In a one-on-one exclusive sit-down interview with The Brody File, GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann says she’s a “woman of prayer” who says it’s important to remember that, “our founders bathed this nation in prayer.”
She also tells me that, “There’s a Creator who made us and it’s important for us to be grateful and say thank you to Him.”
The Brody File interviewed Bachmann in Waterloo, Iowa, Sunday evening before her big campaign announcement in her hometown. Watch her answer below along with the full transcription:
David Brody: Let me just start with a topic that is near and dear to your heart, and that is prayer. Just simply about your prayer life. What has your prayer life been like recently? What do you pray about for yourself, for your staff, and what do you want people to pray for you about?
Michele Bachmann: Well, it’ s been consistent. I will tell you that. I think the busier a person is, or the more stressed, or the more decisions that a person needs to have, I think the more in need we are of being in prayer. I gave my life to Jesus Christ when I was 16 years old and I’ve been a woman of prayer ever since.
And I’m so grateful for what the Lord has done for me. So, the process that my husband and I have gone through, to make this momentous decision about running for the presidency of the United States is one that we didn’t take lightly, and it’s one that we took in prayer. And we spent a lot of time, and over time, we felt that the Lord had given us a sense, and an assurance that this is the direction to go.
Brody: You say you felt “called” to run or whatever the case may be, and there’s some people in non-evangelical world that may really just not get that. What do you mean ‘called to run’? And in evangelical world, it’s actually a very simple process. Talk to me a little bit about that.
Bachmann: People of faith, who do pray, understand what that’s about because there’s great comfort that comes in prayer. It’s a conversation. Prayer is a conversation between yourself and God. And it’s something that I’ve done since I was a little girl. I was just visiting some of my home sites here in Waterloo, Iowa, and those are some of my earliest memories.
I think the reason why I came to Waterloo to launch my campaign for the presidency is because I tell people everything I needed to know, I learned in Iowa. And we had a very simple family. We were lower, middle people, and we didn’t have a lot of money, but we had great wealth in that both sets of grandparents lived in the same town, all the aunts and uncles, all the cousins, we saw each other all the time.
There’s a Bible verse that says "with contentment is great gain." And that, just in reflection in the last few weeks, I’ve been thinking a lot about that scripture because that’s so emblematic of what my early life was. Godliness with contentment was great gain. My parents made sure we were in church every Sunday. We went to Sunday school, we went to Vacation Bible School, and it was just a normal part of life to be a family of faith. My grandmother taught Bible study at the church that we went to, and it was just who we are.
Now I understand that there are people who don’t have faith. And in this country, we tolerate people if you have faith, or no faith at all. That’s the beauty of America. I think we can’t forget the fact that our founders bathed this nation in prayer when they first started this nation, and I think it’s good for us today, just to remember as well, that we’re not alone. There’s a Creator who made us and it’s important for us to be grateful and say thank you to Him.”