San Antonio pastor John Hagee pretty much says he'll vote for Donald Trump, but doesn't name him

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San Antonio megachurch pastor John Hagee plans to vote for presumed Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump — but didn't explicitly name the real estate mogul when announcing his plans.

The Cornerstone Church pastor strongly implied that he would vote for Trump on the May 17 episode of his show "Hagee Hotline," telling his followers that "to see evil and not call it evil is evil" and they "have a responsibility to go vote."

"If you can read a newspaper, you know who I'm talking about," Hagee said.

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"I'm going to vote for the candidate that's going to make the U.S. military great again because the party in power has reduced us to a World War II level where the Japanese attacked us for the very reason we felt we were too weak to defend ourselves," Hagee said.

The pastor continued, "I'm going to vote for the party that's going to solve the immigration problem, not the one that has created the immigration problem. I'm going to support the party that brings jobs back from China, not, through international trade agreements, send millions of jobs to foreign countries because it's cheaper labor and putting millions of Americans out of work."

"I'm not going to vote for the party that has betrayed Israel for the past seven years," Hagee said.

He concluded, "No candidate is perfect but I want you to go vote and may God give us a leader who has the courage to put America first and stand up for 'we the people.'"

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This isn't the first time Hagee's waded into presidential politics: in 2008, the pastor threw his weight behind Arizona Sen. John McCain, who rejected his endorsement after a sermon in which Hagee says Adolf Hitler had been working in accordance with God's will during the Holocaust to help Jews return to Israel surfaced.

"God says in Jeremiah 16: 'Behold, I will bring them the Jewish people again unto their land that I gave to their fathers...Behold, I will send for many fishers, and after will I send for many hunters...Then God sent a hunter. A hunter is someone who comes with a gun and he forces you. Hitler was a hunter," Hagee said in the sermon.

At the time, McCain told CNN, "Obviously, I find these remarks and others deeply offensive and indefensible, and I repudiate them. I did not know of them before Rev. Hagee's endorsement, and I feel I must reject his endorsement as well."

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Hagee, who argued that he based his sermon on teachings of Jewish theologian Rabbi Yisachar Shlomo Teichtal, later retracted his endorsement of McCain and apologized in a letter to the Anti-Defamation League regarding "any pain" he caused to the Jewish community regarding the sermon.

The organization accepted his apology in a letter the same day.

jfechter@mySA.com

Twitter: @JFreports