Bakker: 'We supported the president, and so they want to destroy me'

Jim Bakker's Branson-area show is facing more backlash over a February episode that touted a colloidal silver product Bakker and a show guest claimed could "totally eliminate" coronavirus from the human body within hours.

This time, the pushback is coming from $200 billion telecommunications giant AT&T.

According to a letter from a top AT&T official obtained by the News-Leader, the company recently asked seven channels airing on AT&T's DirecTV platform to look at whether they should continue to carry the Jim Bakker Show.

"We have reached out to each of these channels," wrote vice president of global public policy Brent Olson, "and asked that they carefully review this programming to ensure it complies with their contractual and legal obligations to us."

The channels include Christian Television Network, Daystar, GEB America, ImpactNetwork, Upliftv, The Word Network and World Harvest Television, according to the letter.

Others are reading:Liberal Christian group calls on TV networks and Roku to drop Bakker show

Dated April 1, AT&T's letter was addressed to Connecticut-based liberal Christian group Faithful America, which provided a copy to the News-Leader.

Joe Chandler, an AT&T spokesperson, said late Friday, "We have no further comment beyond the letter on this matter." Chandler declined to answer emailed News-Leader questions as to whether AT&T worried about running afoul of regulators if it continued to indirectly do business with Bakker's show via channels distributed over DirecTV.

A liberal Christian campaign

Faithful America began a signature-petition campaign last month to demand that TV platforms like DirecTV, DISH Network and Roku dump Jim Bakker’s show, calling it "dangerous and misleading" in a time of pandemic.

Faithful America gathered some 13,000 signatures, mainly from Christians fed up with Bakker's "coronavirus misinformation," said campaigns director Rev. Nathan Empsall, an Episcopal priest, in a Thursday interview with the News-Leader.

"It’s a religious issue for us," Empsall said Thursday, not a political one.

"Christians are sick of seeing their scriptures distorted and our faith hijacked," he said, "and of hearing the coronavirus talked about in Old Testament plague terms and misleading terms with Jesus's name."

Empsall said one of the seven DirecTV channels contacted by AT&T, World Harvest Television, told him earlier this week it would no longer carry Bakker's show after conferring with its communications law attorney, but the News-Leader was not able to independently confirm the information late Friday.

According to News-Leader review of multiple online TV schedules, including a DirecTV schedule for World Harvest Television, it appeared that reruns of Bakker's weekday show previously scheduled for 7 to 9 p.m. Friday had been replaced by episodes of "Lone Ranger," a Western drama that originally aired from 1949 to 1957.

The News-Leader reached out to a top official at Family Broadcasting Corporation, which owns World Harvest Television, but has not yet heard back.

Trump administration: Show is 'fraudulent'

AT&T's move is just the latest in a series of setbacks for the Bakker TV program.

Within a few weeks of his initial "silver sol" broadcast in February, two agencies of the Trump administration, as well as the attorneys general in Missouri and New York had all announced actions against the disgraced televangelist and his show for selling “fraudulent COVID-19 products” in violation of state and federal law.

Empsall said his group doesn't take any credit for prompting government enforcement.

"We launched around the same time as those government actions came out," he told the News-Leader.

Subsequently, the Jim Bakker Show deactivated, then reactivated its online store. The controversial "silver sol" products, which went for $80 or more in February, did not appear to be on sale from the Jim Bakker Show on Friday.

Bakker: 'People are going to kill preachers'

The News-Leader was not successful reaching Bakker's Morningside outfit by phone or email for comment late Friday, but the '80s-era Heritage USA operator has spoken out on TV this week.

On Tuesday Bakker asked viewers to pay by check in any dealings they might have with his show. Rather than taking credit cards, the show's online store asked viewers to enter their bank account and routing numbers upon checkout, according to a News-Leader review of the website conducted Friday afternoon.

“Some of the biggest companies have come against us,” Bakker said Tuesday. “Right now, you cannot use a credit card ... You can give by check. That’s the only way you can give right now.”

Bakker spoke out on his show Wednesday and Thursday to outline what he called an "attack from the left."

“We supported the president, and so they want to destroy me,” Bakker said Wednesday. “God spoke to me a year ago or more that the next thing that’s going to happen is that people are going to kill preachers who believe in the Bible, that believe the whole Bible is the truth.”

Bakker also said that those preaching against abortion rights or marriage equality are "going to be eliminated."

Thursday, he said, “The next attack from the left is going to be to right leaders — some of them I can tell you their names, they’re famous, you know them — they are going to do everything to get them off the air, but there is going to be assassinations of preachers who dare to preach the gospel,” Bakker said.

Gregory Holman is the investigative reporter for the News-Leader. Email news tips to gholman@gannett.com and consider supporting vital local journalism by subscribing. Learn more by visiting News-Leader.com/subscribe.