Former President Donald Trump told a group of evangelicals that they “can’t afford to sit on the sidelines” in the 2024 election, at one point imploring them to “go out and vote, Christians, if it Please!”
Trump also endorsed displaying the Ten Commandments in schools and elsewhere, while speaking to a group of politically influential figures. evangelical Christians in Washington on Saturday. He drew cheers by invoking a new law signed this week in Louisiana, making it the first state to require the Ten Commandments to be displayed in all public school classrooms.
“Has anyone read the ‘Thou Shalt Not Steal’? I mean, has anyone read that incredible thing? It’s just unbelievable,” Trump said at the rally. the Faith & Freedom Coalition. “They don’t want it to increase. It’s a crazy world.”
Trump, a day earlier, had posted an endorsement of the new law on his social media network, saying: “I LOVE THE TEN COMMANDMENTS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS, PRIVATE SCHOOLS, AND MANY OTHER PLACES, FORWARD .READ IT – HOW CAN WE AS A NATION BE WRONG???”
The former president and presumptive Republican presidential candidate backed the move as he seeks to galvanize his supporters on the religious right, who fiercely supported him after initially wary of the New York tabloid’s celebrity, twice divorced, during her first run for president in 2016. .
This continued with his conviction in the first of four criminal cases he faces, in which a jury last month found him guilty of falsifying business records for what prosecutors said was an attempt to conceal a hush money payment to the actor Stormy Daniels porn just before the 2016 election. Daniels claims she had a sexual relationship with Trump a decade earlier, which he denies.
A federal ban on abortion
Trump’s declared himself opposed to the signing nationwide abortion ban and his reluctance to detail some of his views on the issue are at odds with many in the evangelical movement, a key part of Trump’s base that is expected to help him to be voted on during his November rematch with the Democrats. President Biden.
But although many in the movement would like to see him do more to restrict abortion, they view him as the cause’s greatest champion because of his role in appointing the Supreme Court justices who overturned the nation’s law to abortion in 2022.
Trump underscored that Saturday, saying, “We’ve done something incredible,” but the issue would be left up to state citizens to decide.
“Every voter has to go with their heart and do what’s right, but we also have to get elected,” he said.
Although he still takes credit for overturning Roe v. Wade, Trump also warned that abortion could be politically sensitive for Republicans. For months, he deferred questions about his position on a national ban.
Last year, when Trump spoke to the Faith & Freedom Coalition, he said the federal government had “a vital role to play in protecting unborn life” but gave no details to the beyond that.
In April of this year, Trump said he believed the issue should now be left to the states. He later said in an interview that he would not sign a national abortion ban if it passed Congress. He has always refused to detail his position on women’s access to mifepristone, an abortion pill.
Some anti-abortion activists, including Jocaved Torres, have said they would push Trump to support a federal ban.
“The people around him are pro-life, so we’re confident that, you know, his mind could change,” Torres told CBS News at the Faith & Freedom Coalition event.
“The former president could accomplish a lot if he were restored to power with simple executive action,” said Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, the policy arm of Planned Parenthood.
Johnson says reproductive rights continue to drive support for Mr Biden.
“The energy is on fire on the field,” Johnson said. “People understand what it means to have a freedom taken away, especially a freedom that we have enjoyed for almost 50 years.”
Mr. Biden is expected to attack Trump as a threat to abortion rights in Thursday’s presidential debate, as both campaigns hope to make inroads with undecided voters.
About two-thirds of Americans believe abortion should generally be legal, according to a poll last year by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Although he still takes credit for the overthrow of Roe v. Wade, Trump also warned that abortion could be politically tricky for Republicans. For months, he deferred questions about his position on a national ban.
Last year, when Trump spoke to Reed’s group, he said the federal government had “a vital role in protecting unborn life” but gave no details beyond that .
In April of this year, Trump said he believed the issue should now be left to the states. He later said in an interview that he would not sign a national abortion ban if it passed Congress. He has always refused to detail his position on women’s access to mifepristone, an abortion pill.
In 2016, white evangelical Christians were initially reluctant to support Trump and wary of his image as a twice-divorced New York tabloid celebrity who had at one point described herself as “very pro-choice.”
But his promises to appoint justices to the court who would overturn Roe, as well as his 2016 decision to name Mike Pence, an evangelical Christian, as his running mate, helped him win the movement’s support.
Evangelical support
According to AP VoteCast, a broad survey of the electorate, about 8 in 10 white evangelical Christian voters supported Trump in 2020, and nearly 4 in 10 Trump voters identified as white evangelical Christians. White evangelical Christians made up about 20 percent of the overall electorate that year.
Beyond simply offering its own support in the general election, the Faith and Liberty Coalition plans to help turn out the vote for Trump and other Republicans, using volunteers and paid workers to knock on millions of doors across battlefield states.
Trump said Saturday that evangelicals and Christians “don’t vote as much as they should,” and joked that while he wanted them to vote in November, he didn’t care if they voted in again after that.
He described Christianity as being threatened by what he suggested was an erosion of liberty, law, and the nation’s boundaries.
He returned several times during his roughly 90-minute speech to the subject of the U.S.-Mexico border, and at one point, describing migrants crossing it as “difficult,” he joked that he told his friend Dana White, president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, to enlist them in a new version of the sport.
“Why don’t you create a migrant league and have your regular league of fighters. And then you have the champion of your league, it’s the greatest fighters in the world, fighting the migrant champion,” described Trump. telling White. “I think the migrant might win, that’s how tough they are. He didn’t really like that idea.”
His story elicited laughter and applause from the audience.
Several Republicans seen as potential Trump running mates were also speaking at the conference, including New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, former presidential candidate and Trump Housing Secretary Ben Carson, and Rep. candidate for the Arizona Senate. Lake Kari. Stefanik and Carson are among the Republicans who received verification documents from the Trump campaign in recent weeks.
Ralph Reed, founder and president of the Faith & Freedom Coalition, said his coalition members were watching them closely and looking for Trump to choose someone who shares his views.
“We’re looking for someone who will be a champion, a pro-family, pro-life, pro-Israel champion. And we’re looking for someone who has the ability to bring new people into the fold and act as a ambassador of our values,” he declared.
Reed would not name any of the areas as strongest or weakest, calling it “an embarrassment of riches.”
Later Saturday, Trump plans to hold an evening rally in Philadelphia.
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