Jerry Falwell Jr., the disgraced former president of ultraconservative Liberty University, said former President Donald Trump once offered him the position of Education Secretary, but that he turned it down, Vanity Fair reported Tuesday.

The post, which eventually went to billionaire Betsy DeVos, was allegedly meant to show thanks for Falwells support of Trump during the 2016 presidential election.

Falwell told Vanity Fair writer Gabriel Sherman that Trump pitched the idea at Trump Tower, surrounded by his daughter Ivanka Trump and former adviser Steve Bannon.

Ivanka was like, Come on, dude. You gotta do it, he told Sherman.

The lengthy profile painted Falwell as a loosely devout Christian who did not follow Libertys strict no-alcohol policy. With nearly 50,000 students, Liberty is the largest Christian university in the world.

Falwell, whose pastor father founded the school, said he declined Trumps offer due to the significant pay cut that would have come with it. He was reportedly making an $800,000 salary with perks that included a private jet as president of the Lynchburg, Virginia, school until he was forced to resign in late August 2020 under a cloud of scandal.

At the time, reports had surfaced that Falwells wife, Becki, had a seven-year affair with a Miami pool boy, Giancarlo Granda, that began when he was 20 years old. Granda alleged that Falwell liked to watch him have sex with Becki, a charge Falwell denies. He told Vanity Fair that he began lifting weights and taking testosterone supplements during the affair in an attempt to woo his wife, and blamed the supplements for making him more combative.

Falwell primarily blamed his downfall, however, on his support for the former president. He was one of the first evangelical leaders to endorse Trump over rival Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) in 2016, and defended him repeatedly over Trumps rocky four years in office.

Trump was the reason they came after me as hard as they did, Falwell told Vanity Fair.