Was Episcopal Bishop Mariann Budde removed from the National Cathedral by the Episcopal Archdiocese of Washington after she angered newly elected President Donald Trump during the inaugural prayer service? No, that's not true: A spokesperson for the Washington National Cathedral told Lead Stories that Budde "very much remains the Episcopal Bishop of Washington." This story came from a self-described satirical source whose bio read, in part, "Nothing on this page is real."
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on Facebook on January 23, 2025. The text overlay on the image was:
BISHOP MARIANN BUDD HAS BEEN REMOVED FROM THE NATIONAL CATHEDRAL BY THE EPISCOPAL ARCHDIOCESE OF WASHINGTON
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Fri Jan 31 19:11:05 2025 UTC)
The post did not provide evidence to support the assertion that Budde was removed from the National Cathedral after angering Trump during her speech at the inaugural prayer service. It misspelled Budde's last name and used a picture of her, Donald, and Melania Trump from January 21, 2025.
Kevin Eckstrom (archived here), chief public affairs officer for the Washington National Cathedral, told Lead Stories via email on January 31, 2025, that the claim was false:
I can confirm without hesitation that Bishop Budde very much remains the Episcopal Bishop of Washington.
He shared a statement issued by Episcopal Church headquarters (archived here) that stated the church's support for Budde:
The Rt. Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde was elected in 2011 by clergy and lay leaders of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington to serve as their 9th bishop. She was ordained in November of that year, and has served as a bishop in good standing since that time. She is a valued and trusted pastor to her diocese and colleague to bishops throughout our church. We stand by Bishop Budde and her appeal for the Christian values of mercy and compassion.
A Google search of keywords found no matching credible news reports. It did include fact checks by Reuters and PolitiFact on the same claim.
The account that published the post on Facebook is "America - Love It Or Leave It," which described itself as posting content that isn't true. It includes a link to dunning-kruger-times.com, where the original article was published (archived here) with the title, "Episcopal Archdiocese of Washington Re-Assigns Bishop Mariann Budde to Delaware."
The intro on the America - Love It Or Leave It Facebook account page reads:
A subsidiary of the America's Last Line of Defense network of trollery and propaganda for cash. Nothing on this page is real.
Sites in the America's Last Line of Defense (ALLOD) network have an "About" page that reads, in part:
About Satire
Before you complain and decide satire is synonymous with 'comedy':
sat·ire ˈsaˌtī(ə)r noun: The use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.
Everything on this website is fiction. It is not a lie and it is not fake news because it is not real. If you believe that it is real, you should have your head examined. Any similarities between this site's pure fantasy and actual people, places, and events are purely coincidental and all images should be considered altered and satirical. See above if you're still having an issue with that satire thing.
Articles from Blair's sites frequently get copied by "real" fake news sites that omit the satire disclaimer and other indications showing that the stories are fake. This post on Instagram did not say the story was from a satire site.
The Dunning-Kruger Times website also contains an "About Us" (archived here) page that has the following disclaimer:
About Us
Dunning-Kruger-Times.com is a subsidiary of the 'America's Last Line of Defense' network of parody, satire, and tomfoolery, or as Snopes called it before they lost their war on satire: Junk News
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Other Lead Stories fact checks regarding Donald Trump can be found here.
