According to Perkins, the Left has a very dangerous agenda right now: trying to shame evangelicals out of supporting Donald Trump – without which Republicans are more likely to lose the House and Senate this fall. Some predict that would set the stage for Trump’s rabid opponents to initiate impeachment proceedings.

For example, Perkins himself – an avowed evangelical and a conservative leader – was taken to task for comments he made on a Politico podcast about evangelicals’ support of Trump during the campaign and since, despite past indiscretions:

Perkins: “We kind of gave him – Alright, you get a mulligan. You get a do-over here.”

Later during the podcast, he added:

Perkins: “We [evangelicals] see right and wrong. We see good and evil – but also among evangelicals, there’s an understanding that we are all fallen, and the idea of forgiveness is very prominent. And so, we understand that, yes, there is justice – but there is mercy.”

OneNewsNow columnist Dr. Michael Brown makes a similar observation in a recent column, acknowledging the president is “a flawed man” – but arguing that giving him a “mulligan” is essentially “what you call the gospel: God forgives us, and we forgive others.”

Nevertheless, Perkins is taking heat from both the left and right after the “mulligan” comment, this shot coming from former RNC chair Michael Steele on MSNBC’s “Hardball”:

Steele: “I have a very simple admonition at this point. Just shut the [expletive] up and don’t ever preach to me about anything ever again. I don’t want to hear it. After telling me how to live my life, who to love, what to believe, what not to believe, what to do and what not to do, and now you sit back and [say] the prostitutes don’t matter? The grabbing the you-know-what doesn’t matter? The outright behavior and lies don’t matter? Just shut up.”

OneNewsNow talked to Perkins following Steele’s pushback. The FRC president stands by his “mulligan” comment.

“When it came down to him and Hillary Clinton, there was really no choice. So they [evangelicals and Trump] began a conversation. I was a part of starting that conversation,” he tells OneNewsNow. “And we had an agreement: going forward he was going to embrace conservative values and live those out – and to date, he has.

“So yes, we did give him a do-over, if you will,” he continues. “We said Alright, we’re going to start the clock right now – and the president has been the most consistent in my lifetime in advancing his promises as a candidate and upholding a conservative agenda.”

And new rumors about an affair a decade ago don’t change the deal, Perkins adds.

As for Michael Steele? “There are those who are just looking for a platform,” says Perkins. “Mr. Steele, when he was at the RNC, ran it into the ground and had to leave – and now he’s just a talking head on liberal TV.”

While head of the Republican National Committee, Steele stated – and was criticized within the party for doing so – that he “absolutely” felt there was room for a “pro-choice” candidate in the GOP. He chose to withdraw from a run for a second term as RNC chair after it became clear he didn’t have enough support to win as the incumbent. Then after leaving the post, he reversed his position on same-sex civil unions, saying that LGBT couples deserved “full privileges and benefits” under the law.