WASHINGTON — It was the first White House Faith Office summit with business leaders, but that didn’t stop President Donald Trump from using expletives and charged language against his foes in a room full of business leaders who contribute to faith-based charitable work.
For nearly an hour, Trump rambled about multiple topics his administration has tackled so far, ranging from tariffs to transgender people in sports while veering into tangents about his previous legal battles and first administration.
He spent little time, however, getting into the specifics of his newly established Faith Office.
Trump touted recent actions he made limiting the participation of transgender women in women’s sports, arguing how only two genders are recognized in America.
“We’ve restored the fundamental principle that God created two genders, male and female, that was a tough one. And we’re defending parents’ rights where the parents’ rights have been taken away from them in schools. You look at some of these school boards, it’s like they’re brutal dictatorships. And we brought it all back.”
The crowd cheered at Trump’s rhetoric; however, transgender advocates have argued how notions like that hurt the transgender community.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines sex as “an individual’s biological status as male, female, or something else. Sex is assigned at birth and associated with physical attributes, such as anatomy and chromosomes.”
In his freewheeling speech, Trump argued he was centering American culture around faith in his freewheeling speech, heavily criticizing Democrats as unfaithful.
“I’ll tell you religion took a big hit because of the way they treated all of us,” Trump said of Democrats. “And, we now have a confident nation, an optimistic nation, and we have one nation under God. And we’ll always keep that term.”
Trump also directly attacked former President Joe Biden, a devout Catholic, arguing without evidence that Biden wasn’t faithful enough and sought to persecute religious leaders.
“I think one of the reasons we won so bad is they really wanted to take God and religion out of your lives, and there was nobody to, you know, look up to. There was just nobody. It was – we were freewheeling and we can’t free wheel. No, we have to bring religion back into the country. And we’re starting to do that, I think, at a very high level,” Trump said.
“As president, I’ve ended the radical left war on faith, and we’re once again protecting religious freedom instead of destroying it. And God is once again welcomed back into our public square. It’s very important,” he added.
Trump used profanity while talking about his indictments, calling them “bull—-” and other explicit language throughout his speech in front of the faith-based group.
His attacks also extended to Republicans, calling Federal Reserve Chair Jermone Powell “a knucklehead. Stupid guy,” and attacking the intelligence of politicians like former Sen. Mitt Romney and his former Energy Secretary Rick Perry.
Trump lightly talked about his faith when reflecting on the one-year anniversary of the attempted assassination on him in Butler, Pennsylvania. Trump stated that he was saved by God to make the country great.
“It was only one year ago this week that my time on Earth nearly ended. And if you look at that, God was with me. Because that’s something in theory, I should not — I should not be with you,” he said. “I believe it that my life was saved by God to really make America great again.”
On the campaign trail, the president spent time courting faith leaders throughout the country, often refusing to soften his language in those venues as well.
Trump has previously even quipped about how Franklin Graham, the president of Samaritan’s Purse and a Trump ally, would ask him to temper his cursing.
“‘Mr. President, it’s Franklin Graham, and I just want to tell you, I love what you do, I love what you say. I love your stories. I think they’re great, and keep telling them, but they’d be even better if you wouldn’t use foul language,’” Trump told a campaign rally in October.
“So I thought about it, and I said, ‘I’m going to try.’ And I did try, and I’m not sure, I’m not sure I’d make the emphasis quite as good.”
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