tour of the water plant “a disruption.”

“Flint is focused on fixing the problems caused by lead contamination of our drinking water, not photo ops,” Weaver said in a statement Tuesday evening. Employees and staff at the water plant “cannot afford the disruption of a last-minute visit.”

Trump got a frosty reception from protesters, who called his visit opportunistic.

“Less than 60 days before the election, and now Donald Trump rolls into town for a photo op,” Ron Bieber, president of the Michigan AFL-CIO, said at a news conference. “Give me a break. Mr. Trump, I’ve got one question for you, and it’s a pretty simple one: Where the hell have you been?”

Desiree Duell, a Flint mother and activist with the group Flint Rising, called on Trump to "stop using the Flint water crisis as a prop" for his campaign, according to a report in the Detroit Free Press.

"Not once since the beginning of his campaign has Trump addressed the crisis, despite ample opportunity," said Duell. "We have been denied clean, safe water for more than two years and we want Donald Trump to know that we need a real solution to this crisis, not empty rhetoric or more of the same 'run government like a business' mentality that led to this crisis in the first place."

Michigan Republican Party Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel said the protesters were "playing the blame game and not looking for real solutions."

"Their hypocrisy on this issue is easy to see," she said in a statement. "Where was the outrage from these groups when Hillary Clinton filmed campaign materials in their community, using the city as a prop in her desperate attempt to win Michigan’s primary?"

Clinton has visited Flint twice, both times before she sealed the Democratic nomination, and Romney McDaniel accused her of abandoning the city.

"She scored political points on the backs of Flint residents, and now has moved on. Meanwhile, Donald Trump is focused on finding ways to prevent tragedies like this from happening again," the state GOP leader said. "Maybe listening to the candidate’s message, instead of choosing party allegiance, could help these people understand who’s really looking out for the best interests of Michiganders, and not just political points and photo-ops.”

Romney McDaniel said Trump has "proposals to prevent future tragedies like this from occurring."

"His plans for ensuring greater accountability from the EPA and to fix our nation’s infrastructure show a strong commitment to providing solutions, not politicizing a crisis," she said. "We need more leaders like him who are willing to put politics aside for the greater good, especially for suffering communities like Flint.”

In the news conference before Trump's arrival, Bieber challenged Trump to write a $10 million dollar check to assist in Flint's recovery.

“But we know he won’t do it, because we know the truth — and the truth is Donald Trump doesn’t give a rip about Flint,” Bieber said. “All he cares about is getting elected.”

Photo by Gage Skidmore via Flickr Commons