It's just part of his tried and true shtick.
When the revenues ("tithings" or "seed faith" or whatever he calls it) start to fall, and when the congregation (tv audience) starts to go down in numbers too, and when the spotlight on his name starts to dim down;
coincidentally at that point he always gets on the tube and throws out a bizarre soundbite.
And then following that there is a huge hue and cry which focuses the spotlight on him once again.
At this point, he gets back on the tube (in front of a larger congregation of gawkers) and plays the victim and says it was all liberal media bias and out of context and yadda yadda.
The larger congregation then reacts by saying to themselves "Poor Brother Pat is being crucified when all he's trying to do is save souls. So Mildred, we need to dig down deep and send an extra tithe this week to help spread the word of the lord and silence the devil."
Never fails. He's got the whole thing down so pat (no pun intended) that it would even make old P.T. Barnum himself green with envy.
And if the preacher shtick goes stale he always has the option of throwing his hat into the ring for President again. And lord knows he can count on Brother Carl and Brother Rush and Brother Sean to push his candidacy.
When he runs for president that's when he replaces Lucifer with Obama and has another devil to preach about.
The man's a genius. I wish I could buy stock in him cause it would be as safe an investment as you could ever make.