Trump courts Christian voters, days after vulgar remarks at rally

Former President Donald Trump on Monday used the language of persecution to make a sweeping claim that only he could protect Christian voters, darkly warning religious communities that they would come under legal, cultural, political and global assault if he lost in November.

Trump, a former tabloid fixture who was once caught on tape boasting of grabbing women by their genitals, spoke of himself at the 11th Hour Faith Leaders Meeting in Concord, North Carolina, as not just a champion of Christian causes and values but as a member of the faithful.

Two days after he made a crude remark at a rally about a famous golfer’s penis size and used profanity to insult Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump spoke Monday of the importance of religion in his life, recalling going to church as a child and framing his survival of an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, as an act of divine intervention.

But even as he courted Christian voters by arguing he was one of them, Trump shied away from directly mentioning an issue that had previously energized evangelicals behind him but now poses a political liability: his role in overturning Roe v. Wade.

Trump did cite his appointments of three conservative Supreme Court justices as among his achievements. But he failed to mention or acknowledge that those justices were pivotal in the decision that eliminated the constitutional right to abortion. In a nearly hourlong speech before a crowd that included evangelical leaders, he did not once mention Roe or abortion or use the phrase “pro-life.”

Trump views abortion as his biggest vulnerability in the presidential election after it hurt Republicans in the midterms in 2022. He pushed to soften anti-abortion language in the Republican Party’s official platform, and he has issued contradictory statements about abortion as he tries to appeal to moderate voters while appeasing social conservatives.

Instead of emphasizing that issue, Trump focused on portraying his political opponents as antireligious, reviving false and misleading claims that Christians — and Roman Catholics in particular — would not be safe if Harris were elected president.

Noting that Harris had expressed support for ending the Senate filibuster, he accused her of wanting to pack the Supreme Court “to overrule your values.”

Under a Harris administration, he warned, “the radical left is not going to leave Christians alone. It’s going to get worse and worse, and you’re going to suffer greatly.”

Trump has signaled that he believes a large turnout of religious voters could help him win in battleground states. On Wednesday, he will take part in a town-hall-style forum at a church in Zebulon, Georgia, an event that his campaign said would focus on religious freedom.

Trump has chastised Christians for not voting enough, and his event in Concord, a suburb of Charlotte, was an attempt to increase their turnout. Inside a convention center, the atmosphere was a mix of raucous Trump rally and evangelical religious service. At a typical campaign event, Trump’s crowds will chant “USA!” and “Trump!” in a display of their fandom. This time, the first group chant during Trump’s speech was “Jesus!”

At one point, Trump expressed his wonder at having watched one of America’s most famous ministers, the Rev. Norman Vincent Peale, a bestselling self-help author and pastor who died in 1993. Trump said Peale had inspired and influenced him.

As Trump was wrapping up the story, someone in the crowd called out, “Let’s go, Brandon,” a right-wing phrase that stands in for a vulgar insult of President Joe Biden.

Trump’s overtures to evangelical voters have at times been clumsy. During his 2016 campaign, he drew ridicule after referring to Second Corinthians as “Two Corinthians” during a period when he was vying for evangelical support. This year, his amplifying of a viral video that praised him as the envoy of a higher power sent to rescue America offended faith leaders in Iowa.

Concord was Trump’s third stop of the day in North Carolina, a battleground state that he won in both 2016 and 2020 and that his campaign sees as central to his efforts to return to the White House.

He began the day with a news conference in storm-battered western North Carolina, where he criticized the Biden administration’s response to Hurricane Helene and made false claims about the federal response.

Later, he traveled to Greenville, North Carolina, for a rally where he continued to hammer the federal response to the hurricane, lobbed repeated personal insults at Harris and stoked fear around illegal immigration. He also revived his calls to use the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport criminal gang members without due process. “Think of that, 1798,” Trump told the crowd. “That’s when we had real politicians that said we’re not going to play games. We have to go back to 1798.”