Conservative Televangelist Jim Bakker Says Democrats Will Kill Trump If Impeachment Fails

Longtime Christian evangelist Jim Bakker claimed Democrats will "kill" President Donald Trump if impeachment can't remove him from office.

The far right-wing pastor, 79, who gained notoriety for hosting The PTL Club alongside his first wife in the 1970s-80s, predicted Monday that Trump's Democratic Party critics will attempt to assassinate him if they can't oust him politically. Speaking on his Branson, Missouri-based The Jim Bakker Show, the pro-Trump preacher said America is being "ripped apart" by people who hate the president.

"This political fight that is going on in America is going to bring America apart, America is going to come apart," Bakker began.

"I believe there is such a hatred for our president, and I will say this and you may say I shouldn't but I'm going to say it: if they can't get him out by courts and politically and put him in prison somehow, they want him to go to prison, they're applauding now for Trump to go to prison—they will kill him if they have to."

Bakker, who was convicted of a felony stemming from accounting fraud, resigned from the Assemblies of God ministry in the late 1980s over allegations of sexual assault from co-workers and a secretary. He was succeeded as the head of PTL by late pastor Jerry Falwell.

In 1989, Bakker was sentenced by North Carolina Judge Robert Daniel Potter to 45 years in federal prison, but his sentence was later reduced to eight years and he was paroled in 1994.

Bakker has repeatedly claimed that God willed Trump into office in 2016, saying in 2018, "This was a miracle, not by man—God called them to do it." During the 2016 presidential election, Bakker said that video appearing to show Democrat Hillary Clinton fainting outside the 9/11 memorial was a divine judgment on her soul.

"There's a collapse coming that's much bigger than [Clinton's] collapse. ... It's time to be ready," Bakker predicted.

Although Bakker currently records his self-titled show in the Ozark Mountains of Missouri, film crews are assembling in North Carolina for an upcoming movie entitled, The Eyes of Tammy Faye. The film is based on Bakker and his first wife's tenure and downfall as nationally recognized televangelists.

The Jim Bakker Show, which is co-hosted by Bakker's second wife Lori, has more recently garnered attention for pro-Trump claims and conspiracies. Similar to Alex Jones' Infowars program, Bakker and Lori sell seemingly health-conscious products including "Staying Alive" merchandise targeted toward people looking to outlive a catastrophic, apocalyptic world event.