Rev. Wright gives first interview over his sermons

NEW YORK (AP) — The former pastor to Democrat Barack Obama said his sermon blaming U.S. policies for the Sept. 11 attacks was a warning against vengeance and the view that all American actions are perfect, according to transcripts of a PBS interview released Friday.

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright said he was in Newark when the terrorist strike occurred and, from his hotel window, he said he saw the second plane hit the World Trade Center. Some of his congregants lost loved ones in the Pentagon and at the World Trade Center, he said.

“We want revenge. They wanted revenge,” Wright told “Bill Moyers’ Journal.” “God doesn’t want to leave you there, however. God wants redemption. God wants wholeness. And ... that’s the context, the biblical context, I used to try to get people sitting again in that sanctuary.”

The interview, broadcast Friday night, is the first the pastor has given since video of his preaching gained national attention in March, putting Obama’s campaign for the presidential nomination on the defensive.

The controversy forced Obama to distance himself from the minister, after a 20-year association through Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. In a March 18 speech in Philadelphia, Obama described the history of injustice that fueled Wright’s comments, while also condemning his pastor’s statements and acknowledging white resentment of blacks.