As luck would have it, Matthew Don is the only “faith leader” from Hancock County that Donald Trump was able to find.
Donald Trump boasted that he had endorsements from Christian leaders in every one of Iowa’s 99 counties.
If Matthew Don turns out to be either not living and working in Hancock County, or not a ministry leader, then Donald Trump’s boast was empty.
It looks like Donald Trump failed in his quest to find religious leaders to support him from all across Iowa. That fact tells a very different story about Trump’s Christian Nationalist base than what the Trump campaign wanted us to believe.
Donald Trump says that Matthew Don is a “ministry leader” in Hancock County, Iowa.
The thing is, Matthew Don says on his LinkedIn profile, which was most recently updated only three months ago, that he is an aspiring cybersecurity professional. Until late last year, he was working as a supervisor in juvenile detention. He lists twelve different information technology certifications. He doesn’t describe one qualification as a ministry leader.
Donald Trump also wasn’t accurate in saying that Matthew Don lives in Hancock County. Matthew Don says that he lives in the Des Moines metropolitan area. These two claims are not compatible.
Hancock County is about an hour and a half to the north of Des Moines. It is far, far outside the Des Moines metropolitan area.
When Matthew Don was signed up as a ministry leader in Donald Trump’s Iowa Faith Leader Coalition, someone was dishonest about who Don really is.
Either Matthew Don lied to the 2024 Trump campaign, or Donald Trump’s presidential campaign is lying about its connection to Matthew Don.
Which is it?
People talk a lot about Christian Nationalism in the abstract, but a new book, Donald Trump’s Army of God: Christian Nationalism in the Iowa Faith Leader Coalition, provides an analysis of Christian Nationalism that is grounded in what Christian Nationalists actually say and do.
This case study is based on information about the 317 members of the Iowa Faith Leader Coalition. It examines the way that Iowa became a source of Nazi propaganda, murder-suicide, terrorism, money laundering and business fraud, monsters and magic spells, faith healing and guns. Christian Nationalists bring these to the Trump campaign, along with ancient prophecies of eternal torture and a growing Christian Nationalist hunger for global genocidal war.
The Iowa Faith Leader Coalition is an extremist political organization that violates the law
Learn more about the radical Christian Nationalists who belong to Donald Trump’s Iowa Faith Leader Coalition.