2024-07-08 06:13:34
Former US President Donald Trump on Saturday urged evangelicals to vote massively in November’s presidential election to help him reclaim the White House, vowing to “fiercely” protect religious freedom if elected.
“Evangelicals and Christians don’t vote as much as they should,” the Republican candidate told hundreds of attendees at a conference of the Faith and Freedom coalition at a Washington hotel.
“They go to church every Sunday but they don’t vote. And we have to make sure they vote this time, because they only have to vote this time,” he said. “In four years, they don’t have to vote, okay? In four years, don’t vote, I don’t care,” he concluded, causing laughter from the audience.
The tycoon assured evangelicals, who played a key role in his rise to power in 2016, that he would defend their faith.
Trump has already enabled them to win a historic victory by appointing three conservative judges to the Supreme Court, which in 2022 struck down the right to abortion across the United States.
“We will protect Christians in our schools, in our military, in our administration, in our workplaces, in our hospitals,” he pledged.
He also said that if he returns to the presidency he will create a federal group to investigate the “discrimination” and “persecution” of Christians.
Nearly half (49%) of Americans believe that the influence of religion is declining in the country and consider this trend a bad thing, according to a survey by the consulting firm Pew Research published in March.
Furthermore, the number of Americans who identify as Christian has declined from nearly 90% in the 1990s to less than two-thirds of the population in 2022, largely due to an increase in the number of people without religious affiliation.
Trump accused Democrats of trying to keep believers of that religion “out of politics,” to which the crowd responded by chanting “Vote, vote, vote.”
“They don’t want you to vote, that’s why you have to vote,” he said, adding: “If you vote, no, we can’t lose.”
On Thursday, the Republican leader will face his Democratic rival, President Joe Biden, in a highly anticipated televised debate. Biden is a devout Catholic who attends mass regularly and is in favor of abortion.
