Trump to Catholics: I Will Defend Religious Liberty

(AP)

Former President Donald Trump told a group of conservative Catholics on Friday that if elected in November, his administration will defend religious liberty and the values of the American family, and issued warnings of the consequence if his likely opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, prevails.

Trump gave the keynote address during the first day of the Believer’s Summit sponsored by Turning Point Action at the Palm Beach County Convention Center, not far from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

“I will defend religious liberty in all of its forms,” Trump said. “I will protect Christians in our schools and our military, in our government in our workplaces, in our hospitals and in our public square, and I will also protect other religions. We want that right? Other religions. And we will bring our country back together, one nation under God.”

Trump said if “radical liberal Kamala Harris gets in you will have the exact opposite effect.” He said she will appoint hundreds of “extreme far-left judges” to “forcibly impose crazy San Francisco liberal values on Americans nationwide.”

“In my next term, I will once again appoint rock-solid conservative judges who will protect religious liberty and not Marxists lunatics rewrite our Constitution.”

Trump said Americans of faith are not a threat to the U.S. but are the soul of the country. He said if elected, he will create a federal task force “and its mission is to investigate all forms of illegal discrimination, harassment, and prosecution against Christians in America.”

Trump said Harris is “militantly hostile” toward Americans of faith.

“Everyone here understands the radical left ideology Kamala supports is really militantly hostile toward Americans of faith,” Trump said. “And you saw that during the pandemic, people couldn’t get together, even when they wanted to get together with big spaces outside. They were ravaged.

“As a senator, she viciously attacked highly qualified judicial nominees simply because they were members of the Knights of Columbus, suggesting that their Catholic faith disqualified them from serving on the federal bench.”

Trump wondered how any Catholic can vote for Harris because of the anti-Catholic agenda espoused by the Biden administration. He asked a similar question of Jewish voters who traditionally vote for Democrats.

“Somebody doesn’t like Catholics in that administration, and I don’t even know who it is,” Trump said. “I don’t think it’s [President Joe] Biden because I don’t think he has any idea what the hell he’s doing. I don’t think he has any ideas on any subject. Kamala Harris supports California’s outrageous new law trampling on parental rights, allowing minors to determine their gender without parental notification or consent. Can you imagine?

”Harris wants to forcibly compel doctors and nurses against their will to give chemical castration drugs to young children. She supports the Biden-Harris Title IX policy of forcing every public school in America to let men into women’s and girl’s locker rooms. Can you imagine?”