Trump urges evangelical Christians to vote for him

Photo: Samuel Corum Getty Images via Agence France-Presse “Evangelicals and Christians, they don't vote as much as they should,” said the right-wing candidate in Washington, Donald Trump, on Saturday in front of hundreds of participants at a conference of the evangelical coalition “Faith and Freedom” ( Faith and Freedom).

Inès Bel Aiba – Agence France-Presse in Washington

Posted at 8:58 p.m.

• United States

Former US President Donald Trump on Saturday urged evangelical Christians, who are key to his run for the White House, to vote for him in November's presidential election, presenting himself as a crusader for religious freedom.

“Evangelicals and Christians, they don't vote as much as they should,” the right-wing candidate said in Washington on Saturday, in front of hundreds of participants at a conference of the “Faith and Freedom” coalition. .

“They go to church every Sunday but don’t vote. And we need to make sure they vote, just this once,” he said. “In four years, you don't have to vote, okay ? In four years don't vote, I don't care,” he added half-heartedly, eliciting laughter in the audience.

The billionaire assured evangelicals, who played an important role in his accession to power in 2016 and many of whom are very loyal to him, that he would defend their faith.

Martyr ?

He has already allowed them to achieve a historic victory on abortion by appointing three conservative judges to the Supreme Court, the institution that ended up shattering the federal guarantee of abortion in 2022.

On this sensitive issue, while many evangelicals want a nationwide ban on abortion, Donald Trump has not committed to going further.

He again expressed satisfaction that the subject had been “taken out” of the hands of the federal government and returned to the states.

« The people will decide and that is how things should be. The people decide now,” he said.

“Every voter must follow their heart and do what is right, but we must also get elected.” , he warned. Abortion is one of the major themes of the presidential campaign, and in each local vote on this issue, it is the defenders of the right to abortion who have won.

The tycoon also promised to create “a new federal mission on combating anti-Christian prejudice,” whose objective will be to investigate “discrimination” and “persecution” of Christians in the United States.

Seeming to compare himself to a martyr, the one surrounded by legal proceedings spoke of his “wounds”.

“We We stood up to communists, Marxists and fascists to defend religious freedom like no other president ever has. And I have sores all over my body. If I took off this shirt, you would see a beautiful, very beautiful person. But you would see sores all over me,” he said.

Photo: Samuel Corum Getty Images via Agence France-Presse Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump during his speech at the “Faith and Freedom” evangelical conference

“You will keep your gun”

Donald Trump was also cheered when he gave his support to a very recent law in the very conservative state of Louisiana, which orders the display of the “Ten Commandments” in its classrooms.

The ex-president claimed that the Democratic camp of his rival, current head of state Joe Biden, a Catholic, was seeking to “silence” Christians.

“They don’t want you to vote, that’s why you need to vote,” Donald Trump said. “If you vote, we can't lose.”

The crowd responded by chanting, “Vote, vote, vote” and cheering.

The ex-president also urged gun owners to go to the polls.

“You have a gun. You want to keep your gun, you better go vote,” he said, asserting that their rights were “under siege.”

In the rest of his speech, the billionaire took up his favorite themes, such as immigration.

“From the first day [of a new mandate], I will launch the biggest expulsion operation from the history of the United States,” he said to cheers.

He also promised to build a “great Dome of iron above our country, a dome like we have never seen” — or an anti-aircraft defense system. “Israel has one, why don’t we ?,” he said.

In a statement, Joe Biden's campaign team blasted an “incoherent” and “disjointed” speech.

Mr. Trump, who will be meeting in Pennsylvania on Saturday evening, will face Mr. Biden in a televised debate next Thursday, four months before the presidential election.