Donald Trump told a group of evangelicals on Saturday that they “can’t afford to stay out” of the 2024 US election, imploring them to “go and vote, Christians, please!”
The former president also supported making the Ten Commandments visible in schools and elsewhere, in a speech given Saturday in Washington before a group of politically influential evangelical Christians. He drew acclaim as he mentioned a new law passed in Louisiana this week, which requires the Ten Commandments to be displayed in all public school classrooms.
“Has anyone read the ‘Thou shalt not steal’ thing? I mean, has anyone read these incredible things? Simply incredible,” Trump declared at the Faith & Freedom Coalition meeting. “They don’t want it to be proclaimed. “It’s a crazy world.”
A day earlier, Trump posted his support for the new law on his social network, saying: “I love the Ten Commandments in public schools, in private schools and in many other places, in fact. Read them. How could we go wrong as a nation?”
The former president and virtual Republican presidential nominee backed the measure at a time when he is trying to mobilize his supporters on the religious right, who have strongly supported him after initially being suspicious of the twice-divorced New York tabloid celebrity when he He first ran for president in 2016.
That support has continued even though, in the first of four criminal trials he faces, a jury found him guilty of falsifying accounting records for what prosecutors say was an attempt to cover up a payment to porn actress Stormy. Daniels in order to buy her silence shortly before the 2016 elections. Daniels claims to have had a sexual encounter with Trump a decade earlier, something he denies.
Trump’s vocal opposition to signing a national abortion ban and his reluctance to elaborate on some of his views on the issue are at odds with many members of the evangelical movement, a key part of Trump’s expected base. to help him get votes in his November rematch against President Joe Biden.
However, while many members of the movement would like to see him do more to restrict abortion, they hail him as the cause’s greatest champion because of his role in appointing Supreme Court justices who struck down abortion rights nationwide in 2022.
Trump highlighted that fact Saturday, saying, “We did something amazing,” but it would be left to the people in the states to decide the issue.
“Every voter has to go with their heart and do the right thing, but we also have to get elected,” he said.
Although he continues to take credit for the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Trump has also warned that abortion could be a politically complicated issue for Republicans. For months he dodged questions about his stance on a national ban.
Last year, when Trump spoke before the Faith & Freedom Coalition, he said there is “a vital role for the federal government in protecting the lives of the unborn,” but did not elaborate further.
In April of this year, Trump stated that he believed the issue should now be left in the hands of the states. He later said in an interview that he would not enact a nationwide abortion ban if Congress approved it. He has so far declined to give details about his stance on women’s access to the abortion pill mifepristone.
About two-thirds of Americans say abortion should generally be legal, according to a poll conducted last year by The Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Some attendees at Saturday’s evangelical rally noted that while they would like to see a nationwide abortion ban, Trump has lost none of their deep support for him.
“I would prefer that he enact a national ban,” said Jerri Dickinson, a 78-year-old retired social worker from New Jersey and member of Faith & Freedom. “But I understand that, under the Constitution, that decision should be left to the states.”
Dickinson said she can’t stand her state’s abortion law, which sets no limits on the procedure based on the stage of gestation. But she said that, even though she prefers a national ban, leaving the issue in the hands of the states “is the best alternative.”
According to AP VoteCast, a broad survey of the electorate, about 8 in 10 white evangelical Christian voters supported Trump in 2020, and about 4 in 10 Trump voters said they are white evangelical Christians. White evangelical Christians made up about 20% of the general electorate that year.
Beyond just offering its own endorsement in the general election, the Faith & Freedom Coalition plans to help turn out the vote for Trump and other Republicans, using volunteers and paid workers to knock on millions of doors in battleground states.
Trump also harangued Philadelphia voters on Saturday with a speech heavily focused on violent crime, telling supporters at a stadium that he would give police officers immunity from prosecution.
“In the government of corrupt Joe, the City of Brotherly Love is being devastated by blood and crime,” he denounced. “We will increase federal law enforcement resources to the places that need them most.”
Statistics from the Philadelphia City Comptroller indicate that there were 410 homicides in 2023, a 20% reduction compared to 2022.
Tyler Cecconi, 25, of Richmond, Virginia, said he’s glad Trump is getting out of his comfort zone and going to places that might not be Republican. At the venue, a digital banner read: “Philadelphia is Trump territory.”
“He’s showing people that whether you vote for him or not, or whether it’s a Democratic or Republican county, it doesn’t matter to him,” Cecconi said. “A president is for everyone in this country.”
Pennsylvania Republican Senate candidate Dave McCormick attended the rally and took the stage to speak to voters about the economy and immigration,
“This economy is not working for most Pennsylvanians, nor is it working for most Americans,” McCormick said.
At both events, Trump returned several times to the topic of the US-Mexico border and, at one point, when he said that the migrants who cross it are “resilient,” he joked that he had told his friend Dana White, President of the mixed martial arts company Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), which enrolled them in a new version of that sport.
“Why don’t you establish a migrant league and maintain your conventional fighter league? And then you have the champion of your league, those are the greatest fighters in the world, fighting the champion of the migrants,” he said he told White. “I think the migrant could win, that’s how resistant they are. He didn’t like the idea very much.”
Biden’s campaign responded to Trump’s comments by saying it was “timely” for Trump, convicted of a felony, to attend a religious conference making threats about immigration and “bragging about ripping away Americans’ liberties.” .
“Trump’s incoherent and deranged tirade showed voters, in his own words, that he is a threat to our freedoms and that he is too dangerous to let him even come close to the White House again,” Sarafina Chitika said in a statement. , campaign spokesperson.
____
We invite you to visit us on the new NY1 Noticias channel on WhatsApp. There you will find the most relevant news about what is happening in New York, as well as other coverage about the rest of the country, Latin America and the world. Click on this link to access the channel. We thank you in advance if you become one of our followers and express your reaction to what we publish with an emoji.
