Former US President Donald Trump addressed the evangelical Faith & Freedom Coalition in Washington on Saturday, portraying himself as a champion of religious freedom and a martyr for Americans of faith as he condemned what he described as a massive persecution of Christians denounced.
Trump also portrayed himself with “wounds everywhere,” referring to his legal troubles while suggesting he was targeted because of his political beliefs.
“At the end of the day, they’re not after me, they’re after you,” Trump said. ‘I happen to be standing in their way, very proudly.’
To loud applause, he added: “We need Christian voters to show up in the largest numbers ever to tell Crooked Joe Biden, ‘You’re fired!’”
Trump’s appeals to evangelicals come at a crucial stage of the presidential campaign. President Joe Biden and Trump will face off in an unusually early debate on CNN on Thursday as polls reflect a tightening of the race.
The performance marked something of a triumphant return to the event for the former president as the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. Thirteen years ago, Trump was hardly the picture of a social conservative warrior. Now in his ninth appearance before the group, the former president has expressed support for many of the positions on cultural issues taken by conservative and religious leaders, and outlined his vision for what he can offer the Christian Right in a second term as president.
He supported Louisiana’s new law requiring the Ten Commandments to be posted in every public classroom, wondering aloud how anyone could oppose the religious text’s inclusion in schools, adding, “The right to religion does not end at the door of a public school. ”
He also promised that he would “shut down the federal Ministry of Education” if elected, a promise that received a standing ovation from those in attendance as members began chanting, “Vote, vote, vote.”
He again repeated his lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him and wove a story about the Biden administration persecuting Christians for their faith, while suggesting that his own legal troubles had made him a martyr on behalf of his supporters. He said that if elected, he would “create a new federal task force to combat anti-Christian bias across the country.”
Trump’s fiery and righteous rhetoric has coincided with his efforts to calm some on the Christian Right who say his policies on abortion do not go far enough. Trump’s allies have implored him to support a national abortion ban, or to pass plans to criminalize abortion pills by enforcing the Comstock Act.
On these issues, Trump did not give evangelical hardliners what they hoped for. He reiterated his assurance that supporters of stricter restrictions should “go with your heart,” but, he added, “we have to get elected, we have to win.”
Michael Whatley, a close Trump ally and leader of the Republican National Committee, supported Trump’s position against a national abortion ban after his own speech to the evangelical group, which preceded Trump’s.
“We have fought for more than fifty years to end the tyranny of Roe v. Wade,” Whatley told reporters after his speech, adding that “this is a discussion that needs to happen in every state.”
He said: “We feel very good about the campaign and the direction we are going to take on that front.”
The Biden campaign released a statement that said little about Trump’s religious rhetoric, instead criticizing the speech as “a rambunctious, confused tirade” and highlighting a moment when Trump said he was calling on his ally Dana White, CEO of the UFC, had proposed a ‘Migrant League’ to let migrants fight each other.
“Trump’s incoherent, unhinged tirade showed voters in his own words that he is a threat to our freedoms and too dangerous to be allowed near the White House again,” said Sarafina Chitika, a spokesperson for the Biden campaign, in the statement.
Donald Eason, senior minister of the Metro Church of Christ in suburban Detroit, who attended the Faith & Freedom Coalition conference, said he was in favor of leaving the issue of abortion to the states.
“Any powers not given to the federal government are automatically part of the state government. The Supreme Court should never have gotten involved in that in the first place,” Eason said, but left the door open for national restrictions, adding that “Congress, of course, can step in and make it a national ban.”
Eason also said he supported Louisiana’s law regarding the Ten Commandments in public classrooms and said the policy should be expanded to other states.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times
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