When someone issues 30,573 false or misleading statements in the space of a four-year term, as documented by the Washington Post, it’s important, in all fairness, to notice when that person actually tells the truth.

Such is the case with Donald J. Trump during an otherwise unhinged, not to mention inappropriate, speech at the recent National Prayer Breakfast. The meandering remarks went on for 77 minutes.

The National Prayer Breakfast is an annual event that dates to 1953 during the Eisenhower administration. (It was originally called the Presidential Prayer Breakfast.) It brings politicians, clergy and others together and typically includes remarks from religious and political figures, some music, and a response by the president.

Those attending the Prayer Breakfast have witnessed some remarkable moments over the years. During the Monica Lewinsky affair, for example, Bill Clinton used the occasion to acknowledge his transgressions and to ask forgiveness.

In 1977, Jimmy Carter launched into a 17-minute extemporaneous meditation on Second Chronicles 7:14: “If my people, who are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”

On February 1, 1973, with Richard Nixon on his right and Billy Graham on his left, Mark O. Hatfield, Republican senator from Oregon, warned against “the real danger of misplaced allegiance, if not outright idolatry, to the extent we fail to distinguish between the god of an American civil religion and the God who reveals Himself in the Holy Scriptures and in Jesus Christ.”

Graham was furious with Hatfield, a fellow Baptist and evangelical, and Nixon placed the senator, who had been a finalist to be Nixon’s running mate only five years earlier, on his infamous “enemies list.”

The memorable moment at this year’s Prayer Breakfast was far less dramatic, but it did include a noteworthy comment on the tail end of yet another, well, tale. It was noteworthy because it contained a smidgeon of truth from someone not known for his veracity.

“They rigged the second election. I had to win it, had to win it,” Trump said. The first part of that statement, of course, is not accurate, but then the truthful part: “I needed it for my own ego. I would have had a bad ego for the rest of my life. Now I really have a big ego, though.”

No argument there. None whatsoever.

I’m not sure what a “bad ego” might be. And Trump might have used adjectives other than “big” to describe his ego: “voracious,” “insatiable,” “volatile” and “dangerous” come to mind.

Still, let’s give him credit. He told the truth: “Now I really have a big ego, though.”

Trump reverted to form almost immediately following that statement, once again claiming he was the victim of, well, something or another. “The first time, they said I didn’t win the popular vote,” he said about the 2016 election, which he won in the Electoral College but came up approximately 3 million votes short in the popular vote. “I did.”

I leave it to others to parse the remainder of Trump’s remarks, but they included some doozies. Crime is lower than it’s been since 1900, he claimed. Wind power doesn’t work. The Swiss are “destroying their country.” Airports in the Middle East have “portable” runways. “We have peace in the Middle East, by the way. First time in 3,000 years.”

Eight wars ended. The Melania movie is “a big success.”

And on and on—for 77 minutes.  

We’ve become accustomed—inured, really—to Trump’s prevarications. But the real puzzle is why so many evangelical leaders continue to support him, including Paula White-Cain, who introduced Trump as “the GOAT,” an acronym for the “greatest of all time.” These are the same people, let’s recall, who want to require prayer in public schools and post the Ten Commandments in public places.

If I’m not mistaken, one of those commandments says something about bearing false witness.