Former US president Donald Trump urged evangelical Christians Saturday, June 22, to vote en masse for him in November, vowing to "aggressively" protect their religious freedom if he is elected: "Go and vote, Christians, please!"
Trump also endorsed displaying the Ten Commandments in schools and elsewhere while speaking to a group of politically influential evangelical Christians in Washington, DC, on Saturday. He drew cheers as he invoked a new law signed in Louisiana this week requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in every public school classroom.
"Has anyone read the "Thou shalt not steal'? I mean, has anybody read this incredible stuff? It's just incredible," Trump said at the gathering of the Faith & Freedom Coalition. "They don't want it to go up. It's a crazy world.'
Evangelical voters were crucial for Trump's 2016 victory and again in his failed 2020 campaign, when 84% of white evangelical Protestants voted for him, according to the Pew Research Center. The number of Americans identifying as Christian has dropped from nearly 90 percent in the 1990s to less than two-thirds of the population in 2022, mostly due to rising numbers of people who are not religiously affiliated. For many white evangelical Christians – about 14% of US voters – it is crucial that religion stays relevant in public life.
The former president and presumptive Republican presidential nominee seeks to galvanize his supporters on the religious right, which has fiercely backed him after initially being suspicious of the twice-divorced New York City tabloid celebrity when he first ran for president in 2016.
That support has continued despite 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 cover up a hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 election. Daniels claims she had a sexual encounter with Trump a decade earlier, which he denies.
Trump's stated opposition to signing a nationwide ban on abortion and his reluctance to detail some of his views on the issue are at odds with many members of the evangelical movement, a key part of Trump's base that's expected to help him turn out voters in his November rematch with Democratic President Joe Biden.
But while many members of the movement would like to see him do more to restrict abortion, they cheer him as the greatest champion for the cause because of his role in appointing US Supreme Court justices who overturned national abortion rights in 2022.
Trump highlighted that Saturday, saying, "We did something that was amazing," but the issue would be left to people to decide in the states. "Every voter has to go with your heart and do what's right, but we also have to get elected," he said.
While he still takes credit for the reversal of Roe v. Wade, Trump has also warned abortion can be tricky politically for Republicans. For months, he deferred questions about his position on a national ban. Last year, when Trump addressed the Faith & Freedom Coalition, he said there was "a vital role for the federal government in protecting unborn life" but didn't offer any details beyond that.
In April of this year, Trump said he believed the issue should now be left to the states. He later stated in an interview that he would not sign a nationwide ban on abortion if it was passed by Congress. He has still declined to detail his position on women's access to the abortion pill mifepristone. About two-thirds of Americans say abortion should generally be legal, according to polling last year by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Attendees at the evangelical gathering on Saturday said that while they'd like to see a national abortion ban, Trump isn't losing any of their deep support.
Beyond just offering their own support in the general election, the Faith & Freedom Coalition plans to help get out the vote for Trump and other Republicans, aiming to use volunteers and paid workers to knock on millions of doors in battleground states.
Trump is also rallying voters in Philadelphia, where supporters were gathering to hear him speak in an arena. The GOP Senate candidate of Pennsylvania, Dave McCormick, attended the rally and appeared on stage to talk to voters about the economy and immigration. "This economy is not working for most Pennsylvanians and it's not working for most Americans," McCormick said.
Earlier in Washington, Trump returned several times during his roughly 90-minute remarks to the subject of the US-Mexico border and at one point, when describing migrants crossing it as "tough," he joked that he told his friend Dana White, the president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, to enlist them in a new version of the sport.
Biden's campaign responded to Trump's remarks by saying it was "fitting" that Trump, convicted of a felony, spent time at a religious conference making threats about immigration and "bragging about ripping away Americans' freedoms."
"Trump's incoherent, unhinged tirade showed voters in his own words that he is a threat to our freedoms and is too dangerous to be let anywhere near the White House again," campaign spokesperson Sarafina Chitika said in a statement.
Trump will face his Democratic rival, President Joe Biden, in the first 2024 presidential debate on Thursday.