After conviction, Trump presents himself as a martyr to the Christian right
WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump addressed the evangelical Faith &Freedom Coalition in Washington on Saturday, presenting himself as a champion of religious freedom and a martyr for Americans of faith while denouncing what he described as a mass persecution of Christians.
Trump also portrayed himself as having “wounds all over,” alluding to his legal troubles while suggesting that he was being targeted for his political beliefs.
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“In the end, they’re not after me, they’re after you,” Trump said. “I just happen to be, very proudly, standing in their way.”
He added to raucous applause, “We need Christian voters to turn out in the largest numbers ever to tell Crooked Joe Biden, ‘You’re fired!’”
Trump’s appeals to the evangelicals come at a crucial phase in the presidential campaign. President Joe Biden and Trump are set to face off in a debate on CNN on Thursday as polls reflect a tightening of the race. FiveThirtyEight’s aggregate of national polls show Biden very slightly ahead of Trump for the first time since recording began in March.
The appearance 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 image of a social conservative warrior. Now, in his ninth appearance before the group, the former president threw his support behind many of the culture war flashpoints adopted by conservative and religious leaders.
He endorsed Louisiana’s new law mandating that the Ten Commandments be hung in every public classroom, wondering aloud how anyone could possibly oppose the inclusion of the religious text in schools and adding “the right to religion does not end at the door at a public school.”
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