President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign is courting religious voters in part by seeking to portray Democrats as a threat to religious freedom — a pitch amplified by disputes over the issue during the coronavirus pandemic.
During an event last week outside Atlanta hosted by the campaign’s evangelical outreach effort, Christian surrogates touted the president’s record on advancing devout conservatives’ priorities while casting Democrats as captive to an anti-religious agenda. Two speakers singled out restrictions on singing in church imposed by California’s Democratic governor to help stem the spread of the virus, limits that prompted lawsuits from some pastors.
White House faith adviser Paula White-Cain appealed to Christians to trust the president over “a very deceptive media.” White-Cain, a fixture in Trump’s circle of religious conservative advisers, asserted that Democratic presidential hopeful and lifelong Roman Catholic Joe Biden was helping liberals to silence people of faith.
Biden is “a Trojan horse for a very radical left agenda that is behind him that wants to take down our churches,” White-Cain, often described as Trump’s personal pastor, said during an event that tied religion to love of country with the title “Praise, Prayer, and Patriotism.” A second of those events is set for Thursday in Las Vegas.
